July 12, 2009 82 Comments

What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

mcdonalds Ahead of this post, I give you full permission to tell me that I’m talking out of my butt. I’m drinking a delicious McDonalds iced coffee. I prefer their brand over Starbucks and over Dunkin Donuts (which is sacrilege in Massachusetts, where I live). In my neck of the woods, they use a special Newman’s Own blend. It’s delicious. And this relates very much to the part of branding that we don’t much think about.

When guys like Dan Schawbel define personal branding (and personal is somewhat -very?- different than product/service branding), they say this: “Personal branding is the process of how we market ourselves to others.” (Dan’s definition.) That’s part of the puzzle, I will agree, but it’s certainly just one part.

You see, the very best brands in the world do something not addressed in the above definition. They work on perfecting a product/service, and then owning distribution.

Distribution. A platform. The ability to move product by establishing a channel or creating a viable touchpoint to a channel. That’s what’s missing in these definitions. The focus of conversations about branding is quite often about telling people what your product is about, or making sure people know who/what you are/represent.

Distribution’s where it’s at, though. Who gives a crap if you pour all kinds of great intent and messaging into your product if no one knows who you are? Who cares if someone knows who you are, but they can’t reach you?

Distribution. McDonalds built as many burger joints as they could as soon as they got the formula down on making a great, repeatable experience. They built them everywhere. In Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser writes about how ruthlessly they built, often times building new McDonalds across the street from the other one, in a kind of Darwinian battle for dominance.

It’s distribution. The mafia (all of the various iterations) existed as methods to bypass the “official” distribution channels. Distribution is that part of the puzzle.

Distribution and Its Value to Brand

Once you have distribution, you can experiment. You can add things to the mix. McDonalds is pushing hard on their McCafe brand. Why? Because they pretty much have hamburgers down. In fact, they have chicken down (sorry, KFC, but really…). So coffee it is. Why not take on Starbucks and Dunkins? They tried pizza and Mexican, but nothing much happened there.

Product stretch or diversification is something that can happen only after there’s enough distribution to make it work out.

Jack Welch ran GE back in the day. After, he wrote an amazing book, WINNING, about business. He leveraged that into a great career as a speaker and a media maker, among other things. Most recently, Welch is offering up a branded MBA (not new, for sure: others have done this less formally before). This is what one gets when one has both a great brand and distribution.

That’s the part that we have to think about, work towards, and build. That’s where the work has to go. That’s the hard part of the puzzle.

What’s your take?

Photo credit TonyTheMisfit

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  • KeithBurtis

    Chris, you and I speak a lot. You know how important i think it is to have a home base. Yea. You can push out messages into facebook, twitter, friendfeed and more, but folsk you don't own any of that content. You always need to be pointing back to homebase (Blog or website) This is your point of distribution and where your content should live. When you can really create mass is when your distribution has power. I know this has been under much debate lately, but I'd much rather have 10,000 blog subscribers than 10,00 twitter subscribers.
    ~Keith

  • AmberNaslund

    Whoa boy. This one is going to keep me chewing for a while.

    But my knee jerk question is that *successful* distribution comes with earning the trust of your people enough that distribution becomes thought of as more prevalent sharing instead of cramming things down people's throats or worse, trying to take over the world.

    Trust isn't just about “I like you” either – sometimes it's less personal and more strategic (I don't know you as a person, but your insights make logical sense to me and I feel like my risk of failure is less if I listen to you).

    So yes, I'm all about the fact that branding successfully – personal or otherwise – is about distribution and connection. But I know I'm preaching to the choir when I assert that distribution is utterly dependent upon some level of earned trust.

    Going to go chew some more on this.

  • marksilver

    Distribution! Ha-ha! It's one of the reasons that the internet has transformed micro-sized service businesses- because we can own distribution, and reach our clients directly. Okay, so we're renting the pipeline, but our connection reaches people unmediated.

    It's also one of the reasons we chose to do our own product fulfillment- because our first contact with a customer is often when they receive a product we've shipped. Give that over to an anonymous third party- and what does that to do to the experience? Can totally kill our branding.

    So many people talk about the soft stuff in business- really important. We do, too. But, if it's not grounded in the physical world, if it's not about how things actually, physically touch people- make their lives better, or not– then it can be a lot of hot air.

  • http://www.netwitsthinktank.com frank barry

    My first question is “What does distribution look like on the internet”. McDonalds has thousands of storefronts. Does it equate to putting out content that is easily pushed/shared (distributed) around the web?

    If that's the case then it comes back to relationships. Without them we have to pay people to post our stuff. It's not like people are looking to buy a franchise that they can profit from as well?

    How does this all look in the online world? Chris? Anyone?

  • http://modite.com/blog Modite

    People like Dan Schawbel (you've got his name spelled wrong in the post) definitely understand that distribution is part of personal branding. Very much so. He's one of the hardest working people I know, talks about these ideas all the time and lives by example.

    I like this post though because I believe that good spreads is a myth. Marketing/PR/hard work spreads (or distribution as you say).

  • http://thelostjacket.com Stuartfoster

    Distribution is the be all and end all of being successful. Fortunately, the buy in today is much lower then it has been in the past. I think you can leverage yourself into one hell of an enviable position simply through personal branding. Will you be able to do this forever? No. The market is great for it right now, but could destroy itself rapidly in the future (over-saturation).

    Personal branding gets you to a level… but it isn't the top (or the upper-middle layer). It merely puts you in a position to get there faster. You still have to do LOTS of work to get to where you want to go (at least for me).

    Well played Chris. You've discovered something that Mr. Schawbel might have not: This stuff only works for junior level workers.

  • http://www.facebook.com/whitney.hoffman Whitney Hoffman

    Distribution on the 'net may be less like McDonald's and more like newspapers- who much information do you have to impart and do you have a regular schedule on which people depend on receiving that information? I know I've found that the more regularly I produce fresh content, the more attention and more consistent attention I garner.

    If you are saddled with a schedule and not enough great content to fill those spots, quality suffers; you're much better off with too much content and distributing out over time, essentially creating your own warehouse of content.

    But I think we also need to take into consideration of some of what Seth Godin says about creating a sense of scarcity. Mass distribution seems to work short term, but long term, ubiquitous access creates not a sense of value, but a sense of common- non-special, non-unique, less valuable (think supply and demand curves here).

    So I think it's always going to come down to balancing having adequate distribution out the channels, but the quality of the outlets may be just as important as the product itself, even in the marketplace of ideas.

  • favecast

    Chris, I am in total agreement. I believe having a strong brand identity is great; however, the feeling consumers/readers/listeners/etc. have when exposed to your brand is just as important. The location, frequency and priority (in life) of that feeling is even more important (IMO).

    We don't necessarily do business with “people we like” solely because we “like” them. We do business with those whose identity is synonymous with providing great quality.

    The online world is but a supplement to the real life relationships we seek to enhance as part of our “branding” strategy. We still need the nutrients of human interaction to go with that virtual brand building and that's best achieved with consistent attention to detail and quality duplicated as many times as possible while retaining the integrity of your product/service.

    I think the internet has created and inspired amazing brands of people, products and services. The introductions have been made and I hope the digital paradigm will shift more into reaching the people that count versus simply counting the people you reach (i.e., Keith's last statement).

  • http://macdavidpro.com MacDavid

    Interesting insight. I'm going to have to let this sink in a bit. Can't put my finger on it; I'm not sure I'm understanding this. *re-reading*

  • http://www.sonnygill.com Sonny Gill

    Perfecting your product/service really equates to the *value* you bring to the community – to where you said they actually care about what you're doing. You could quite possibly have a great service or platform online but if you don't take those extra steps to build that value and strong community around it, distribution can't be in sight until that point.

    Gary V. has built a huge community around his grasp of not only the wine world but his business sense, which has boosted the number of speaking engagements not only at conferences across the nation but into mainstream news media as well. And now, Vayner Media and a 10-book deal. If that's not a perfect example of a strong online distribution channel.

  • http://www.thepedestalgroup.com/ Kathy Breitenbucher

    Thank you, Chris. I love it when people make me think. This is so true and while I've been preaching “own the information no line about you” I hadn't thought to put it in the context of distribution. That is genius. Great post!

  • http://www.twitter.com/afmarcom Angelique

    Chris — You posted this at the perfect time for me! Very thought-provoking.

    P.S. Disqus SAYS it's signing me in via Twitter, but it isn't.

  • http://www.writingVA.com/ Mary H Ruth

    My guess is that distribution on the internet looks like SEO.

    And distribution in all cases is about customer service to the max.

    Too bad it's often products that aren't so very healthy that shoot for maximum distribution.

    Ya gotta have pronto distribution, but it's not required to have comprehensive distribution. Your market may be small, and you may be happy with that.

  • http://www.thewaythatyouwander.com/ Nate

    I love what you are saying here. You could have the best brand in the world, and it wouldn't matter if there was no way for people to find you. This is so often forgotten. The cool thing about the web is that all you need is a simple little website and your distribution is taken care of. People are one click away. They love you and your brand, so they will click for sure.

  • http://twitter.com/jeffstannard Jeff Stannard

    Jack Welsh can keep his MBA program. Whosoever pays for it clearly gets what they deserve.

  • http://www.TheFranchiseKing.com franpro

    Hi Chris,
    I figured that you would talk about my specialty-franchising, eventually.

    Branding, whether personal, or corporate, is so so important. And these days it had better be memorable.

    You are right. Once one perfects the distribution side of things, they can branch out with other products and services. If done correctly, they can build quite the empire. {Or in my case, a Kingdom}

    The Franchise King
    Joel Libava

  • dews
  • http://www.taylormarek.com taylormarek

    Keith, your thinking goes right along with mine.

    Sure, I'm out and engaging in all these networks and social media tools, but I'm ultimately pulling them all back to one place. My Blog. My blog is where my hub of information lies, and traffic runs too and from it, but my website is my HQ. :)

  • http://Twitter.com/Ed Ed

    The other day, @SethSimonds asked something like 'what do you think of personal branding, in 5 words or less'

    I answered “Personal branding is inevitable”
    But you are correct. A shingle on a building was successful 50 and100 years ago.
    Heck my aunt had a tiny 1 x 3 sign 'Dr A G Israelian'
    But she had been distributed.
    People came to her from everywhere till she was past 85 and said “no”.

  • http://www.ramseymohsen.com/ Ramsey Mohsen

    Dead-on from top to bottom on this blog post. Strategies for distribution is the piece that people often don't talk about- but is vital to being successful with your personal brand.

    Oh- and- the “McDonalds owns chicken” part …I'd check your sources on that reference ;) j/k

  • http://dannybrown.me Danny

    Distribution is certainly important. But no mention of execution?

    You can have your product everywhere and in everyone's face, but if your execution sucks, your distribution won't save you. Just look at the Detroit Three as an example. Or Burger King, with their franchises everywhere but still losing thanks to a poorly executed marketing/ad campaign with that creepy Royal dude.

    So yeah… distribution, you need that. Execution, though, I'd say that trumps distribution. Yes/no/maybe?

  • http://loscuadernosdejulia.com/ avidadollars

    A great post, Chris, and some interesting thoughts in comments. I certainly think that distribution or “base”, if you like, is overall important for success. But I've been wondering recently if the choice of focus on “personal branding” or “distribution” is generational by any chance? By that I don't mean simply that Dan Schawbel is younger than Chris Brogan or Seth Godin. I mean that Dan (and many with him) wants to be where Chris and Seth are NOW. They want to have the same level of trust, the same exposure, – the same “brand value”, if you like. But they're younger, either age-wise or experience-wise. It's important to underline this, I think: it's not about the physical age, it's about how long you'd been out there, how much you've tried/done/achieved.

    This is precisely the reason why so much hard graft goes into bragging about oneself these days. One thing I love about established and older “web mammoths” is humility. I'm not 30 yet myself but I often feel being talked down by a 20-something “Internet guru”. I wonder if this may be the by-product of “personal branding”.

    I love Seth's blog in that respect: its URL is sethgodin.typepad.com – totally against any branding/SEO rules you might hear. The look is terrifyingly simple. But it gets bookmarked with astonishing regularity.

    Hope you're having a good holiday, Chris

    Julia

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  • Daniel Steinberg

    But you're comparing McDonalds to two other national chains. You have wonderful local coffee shops near you. In fact, you have one run by the man who pioneered great coffee in the Boston area.

    You're a branding guy — how do these great local places compete with companies who can spend a great deal of time and money on their brand and position while the local guys are scrambling just to produce great products and services without the advantages of scale.

    You blog about personal brands but many of your examples are big nationally known names.

  • charlesyang

    Wow, thanks for the great insight, Chris! I've always thought of branding as owning a “position in the collective minds of the market”, but your insight about distribution really gave me another level of understanding.

    To own a position, people need to hear of you first. Distribution is the key that will get them to hear of your branding message.

    “Marketing Communications” encompasses both the branding message and delivery of that message.

    Thanks for the post again!

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  • huangqin
  • http://PresentDayNomads.com/ Rasheed

    Got to agree with you on this one. Just building a better mouse trap ain't gonna cut it in today's market. You've got to find a way to take it to the market, and then let the word of mouth do it's magic.

  • http://twitter.com/convagency ConversationAgency

    I wish you would have brought up different examples for distribution than Jack Welch and McDonalds. You might think Jack Welch is a great brand but he represents everything that has caused the current Great Recession: Outlandish CEO pays, imaginative accounting, ruthless cost cutting.
    Here's how The Economist regards his lame MBA program http://is.gd/1xbiv
    And McD as a great example? Really?

    I agree that distribution is a very important topic but it's not where's it's at. Where it's at is to build businesses and brands that are rooted in social principles. And not in quarterly earning reports. And to redefine the word 'Shareholder Value'. This should be expanded to all the constituents a business touches. The consumers, their employees, suppliers, vendors, environment, etc. Allowing for a more social approach to these interactions will improve distribution and will it make less of a top-down and more of a bottoms-up process.

  • http://www.reachpersonalbranding.com williamarruda

    Great post about my favorite topic – personal branding. Thanks.

    There is an important distinction between distribution (product availability) and communications (getting your message to your target audience). Obviously they are connected – whether we are looking to buy a hamburger or not, seeing the Golden arches is a great reminder of the McDonald's brand.

    Sure, we are distributing our ideas (much more easily now thanks to Web 2.0), but personal branding (especially for careerists and solopreneurs) is about communicating ideas and thought-leadership – increasing visibility – getting people interested in your offerings. Jack Welch's book was a great way to create lots of visibility – which supported his offerings – public speaking, etc. So the line between distribution and communications is blurred.

    Keep the posts about personal branding coming – love them! Thanks.

    Best.
    William
    http://www.reachpersonalbranding.com

  • http://chriscree.tv Chris Cree

    Owning the distribution channel isn't a hard requirement for personal branding at all. Look at all the top celebrities from entertainment and sports. Hardly any of them own any kind of distribution channel for their personal brands.

    That said you are spot on, Chris. The very best of them do own their own distribution. Can you say, “Oprah” anyone?

  • alleigh

    “Personal branding is the process of how we market ourselves to others.”

    Seems like it fits to me….
    I don't know that “distribution” would fit into a definition of a personal brand. Marketing yourself and your brand image isn't really providing a service, so there isn't really any distribution at all. With reference to a person or personal brand, “how we market” is a much stronger phrase than “how we distribute.” Besides, if you look beyond his 12 word definition you'll see the emphasis on social media and creating a brand presence online – wouldn't that be considered distribution in this context?

  • georgekrueger

    For one of my mentors, business was distribution, distribution, distribution. Extending that to personal branding is interesting, but I’m having trouble getting my arms around it for the population at large.

    It is a very important point for content creators. In that case, distribution is using a web site as a “storefront”, selling informational products through affiliates, licensing content (my favorite), etc.

    Selecting one or more distribution channels is part of the business planning process. If distribution channels are established in your business already, it's often easier to succeed than if you have to create them yourself.

    Now to take it to personal branding …. well, Chris, now I have something else to think about today thanks to you!

  • edwardboches

    The idea of owning distribution (for your personal brand) is interesting. Where does it appear, who can access it, how does it spread. However, I don't agree that the best brands own distribution. Most don't. Big box stores own distribution, creating all kinds of challenges (and opportunities) for appliances and electronics. Amazon owns distribution, changing the rules of publishing. Even auto manufacturers have little or not control over their distribution. For an individual, distribution digitally may offer some control (blog, Twitter, comments on other blogs, video, etc.) but even then it's no guarantee of visibility. You still need content (branding) that's worthy. And in many ways, that's what marketing is: great content, compelling stories, acute relevance. I think that still has to come first.

  • erinbury

    Great thoughts Chris.

    I think the biggest challenge is getting to the point where you have the audience to experiment. McDonald's never would have attempted their coffee takeover if they hadn't already mastered other areas like hamburgers, and if they didn't have a location on every streetcorner. You can bet that when they were doing their first push for expansion they focused on burgers, fries & shakes and nothing else. They also have a license to make mistakes – there's a reason you don't see the “Arch Deluxe” on the menu anymore (although I still maintain the pizza was DELICIOUS).

    Everyone is striving for that same audience so they can experiment with their distribution – it's getting there that's the challenge.

  • http://twitter.com/mjbowe Matthew Bowe

    Chris,

    For 6 months I've been thinking about a similar issues. Personal Branding is an incomplete view of what we need to consider when we view what makes us as individuals successful in business. It requires a holistic view including even more than just personal brand and distribution. My take is that we need to look at ourselves as “A Company of One.” In fact, your post pushed me over the edge to finish a blog post of the same name. http://matthewbowe.com/2009/07/13/a-company-of-…

    It's a constantly evolving world of terms and ideas. Thanks for being a discussion starter!

  • http://blog.brand-yourself.com Patrick@brand-yourself.com

    Distribution is the most important part of personal branding. After all, what's the point of developing your brand if no one is going to see it. However, it's important to to pay close attention to HOW you distribute, and to who. Friending thousands of people on twitter and Facebook to promote yourself will do little if it's not to the RIGHT people. One of the most important steps in personal branding is figuring out who you want to reach, and then figure out how to reach them.

  • http://www.customerrespect.com/ Terry Golesworthy

    Branding and distribution is all about safety, you know exactly what you are getting. It may not be the best but you can trust the product. People visit McD because they know that their kids (and themselves) will be reasonably happy even though there might be a much better option which involves some risk (kids may not like it).It is not about complete trust and adoration, it is about minimizing risk and that is what killer brands achieve.

  • http://www.facebook.com/rusty.speidel Rusty Speidel

    Sure they do–all the movies, shows, records, books, whatever they did to create celebrity is how they distribute.

  • http://www.SocialMediaCommando.com JoeMescher

    …and Replication.

    Once I hit my stride using the Social Media Commando brand I made sure to replicate the original distribution channel (my blog).

    Now I own the Ustream, BlogTV, StickAM 'Social Media Commando' brand for streaming live shows Online, and that's just the beginning.

    I'm a fan of Schawbel because he's one motivated marine when it comes to enthusiastic branding, but I'm glad you pointed out the critical nature of distribution, Chris.

    No one buys a brand they don't have access to. I hope people who read this comment do the following:

    1. Establish a Brand (not easy, by the way…)
    2. Learn how to Distribute
    3. Replicate a successful distribution strategy across multiple platforms.

    I speak about these strategies on Twitter as well.

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  • markwilliamschaefer

    good job bringing conventional marketing wisdom home to roost in the digital age.

  • http://whatawebsite.org/ whatawebsite

    Hallo Chris,

    Dan says “Personal branding is the process of how we market ourselves to others.” & really, for me, that covers just about everything – including “perfecting a product/service, and then owning distribution”

    And usually the aim of PB ( Dan's, yours, McDonald's etc etc) is to do exactly that.

    McDonald's are depressingly good at it ( for us vegetarians!!)

    Best wishes from Hamburg

    Will

  • denvan

    Hey Chris,

    Great post.

    As a long-time (and originally self-branded) branding guru, it took years and years of actually ACTING like a branding guru before other people started to refer to me as such. Saying it over and over helped, but until I demonstrated value, I was just yelling into the wind.

    I think what Dan Schwabel and a lot of other “personal branding” people are popularizing is just step 1 of branding: aligning your messages and offerings with people's expectations. Kudos to you for highlighting the point that step 2 is DELIVERING on those expectations (what you call “distribution”), which leads to step 3 (which you normally speak about): NURTURING the relationship for long term mutual value.

    If it ain't a conversation, it ain't a brand.

  • fabulousphotogifts

    Yay Chris!

    Of course as several commenters have already commented, you may have the most fantastic product (literally from a commodity to a message to just yourself) but as we all know if no-one knows you're there, then it really doesn't count for an awful lot.

    Brand and distribution it seems must run hand in hand.

    Jonathan.

  • http://twitter.com/bsaldri1028 Bobbie Aldridge

    I completely agree with your post. In thinking about the optimal virtual distribution route, it would be interesting to get your opinion on the most effective route — for example, for service providers, do you build the web site first to become your primary base, then blog, then Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and what, statistically drives the most client-potential traffic to the web site….Thinking classic supply chain, every action triggers another action from the buy to the manufacturing, including distribution of product so virtually which lanes are considered part of the distribution lane & which lanes part of the advertising / marketing, or do they all inter-convene?
    Thinking aloud – your post triggered some great ideas and thoughts.

  • http://twitter.com/MattSearles Matt Searles

    I'm not sure if I totally get it.. I mean.. on the internet, can't we kinda take distribution for granted? It sounds more like you're saying “look, get your formula right, then promote the hell out of it.” Focus on that formula before you branch out to experimenting with other things.

    Other people might say.. experiment and measure, and where you find you're being more successful.. put in more energy / resources or whatever.. and where you're not, put less. The latter is a bit like a Peter Drucker change management tactic.. which you know.. Jack Welch really goes for..

    I also want to say I think you're nuts about McDonalds! I mean I think they offer a great brand experience for kids.. but.. being somewhat adult-esk.. the primary colors just don't do it for me. They're aesthetically impoverished! Yuck! But you know.. love ya man.. and I shant hold you're piss poor taste against ya.. ;-)

  • Name

    Poor form Chris. To subtly chide another individual is not cool. Viewpoint can be expressed in other ways. How is this building a relationship, trusting relationship?

  • tonilamb

    A good food for thought article (in this case coffee for thought) about branding. On a more serious note, your article made me really think about the whole branding concept & what it should constist of. Honestly, you made a really great point and I totally agree with you. It just makes sense!

  • http://musingandgadgets.squarespace.com klrabbit

    Not like Dunkin coffee, you do realize that there is a lightning strike waiting for you (: In a more serious note though I sorry I don't think they have chicken down. Mcdonald's is not what I think of when I think of chicken. How they will do in the coffee market, may depend on how you measure it.

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