Back when I was in college, I met Andy Sernovitz while working at an internship at the Association of Interactive Media in Washington DC.  Since then, I’ve been tracking his movements, most recently as President of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.  Now, over at Escape from Cubicle Nation, Pam Slim discusses Andy’s recent remarks at Jason Alba’s Personal Branding Summit.

In the session, Evangelizing Evangelists to Build Your Business and Build Your Brand, Andy reminded listeners that there is no “and” in “brand.”  Actually there is, but what Andy meant is that you should not convolute your brand and your business by trying to be all things to all people.  For example:

• Bill, the Cleveland plumbing specialist AND acupuncturist to the stars
• Juan, the executive coach  AND expert iguana tamer
• Linda, the financial planner for growing restaurant businesses AND sunblock consultant to nudist colonies

Andy said that the hardest thing for entrepreneurs to do is to let go of portions of their identity so that they can focus on one specific, targeted brand.  But this is exactly what you have to do if you want to catch the attention of customers, press and web surfers.  Most people think that targeting a specific market niche is limiting and restricts opportunity.  In fact, the opposite is true:  the more specifically you define who you serve, the better chance you have at finding them, and they you.

Allow me to admit that I have been guilty of this myself.  For years, I’ve been a twenty-something career author and expert AND an interactive marketing consultant.  I’ve tried to make things a little clearer by narrowing the focus of both roles – for example – targeting twenty-somethings in business as opposed to twenty-somethings in general – but more than once, I’ve heard people express confusion as to what exactly I do.  So, Andy and Pam, thanks for the prompt to re-think my positioning.