The Rynge Blog: March 2006

Thursday, March 30, 2006

The brokeback entrepreneur - is that you?

Leesa Barnes, who helps women start a new business or launch an idea on a shoestring budget writes in this article about the shoestring entrepreneur and how to avoid them.

When reading this article, I realized that there are quite a few people in my surrounding acting as a brokeback entrepreneur (even if they are not entrepreneurs) and that I am very annoyed by these persons.
Do not get me wrong, I love helping people out, but I get feed up with people steeling my time without ever thinking of giving anything back even if they could.

Tip of the day:
Do not be afraid to ask for help, but always ask what yourself what you can give back (and if possible, give back without being asked for it).

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Are blogs the ultimate personal branding tool?

Well, I don't think it is the ultimate tool since there are a lot of limitations of blogs:

Limited target group
It is only a small group of people that will read your group. To build a strong personal brand, you must reach a larger quantity of the people targeted.

Limited interaction
Only a small group (of the small group that visit the blog), will interact with you online, which makes blogging mainly a one way communication.

Limitation of the written word
Branding is a lot about feelings, and while the written word gives the opportunity to think before you speak, you will miss out on the feelings communicated by body language, face expressions and tone variations of the voice.

With this said, I still think blogging is a good tool, but the brand needs to be govern in so many other aspects.

This post is orgiginally a replay by me in a discussion on OpenBC.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Entrepreneurial brand equity

Some would say that the personal brand for an entrepreneur is not that important since he/she is not in a employee situation, but rather in a hiring position. This is totally wrong.
Sure the entrepreneur often is high up in the company hierarchy or running a one-man-company, but as I written before, the brand is not only for career situations. It isn't even only for professional situations.

When I started my first company, at the age of 17, a lot of persons around me looked at me not as an business man, but as an child and probably a lot of them thought that the company was not going to last for very long or that I would loose interest in running a company while aiming for higher studies. Well, I manage to keep the company running, and as the time passed, the respect for me and my business rose. The company I started was Liquidice, and it is still up and running.

It is an advantage for you if the following groups of people are appealed to your brand:

Friends/family
When running at business, you need the people close to you to understand that even if you are sometimes buried in work, you love those around you.

Colleagues
If your team doesn't believe in you, then you are in big problem. Early stage businesses are dependent on a good company culture where everyone respects and believes in the others.

Investors
How many times haven't we heard that no matter how good an idea, without the right team, no one will invest in it? This is true, and it should be this way. You have to earn a good personal brand as an entrepreneur to attract the big money.

Customers
The most important group of the four listed here are the customers. Without them, your business doesn't have a purpose. When selling for a new company, often with brand new products, it is essential to win the customers trust. If you are not a trustworthy person in the customer's eyes, it doesn't matter how good you say your product are.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Be reminded of your brand attributes

Continuing on the subject of reminding yourself to live with your brand, I found a post by William Arruda. His tip is to put your four most essential branding attributes in front of you as a reminder both for you and for your colleagues and friends.

Why don't you ask your closest friends and colleagues what they think is your four most essential brand attributes?

I generally think using notes as reminders a excellent way of keeping focus on important things (branding or not). Just be aware so that your notes don't become another must, it must feel right for you.

Are you thinking of your brand, when communicating on the Internet?

Most personal development tools, including personal branding, works very well in theory, but very many has problems implementing it in every day life. You draw up plans and strategies for how you should use the tools continually, but it is hard to change old habits.

I can understand this, especially since many situations require you to act on instinct, and instinct and habits are closely connected. What I cannot understand is why so many people that are aware of their personal brand, keeps posting posts at message boards and forums on the Internet that are devastating from a brand view. These posts can be aggressive and ignorant, showing no understanding of other person's point of view. The same goes for text messaging on cell phones or instant messaging.

Not only is those moments an excellent way of building your brand since you have time to think the text over before posting it, but it also is saved for quite some time, in some cases for everybody with an Internet connection to read.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Is Big Brother watching you, or is it really Little Brother?

I read a very interesting article by the Swedish writer Sigge Eklund in the last edition of the magazine Diego. He found out that people had starting to write about his whereabouts in different blogs and realized that the little brothers (the people) had taken over the role of the big brother (the government) when it comes to invading on the personal integrity.

Some may say this is scary, but as long as you aren't a public person this shouldn't be a problem. However, used the right way, it could be used as a branding tool.
Can you think of strategies for using this as a branding tool? Please post your suggestions as comments to this post.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

The Ola Rynge Blog Re-opened

After a few months of no activity, The Rynge Blog is now re-opened. It is my intention to write here at least once or twice a week and keep you update on The Personal Branding phenomenon from my point of view. I will also include some of my thoughts and experiences in other areas.

The Rynge Blog

Reflections and thoughts on Personal Branding from an Entrepreneurial point of view.