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

CHAPTER 6

I CAN BUILD MY OWN PERSONAL

ROADMAP ON MY OWN TERMS

STEP 6: ESTABLISH YOUR

BRAND YOU STRATEGIES

“Success is no exclusive club. It is open to each individual who

has the courage to choose his own goal and go after it. It is from

this forward motion that human growth springs, and out of it

comes the human essence known as character.”

—HOWARD WHITMAN

THE WORD STRATEGY IS overused and misused; it crops

up in so many situations to describe so many kinds of actions that

it has lost all meaning. Executive after executive has pushed aside

papers, presentations, and plans prepared by employees, claiming

they were not “strategic” or were too “tactical,” or that the presenters

were confusing strategy with objectives. What exactly is a strategy? Suf-

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fer no more confusion. For our purposes, strategy is simply the an-

swers to the following questions:

 How do you accomplish your goals?

 What options are available to achieve your objectives?

 How do you eliminate any barriers to achieving your

goals?

 How do you leverage your strengths to achieve your new

positioning and aspirations?

 What are your choices to attain your desired positioning?

 How do you turn dreams into reality?

 How do you achieve our targeted results?

The late Peter Drucker, management guru, defined strategy as “the

science and art of using all the forces available to you to effectively

execute your plan and accomplish your well thought out goals.”

That is, strategy is the science and art of using all the forces avail-

able to you to execute your plan and accomplish your goals.

Perhaps an example is the best way to define the term. Let’s say

that a friend asks you to develop a strategy for getting him from

Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, California. On the surface, this

seems simple. Your answer might be found by searching online for

flight schedules and airline deals. Once you’ve found your friend a

great airfare and some good alternative flights, you then suggest

that he take a cab to Reagan National Airport, then catch the

flight to LAX and have him pay for the ticket with his credit card.

After all, this strategy will accomplish what your friend has re-

quested—or will it?

With no discussion of your friend’s goal, your suggestion is

merely a good guess. To truly provide your friend with a workable

strategy, you need to know a bit more about his objectives—then

Managing Brand YOU

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I Can Build My Own Personal Roadmap on My Own Terms

you would be in a better position to recommend the optimal strat-

egy. For instance, what if your friend wanted to fly only an Amer-

ican airline? What if he was interested only in flying first class?

Suppose he was staying closer to Dulles International Airport?

What if he could only make the last flight out in the evening? And

the what-if questions go on, making a very important point here.

Strategy is developed only after specific objectives and goals have

been defined. Strategy also takes into consideration available re-

sources (i.e., what if your friend had only $500 to spend on his

trip?) and realistic aspirations.

Now, let’s reconsider this recommendation. You try to better

understand his goal and receive this picture of success:

“Well,” your friend responds, “I have always wanted to see Amer-

ica, and I thought a cross-country tour from our nation’s capital to

southern California would be just the ticket. You see, time is really

no object, as I have a month to make the journey. My car is in tip-

top shape, and I am looking forward to seeing some of the great

sights of our country. I would like to stay in some small bed-and-

breakfast inns along the way as well. I also want to combine big-city

tours with visits to a few national parks. This is a trip I have

dreamed of for many years, so I want a clear itinerary yet be nimble

enough to take in special opportunities along the way. As long as I

am back here within 30 days, I am pretty much open to any ideas

you have for me to enjoy this great country. And so, my good

friend, what is your suggested strategy for me to accomplish this?”

Obviously, an airplane trip will not accomplish this goal. You re-

alize that your friend has multiple options for accomplishing his vi-

sion of this “American Dream Vacation Tour.” You now begin to

uncover some potential barriers to this clear goal. First, there are

so many places to visit that it is almost impossible to know which

are the best for your friend.

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