The last couple of days have been consumed with public speaking on Personal Branding - I delivered a workshop for Durham Business School on Wednesday and another for Business Link yesterday. Needless to say, I can’t speak anymore so am taking to the keyboard instead! Whenever I am speaking, I always ask the audience to tell us something that we might not know about them - to illustrate how we buy into people on an emotional basis.
No one buys vanilla, we like others quirks and traits and beliefs - choc chip, cookies and cream, pecan toffee - it allows us to relate to each other (or not)! Do you remember Boris Johnson before the elections? His minders determinedly kept him quiet, concerned that he would say or do something that might kill his chances of becoming Major of London. And it resulted in an uproar in the press with cries of “Free Boris”. Londoners buy Boris because he is different, speaks his mind and what we didn’t know then is that he has also proven himself to be a super hero, recently rescuing a woman being intimidated on the streets by a gang of girls who he called ‘oiks’.
Anyway, enough about Boris - I learned some pretty interesting things about various people in the last couple of days. One of the chaps at Durham was almost sold as a three year old, but his parents managed to get him back and another had played professional football, just for one day. A woman yesterday had met the Dalai Lama and another rode a motorbike bigger than she is. And then there was a woman who had sailed around the world. Now, while none of this is that extraordinary, it brings home how very human we all are. All of these people would have disappeared into a faceless crowd had we not learned something about them.
So at your next team meeting try this out. Ask everyone to share something about themselves that others might not know. Oh, and ask them to keep it clean - there are some things we really are better off not knowing! And I would love to hear your stories too - please tell us something about yourself that we don’t know…
