Recently while going through a list of the Top 20 brand makers of 2007, I was fascinated by the fact that the companies employing them had in fact adopted the values and principles of the individual. It was as if the CEOs were the manifestation of the culture and values of the organization. Then it got me thinking; about these people who were so pervasive that the whole organization swayed to their tunes and for their competitors, the CEO is the company and there is no distinguishing them.
The CEO is a brand in its own right and this realization led me to search for something arcane – Self Branding. Why is it essential for you?
For one, you might actually become the CEO some day.
Also, every individual goes through a series of needs and wants in his life as explained by Maslow in his hierarchy of needs. This philosophy completely negates the facts established by Maslow (and god knows most of us would be elated by the mere thought of disproving a psychologist).
Self branding is technically, completely at loggerheads with the theory of self development. While, self development is more about analyzing yourself from the self point of view, Self branding is improving yourself from your customer (the people you most appeal to, those who know you and are influenced by your decisions) view point. Remember those days in college when there were guys who were the cynosure of all eyes; those stars whom everybody knew. And remember yourself wondering what he’s got that you haven’t. Well, if only you would’ve approached your friends with this question, “What are my weaknesses?” you’d have had a head start by now. Self development fails most of the times because you tend to give a myopic view to your existence and your analysis of your personality is biased.
This is where Self Branding starts. To becoming a successful Self Brand, let us learn from the leaders.
Rupert Murdoch (News Corp.):
You are important as long as you have important friends. So try and be as close to the power centers as possible.
Rupert’s trusted friends/loyalists include Ex British Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, Australian Labour Party leader Gough Whitlam, American president Ronald Regan and George Bush.
Steve Jobs (Apple Inc.):
Having an unbridled passion for the things you believe in.
He named Apple Inc’s first prototype PC, Lisa after his first born. He was so involved with the launch of Apple Macintosh that he used to sleep at the headquarters and his small crew of developers couldn’t sleep at all as Steve had the habit of waking up at odd hours to check on the crew and any employee napping would be fired on the spot.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google Inc.):
Don’t look for things you know, but try searching answers for things you don’t know.
Google started off as a research project by the Larry and Sergey at Stanford University. These two had a penchant for searching patterns in huge piles of data. This is how they came across the PageRank system used by google for classifying pages.Google Inc. was incorporated on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California.
Stephen Schwarzman and Pete Peterson (Blackstone Group):
Having an insatiable appetite for thinking big.
Blackstone Group has nearly $98 billion in assets under management, and owns or jointly controls companies in just about every sector of the economy: real estate (Equity Office Properties), media (The Hollywood Reporter), theme parks (Six Flags, Universal Orlando), technology (SunGard), retail (Michaels hobby stores), food and beverage (United Biscuits, Orangina), health care (Southern Cross), the Internet (Orbitz).
Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathway):
A thorough understanding of the business you are in.
Warren Buffet obtained a Master's degree in economics in 1951 at Columbia Business School, studying under Benjamin Graham. He was the only student to ever get an A+ in his security analysis class. He was of the belief that as long as the market undervalued them relative to their intrinsic value he was making a solid investment. He reasoned that the market will eventually realize it has undervalued the company and will correct its course regardless of what type of business the company was in.
Stephen Spielberg (Dreamworks):
Never forget your past, but remember and learn from it.
Stephen’s parents divorced when he was seventeen and he had an unhappy childhood. But this didn’t deter him from becoming the highest grossing filmmaker of all time making nearly $8 billion. He used his past experiences to frame his themes and his most critically acclaimed movies Munich, Minority Report, Jurassic Park, Jaws and Schindler’s List have a common underlying theme of tension between parent-child relationships.
Bernard Arnault (LVMH):
Be hard nosed and control obsessed in achieving your objectives.
In 1989 Bernard Arnault won a fierce battle for control of family-run Louis Vuitton. With a mixture of clever marketing, innovative design and tight control over how and where the products are sold, Arnault turned Vuitton and Dior into highly profitable global businesses. In the economic downturn, Arnault opted for consolidation rather than acquisition.
Bill Gates (Microsoft Corp.):
Always be on the lookout for opportunities.
In January 1975, after reading an issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800, Bill Gates contacted MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), the creators of the new microcomputer, to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform. In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it; they merely wanted to test the interest of MITS in their offering. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for a demo, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter.
H. Lee Scott (Wal-Mart):
Always appreciate your customers and they will appreciate you back.
H.Lee Scott following Wal-Marts EDLP strategy understood that his customer base consisted of middle class customers. Hence, he backed away from his plans to lure upscale consumers and, instead, slashed prices on 13,000 items. Needless to say, Wal-Mart suffered losses and are presently planning to buy back $15 billion of its own shares.
Oprah Winfery (Harpo Productions):
Last but not the least, benefit the society to which you belong.
Philanthropy has been central in Oprah’s life.This year she donated $58.3 million, most of which went to her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation. She also opened her second new school for poor South African youth, the $1.6 million Seven Fountains Primary School, in KwaZulu-Natal Province. And Harpo's first prime-time TV series, Oprah's Big Give, in which contestants compete by devising creative ways to do good for others, will debut early next year.
The CEO is a brand in its own right and this realization led me to search for something arcane – Self Branding. Why is it essential for you?
For one, you might actually become the CEO some day.
Also, every individual goes through a series of needs and wants in his life as explained by Maslow in his hierarchy of needs. This philosophy completely negates the facts established by Maslow (and god knows most of us would be elated by the mere thought of disproving a psychologist).
Self branding is technically, completely at loggerheads with the theory of self development. While, self development is more about analyzing yourself from the self point of view, Self branding is improving yourself from your customer (the people you most appeal to, those who know you and are influenced by your decisions) view point. Remember those days in college when there were guys who were the cynosure of all eyes; those stars whom everybody knew. And remember yourself wondering what he’s got that you haven’t. Well, if only you would’ve approached your friends with this question, “What are my weaknesses?” you’d have had a head start by now. Self development fails most of the times because you tend to give a myopic view to your existence and your analysis of your personality is biased.
This is where Self Branding starts. To becoming a successful Self Brand, let us learn from the leaders.
Rupert Murdoch (News Corp.):
You are important as long as you have important friends. So try and be as close to the power centers as possible.
Rupert’s trusted friends/loyalists include Ex British Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, Australian Labour Party leader Gough Whitlam, American president Ronald Regan and George Bush.
Steve Jobs (Apple Inc.):
Having an unbridled passion for the things you believe in.
He named Apple Inc’s first prototype PC, Lisa after his first born. He was so involved with the launch of Apple Macintosh that he used to sleep at the headquarters and his small crew of developers couldn’t sleep at all as Steve had the habit of waking up at odd hours to check on the crew and any employee napping would be fired on the spot.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google Inc.):
Don’t look for things you know, but try searching answers for things you don’t know.
Google started off as a research project by the Larry and Sergey at Stanford University. These two had a penchant for searching patterns in huge piles of data. This is how they came across the PageRank system used by google for classifying pages.Google Inc. was incorporated on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California.
Stephen Schwarzman and Pete Peterson (Blackstone Group):
Having an insatiable appetite for thinking big.
Blackstone Group has nearly $98 billion in assets under management, and owns or jointly controls companies in just about every sector of the economy: real estate (Equity Office Properties), media (The Hollywood Reporter), theme parks (Six Flags, Universal Orlando), technology (SunGard), retail (Michaels hobby stores), food and beverage (United Biscuits, Orangina), health care (Southern Cross), the Internet (Orbitz).
Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathway):
A thorough understanding of the business you are in.
Warren Buffet obtained a Master's degree in economics in 1951 at Columbia Business School, studying under Benjamin Graham. He was the only student to ever get an A+ in his security analysis class. He was of the belief that as long as the market undervalued them relative to their intrinsic value he was making a solid investment. He reasoned that the market will eventually realize it has undervalued the company and will correct its course regardless of what type of business the company was in.
Stephen Spielberg (Dreamworks):
Never forget your past, but remember and learn from it.
Stephen’s parents divorced when he was seventeen and he had an unhappy childhood. But this didn’t deter him from becoming the highest grossing filmmaker of all time making nearly $8 billion. He used his past experiences to frame his themes and his most critically acclaimed movies Munich, Minority Report, Jurassic Park, Jaws and Schindler’s List have a common underlying theme of tension between parent-child relationships.
Bernard Arnault (LVMH):
Be hard nosed and control obsessed in achieving your objectives.
In 1989 Bernard Arnault won a fierce battle for control of family-run Louis Vuitton. With a mixture of clever marketing, innovative design and tight control over how and where the products are sold, Arnault turned Vuitton and Dior into highly profitable global businesses. In the economic downturn, Arnault opted for consolidation rather than acquisition.
Bill Gates (Microsoft Corp.):
Always be on the lookout for opportunities.
In January 1975, after reading an issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800, Bill Gates contacted MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), the creators of the new microcomputer, to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform. In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it; they merely wanted to test the interest of MITS in their offering. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for a demo, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter.
H. Lee Scott (Wal-Mart):
Always appreciate your customers and they will appreciate you back.
H.Lee Scott following Wal-Marts EDLP strategy understood that his customer base consisted of middle class customers. Hence, he backed away from his plans to lure upscale consumers and, instead, slashed prices on 13,000 items. Needless to say, Wal-Mart suffered losses and are presently planning to buy back $15 billion of its own shares.
Oprah Winfery (Harpo Productions):
Last but not the least, benefit the society to which you belong.
Philanthropy has been central in Oprah’s life.This year she donated $58.3 million, most of which went to her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation. She also opened her second new school for poor South African youth, the $1.6 million Seven Fountains Primary School, in KwaZulu-Natal Province. And Harpo's first prime-time TV series, Oprah's Big Give, in which contestants compete by devising creative ways to do good for others, will debut early next year.
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