Friendship and personal brand

Having friends who know you because of your career is wildly important and valuable. Sometimes you need people who care about you in the context of work. These are colleagues who will probably never buy from you and they don’t work with you but they will champion you and help you see your blind spots.

A mistake I see people making when they are trying to establish personal brand is that they try turning people who know them personally into their target audience. The direct sales people fall into this trap and it’s unfortunate. They end up using their personal social channels to push product and at first the personal friends are supportive. Empowering, even. But after a while when their feed is filled with nothing but weight loss shakes and leggings, the personal friends start to tune out.

The reason they became your friend to begin with was to enjoy the weekend with you, see pictures of your kids, and escape from their own work life. They became your friend to find their own balance. And you need them to keep yours.

This is why I keep my personal social channels free from my career. This is why I keep my work conversations with personal friends very limited to “how is work going?” type of questions but never deal making.

Business can be lonely sometimes. You need those friends who know you and your work life intimately. You need to be able to have candid conversations. Dialogue that is unfiltered. Where you are not worried about making a deal. Where you can speak freely and get advice but also give advice and champion each other.

These have to be new friends. Friends who you meet in the context of their profession and your profession.

Whenever I meet someone knew I have an internal filter working in the background. I never know who this person is going to be to me. Are they going to become a personal friend, a business friend, or a customer. I’m open to all three. I have no agenda going in, other than to decide how we can be most valuable to each other.

Quite truthfully, I want as many business friends as I can possibly have, and maybe fewer customers and even fewer personal friends. The more business friends I have the more people I have to keep an ear out for problems they know I can solve. The more referrals I’ll get.

Of course, my business friends vary in terms of closeness. Some just know what I do and we’ll engage on each other’s posts. Some will enjoy the occasional lunch or we connect at a conference once or twice a year. Others, we talk on the phone. Share ideas. Give candid feedback. Those relationships dip into personal and you end up with this rich blend of someone who knows you professionally and personally and they can accept both and they are eager to hear about both.

You need those kinds of friends. Those are the ones that end up with you through thick or thin. No need to compartmentalise.

Said Jim Rohn:

“Friends are those incredible people who know all about you and still like you. Friends are those people who are coming in when everyone else is leaving. Be sure to make the kind of friends on your way up who will take you in on your way down. Life is a bit of both up and down but with true friends — friends who care regardless of your circumstances, the ups are more automatic and the downs less devastating.”

Sometimes it can be hard to accept that not all of your personal friends care about the ins and outs of your business life. But it’s ok. Sometimes we all need to escape our work life into our outside community. But other times we need friends that can help us drill into our careers. Just like we need friends that can help us drill into our faith or a basketball game or a house project.

This is why I have a Facebook page dedicated to my personal brand. It’s a place where I can be Business Torlando. I may invite my personal friends to follow my page but if they accept the invitation they know what they are in for to a degree. They are free to unfollow but stay connected to my personal life. This is why I try to make friends on LinkedIn.

I don’t need everyone to be a customer. I don’t need everyone to be a close personal friend. But the pool party for my business friendships can be as big as the ocean.

Now for your listening enjoyment is a song about the opposite of good friends. But still a jammer.

Deep Fried Frenz — MF Doom