Author: Paula Pant

What can M&Ms, McDonalds, Harry Potter, Aquafina, Taylor Swift, Jeopardy, and Bed Bath & Beyond teach us about landing a dream job or securing a promotion?

Plenty.

Imagine you’re at a job interview.

You’ve rehearsed your answers, polished your resume, and you’re feeling confident.

But what if the key to landing that job isn’t just about your skills and experience? What if it’s about how you make people feel?

How you make people feel is your brand, Zane says.

That’s what Leslie Zane, a Harvard Business School alum and prominent branding expert, talks about in this interview.

She says that whether you’re trying to get a new job, a promotion, or more customers for your small business, it all comes down to how you build your personal brand.

Zane breaks it down into three main ideas: be salient, be relevant, and be distinctive.

Being salient means making sure people remember you. It’s not just about doing your job well, but about connecting with people all over your company.

Zane gives an example of a dental hygienist who calls patients after their appointments to check on them and offer advice. This extra touch helps the hygienist stick in people’s minds.

Being relevant is about focusing on the good stuff. Zane says if you make a mistake at work, don’t dwell on it. Instead, do more good things to push out the bad memory.

She talks about how McDonald’s dealt with rumors about “pink slime” in their food. Instead of denying it over and over, they started showing how they make their food with fresh ingredients. This helped people forget about the pink slime and think about good things instead.

Being distinctive means standing out, but in a way that still feels familiar.

Zane tells a story about the game show Jeopardy. When the longtime host Alex Trebek died, the producers tried inviting different celebrities to host the show. But viewers didn’t like it. The ratings only rose when they chose Ken Jennings, a former champion contestant, as the new host. He was familiar enough that viewers felt comfortable with him.

Zane also talks about how these ideas can help small businesses. She says it’s important to reach out to new customers, not just focus on the ones you already have.

She suggests finding ways to connect your business to things that people already enjoy.

If you run an accounting firm in Kansas City, for example, you might talk about local sports teams or famous barbecue to help people feel a connection to your business.

Throughout the interview, Zane emphasizes that building a strong personal brand isn’t about bragging or being fake. It’s about creating genuine connections with people and consistently showing your best qualities. You’re creating buzz about yourself. The more positive connections you make, the stronger your brand becomes.

Zane’s advice goes against some common ideas about marketing and self-promotion. She says you don’t need to stick to just one thing or only target a specific group of people.

Instead, she encourages reaching out to as many people as possible and finding ways to connect your skills or business to things they already care about.
In the end, Zane’s message is that success in your career or business isn’t just about what you know or what you can do. It’s about how you make people feel and how well they remember you.

By focusing on being salient, relevant, and distinctive, you can build a personal brand that turns heads in meetings, gets your resume pulled from the stack, or has customers lining up at your store’s door.

Zane’s approach suggests that the right personal branding can make you the first choice, not just another option.

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