Personal Branding – Your Authentic Self

I  was having a very casual conversation with the VP of Sales  from one of our pharma customers.  He was sharing with me his observation of their sales team during a recent sales conference.  His group has sales offices across Canada and there was representation from each of the provinces at the conference.  Most of the sales people were women.   He was disturbed by the fact that he could tell which province the sales rep came from by the way they were dressed.  He said he couldn’t help but think that as an organization they spent thousands of dollars every year on their company branding and what message was the reps sending when they were wearing mini-skirts and showing too much cleavage.

I shared with him that one of the Alliance partners does an excellent job of taking both groups and individuals through a personal branding process.  His eyes lit up and asked me to introduce him to the partner.  They ran the program a month later.  He was delighted with the new professional image projected by the sales people.  The participants commented on how much more confident they felt.   This program goes beyond just the physical appearance and helps people connect with their authentic self and define who they want to be known to be.

I too have gone through this Alliance partner’s branding process and I know what they mean by more confident.  Actually a friend who I hadn’t seen in six months  met me for lunch after my process was completed and she said it was not like it was a “new” me, it was more like the “real” me.