Personal Branding: How To Turn Yourself Into A Success
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Dan Janal – We’re going to talk about what those differences are during the next hour. I’m sure you’ll get into more detail with a lot more case studies as well, but you also make the point that we have to connect our passions to our business. How do we do that and why is this important?
William Arruda – It’s absolutely the case, and if you look at every strong brand that you know—Richard Branson, Madonna, Oprah, Jack Welsh; it really doesn’t really matter who—you will see that in every single case, they connect what they’re really excited about, what they’re really passionate about, with what they do; either how they deliver it, what they do very specifically. Richard Branson, for example, he’s someone who loves risk. He does not at all care about security; he really likes to take on as much risk as he can. That’s what gets him going, and so everything he’s done from the first thing he did with signing the Sex Pistols onto his record label through competing with Coca Cola with Virgin Cola, the strongest brand in the world, trying to go after that. That’s what he does and in his personal life, what does he do? He flies hot air balloons around the world. So really, it’s the case. We have unlimited energy when we’re really applying our passions to what we do. I’m sure that everyone on the phone can realize times when they just, time just goes by and they will get up at 5:00 in the morning or they’ll work until 2:00 in the morning when they’re doing something that really drives them.
Dan Janal – How do you tap into your passions? How do you find out what would really make you stand apart?
William Arruda – That’s a great question because you really need to know what your passions are to be able to connect them to your business. In fact, in the branding process that I use, in the first phase, what you do is you actually unearth those passions along with your values and your strengths and weaknesses. You learn a lot about yourself so that you can say, “Okay, which of these things that I have that are part of me—the things that I’m passionate about, the values that I take with me everyday, the things that people around me think are my greatest strengths—how can I take those and apply them?” That’s something that each of has to do; it’s a very individual process because you need to know who you are, what your passions and values are. And also, you need to know at are those people who seemingly provide the same thing, what is it that they’re using to differentiate themselves and how can you ensure that what you’re doing is more differentiated to your target audience.
Dan Janal – You mentioned things about Richard Branson and his ability for taking risks and stuff. Do we have to be so out there in terms of finding out what’s different from ourselves or our passions? Does it have to be that dramatic?
