Push and Pull Personal Branding Strategy - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Push and Pull Personal Branding Strategy - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career If youve taken any marketing class than youve heard of a push and a pull strategy.   A “push” promotional strategy makes use of a companys sales force and trade promotion activities to create consumer demand for a product. A “pull” selling strategy is one that requires high spending on advertising and consumer promotion to build up consumer demand for a product. This works in the same fashion when building personal brands, to some extent.   When I first started blogging, I commented on just about every blog and emailed hundreds of people, which of course doesnt scale to well as you build your brand name.   I didnt have a sales force, but I did create evangelists throughout the world to help spread the word.   Aside from commenting on blogs (I still do!), I was writing articles for other blogs and magazines and participating in various associations.   After about 6 months, my strategy transitioned from push to pull because my brand became more visible and people started coming to me, instead of the reverse.   By accumulating value and a network, I could invest more time into being productive with the magazine and now book.   It almost works like a game of tug-of-war, which Im sure most of you have played in your lifetime, whether at college or camp.   You let people win the first few games and then its your turn to pull and claim victory.   Throughout the loses, you learn what youre doing right and wrong. To me the real goal of personal branding is to be recruited based on your brand (who you are, what you can provide and what youre passionate about).   Its far easier for this to happen when youre name is out there, but it cant get out there without pushing first.