Do You Have Multiple Personal Brands?

This post is not what you think, it’s got nothing to do with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Clark Kent and Superman or The Hulk and Bruce Banner!

Whenever I run a Personal Branding workshop, there is always one or two attendees juggling a few career acts or more than one client/employer. Just as most people will work at one company and perhaps sell one type of service, these people might be freelancing for three companies and offering four widely different services.

We’ve all seen them, multi branded people with a number of professional focuses. On LinkedIn you can sometimes see profile headlines a bit like “Lab Technician, Consultant, Hairdresser and Speaker” or similar. With flexible work projects, timings and locations you get folks who are able to divide the days of the week into a number of different professions.

You get the accountant that is passionate about landscape gardening and therefore does three days of accounting, two days of gardening per week. You get the lawyer that runs a gallery and writes a column for a paper, all at alternating days and times in the week.

This is all well and good as long as people know what you do and you keep getting recurring business or word-of-mouth referrals. The issue arises when it’s time to promote yourself and your services to new potential customers. Your personal brand statement, elevator pitch and even title can be tricky to convey in a punchy manner when you try to squeeze in the fact that you have multiple strings to your bow.

Sometimes it’s a number of similar things, like being a painter, decorator and carpenter – this can probably be converted into ‘covering all your refurbishment needs’. The real pickle is when you do very diverse things that have very little synergies, like running a restaurant and selling insurance, or being a literary agent and a car mechanic.

How do you work around two unrelated focuses?

If you’re doing two things that are completely unrelated, you’re best off focusing on the one that actually needs promoting and mentioning the other as a backup.

An example of this could be an IT consultant that is making plenty of money but her passion is art and she also runs an art gallery. These two activities will definitely have different value propositions and cater for different audiences. How can she then write a personal brand statement that encapsulates both of these? Or should she pick one?

Her IT focused statement could be “providing Unix program management expertise to blue chip companies in Chicago”. Her gallery passion could be “showcasing Chicago’s best modern art for sophisticated patrons of the Illinois art scene”. The big question is how you tie them both together. You don’t have to of course but I think it will make things clearer for yourself if you do. So a combination statement could be “Manager of Complex IT Projects and Beautiful Pieces of Art in Illinois”.

Or let’s say you happen to be a literary agent and car mechanic, I would guess that people will always need their cars repaired and know where to find you already. In fact they will see your auto workshop when they drive past. A literary agent doesn’t have a building dedicated to their profession, she needs to be promoting herself to attract the best book pitches, therefore I would focus on this.

You could call yourself a”‘Literary Agent for Sci-Fi Authors with a Passion for Automobiles” or similar. This way people know what you do and the fact that you know your way around an engine. Remember that the brand you give out is just there to hook someone, if they are interested they will ask you and you can explain fully what you do (and you can flesh this out in your bio).

But what if I have three or four personal brands?

Right, here’s an example of someone I know intimately. This guy is a social media trainer and consultant, he is specialised in LinkedIn, personal branding and recruitment. On top of this he blogs at three separate blogs and he runs three different meetups in London. Yes it’s me. How do I go about mentioning what I do? I keep it simple and focus on the first bits “Social Media Trainer and Consultant, LinkedIn, Branding and Recruitment Specialist”. These are all related so it makes sense to mention them all, I could just say æsocial media trainer” but that sounds too generic in my opinion.

Although very successful and taking up a fair bit of my time, I don’t even mention the blogs or meetups for a number of reasons. First off, they are free and there is little point in promoting something that’s free. Second, people have already found the blogs and meetups and telling their friends so I don’t really need to promote it. Third, I make most of my money from social media training so that’s what I focus on. You could say it’s the highest value activity and it operates as my flagship service, the rest neatly supports it.

What’s your multi brand?

Have you unveiled your multiple brands yet or are they suppressed? What clients, industries, services and interests are you juggling? Please let me know in the comments and I’ll help you construct a good brand!

Like running? See How Running a Marathon Can Boost Your Personal Brand.