Managing Brand You: Seven Steps to Creating Your Most Successful Self

by Jerry S. Wilson, Ira Blumenthal

Whether we realize it or not, we are all brands. We all have qualities that shape and influence how the people in our lives see us—and how we see ourselves. Nationally respected brand experts Jerry Wilson and Ira Blumenthal have helped some of the most exceptional companies and individuals in the world perfect their images. Now, in Managing Brand You, they reveal their proven seven-step process for personal brand building. Using illuminating examples from successful corporations like Coca-Cola and Starbucks as well as high-profile celebrities like Bono and Oprah, Managing Brand You gives readers a step-by-step guide for conducting a self analysis, creating a unique identity, defining their objectives, discovering their passions, creating a plan, putting that plan into action, and monitoring their progress. Wise and insightful, this book will help readers identify what it is that makes them unique and communicate it in a way that guarantees them success.

Genres: Business, Self Help, Nonfiction

236 pages, Hardcover

First published July 16, 2008

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book because it came highly rated on Amazon. I should have checked goodreads first.

The authors are brand experts who have primarily worked at Coca-Cola, one of the most successfully branded products in the history of the world. I have no doubt that they have been very successful at branding in the corporate world. The parts of the book that talked about how companies use branding techniques to earn loyalty were actually very interesting to me, though not immediately relevant to anything I was trying to learn.

It's when the authors started to translate these branding techniques to a personal life that I got really bored and even frustrated at times. Using charts and stuffy theory they argue that I can use similar branding techniques to transform my personal life. It almost seemed to me that the authors had never really tried this stuff themselves, but were trying to take something they were good at, corporate branding, and project it onto a personal life which in my opinion didn't really work at that well. Not to mention that there was nothing in the book that actually got me motivated or excited to attempt real world application of the theories they talked about.

I would not recommend this book to others.

[James Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smart step by step approach to building your personal brand. Includes many practical tools to apply to your career situations. recommend.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something worth reading again when I'm in the right frame of mind and am prepared to do some work in that creative space.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm reading this book so I can facilitate a discussion group at work. It's a little fluffy for my taste, and a bit repetitive, but the principles are good. Anyone who reads it should prepare to invest the time in following the steps to create their own personal brand.

[Ann Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was dumb.

We read this for the Women's Leadership Network book club...

[Lori Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A should-read book on personal branding as you manage your career.