Do you need a personal brand to sell?

When I was a kid, I used to think everyone else’s house smelled weird. I just didn’t get it. Why would everyone else make their house smell a different way when it was so much better to live in a scentless house?

Brand is like the smell of a house. Maybe you hate air fresheners and artificial scents (me too), but that doesn’t mean your house doesn’t have its own distinctive olfactory signature.

So, if you’re into direct answers: yes. You need a personal brand, but only because you already have a personal brand. I remember back to the 7-11 rule: people make 11 assumptions about you in the first seven second you know them. Or something like that. It rhymes, so it’s definitely true.

Unless you’re selling copiers in 1986, very few of your first impressions today are contextless in-person encounters. Our brand follows us everywhere. It’s what we think about, what we talk about, where we talk about it, what we wear, and any other context that surrounds us.

Sales has a myriad of idiosyncrasies that seem totally normal to us, but communicate very clear brands to buyers. My wife always used to joke that my old company had a signature haircut that all the men wore. You can probably picture the one.

Our choices… where we blend in and stand out… are our personal brand. In a world where people buy from people, that’s especially important because there’s a limit on how much time they have to “meet the real you.” A personal brand then is a way to clearly communicate the real you. It’s a chance for someone to know you before they know you.

This is critical in sales because buying software is all about certainty. Certainty beats features. In order to gain certainty, a buyer wants to know you’re on their side and can deliver exactly what they need. There’s a lot of room in how you do that, but that’s the ultimate outcome of your personal brand as a seller. Anything that runs counter to you (and your values), your competence, or your care for buyers? That’s all noise that muddies the waters like a mixed metaphor. It decreases confidence.

To recap: we need a personal brand because we all have a personal brand. If you don’t know what yours is, it probably looks a lot like the rest of your industry… and some of that’s good… and some of it definitely isn’t.

There’s no substitute for intentionality. So reflect on who you are and your message to the world, and then start chiseling away the things you aren’t until you can clearly communicate who you are.