As CEO, Are You Putting Your Best Face Forward?

Your product or service isn’t the only thing you need to be promoting. As a CEO, one of the most powerful exposure and revenue-building tools your company has is, in fact, you.

CEO branding is the new corporate branding. People want an emotional connection to the brands they are invested in, so it’s important for those brands to have a face — and that’s where CEO branding comes in.

CEO Brand is the process of aligning your face with your corporate brand. This process includes public relation activities, media interviews, philanthropy, articles, books, speaking engagements and employee treatment. It requires integrating the CEO’s brand DNA into how the company is viewed publicly. In a competitive marketplace, it is a differentiating factor. Though it happens naturally, CEOs need to be forward-looking in strategizing their brand — or reactive in managing it.

Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx and the world’s youngest female billionaire, is a walking example for the power of CEO branding. In her company’s early days, she had no money for advertising, so she hit the road with her new product. She was the heart, soul and face of Spanx. Blakely took her passion and propelled Spanx to phenomenal heights.

Blakely also stands firmly by her personal beliefs about how business should be done. In the recent CNBC Town Hall Event, “Getting Back to Business,” Blakely responded to venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary’s statement, “Business is war,” by saying, “I have only been focused on my own quality – what can I offer that’s the best and give value.” It’s not just the words, but also the CEO behind them that the audience responded to so enthusiastically. Her authenticity is noticed by customers, investors, employees, and the general public, and it influences their readiness to connect to the Spanx brand. That’s the power of CEO branding.

For More details about CEO Branding Please Visit: CEO Brand

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Five Steps To A Stronger CEO Brand

CEO’s with strong reputations and the know-how to promote their accomplishments — that is, CEO’s with strong brands — have a significant advantage over their competitors. Having a powerful CEO brand can put your company in front of its target audience in a way that the corporation alone cannot.

Why? Simple: Businesses don’t do speaking engagements, businesses rarely “emotionally connect” with audiences, and outside of CNBC/Fox Business News, businesses are rarely profiled on TV. And when media is looking for a great business-related story they often focus on how the CEO/founder built the business or how a new CEO reshaped it — because people love human interest stories. They want to emotionally connect with your company, and hearing your vision gives them an affinity for your product.

As a result, brand loyalty to a product can be trumped by brand loyalty to a CEO. For example, I’m a U.S. Airways frequent flyer and I get upgrades almost every time I fly — but because I’m such a huge fan of Richard Branson and Virgin now has flights available out of Philadelphia, I’m planning to use them next time I fly cross-country. Remove Branson from the equation, and I’d have no interest in Virgin.

Similarly, I recently had a client who had developed a business service focused specifically on assessing new product development at corporations. As a result of the traction he got with his book and his reputation as a speaker, he gave a paid keynote to one of the largest corporations in the world. Executives listened to him intently, and the next day several met with him to learn more. He also won the Governor’s award in his state for best small business.

But none of that would be possible without a strong CEO brand.  So how do you do it?

1. Develop a CEO brand strategy. This includes analyzing your brand strengths and aligning them with the corporation’s.  In other words, emphasize the portions of the CEO brand that also ring true for the company.
2. Determine which audiences you want to go after and what message will connect with them the most.  This differs from a corporate strategy because specifically you are looking at a more indirect message to get people to resonate with the CEO, and then as that is done the CEO serves as the bridge with the customer to get interest in the business.
3. Determine the tools you will use to get the message out.  Will it be speaking? PR? Social media? A book?  Strategic advertising with the CEO message?
4. Determine how to measure your results.  What benchmarks are you looking for?  Increased leads?  More website traffic?  Determine the metrics that make the most sense for you.
5. Assess the results. Analyze your results utilizing the metrics you’ve developed plus some bottom-line items such as revenue growth, close rates, and increased pricing — and adjust your strategy from there.

Start utilizing these techniques now, and soon you’ll have a CEO advantage that will last the rest of your career.  The best thing about a CEO brand is that, when done well, it is portable — as you think about starting future ventures, your CEO brand will follow you.

As the greatest success expert of the past 100 years, Napoleon Hill, said in his famous book The Laws of Success, “People buy personalities as much as merchandise, and it is a question if they are not influenced more by the personalities with which they come in contact than they are by the merchandise.”

Seventy-five years later, these words have never rung more true.

Raoul Davis specializes in helping CEO’s increase their visibility, revenues, and industry leadership status through a proprietary CEO branding model. Davis is a partner at Ascendant Strategy, a division of Ascendant Group, focused on “strategic brand implementation for leaders” with its core unit being focused on CEO and executive branding through integrated PR, speaking engagements, book deals, and social media.

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World War E

Last week we talked about the infection of entrepreneurs acting like zombies.  Here are the solutions!

 

The Antidote

 

Once these symptoms have been recognized and the condition has been diagnosed, the antidote is simple.

 

• Know exactly what you want to do. Having a vision and a plan for your business will clear the zombie fog and get you in the proper mindset for success – both with investors and with clients. As an entrepreneur you must be willing to go out on the playing field and get hit. But if you step out onto that playing field without a plan, the game will be over before you even know what hit you.
• Focus and stay with your project for the long haul. Say you want to hammer a lid onto something. How many nails do you work with at one time? How many hammers? What happens when you use more than one hammer or nail at a time? Obviously if you do that both the lid and your fingers will suffer. Using one nail at a time – that’s focus. Staying focused on your vision will help stave off the inclination towards entrepreneur ADD.
• Only start it if you’re going to love it. Think of your startup like a relationship.  Once you decide to start a business you’re starting a relationship just like you’re dating someone. If you lose interest or cheat, things are going to go south in a hurry. The same principle applies to business. Feeling passionate about a project will help prevent the lack of conviction that’s so often the death of a startup.
• Don’t cheat your brand or it will cost you.  Your brand is what the world sees first.  Think about it multiple times, for multiple days, and multiple hours.  Be introspective and think about how you want people to think about you.  There is a psychology that goes into color selection, marketing copy, and imaging.  Develop a plan on how you want to be perceived and then make the appropriate investment in delivering the plan visually.  I always tell CEOs how you are perceived via your web site and your Google search will dictate three things:  the likelihood someone will do business with you, their perception of value, and the sense of urgency they will have in working with you.

 

Existing Entrepreneurs Are Not Immune

 

I know we’ve talked a lot about new entrepreneurs creating this zombie culture; but candidly even experienced entrepreneurs many times can fall into a zombie mentality when what use to excite them becomes the mundane and when they become purely tactically focused with no strategic thinking at the core.  I used to give my executive assistant about 78 different tasks across 25 different categories – on a regular basis. This resulted in my assistant suffering regular head explosions and made accomplishing tasks much more difficult. The cure? Targeted delegation. Once I began having employees focus on specialty areas, delegation naturally flowed to those areas resulting in stronger, more meaningful work with much happier people.

 

The growth of entrepreneurship is a great thing. The proliferation of entrepreneur zombies is not. With these antidotes we will end World War E and ensure those who are serious about entrepreneurship will have the resources they need and become successful.

 

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World War E (Entrepreneurship)

One of this summer’s biggest blockbuster movies will be World War Z, a tale about the spread of a pandemic virus that turns people into zombies.  While this movie is fictional, unfortunately there is indeed a zombie plague sweeping the nation. In fact, you or someone you know may already be infected. It does no good to stick our heads in the sand and pretend this isn’t becoming a problem of epic proportions. It’s time we faced facts: World War E is upon us – and that E is for Entrepreneur.

 

It’s an unfortunate truth that an increasing amount of entrepreneurs are acting like zombies, mindlessly sleepwalking through business, gnawing at opportunities without focus or passion. Though the comparison might seem laughable, the economic truth is far from it. Traditional data tells us at least half of businesses fail over a five year period.  Unfortunately, I believe that number will increase dramatically over the next several years in this era of “forced entrepreneurship.”  The entrepreneur used to be that fearless risk taker who was bold enough to step out in faith and build a business.  Now many entrepreneurs are the individuals who feel like they have no choice but become entrepreneurs because the job market is so tight. It is one thing to want to seize the opportunity and quite another to jump in because you feel obligated to.  The former has created some of the greatest business ever, the latter is igniting the entrepreneur zombie movement.  The behaviors and mentality of these “forced entrepreneurs” are very similar to zombies bumbling around leaving destruction in their wake. There are real, economic consequences including financial institutions and the investment community becoming increasingly more fearful to invest in startups and the very idea of the entrepreneur becoming a joke.  It’s time we took a stand.

 

The good news is there’s an antidote that can be easily administered once the zombie mentality is identified. The signs and symptoms of this infection include:

 

The signs and symptoms of this infection include:

 

• Lack of a clear picture. Many new entrepreneurs just like the idea of being an entrepreneur because they see so many others doing it – but they have no real plan or vision. If you can’t convey a clear picture of your enterprise to a potential investor you’ll never get the capital you need – and you certainly won’t be able to attract clients or make a sale.
• Entrepreneur ADD. The lack of a clear picture if left untreated will advance to the next symptom, entrepreneur ADD. When this sets in, entrepreneurs will jump from one flashy project to the next because it seems like the Next Big Thing. Without any patience for the long haul, an entrepreneur in this condition is doomed to keep chasing pavements.
• Lack of conviction. A secondary yet no less serious symptom stemming from entrepreneur ADD, a lack of conviction results when entrepreneurs are pursuing a project simply to make money. While making money is all well and good – not to mention the reason most people go into business – the desire for wealth just isn’t enough. Entrepreneurs who lack passion for their projects tend to get discouraged more easily and quit sooner than those who truly believe in what they’re doing.
• Lack of formal training. The previous three symptoms can be attributed to the reality that most entrepreneurs having no formal training. MBA degrees and other higher educational programs prepare graduates for the corporate world but not for life as an entrepreneur. Like any other profession, you’ve got to train for entrepreneurship. This means attending seminars, reading, attending webinars, training yourself to become the leader your venture needs.
• A brand that sucks!  Most entrepreneurs rush into creating websites from cheesy templates and order stale business cards using templates from the likes of Vistaprint (no offense) without much thought.  The result is their lack of a clear picture, ADD, lack of conviction and lack of formal training shows itself visually in how their image is presented.  Your companies collateral, messaging, tagline, and logo all tell the truth about you.  As the head of a company that works with CEOs on brand implementation, I can’t begin to tell you how often in many cases even companies that are multimillions have not prioritized their brand and until your brand is at its full potential you’ll always leave huge dollars on the table.

 

Next week I will post the solutions!

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