Sales and marketing people need a way to be remembered easily – a way to create and maintain some top-of-mind connection with clients and prospects. Simple fact: The more you are remembered, the better your top-of-mind connection will be with those who need to think about you often!

Most people think of business or logo branding when we talk about personal branding. They picture their company logo or the company tagline or believe the wrapped vehicles are all about personal brand. A company logo is not personal. You must think personal.

I’m often told by restoration marketers things like, “I’m friendly and that’s all they need,” or, “I always tell a joke and they remember me,” or, “I always wear a logoed shirt.” The fact is your prospects don’t care about you as a general rule. They certainly don’t care about “fire-water-smoke-or mold,” or your all-about-you company literature.

Survey after survey has shown us that people forget your name quickly, and they forget your company name in just a couple of months. Bringing your clients donuts will help them remember you as the donut-dropper, but not as the trusted advisor. You simply cannot just go through the motions and be a stop, drop and roll marketer. You need to bring advice to every interaction. You can’t be a trusted advisor if you don’t have a legitimate advice.

Bringing trusted advice builds the relationship, partly because it builds trust. And we all know that if they don’t trust you, they won’t do business with you! Remember buying that car? You didn’t feel comfortable with, or trust, the car salesperson, and so you didn’t buy from them.

Insurance agents get many marketers and salespeople through their doors every day, and those marketers are all saying and doing the same thing. With so many darkening their door, you better stand out. Be different. Have a shtick or personal brand that separates you from all the rest!

A couple examples with some of the marketers that I coach:

• One young woman is friendly, bubbly, happy to the extreme. She leaves a wrapped piece of bubblegum with every visit.
• Another grew up on a horse farm in Florida, and wears cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. They remember her as the “cowgirl.”
• I have another marketer that leaves a “jack” with everyone. Her name is Jaclyn and she goes by Jax, so a jack from the jacks game gets her remembered.

When you’re out of the room, you should know what they’re saying: “He’s an innovative marketer. She knows a lot about insurance. He knows everything about the plumbing industry! She always leaves bubble gum, and she knows exactly what we do in our effort to promote our business. She’s a walking social media expert.”

If you are aware of a weak area in your competition, capitalize on it and make it part of what you do best. Having a summary move (also called an elevator speech) also separates you from the crowd as a narrative no one else is sharing. If you think that simply leaving company literature with prospects is good enough, you are wasting your time and money on brochures that are thrown in the wastebasket.

A personal brand is important for a marketer because it's the best way to share your authentic message and attract your specific, preferred clients! A personal brand helps you stand out from the many salespeople calling on the plumber or insurance agent.