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- Branding cheat code for salespeople...
I’ll tell you what branding is not.
It’s not the car you drive. Nor is it the way you post on social media. Yet somehow little things like this are all part of your brand.
There’s a lot of confusion about branding. The first thing you need to understand is, you already have a brand. Yes, it’s true. You have a brand. Everyone does.
This is the main thing people miss about branding. It’s not that some people have a brand and some people don’t. If you are a salesperson, you have a brand. In sales your brand is the thing that precedes you. It’s what people believe and feel about you before you walk into a pitch.
It comes from word of mouth. From casual interactions. From your marketing and social media. Yes, even from the car you drive (I drive a nine year old Ford Fusion and this helps my brand…for several reasons).
Everything you do is enhancing or detracting from your brand.
And while you can’t control how people think about you, it is worthwhile to think about how you make your audience feel.
It’s called self-awareness. It’s the understanding that the world does not revolve around you. Your prospect/audience views you only in relation to themselves.
For better or worse we are all self-centered people. The salesperson’s job is to step outside of themselves and stand in the shoes of their prospect. This doesn’t just happen at the pitch. This happens in every interaction with them.
For example, a long email to your prospect may show off your product knowledge but you are likely overwhelming someone who’s already overloaded (who isn’t these days?). Your brand may become “time waster” instead of a “problem solver.”
Maybe the risk is worth it for you. Perhaps you believe your differentiator is your in-depth product knowledge. If so, and you are INTENTIONALLY sending detailed emails to prospects, then bravo! And this leads to the final point….
Ensuring who you truly are as a person is conveyed to your audience, in all interactions, is where the magic happens. When your outward actions are most closely aligned with your inner values, your brand becomes supercharged.
Your brand is rock solid when who you truly are as a person is understood and even felt by the people in your orbit.
This is good news for the salesperson. Dispel any notions you may have that you need to undertake a Herculean effort to create a branding campaign. Embrace the idea of living as your authentic self and aim to serve your prospects by seeing the world through their eyes.
Branding at its worst is a carefully curated image that looks nothing like the real you.
Branding at its best is taking the time to understand how others perceive you and making sure you’re presenting your most authentic self.
This is a worthy pursuit.
TL;DR
Accept you already have a brand.
Step back and become aware of how others perceive you.
Ensure the things you are putting into the world align with who you truly are.