CHAPTER 26Parlay Your Way to Success: Social Proof Yourself

By now you should have mastered a few tricks and made your way far around the Minion-Circle. Take the next step and go from being just another hamster in the circle to ultimately controlling more of your destiny. How do you do that? By creating and enhancing your own brand. Unfortunately, your firm will not help make this happen because as your individual brand grows, their power over you (and ability to underpay you) begins to dwindle as you turn from being just another replaceable cog to potentially an irreplaceable piece of the franchise.

Become a Kardashian

How do you build your brand? Well, I doubt you can get an E! show where cameras follow you around the clock as you bitch to your siblings about the perfect toenail color, so for starters, here's some suggestions you can try at your company:

  • Build Your Client Base. Creating a personal brand starts one client at a time. Make sure your clients know you by first, second, and last name. If you're a junior scrub, make sure they know who stayed up all night fixing typos, triple checking numbers, and getting the presentations to the meeting on time. The firm may be building its brand, but so should you. Then perhaps one day you can band together with your two good-for-nothing brothers or sisters, start a firm, and become rich and respected like Salomon and Lehman—or not.1 The point is, you need to build an exclusive network of clients and you need to be on big deals. ...

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