I thought I understood marketing. Three years ago when I was working as a content marketer, I was pumping content like it was no one’s business.
Create content that follows our content pillars. Check.
Focus on messaging. Check.
Keep your customer at the heart of your content. Check.
Talk about your customer’s challenges. Check.
Position yourself as a good solution for their problems. Check
However, something was amiss. Something fundamental. While we were present in multiple conversations, nothing really made our story stick.
Last year, a new Director joined our team, and he changed the way I viewed marketing. He introduced me to multiple podcasts and new ways of thinking about marketing. He also recommended one book to me: April Dunford’s Obviously Awesome. That one recommendation changed the way I viewed branding, marketing and positioning. So this is me, telling you what my 3 favorite books are when it comes to building a powerful personal brand (these are also applicable if you are building a company brand.)
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Now back to the article
Book 1: Obviously Awesome by April Dunford
My view towards marketing was heavily centered on promotion. My entire focus was getting the content pillars and messaging right, but the basic idea of positioning was not something I was familiar with yet.
They key takeaway from this book was this - your value is determined by the room you decide to put yourself (and thereby compete) in. In her book, April Dunford asks a simple question: Would you market a cake pop in the cake category, or would you put it in the lollipop category?
In the cake category, a cake pop competes with cupcakes and muffins - which are (imo) a lot more desirable - but once you put it in the lollipop category it is an indulgent treat that goes far beyond the basic sugar candy you are used to.
This one example really changed the way I viewed services and products. The whole world can be your ocean, but you choose which ocean you want to compete in. And that is what makes all the difference.
This applies to personal brands as well. Your positioning is the lens that you provide to the world. So which one are you - an indulgent lollipop or a mini cake ball?
Tl;dr: Your value is decided by the room you decided to compete in.
Book 2: Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller
Right after I read Obviously Awesome, I went into a rabbit hole of applying the positioning framework for the brands I was working for. Right around this time I came across Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller.
If Obviously Awesome taught me about putting myself in the right room, StoryBrand explained the story I would tell people in that room.
In the very beginning of the book, StoryBrand uses a very simple Star Wars analogy to explain how you must approach branding and storytelling. The book says that you must always think of your customer as Luke Skywalker (hero) and yourself as Yoda (guide).
As a business, you always tell the story from the perspective of how you helped guide the target audience to success. Laden with multiple useful examples, this is one of the books that simplifies the way you look at marketing and solidifies your content and marketing pillars.
What about a personal brand? I hear you ask. Isn’t a personal brand all about you, yourself and thou? No, it isn’t! In a personal brand, the story is definitely yours but the hero is the audience you want to move. It's always about how you as a person guide your audience/customers into achieving a target that they want. This could be entertainment, validation, justice, success or fulfilment.
A slight exception here is the concept of influencers. When people follow you because of your personal viewpoint and not just because of what you can do for them, the guide and the story start to collapse into each other. The framework doesn't fully account for that.
Despite that, I believe the book points you in the right direction when it comes to building a personal brand.
Tl;dr: If life is a movie, you are Yoda and your customer is Luke Skywalker.
Book 3: Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
While StoryBrand focuses on creating a compelling story. Made to Stick tells you how you can make your story and messaging memorable. There are six key principles here:
Make the message simple
Make your message unexpected. Create a message that surprises people and violates their perception of what they believe to be ‘true’
Make your message concrete and relate it to something people understand (for example 2.64 acres vs 2 football fields)
Make your message credible
Make your message emotional
Tell a story with your message
Drawing from personal expereince, one of my ideas that has genuinely stuck with my audience is when I wrote an article analyzing my LinkedIn posts from a specific period to derive what worked. People really resonated with that article, mainly because LinkedIn is a mystery to a lot of people, and I tried decode that mystery a bit. I showed the data behind posts that work and those that don't. In that article, I used the principles listed in Made to Stick. The message was simple, I brought in an element of surprise with one of my findings (putting your own photo in LinkedIn posts boosts engagement), I made it concrete by highlighting the uplift from a regular post vs one that has my photo in it. I made my message credible by adding data.
This is one of those books that you can keep going back to. There are so many wonderful examples told in the form of simple stories and anecdotes and it really helps you decide how your messaging can be powerful enough to move people.
Tl;dr: Make your message simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional and tell it like a story.
Okay. I Have Read The Books. Now What?
Building two brands simultaneously (Spryngbase and Grow-th) taught me that it's extremely important to pick and be very selective about which parts you want to show on which channel. These books helped me build clarity for my personal brand, so that I don't dilute it with too many elements.
My approach to personal branding is simple. Create a simple story and then tell the story multiple times in different formats until enough people associate it with you. This is the same approach I use when working on a company brand.
However, there is a lot that goes behind refining this simple understanding.
If every founder runs their positioning through Obviously Awesome, structures their story through StoryBrand, and engineers memorability through Made to Stick — what happens to differentiation?
Well, that is where your creativity as a marketer/storyteller comes in. These books provide useful frameworks but they do not need to be followed to a T. I twist and move things around as per my situation, and I think that's the most important thing to remember.
The one question I still have no answers to is this one: Are the best personal brands built by those who've internalized the frameworks so deeply they no longer need them? OR by those who never quite fit them to begin with?
Grow-th Architect is where I (Shreya Vaidya) think out loud about brand-building, positioning, and surviving on LinkedIn. If this resonated, subscribe, or share it with someone who needs to hear it.