The Visibility Reach Pyramid

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Welcome to Jon Michail’s Personal Branding Masterclass. Jon is the founder and CEO of image group international an award-winning image consulting and personal branding pioneer established in 1989. This podcast will bring you old-school wisdom, inspiring ideas, strategies and hacks for the new tech world. Here you will learn everything about personal branding: the system, the techniques and the right mindset to have a successful personal brand, image and reputation.

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Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of my podcast. Today, we will talk about the visibility reach pyramid. But before we started, I kindly ask you to rate the show on Apple Podcasts. And once you do, please send us an email confirmation. And we will send you a book the real-world guide to authentic personal branding. Thank you very much. Now let's go back to our chat, the visibility-rich pyramid is imagined as a pyramid and breaks down into five places from top to bottom. So separate that into five parts. And that virtually becomes the structure of this so we can get some clarity on why this pyramid is important, at least from a visual perspective for your branding journey. And the pyramid basically communicates to the world certainly from your perspective, that if you look at the whole five, so imagine that the first one is what we call the Invisibles that know brands and the unknowns. The second one is what we would call the local expert. It's a near brand in the development stage. And it's getting some sort of level of recognition. The next one is what we would call a regional expert, so becomes a recognized brand that the next one becomes the national expert. So that becomes a national superbrain I'm going to give examples from all of this in a second. And then international expert or the global super brand, that becomes basically the top the pyramid within your you know that brand is recognized worldwide, I'm going to give you examples and sort of will fit in also with some of the things we've discussed in the past. So this is irrelevant, really on the pyramid, you can be any in any particular spot, or we'll call that position, you know if we can call the invisible from 12345 Run to the top. For clarity's sake, at least that's something that you can sort of correlate with some of the things I'm going to be sharing with you. Now, executives, entrepreneurs, and general business, all of them specifically can be either at the bottom of this particular pyramid or right at the top. So a typical, you know, invisible in the corporate world, obviously, is somebody that might have a job, basically, it's got a sort of job for life type mentality, doesn't do anything other than the job, they work and has no visibility whatsoever. So that will be typically somebody like that. And of course, a lot of organizations, governments, NGOs have got a lot of those types of people, including, of course, business in general. So that's what we would call everything from could be in any profession, everything from law, to management, psychology, you know, real estate, you could be in that level, the problem with all of that is, of course, you're not known, you know, you're not really heard most of the time, and you're not valued from the perspective of what we would be certainly recommending, having said that, some people purposely choose to stay there, you know, and don't want to be known. And some of them have got legitimate reasons for that. Certainly, certainly super-powerful people super, super, super powerful people that have so much power and wealth to the level I'm talking about beyond the super, super-rich, I'm talking about beyond that, and that has so much of money and power, that doesn't really care about that, because they've already got everything, you know, so that's, you know, there are legitimate reasons why you'd want to stay also invisible. And of course, you know, if you're a criminal, you probably don't want too much visibility. And of course, if you're a spy, probably the same thing unless you're James Bond. It's certainly the aspect of Invisibility there are also legit reasons why you wouldn't do that. The next one is what we would call the local expert, and that's the sort of the Neo brand development stage. We'll call that number two. And what that means is, in that particular moment, you get you're doing a little bit of development, you're sort of getting up this pyramid. In most cases, you've got a system in place designed to get you high and high in reference to getting known getting recognized and of course Getting established as a brand, you know, you're, you're in his hierarchy right now, and you're doing the work that needs to be done. And again, this fits in with an aspiring politician just getting started, they know they need to get known otherwise, first of all, if they don't get known, they won't even get elected, you know unless they've been put in there as a stooge, you know, so in most cases, if you, you know, are authentic about this, and you want to make a difference out there, you definitely will be looking at how to get myself known how to get myself to influence and have some impact. And you can only do that by, of course, being visible. Other examples of that is, you know, associations and businesses, of course, that we've covered many times, and it could be also aspirational as well, people that you know, aspire to be more successful. But you know, at times, we've just done the hard work without, of course, being visible enough to get noticed. So that will be the second part. The third part, as we go into this pyramid, we'll call it, again, the regional expert, the recognized brand, you know, good example, there would be a recognized brand, from a regional perspective might be thinking about your region, your state, your city, who's recognized there might not be recognized throughout the country. Okay. And again, it fits in with right across the board and fits in with, you know, health, for instance, you might have a health expert in your state, but it's not recognized internationally, you might have another type of individual like, for instance, a lawyer, right, or some sort of doctor or any form of professional, that a tradesman, for example, that has some sort of recognition, regionally, let's say in this state, but is not known nationally, but at the same time, that also works very effectively, because if you look at the US, for instance, the United States is a good example, because their market is, you know, 330 million compared to our 26, they are over 10 times our size in population well over, they can have regional brands that really, in the comparison to the Australian perspective would be seen as international experts, right? Right at the top, but they are that because of their population base. So you can be, you know, you can run New York, for instance, and have that market in New York. And in the case, comparing it to Australia, it's like your international, just on the sheer numbers, and what that means from the point of view of visibility. So all this plays a part. And of course, the regional aspect of forces gets you there. But in from an Australian perspective, I believe that's not enough, because the market is too small and farther countries, it's very similar also, that we have similar populations, it's too small, and you need to expand from that and think beyond regional. And that's when national comes in. And by the way, everything I'm sharing with you today, because of the internet, okay, and the opportunity of social media, if you do this effectively, you can certainly make your brand national or international, if that's where your aspirations are. And of course, with our clients, I'm always recommending that we go for the moon, because reality is if you can do it in your country, well, and you get the recognition here, why aren't you leveraging so you can make this international, if definitely if that's one of your aspirations. And certainly from an ambition point of view, the more ambition there is regarding that, of course, the more we can, you know, support the reality of that becoming real from the perspective of getting to the top of that pyramid, but it's your choice. And the next bit of that is the national expert that I've just sort of explained and what the national expert is virtually a brand that's known throughout the country. And a good example of that. And actually, if it's snowing throughout the country, this is where it also could start to leak through into the international level as well. But good examples of that from an American perspective. You got Michael Jordan, although the he's gone also international. You know, you have Bill Gates, of course International, he's definitely International. You know, Richard Branson, again, definitely national and international. So as you as you can see, it sort of leaks in the moment you hit National and you become like top of that game you start to also then filter into the international the top what we call as the number one what other examples I can give you there you know, Mark Cuban in the US also sort of fits into that if you if you look at the Australian perspective, a brand now that's becoming very, very well known out there. You know, Andrew, Forrest, okay. And of course, a lot of other business tycoons that specifically have used branding effectively, to get known, you know, with intention and most of them actually have gone international businesses as well. But remember, it didn't start that way. It all started, in most cases very small, it might have been even the power of one guy. And because of the ambition, because the aspirations because of the hard work involved, they also then created the success here. And if we'll look at this from a pyramid perspective, a graduated to number four, and eventually became number five on this pyramid right at the top. And what that means is then they've become an international expert, a global super brand, and in many cases over time, and iconic brands. So iconic brands, and definitely some of those brands I've already mentioned to you before would fit into that some of these internationals, but I want to give you some more, you know, an iconic brand would be for instance, to this day, you know, Tiger Woods, even with you know, the ups and downs that he's had over the last 10 years, iconic brands, you know, Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, iconic brands might be Audrey Hepburn, Hollywood superstar. These are all iconic brands from an Australian perspective and some iconic brands as well, by the way, Dick Smith, you know, Dick Smith is is recognized as an iconic brand, maybe not International, though, okay. So you know, maybe his around them, number four, sort of creeping into the five. But I certainly having said that will not be comparing him with some of the other Pinnacle brands that I've just mentioned, or iconic brands, David Beckham to this day, you know, not the greatest footballer of all time, but certainly an iconic brand right to this time. We're even you know, after his retirement, been an iconic brand today, you know, his business is still carried his legacy and is worth over a billion dollars. Another iconic brands, of course, is Mickey Mouse, that's an iconic brand, you know, part of Disney that's lasted sort of time, these are all brands at its best international. And if you have a look at some of the iconic brands, even non-human, you know, you've got Barbie and you got Lassie, and you've got Harry Potter, okay, these are all iconic brands, you got Star Wars, these are all iconic brands basically have outlived a certainly their initial popularity and become more legacy brands in many cases.
So this is what I have to share with you for today. You know that pyramid specifically is not perfectly scientific. But it is it's a guide to show you how you can evolve and get to the pinnacle if that's what you choose. And if you choose to stay invisible, that's okay as well that's a choice. Just know that whatever choice you make, there's a price to pay for the pros and cons. And that's something for you to work out. So that's it for today. I hope this episode was useful to you. And if it was please share it with your friends, colleagues, etc. If you can find me on social media that will be good. My Twitter is Jon_Michail. My LinkedIn is Jon Michail and on Facebook you can find me under Image Group International. As always, I thank you for being here. I appreciate your time. Until next time, stay well healthy and abundant. Cheers.

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Jon Michail’s Personal Branding Masterclass" Podcast is sponsored by Image Group International, a global team of practical, digitally savvy personal brand and image strategists, based in Australia, committed to maximizing your impact, influence and authority in the business world. To learn more and apply for your personal coaching, seminars and group workshops please visit imagegroup.com.au or call 1800 631 311.