Many of us know the importance of maintaining our own personal brands. From Twitter and Facebook, to business cards and personal brochures, we’ve heard the message. Determine your brand—and own the space—as business today is all about niche marketing.
But what happens when there’s more to you than just one brand? What if you are a polished finance-type during the week but on Saturday nights front a hard rock band? Maybe you’re in marketing by day but a writer of trashy romance novels at night, or perhaps you pay the rent as a department manager while off hours auditioning for theater roles.
How should a person effectively manage more than one personal brand, or dual identity, without jeopardizing career prospects or compromising artistic pursuits? Let’s look at some real-world examples.
Be upfront
By day, Juliette Mutzke-Felippelli works in PR in Orange County, CA. But when the sun goes down she’s part of a husband-and-wife DJ team pumping out the hottest House and Techno mixes in clubs from Rio to New York. Mutzke-Felippelli believes the best bet is to be straight up about her two roles and show how they are not only compatible, but offer a strategic advantage.
“At my job interview I was asked to bring in press releases I’d written, so I showed examples from my DJ/music producing project,” Mutzke-Felippelli says. “I also got to show off my experience in designing and managing the social media profiles that I use.”
Mutzke-Felippelli has found a way to combine her two brands, and the skills she learns in one complement the other. “As a DJ in my free time I can practice the skills I’m learning in PR and social media to enhance exposure for my side project, which makes me better at what I do in all areas.”
Jeff Perry of Minneapolis-St. Paul is another believer in marketing the different facets of one’s life. He bills himself on Linkedin as a “Recruitment advertising executive by day and a professional, conservatory-trained musician by night.” Perry advises those with alter-egos to look for employers that are compatible with your artist brand and to showcase the advantages your talents bring to the table.
“I used to think a music degree and the skills that go with it—composition, performance, improvisation, arrangement, project management—was not valuable in the business world until I realized one thing: good companies don’t seem to complain when someone has imagination and knows how to apply it. For musicians and other artists this is second nature.”
Christine Tieri, Creative Director of Smith & Jones advertising in Boston, agrees. “For many years, we employed a graphic designer who was one of the most professional, talented and buttoned-down employees by day, but also played bass in a very successful hardcore band,” Tieri says. The same creativity, energy, and team work he brought to the band he also brought to the office. “Our clients actually thought it was pretty cool he was on our staff, and they loved him.”
Keep it undercover
Not everyone wants their off-hours activities under the purview of their employer, however. Performers and writers have have long used a stage name or nom de plume to indulge the artist within and avoid potential reprisals.
Michael Lovas is a business consultant in Spokane, Washington. But when he’s not speaking or coaching professionals and entrepreneurs on building credibility and emotional intelligence, he plays drums in a blues/funk band where he’s known by the moniker “Psycho” to the musicians and bikers he relaxes with.
“I associate with some pretty strange looking people,” Lovas says. “It doesn’t serve anyone to co-mingle the identities. I had a stage name long before the internet, and as I bump into people who knew me back then, it’s always a surprise when I realize that don’t know what my real name is. I kind of like the anonymity.”
But what if you already use your given name in your weekend band but don’t want to have to water down your rocker persona for the corporate world? Here’s a tip to promote your band while keeping yourself below the radar. “You can circumvent the search engines by creating a JPG art work incorporating the names of the band members,” says William Howard, a marketing and communications professional in Charlotte, NC. “Make sure the name of the JPG file doesn’t include your name to keep it from being discovered in an image search.” People searching for the band will find it— and see your glam-rock self—but the site won’t come up when that finance recruiter searches your name on Monday.
Leverage the unusual
Vanessa Holmes, a London-based Brand Development Director, sees an alter-ego as a way of differentiating oneself in the marketplace. Holmes has a friend who is a dapper healthcare economist and college lecturer. However, in his off hours he communes with the hereafter through tarot card readings and séances. At first these identities appear to contradict one another. But Holmes realized economics and fortune telling both involve predicting human behavior based on making observations. “Since this is his personal brand we are talking about, all aspects of his character seem equally important so we figured one area could potentially inform the other,” Holmes says.
They let the professor’s dual identity out of the bag and as it turned out, the professor’s undergraduate students liked the idea of attending a séance delivered in a more intellectual way, one that demystified illusions and explored their fascination with the unknown. And what of his peers and business associates? “We found that a little bit of magic can certainly help liven up business meetings and economic presentations,” Holmes says.
If you can find compatible ideas that can guide both your day and evening jobs this can help make you a more interesting person in both endeavors and you will probably feel more satisfied not having to be at war with yourself.
“Authenticity and relevance are of the utmost importance in personal branding today,” Holmes says. “The trick is to find a way of communicating one’s personality, skills and interests in cohesive, well differentiated and meaningful ways.”
