On Saturday and Sunday, April 17 and 18, I am producing the first ever Personal Branding Bootcamp on the UCLA campus. The program director of UCLA Business & Management Extension called to say the event is almost full, so if you want to come, we’d love to have you – but please hurry and register.
Are you ever a greater manifestation of your personal brand than when you hold an event or party? Isn’t that when the activities, décor, food, and the wealth of details reflect what experience you want your guests to have? These details reflect your culture, reference group, aspirations, preferences – and your budget!
Your brand budget
Yes, your brand is made up in part, by your budget. Coke’s budget very large. Rockstar energy drink much smaller by comparison.
Of course having an exceptional co-marketing partner to reflect greatness onto your brand really helps. I am very lucky to bear the proud affiliation with Coke (where I was a marketing executive) and UCLA (where I suffered as an undergraduate and triumphantly returned as an instructor).
The company you keep
Yes, you are known by the company you keep. You are known by the people, organizations, media, book, blog and pretty much anything or anyone you associate with.
Have you given your brand the right co-marketing partners? Again, I was lucky when Dan Schawbel gave me the opportunity to connect with him and you as the Tuesday columnist on Personal Branding Blog. I had a great work history, a pretty good book and plenty of amazing people who had teamed up with me on a bunch of ventures. I had hosted International Business on public radio.
What Dan gave me was an audience that I might never have known as intimately as I now know the readers of this blog. He focused my attention of the early adopters of personal branding, and directed me to talk about branding in a very granular level. In other words, to be enmeshed in the 50,000 foot view in order to serve on the ground floor of so many people’s careers.
It was the gift of this opportunity that gave rise to the bootcamp this weekend.
How are you doing with taking on the responsibilities to serve others in an area that you are passionate about? Do you see that not only your personal branding effort, but also the brand promise of those around you, and responsibility for an audience all lead to exactly who you want to be?
Make the connections and make the connection
Personal brands, I appreciate the opportunity to have even the smallest influence on your view of the choices and benefits that are sometimes hiding in plain sight. If you can make it, it would be great to have you on campus at UCLA this weekend.
