As clients go, I'm not gonna lie to you, I am sure that Kevin O'Leary would be one of the worst... but every gal likes a challenge so here goes my imaginary pitch to the one-note wonder.
An open letter to Mr. O'Leary ...
Dear Kevin,
Building a personal brand takes time and I must start this note by congratulating you for the work that you have done thus far! Your brand assets are known far and wide in this great country of ours and the fact that you have also landed in the big boys playground in the U.S. with Shark Tank is also admirable -- kudos to you and high fives all around!
But, and this is a big but, creating a personal brand and creating a legacy brand are two different things and if we were to work together, I would want to create a legacy plan that would allow you to move beyond the realm of D-list celebrity all the way to a solid B or beyond. Think Honey Boo Boo level, Kevin.
But, in order to get to that status, we would want to examine your current brand assets and see how you fare -- we can only work with what we have and authenticity is the name of the game here and integral to your future success.
For the most part, we will look at the three tenents of a successful personal brand and do our evaluation from there. Let's look at how you score in Mastery (how well you know your craft) Delivery (are you on time/budget/reliable) and Chemistry (how well do you connect with people).
Taking a look at these three areas will give a sense of what we have to work with and what needs to be worked on if we are to take you to Honey Boo Boo land.
So, let's start with what we know.
Mastery -- given that you are known as that "billionaire guy" on the Dragon's Den, this should be an easy one to give a grade to... hmmm, wait a minute, wasn't there a recent spate of articles in the Globe and Mail on your actual net worth and past business performances -- ouch, this could be an issue if we are looking to elevate your brand to that of Master of the Universe on the money management front.
You haven't actually made as much money as you let on in your past business dealings, have you? And O'Leary Funds is not really performing up to snuff, is it? And that guy that you have running it is a tad, shall we say questionable on the Mastery front, isn't he?
OK, let's park the Mastery discussion for now -- we can always come back to it. On to Delivery.
This should be a piece of cake -- if I am correct, you're tough but fair on Dragon's Den -- you vet your prospects very carefully and then you deliver expertise and money to those you believe in. Oh crap, according to the Globe piece, you don't even return phone calls from those that you shake with -- that's a bit of a bugaboo.
Are there any good news stories from DD -- how many of the deals have you actually followed through with -- is there anything that we can work with here? Anyone who will vouch for your ability to deliver?
How about that educational software company that you created -- you certainly must have delivered there? What, wait a minute, according to the article, you were fired from that software company six months after its acquisition -- it's not looking good on the delivery front, Kev.
Well there's always chemistry -- people have built legacy brands with little more than charm and a great smile. Look at Pamela Anderson -- not the sharpest tack in the box, but she's got a great rack, er smile and that counts for something!
And, you have been known to comment that people come up to you on the street and tell you how great you are so there's got to be something we can work with.
But, there's just the little, tiny, smallest of small challenge of you being universally known as a one-note wonder, an annoying, small man with a huge ego -- that could be an issue for us. But I'm banking on the fact that you tell me that people love you and since your co-host on the Lang and O'Leary Report, Amanda Lang appears to be a hot personal brand on the rise (love her), I am sure that we could ride us some coat-tails to the next level here.
Trust me, Kev, I am sure that with some humility, good deeds and follow-through we can put some gas in your tank and start to build that ever-important legacy brand.
I'm free for a coffee when it works for your schedule -- call me!