Can’t Figure Out Your Personal Brand? Write Your Eulogy
A Morbid (But Useful) Marketing Exercise
Content Warning: Death and Dying
Whether you like it or not, your personal brand is affecting your career success. And depending on how you’re managing it (if at all), it’s either pushing you forward or holding you back. Don’t take my word for it — in an article written for Entrepreneur, Ryan Erskine — a Brand Strategist at BrandYourself — shared 22 insightful statistics compiled from various reports by the likes of Deloitte, Nielsen, and Altimeter that demonstrate the undeniably immense value of personal branding. One, in particular, stands out :
“Of all executive recruiters, 90 percent say they conduct online research of potential candidates.” (Forbes)
Perhaps it’s an executive recruiter typing your name into Google after seeing it on a resume. Maybe it’s an event organizer clicking on your Instagram handle after seeing it tagged in a photo. Perhaps it’s a reporter scouring through Twitter bios to find a subject matter expert worth interviewing. Or maybe it’s a friend recommending you for a speaking engagement based on a blog post you wrote. (All real scenarios, by the way). No matter the situation, if you aren’t treating your personal brand as an asset, it’s probably becoming a liability in ways that you’re unaware of. It doesn’t matter if you’re a student, a job seeker, or an executive — a well-defined personal brand isn’t a nice-to-have anymore.
Look, I’m well aware that this isn’t the first time someone has implored you to invest in building your personal brand. I’m sure you’ve heard the benefits a dozen times before, either at a conference, in an article, through a friend, through your boss, wherever. And if you haven’t, the evidence is literally in your face with each scroll through your social media feeds. Now, you either know that you need to invest in building your personal brand (but have no idea how to start), or you’re like me and going through a slump. Well, allow me to share with you a simple, but odd, framework to discover (and refine) your personal brand:
Write your eulogy.
Yup, you read that correctly. I’ve walked brands of all sizes through complicated branding exercises. I’ve facilitated activities with rooms of founders, marketers, and executives, all with competing visions of what their company’s brand should be. The one instance that inspired this morbid strategy saw me in a branding exercise that was dragging on for days, and days. Strong personalities couldn’t see eye-to-eye on what the brand did, who they did it for, and how the world was different as a result. Frustrated, I asked a blunt question:
“What do you want people to say about your brand when you’re not in the room?”
Any marketer worth their salt knows that Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon) has the best definition of a brand: “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” I took it a step further by asking the team to imagine what people would say about the brand 100 years into the future, when it was no longer in business. Within an hour, the team had articulated their mission, vision, values, principles, and purpose. The question pierced through the confusion and got to the heart of the matter.
The exercise is simple, and you can get it done in one sitting. Here’s how:
Get in the right headspace. Simulate the circumstances that a loved one might experience in preparation for delivering your eulogy. Grab your favourite pen, a fresh sheet of paper, and a seat where you do your best thinking/writing.
Simulate constraints. Decide how to end this exercise. I find that time-based (i.e. “I’ll stop writing after an hour.”) or result-based (i.e. “I’ll stop writing when I run out of space on this paper.”) is best.
Imagine your death. Think about how you want to go out. Do you die in your sleep? Do you die while skiing through the alps? And then think about when it happens. 50 years from now? Next year? Imagine the inevitable.
Start writing. Write out what you hope your family, friends, co-workers, customers, and champions might say about you. Get into their headspace and imagine the following: what you said, what you did, how you made them feel, and the impact you had on their life (and the lives of others).
Take a break. Once finished, step away from the eulogy. Do something light and happy. Binge This Is Us. Do what you need to do. Congratulations, by the way — you’ve written out one of the most important things you’ll ever write.
Skim for attributes. When you’re ready, bust out the highlighter and go back to that eulogy and highlight keywords and phrases. Look for adjectives and values, and start to compile them somewhere — ideally, another sheet of paper.
Find “the promise.” The things that you’ve highlighted will comprise the promise you hope to have in this world. Arrive at the core statement of how the world will be different as a result of you being in it. That right there is your value proposition. That, right there, is your personal brand.
Look, if this exercise is too morbid for you, that’s understandable. Not everyone deals with mortality the same way. Heck, this is the last thing I’d want to write if there was a recent death in my inner-circle. If that’s the case, only envision an awards-ceremony instead. But let me tell you — I’ve done both exercises, and have found the eulogy to be more potent because it projects further out into the future and detaches itself from accomplishment-based attributes.
Ultimately, you’ll find a dual benefit to this exercise: 1) Reflecting on your death kickstarts Parkinson’s Law, which states that “work expands so as to fill the time allocated for its completion” and 2) Accepting that you’re going to die in the distant future, and contemplating the things you want to be true by the time you kick the bucket, will clarify your purpose.
So go ahead — research the average lifespan of people in your city. Then open your calendar, schedule your death, and go to town on your eulogy. Within an hour, you’ll come out with the foundations for building the most robust personal brand statement you’ve ever built.
