Managing a Personal Brand

When I’m not running a reputation management business, serving client needs in communications, public relations and social media, I do other stuff. Yes, I’m a human being. I live in a house, I have a dog. I am a mother. I have friends. I have blogged, personally, and in recent years, a lot about my hobby of competitive pie baking.

The pie baking has become a big part of my personal brand. People gravitate toward it. It’s interesting, in that not a LOT of people are competitive pie bakers, or even pie bakers for that matter. It’s easy to understand and it’s not particularly controversial. (Although, I’m told, some prefer cake.)

The “pie thing” is a good aspect of my personal life that I can share freely online. It’s not private, or so intensely personal that I’m not willing to let people know about that part of my “off the clock” time.

Once, in invaded a client conversation in a way that made me uncomfortable. Once. It was in the middle of a new business conversation with a potential client who, in one breath was asking for a proposal, and in another, encouraging me to bring a coconut cream pie to the meeting to win the business. NOT COOL.

It’s fun to go down the road of talking about pie, or what I do or am personally, but that can’t be a detour from the business at hand. While I am comfortable sharing the human side of me and my business, let’s stay on communications, or get back to it, while we’re working together.

I’m glad to have an outlet outside of work. Everyone should! But I’ve had to be careful not to let the “pie thing” overshadow what I do professionally.