A New York family bought a ranch out West where they intended to raise cattle. Friends visited and asked if the ranch had a name. “Well,” said the would-be cattleman, “I wanted to name it the Bar-J. My wife favored Suzy-Q, one son liked the Flying-W, and the other wanted the Lazy-Y. So we’re calling it the Bar-J-Suzy-Q-Flying-W-Lazy-Y.” “But where are all your cattle?” the friends asked. “None survived the branding.”
— D.A.C. News

So true, so true, and thanks to my friend Steve Roesler who had this story up on his blog All Things Workplace today.

In a slightly off topic moment, this does remind me of the graphic artist who was proudly relating her brand development project for a local landscaping company, new logo, letterhead, website, etc, ETC. Said it cost about $25k if memory serves. When I asked how the new company was doing now, she said, “Out of business, they ran out of money, or something?”

When someone talks about your personal brand, just remember they are really only talking about reputation. That’s it.

But seriously, the most recent three book reviews at this site were Snowball, Alice Schroeder’s brilliant biography of Warren Buffet, Andrew Zuckerman’s classy portrait book Wisdom (with Clint Eastwood on the cover), and hilarious Men With Balls book by a Deadspin editor. I am in good company.

A trip to Hef’s Mansion is out of the question. I asked, but they said no.

More praise by:

From Barbara Safoni at Career Management Alliance

From Dave Opton, founder and CEO of ExecuNet

From Mike Street at greasyguide.com

Deborah Brown at SurpassYourDreams

Heather Hulman at Examiner.com

Dan Schwabel at Personal Branding

Anita Bruzzese at USATODAY and GANNETT

Alexandra Levit over at her awesome blog, Water Cooler Wisdom.

Naomi Moneypenny at ManyWorlds.

Nick Reddin of Manpower, BOOK OF THE YEAR. wow, Nick, thanks.

Nick Corcodilos of AskTheHeadhunter fame, one of this industry’s most reliable voices said this about DIG YOUR JOB. Read Nick.

From Chris Russell, Secrets of the Job Hunt

From Paul Epps, one of the first bloggers that made me laugh, at EppsNet.

Lewis at Seattle Interview coach wrote a nice post on his blog about the book, too.

Still, when your workforce is 80% under thirty years old, one had better understand new media and especially new ways of communicating with them.  In that spirit, I met Dan Schawbel some time ago.  Dan himself is a mid-twenties technologist who specializes in personal branding for generation y’ers.  He is a nationally known expert on ways the youngest generation now in the workforce can brand themselves.  He interacts with this generation constantly and speaks nationally on this topic.  His blog is a treasure trove of information on this topic and I recommend it without reservation.  You can find it here.

We use our little dog as a promotional giveaway, we mail them to prospects and customers.  On desks all over America, you will see our little orange dog.  It communicates our brand and our sense of fun….and if we brighten the day of an HR person or jobseeker, we consider it a ‘win.’  In that spirit I mailed two dogs recently, one to Robyn McMaster, a brain expert in New York and one to Dan, who lives in Massachusetts.  Neither one are prospects, and will most likely never be customers, either.

Nothing is more positively received than an un-expected gift.  Seriously, I sent these two dogs just because I enjoyed reading their blogs and I thought I would show some un-solicited goodwill, with no expectation or guarantee of something coming back my way.  It proves my point yet again, that something given out will nearly always come back to you, enhanced and increased.

Thanks for the nice positive article Dan, and a belated thanks to you as well, Robyn.