Wednesday’s promoting tip for authors

Visuals can play a major role in creating your personal brand, especially when you can create an original image, such as the New Year’s greeting that William Reed recently sent to his worldwide network.

I was touched when I received Will’s PDF image of the New Year, along with his greetings and the story behind the image.

It was a simple, but highly personal gesture, one that reinforced Will’s “brand” as words, alone, could never do.

What’s the relevance?

The “big idea” behind William Reed’s personally-created New Year’s greeting is not the beauty of the artwork itself, nor that he took the time to send it. What’s important is its relevance to his personal brand.

Consider: it wouldn’t make any sense at all if I were to send my clients, friends, and prospects a Japanese print, along with the story behind it. Because there would be no relevance to my sending the image.

But, the print is highly relevant to William Reed’s brand; his personal brand is based on the way he helps businesses everywhere bridge East and West.

William Reed represents a unique synthesis of American marketing acumen and skills combined with a deep and passionate respect for the Japanese culture and its traditions. He helps Eastern and Western entrepreneurs and businesses learn from each other, sharing the lessons each has to offer.

Viewed from that perspective,  it’s entirely appropriate that William Reed sent an original calligraphic image that depicting the New Year. (You can read the story behind the image in Will’s recent Entrepreneur’s Creative Edge blog post.)

Lessons from the story

There are several lessons to to be learned from the above story, but the main one is the importance of searching for ways you can put your personal touch on your brand, by giving of yourself.

William Reed could have purchased a greeting card with a similar message on it, but it wouldn’t have had nearly the impact of a one-of-a-kind personally-created graphic that he took time to create and share.

It’s the personal touch that cements brands and relationships in today’s Internet, e-mail, and Twitter world!

Conclusion

The question, of course, is, “How can you create your version of a graphic image that logically relates to your personal  brand?” From another perspective, what is your brand and how can you communicate it using the tools you’re most comfortable using? There may not be many easy answers, but the journey exploring options may help you gain a new and valuable perspective on your personal brand.