January 3rd, 2009
Sarah Lacy on Personal Branding, Malcolm Gladwell on Outliers, and Seth Godin on The Dip
Welcome to Gauravonomics Blog! Subscribe to my feed now and you'll never miss a single post!
Sarah Lacy on personal branding –
One of the advantages of the Internet– the relatively low barrier to click on something– is an advantage for building brands and gaining distribution online, but it’s also a disadvantage. People flock to you as a side-show, but don’t actually want to invest real dollars to support whatever you are doing.
I’ve got an inkling that this multi-year trend towards brand-this and brand-that in the business world may be in for a rude awakening.
I’m not saying brand doesn’t matter. I’m just saying it doesn’t matter the way it seems like it should on paper. In the last year, a lot of college kids or journalists young in their careers have asked my advice on becoming a brand, and I’ve told them there’s no quick and easy hack to get there. It takes time, long hours, and consistent work of merit in your field. Brand that hits people fast, usually doesn’t last… The other thing I’ve told them is to know what they’re getting into chasing the brand dream. No one tells you how hard it is to maintain it and to stomach all that comes with it, once you establish it.
I guess the third leg of that brand-reality-check stool is what I’ve learned in the last year: You don’t just add water to brand for instant traffic and monetization. Just as there’s no easy hack to becoming a brand, there’s no easy hack to profiting from it.
Here’s the most important thing to remember while talking about personal branding: it takes way too long and it pays way too little.
Malcolm Gladwell says in “Outliers” that you need 10000 hours of practice to become a real expert.
Seth Godin talks about how difficult it is to persist through the Dip.
As long as what you do doesn’t make you happy in itself, no amount of micro-celebrity will make up for all the hours you put into building your personal brand.
So, the question to ask is: what makes you happy?
