Transcript

Ben Casnocha:

So Reid, we’re gonna talk about the art of the personal brand. This is a topic that a lot of people associate with The Startup of You because we all know that companies have brands, and we are making the argument in this book that you, as an individual professional, have a brand.

Interestingly, we don’t talk about it as much in the book as some people expect us to. I think we tend to think about—personal brand is something that happens somewhat naturally as the output of accomplishments and real work and real skills, rather than something that gets directly built or focused on. Right?

It’s kind of like, it’s the—people who have great personal brands that are authentic and deep are usually people who’ve actually achieved something that makes that brand credible.

So let’s start by defining some words, which is: what is a personal brand?

And then—maybe I’ll take a stab at it, then I’d like to hear your reflection on the definition as well as how you think your current brand is articulated in the world.

But I think a brand is the thing that people say about you, at some level. It’s kind of another word for ‘reputation’ and it’s thus not something that’s fully in your control.

If McDonald’s does a whole initiative to refresh their brand, and after hiring a consultant for $300,000 and spending, you know, 600 internal hours with 15 different meetings and meetings about meetings and they come out with an entire branding statement that says, “We are about healthy foods and salads.”

And then you survey people in the world and ask, “What do you think of when you hear McDonald’s?”, and they all say “Burgers,” the brand of McDonald’s is burgers, not salads, despite McDonald’s attempt to say it’s salad.

So the brand—you’re not fully in control of your brand. And so at a personal career level, perhaps your personal brand is if you asked 50 people in your network how they would describe you, or what three salient characteristics they would highlight, perhaps it’s those answers that are actually the substance of your brand.

Agree? Disagree? Or what would you nuance there?

Reid Hoffman:

Well, that’s definitely a truth and so super important.

I tend to think about brand as it applies, especially to individuals—there’s some differences as this gets the companies and products and everything else. But the first is I completely agree that a brand is not—too often the mistake is what you say about yourself.

And it’s like, well, if what you say about yourself is not reflected or caught up in the world around you at all, if anything it may even be destructive ‘cause you’re saying, “I am this,” and people say, “Well, I don’t think you are. So I think you’re either mistaken or lying or diluted” or whatever else.

So that impedance mismatch of not paying attention to what’s reflected in the world, and…yes, you’re trying to move it and nudge it. But if you’re not paying attention to that, you’re gonna make a mistake.

When it gets to personal, I think there’s actually kind of three levels that matter even frankly as recent as like a high school grad or a college grad. One is: what are the people around you who know you…what do they say about you?

And, by the way, that’s really important, ‘cause that’s your network. They may be strong ties or weak ties. They may be the paths of people to you. They may be your paths of people out. They may be people who are willing to ally with you and so forth.

The next one out is—and this one, you know, a lot of people don’t have a lot of—but what is, as it were, the unaided awareness brand of you. Right? So, yes, the people who know you and everything—

But, like, for example, at Stanford—because I’d created this thing called the Symbolic Systems Forum, which was a kind of a student body around this program that I’d majored in, ‘Symbolic Systems’. I actually had something of a broader brand there where people’d say, “Oh, you’re creating the student societies. You’re getting these interesting talks in. You’re assembling these groups in interesting ways and other kinds of things.” And that, you know, caused some positive ripples about ways that I would maneuver and things that I would do.

And then the third, which is a very modern part of the internet, is what happened when someone searches for you? When they search for you, what will they find? And paying attention to that because—

By the way, if you’re engaging with new people if you’re doing things, people will go search for people. And sure, most people’s reflex is, “Oh, well I search for famous people. I search for Tom Hanks, or I search for, you know, Ariana Huffington or—”

Ben Casnocha:

What’s she up to these days?

Reid Hoffman:

She’s doing a startup and still, you know—

Ben Casnocha:

Like the health thing, or—

Reid Hoffman:

Yes, exactly.

Ben Casnocha:

Oh, nice.

Reid Hoffman:

And then, you know, being an important, you know, advocate of sleep and cognitive decision-making.

Ben Casnocha:

I was gonna say—literally, when you said “advocate of,” I thought you—I thought the next sentence was gonna be, you know, “starving children in Cambodia”. But advocate of sleep, an important—sleep needs its advocate.

Reid Hoffman:

Yes. And she’s great. Speaking of like personal branding, like she—

Ben Casnocha:

Oh, she’s great. Yeah.

Reid Hoffman:

She’s great at this stuff. And like, for example, you know, she has this line that she says at many conferences, which is: “Sleep your way to the top.” And everyone goes, “Ahh!”, and it goes, ‘cause it’s like, you know—but what she really means is: get enough sleep that you’re making good cognitive decisions, etc., etc.

And that creates a—that like as personal branding creates a slogan that people remember and resonate and—

Ben Casnocha:

Yeah. So I think to the first couple circles of awareness, people who actually know you well, let’s take a scenario where somebody’s saying to themselves, “I’m actually—I’m really good at sales or I’m really interested in global business, and—or I really love traveling or whatever, and people in my network don’t understand that about me.”

And so there’s this gap between reality—let’s just suppose it is reality, not self-deception—but it’s reality, and how others perceive you. And so then this raises this interesting tactical sphere of, like, how do you bridge that gap, right? Which is what I think a lot of the literature on personal branding—that’s where it starts. It doesn’t cover these—sort of the groundwork. It jumps to, “How do you promote yourself to make sure that people who know you fully appreciate every element of you?”

And I think there is something to this. I think the Arianna example of being memorable is a great example. I also think of Tom Friedman in this case of being able to coin phrases. Like, globalization is an idea that has been around a long time. A lot of people have talked about it. Tom Friedman came up with the phrase, “The world is flat,” and that’s a brilliant phrase. And that book and that idea and that meme traveled very far. And so—that’s, you know, trying to sell a book—but at some level, we’re all trying to sell ourselves and sell the truth about who we are.

And so if you have a passion, if you have an interest, a skill, figuring out a way to package and communicate that memorably without seeming sleazy or over the top seems like the essential skill of personal branding.

Reid Hoffman:

Yeah. And it should resonate in some foundation of truth, but it can be aspirational.

It could be the, “You know, I’m heading in this direction. I have the—I’ve done some, I have the capabilities, I’m going in that direction. I’m capable of a lot more,” just like marketing is normally. It just shouldn’t be the ‘completely off base’. Right?

Ben Casnocha:

Yeah.

Reid Hoffman:

You like—you may have to iterate it, dynamically iterate it as you build that kind of credibility up. But I do agree: slogans, catchphrases, brief communications. It’s one of the reasons why, you know, I kind of advocate to everybody that actually, in fact, having 10-15 minutes at least spent on your LinkedIn profile—even when you’re not looking for a job or anything else—is actually a useful thing.

I myself go through refreshes where I go, “Oh, what set of identities am I presenting to the world? Okay. These things. These are old now, less relevant. So, decrement. These are now more relevant, so describe more—”

Ben Casnocha:

And you’ve had on your LinkedIn profile—so as people probably know, there’s the headline and then there’s the job you hold. So this is—now we’re getting into the guts of this—

Reid Hoffman:

Yeah.

Ben Casnocha:

Which, I do think some of this stuff’s important, so let’s talk about it.

Reid Hoffman:

Yeah.

Ben Casnocha:

I think it’s a mistake when people on LinkedIn have their headline just be their job title.

Reid Hoffman:

Yes.

Ben Casnocha:

I think it’s powerful—and I probably got this from you, Reid, unconsciously, because your LinkedIn profile headline is—well no I saw you added a word, which is a big—we’ll talk about that as a big development in life of Reid—is “Entrepreneur—”

Is it “Entrepreneur. Author. Investor.”? Or “Entrepreneur. Product Strategist. Investor.”? Something like that?

Reid Hoffman:

It’s—

Ben Casnocha:

And you’ve added podcaster, but—

Reid Hoffman:

And I added podcaster. I think it was “Entrepreneur. Product Strategist…”

Ben Casnocha:

And “Investor,” I think.

Reid Hoffman:

And “Investor,” yes.

Ben Casnocha:

So, with a period: so, entrepreneur—period.

Reid Hoffman:

Yes.

Ben Casnocha:

Product Strategist—period. Investor—period.

Reid Hoffman:

And it—and it has moved around somewhat. ‘Business’ was in there for a bit.

I mean the—so I’d have to go check what is the exact current one, but you’re right. ‘Cause I remember adding ‘Podcaster’.

Ben Casnocha:

You added—just recently added it. But I just saw that recently. I’m like, “Wow, that’s a big addition.”

And so that’s, I think, being intentional about how you want a brand in the world, and that’s different than the current job title. And I think the interesting thing about the LinkedIn product is —if you don’t fill out the headline, it will just pull your latest job title.

So if you’re, you know, Partner at Goodwin Procter law firm, that will be the—your headline of your LinkedIn profile, unless you intentionally pick a set of words that capture the essence as you understand it.

Reid Hoffman:

Yeah. And this is actually a great thing in terms of thinking about personal branding is: what would be those relatively small number of words that you would want people to reflect about you?

Now, ideally, it would be like in the people who know you, when they saw it they’d say, “Oh yeah, that’s right! You are a product and business strategist, right? Oh, you are an entrepreneur. You are a podcaster.” And gives them a little bit of a clue of like, what are the things that are kind of where you’re navigating to, where you’re—where the boat’s heading, what kinds of things you might be looking for, what kinds of things you might be receptive to when they come in the door, you know, etc., etc.

And that, I think, that word cloud—which shouldn’t be lots of words, but could even easily be seven, right? It doesn’t have to be three. It doesn’t have to be four. But it’s like, what’s that compact number of words? And that’s actually, in fact, generally speaking what your LinkedIn headline should be.

Ben Casnocha:

And I think let’s dig into this difference between present versus aspirational. You said it’s okay to be a little aspirational. That’s what most marketing is. And I think I would agree, but you can go too far.

Reid Hoffman:

Generally speaking, all of marketing—including personal branding—is better the more you can show versus tell, right?

So if you kind of go, “Look, here’s the things that I’ve done, and here’s the things that I’m part of,” and so forth—that then just by describing them in a kind of a compact and kind of simple, factual way—is that can show very well….Great. Because people getting their own inferences are, “Wow. Like you—”

Like, as opposed to like, you know, “I’m Reid Hoffman, I’ve invested in many multibillion-dollar businesses and duh-duh-duh-duh-duh.”

Like, whoa, that sounds like, “Wow, what are you trying to sell me on?”

Ben Casnocha:

You’re trying too hard almost.

Reid Hoffman:

Yeah.

Whereas I say, “Well, I’ve invested in, you know, Airbnb and LinkedIn and Facebook and Zynga.” You’re like, “Oh, okay. I get it.” Just ‘cause I’ve—I’m invested in these things.

And you go, “Wow, that’s pretty impressive.” And you go, “Great,” ‘cause you described it as a set of showing your investments as opposed to telling that I’m a, you know, kind of a world-class investor.

So there’s a show-versus-tell and always opt for, if at all possible, to do it in a way you’re showing. And that also bridges to the other point, which is: basically be very careful of anything that would really come across as a lie.

So, like, the constant kind of inflation is: team members become team leaders. Like, “I led the team that did this.”

And, you know, like, for example, if you’re putting that on your LinkedIn profile, it’s one of the reasons why a bunch of academics have done research on LinkedIn profiles, and find that they contain many less inaccuracies and errors than CVs and resumes do, ‘cause people kind of either consciously or unconsciously recognize that it’s a whole bunch of people around you who know you, who are seeing what you put in there, and they’re going, “You weren’t the team leader. Sure, you were on the team, but you weren’t the team leader.”

Then all of a sudden you’re branding to them like you’re a liar, and what’s more are when people scratch at it a little bit. They call references and say, “So, so-and-so, that leader of this team,” and they say, “Well, they weren’t the team leader.” They say, “Oh, they’re a liar.” And being a liar is a very, very bad thing. So you really want to go to where the lies—you’re never lying.

Now you can say, “I played a key role on this team and the team accomplished this amazing thing.”

Ben Casnocha:

So can I just ask, ‘cause this seems to be the theme of the podcast, but maybe it’s the theme of our relationship: is the word ‘lie’ the right word?

If I say ‘team leader’—“I was the team leader.” And in fact, I was a team member. Am I a liar?

Reid Hoffman:

Well, the question is, “Will other people who know you and around it and have called or are looking at it…Will they think it’s a lie?”

Ben Casnocha:

Yeah. Yeah. I guess it’s just like: what counts as a lie? versus an untruth versus an exaggeration. I mean are all these lies?

Reid Hoffman:

Well, but like, for example, the reason why I offered this an alternative is, “I was a key member of this team, and the team accomplishes amazing things.”

Other people might say, “Well, you weren’t really that key”—right?—but it’s kind of more of a, “Okay, fine. You may have thought you were key, and I didn’t really think you were key. But I don’t think you were lying.” Right? “Like you were—you might have been overexaggerating a little bit.”

That’s the reason why that nuance—where you could say, “I was a key member,” and you could say, “Well, there were three key members on the team,” or, “There were five key members of the team. Maybe I was the least key of the key members.” Right? You know, and that’s fine. That’s kind of inching forward a little bit, putting your, you know, kind of glossing it a little bit, etc.

And that kind of ambition is fine.

Ben Casnocha:

So let’s talk about a part of—an asset that people have in their careers is their network.

And a way that people often convey the strength of their network is by referencing people they know, which is a long-winded way of saying ‘name-dropping’. And name-dropping fascinates me, right?

You understand what’s going on, which is: someone’s trying to establish credibility, and convey to the world that, “Hey, I’m a networked person, and you should know that about me.”

The thing about name-dropping for me—I’m curious what your take is, I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it—I find name-dropping very annoying, but I have to admit sometimes it’s effective.

When I’m meeting somebody for the first time—or even on their…it’s not so much on a LinkedIn profile, it’s usually like blog posts they might write, or tweets they’ll say, “Oh, and you know, my friend, Barack Obama, and I were playing golf,” or, you know, whatever. “I was hanging out with my buddy, Brian Chesky last week,” you know, just sort of gratuitously mentioning high-profile people in the network. And those are ultra high profile—

Reid Hoffman:

Two friends of mine. Yes.

Ben Casnocha:

Exactly. Thank you for clarifying that. I think I’ve probably did that unconsciously.

When I see that happening, there’s a part of me that says, “Ugh, that’s so distasteful. Like, why do you have to—you clearly are just saying ‘cause you want the world to know that you and Brian Chesky are friends. You don’t really give a shit about the point you’re trying to make about golfing or whatever.”

So part of me that finds it distasteful at a sort of a gut level. But then there’s a part of me that says, “Wow, you and Brian Chesky are playing golf together? You must be somebody. You know, you must have some importance. Brian has a lot of people he can hang out with. He’s chosen to hang out with you? Wow!”

And so how do you parse name-dropping in this context?

Reid Hoffman:

It’s actually a complicated subject, and even has one thing that we cover in this book, which is: there’s phases in your life, and so you should recognize that while when you’re young and up-and-coming, you might emphasize a little bit more towards the name-dropping, and then later need to back off that some—just because you’re trying to be noticed and you’re trying to stand out from the pack. And the fact that Brian rates you and so forth will help you stand out from the pack…you might edge a little bit in that direction.

But also the kinds of principles are—you know, for example, would Brian mind being mentioned in the circumstance? Like, you know, part of, if you’re legitimately that kind of thing, would it be the kind of thing that Brian would go, “Oh yeah, that’s totally cool. I’m totally happy for you to be helped by mentioning it in this circumstance. And you know, like you bringing me up, you’re having a duty of care to your relationship with me, your friendship with me, or whatever else.” I think that’s an important kind of self-check.

Another one is being graceful about it. Like, for example, not like, “Wow, I’m trying to figure out how to mention I know Brian Chesky in this conversation, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

It’s actually in fact, “Oh, well, you know, look: I think one of the great entrepreneurs of our time is Brian Chesky, and I happen to be playing golf with him. And here’s why he’s a great entrepreneur of the time,” and so forth.

Ben Casnocha:

Would you advise—separate from Brian specifically—would you advise somebody on their LinkedIn profile, as they describe their set of career assets, to say something like, “I have a really strong network”? Like to declare that statement at a sort of conceptual level?

Reid Hoffman:

Well, if you were doing it, I would do it a little bit more of, “I’m really grateful to have a broad and diverse network of people who have been, you know, a real help to me as I’ve navigated.”

‘Cause by the way, if you say, “I have a really strong network,” you’re also saying, “I’m maybe more of a hustler” than have hustle. Like, “I’m more of a networker than have a network,” you know, as a way of doing it.

So you wanna show that grace of that you care about those people, that it’s viewed as an alliance—you know, our second book, you know, in this and so forth. So, there’s ways you can do it, and do it with, you know, grace but also strength.

So if you say, “Yes, that can be a great thing”—now, an even better way of doing it is to say, “Well, one of the things I really learned from one of my colleagues, Brian Chesky, was da, da, da.”

Ben Casnocha:

Right.

Reid Hoffman:

You know?

Ben Casnocha:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Reid Hoffman:

You know, and that kind of thing.

‘Cause by the way, then Brian will go, “Great. I’m glad you learned that from me. Me being a—an educator on that topic is something that I’m actually—or sharing that learnings on that topic is something I’d really want. I mean it’s—”

Ben Casnocha:

Attributing a lesson to a high-profile person in your network is a sneaky way of checking a lot of boxes here.

Reid Hoffman:

Yeah. But again, that goes back to the very first principle.

Ben Casnocha:

Yeah.

Reid Hoffman:

Because it’s like the, “Oh, if they would say, yeah, I’m glad you did that.” Like even people, I don’t know if they say, “Hey, I learned, you know, the following from Reid Hoffman on The Startup of You Podcast, or da-da-da.” That’s great!

Ben Casnocha:

If you’re an infinite learner living in permanent beta, as we say in the book, and you’re interested in thinking about your network systematically—every person in your network, what have you learned from that person? What’s a key lesson or an insight that you’ve gained from that person?

‘Cause that’s—not only is it an interesting way to sort of catalog the people you know, it will also allow you to express gratitude to that person for teaching that lesson. And, as you pass on key lessons to others, if you attribute it to somebody, it allows you to sort of convey sort of the generational transfer of wisdom, or kind of how knowledge is embedded in a network. Like, you’re kind of making multiple points.

If I tell you I learned this lesson from someone else, as I tell you the lesson I’m also making sort of the meta point that wisdom has been transferred from one person to another, and now you should pass it on. You know? Do you agree?

Reid Hoffman:

And, that you know it.

Ben Casnocha:

Yeah. So it accomplishes a lot of tasks. It’s almost an interesting, like, network-building exercise of: write down the sentence—a sentence or two of key lesson you’ve taken someone in your network.

Reid Hoffman:

Yes. Exactly. And I think that’s a good thing to do. And so those would be the ways to do it. Because then, by the way, you’re also showing that you value them, that the way that you participate in a network is not, “It’s about me. It’s about me. It’s about me. You’re an asset to me.”

It’s, “We are doing this together. And I value the fact that we ally together. I value the fact that we work together. I value the fact that we help each other.” And I’m showing that in the brand that I’m doing. Right? ‘Cause the—all of that then gets reflected in that personal brand.

Ben Casnocha:

Yeah, totally. And it’s a great gratitude practice, which is something I’m trying to do more this year.

Reid Hoffman:

The expression of gratitude usually means so much more than you possibly imagine it can be. And you don’t need to make a big production—it’s actually better not to make a big production of it. But those little things can be super meaningful in life. And by the way, if someone’s, like, done something amazing, it’s like, “Hey, you did that amazing thing.”

Ben Casnocha:

Yeah. And even people who are very accomplished, very successful people, you might think have been complimented a million times will still appreciate hearing that.

So if you’re grateful to someone even famous—an author that, you know, whose book you’ve read who, you know, they get emails from people all the time, someone like—I was just reading this profile of James Patterson, who’s sold 400 million copies of books, kind of stunning. Or Michael Lewis, who famously reads emails and responds, like, send him a note and say you’re really grateful for something, he’ll probably appreciate it.

Reid Hoffman:

And by the way, if you think—‘cause it is worth paying attention if you think a lot of other people are doing it, and say, “Look, I know you’re getting this a whole lot, but it was great.”

Ben Casnocha:

Yeah, totally.

And one other sort of hack or thing that just came to mind in this discussion is: a sort of ninja move I’ve sometimes seen—I’ve seen people use is if someone asks you a question that is sort of setting you up for seeming self-aggrandizing, what they’ll do is they’ll frame the description as, “People often tell me that I’m X.”

So it’s like, “So, Reid, what are your two or three superpowers?”

Instead of saying, “I’m a brilliant strategist,” “CEOs I work with, they tell me the thing they value most in my contributions is my ability to help with them in strategy.” Or, “People in my network tell me that I’m a great strategist.”

It allows you to assert a brand point, but being really truthful to how brand is composed, which is what other people—how they perceive you and perceive your strengths. And so I found that to be a subtle sort of comms trick.

Reid Hoffman:

That version of it, which I—look, I think is better than the first—is also and then they’ll say, “Well, Reid, what are your superpowers?” “Well, I seek to be a great business and product strategist.” Right? And then–

Ben Casnocha:

Interesting. So phrase it as sort of an aspiration.

Reid Hoffman:

Yeah. And so—and then it’s like, “Look it’s up to—like listen to what other people are saying as to, you know, how good do you think I am.”

Ben Casnocha:

Would that be your number one answer on what are your superpowers? Like in a professional context, someone would ask?

Reid Hoffman:

Yes. It’s part of the reason why it reflects some of the words in the LinkedIn profile.

Ben Casnocha:

Okay, awesome. Well, I think this is really interesting.

So I think for people thinking about their personal brand: at a minimum, inventory your LinkedIn profile tonight, and see what it says. Make sure that it says and conveys the essence of who you think you are.

Then also, I think there’s a takeaway from this conversation as it relates to engaging your network, as so many of our conversations, Reid, in this podcast have led to some network action.

Survey the people who are close to you and try to get a sense of how they perceive you, right? That seems to be a key way to get honest feedback on the state of your brand. And if you notice that if you survey 10-15 colleagues—people you’ve worked with in the past, people you’re working with now—if you ask them, “Hey, what are two or three words you’d use to describe me? Or what are two or three strengths that you would list on my profile if you were writing it for me?” If those don’t match the words that you’re using, then that’s—there’s a gap there, and there are probably some tactics that we’ve talked about here, and we can link to some other things on the website to sort of bridge that gap and try to make sure that ‘you’ who you are and who you aspire to be is the ‘you’ that is in the minds and hearts of the people who you care about.

Should every person have a slogan for their career? Like, should we all have our little marketing jingle or our one-liner? ‘Cause your headline on LinkedIn and mine in the same—I think I took inspiration from yours—just three adjectives is not a slogan.

Reid Hoffman:

No, and I don’t—so I certainly don’t think everyone needs a slogan.

Ben Casnocha:

And I don’t need it. I don’t think I have one, and I don’t think you do. But it’s an interesting question, like is it—

Reid Hoffman:

But like what’s the thing for you, for your projects, for where you’re going? And maybe a word, a slogan, or something else is it—and you certainly should have compact expression of it.

Ben Casnocha:

Yeah. Yeah. Well I do think there are phrases that I’ve like—I think I’ve told you the phrase of, you know, “Dream life is work with entrepreneurs during the day, but have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with public intellectuals, academics.” That’s a version of a slogan.

I’ve also heard, “A wannabe intellectual trapped in an entrepreneur’s body.” Like there—those are versions of a slogan that can capture an essence—

Reid Hoffman:

Yes.

Ben Casnocha:

—especially if there’s tension in your identity, which many of us have.

Okay. Well, thank you, Reid. It’s been a fantastic conversation.

Reid Hoffman:

Ben, awesome as always, and thank you to our listeners.