The Magazine of IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu July 2017 - 28

SPOTLIGHT

Your Personal Brand Says a Lot about You
By Chris McManes, IEEE- USA

Two recent TV appearances. Two vastly different reactions.
Mariah Carey, singing on New Year's Eve, had a
meltdown and proceeded to blame others for her flawed
performance. Lady Gaga, during halftime of Super Bowl
LI, soared to (and from) new heights.
The impression they left on viewers were at polar
opposites. Carey was generally lambasted by traditional
and social media. Gaga scored high marks and saw
downloads of her songs soar nearly 1,000 percent.
Both performances affected the singers' personal
brands. Carey has a lot of work to do to repair her
damaged reputation. Gaga used her stunning Super
Bowl appearance to launch her world tour.
Branding is not limited to celebrities and business
entities. A personal brand is what people think of first
when someone comes to mind. Each of us draws out a
favorable or unfavorable response.
"We all have a personal brand," leadership expert and
business strategist Carolyn Andrews said. "Managing
it and making sure it's the brand you want it to be is
really important. Because after all, your brand is how you
appear to the world."
Andrews was speaking at the 2017 IEEE Rising Stars
Conference in Las Vegas. She and business life coach
Jennifer Johnson presented "Creating and Marketing
Your Personal Brand." The session was well-attended by
IEEE student members and young professionals.
In today's social media age, personal branding for many
children begins the moment they're born. Parents and
grandparents flood their Twitter, Facebook, Instagram
and YouTube accounts with photos and stories of
everything baby is doing.
"Sixty to eighty percent of two-year-olds have a personal
brand," Andrews said, "because mom has put them on
Facebook or they've been involved in something else, or
people are seeing them now.

28

"So it's really important to understand that we all have a
personal brand."

Be Who You Are
A key to developing a positive personal brand is to
be yourself. We are all uniquely created and shaped
individuals. Make the best of who you are.
Johnson told a story about how hard it was for former
ESPN sportscaster Robin Roberts to land a job at ESPN.
At the time, few African-American women worked there.
Johnson said Roberts' advice is to "make your mess your
message."
"Your mess is what you want to hide, right?" Johnson
said. "She says, 'no, make that your message.' Her mom
always preached that to her ... [telling her] to bring 'you'
forward. And guess what, she ended doing that, and
now she's on Good Morning America."
Johnson offers similar advice when she says to turn
"your scars into stars." While some people have physical
scars, almost all of us have emotional roadblocks that
hold us back, that fill us with fear.
"Usually it's an internal scar, something that we tell
ourselves, that we're not OK. Or that we can't raise our
hand for that promotion. Or we can't give that talk. Or
we can't get that project," Johnson said. "Turn your scar
into a star. The scar that you think is so negative can be
one of your best assets."
The tagline to Johnson's company, 3P Coaching, is "You
don't have to be a size 6 to make 6 figures."
"I can't tell you when I came up with that tagline how
much it propelled my business," she said. "It was
unbelievable. And it was exciting. ... Whether you're a
size 2 or 22, it's all what's in your head. Something like
this could have held me back. Instead I get to go out
into the world, have fun, share my message and inspire
others to do the same.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Magazine of IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu July 2017
