Be A Dragon - Get An Ego

If you want a darn good read about those annoying people who have started 'building their own brand', then flip to Jane Simms' article in this month's Director Magazine from the IOD.

I am sure we have all experienced the same as she had done - attending some self-help or business guru's online or live seminar when they start off by spouting on about how many books they have written, what companies they have created and sold, how much their life is better than ours, yada, yada, yada.

I have read many of Thomas Power's (co-founder of www.ecademy.com with his wife, Penny) articles on how the web has gone through phases and is not at the 'Follow me' stage which is represented at the nth degree by www.twitter.com and I have to say that I am not convinced. It all reminds me of those clever adverts you would find at the back of newspapers which tell you how to become a millionaire for a small sum. If you reply to them and pay the money, allegedly you would get a book detailing how to take out an advert in a newspaper saying how you can make someone a millionaire for a small sum - hey presto you become a millionaire and so does the next person ad nauseum.

Tony Blair is at it although 10 years in power, some dodgy dealings and a new job he never turns up to might be seen as a drawbacks, but he's earning nicely thank you at £250k for 90 minute speeches, £4m+ advances for his memoirs, and around £4m per annum for advisory positions at financial institutions. Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra and many more have made absolute fortunes out of our ability to get sucked into the promise of a fantastic career, personal fulfilment and large bank balance.

Big Ego, Big Career?

But all this presupposes we have the ego to go do it. Watching the new series of The Apprentice for just a few seconds and it reminded me of all that it is bad in management - this self-belief and lack of depth which seems to be so lauded by Alan Sugar and his gurus. Former Apprentice contestant, Ruth Badger, got her own TV Show doing a 'John Harvey Jones - Troubleshooter' and going in to fix companies essentially off the back of scowling when other people were talking to make them look small or retarded. Character assassination by sarcasm and facial expressions tend to go only so far in business and mercifully I have not seen any new series of such tosh. The late Harvey Jones, meanwhile, made his name building ICI.

Jane Simms points out that Rachel Elnaugh on Dragons' Den has one claim to fame which is starting and busting the company known as 'Red Letter Days' - great concept but poor execution. Yet she has risen from the ashes with a personal brand of some kind of entrepreneurial guru. The difference between many with failed businesses and her is sheer ego, yet why would a failure like Red Letter Days be of particularly good value to others as it was so badly executed?

Ah well, that's for you to find out on one of her smashing 'Entrepreneur Courses'.

There are some who do match ego with success. Simms cites Gordon Ramsay and Richard Branson and they are good examples of well manufactured brands with real substance. Last weekend, Branson flung himself, albeit tentatively by his standards, behind the phoenix-like formed new F1 Team, Brawn. The result was a spectacular PR coup for the master PR man - not only did Team Brawn dominate qualifying to get positions 1 and 2 on the grid but they also occupied the same positions at the race finish - in the team's very first race, and with a British driver at the front. Branson has a real knack of spotting an opportunity and laying out some risk. Team Brawn was hastily put together when Honda pulled out of F1 due to the recession - how they could have done with Branson's nose for an opportunity and stuck it out.

Meanwhile, Peter Jones of Dragons' Den has won a Government contract to set up an Entrepreneur's academy ahead of many an eminent person and team who know plenty about how to teach the skills of business, entrepreneurship and success. He is a man who has made a lot of money over time and has built a fantastic personal brand of late. This is a big risk for him to take as now he has to prove beyond the puerile facial expressions on the show and fats cars that he has more then one success inside him. It will be interesting to see the result.

Personal Branding And Success

It is certainly wise to build something of a personal brand. We all do it - it's the ability of a friend or colleague to actually say what they think we are about if asked. Our brand is the mark we leave on people. You can build that up more by using clever tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, blogs, and having the front to build a business around yourself. The danger always is that there needs to be some level of substance behind it all as no one likes paying for something that does not add value.

So, do as Jane Simms recommends, brand yourself by all means but make sure there is something that underpins it.

What Does A Business Secretary Do?

Lord Mandelson loves to be seen as the dynamic White Knight helping Gordon Brown save the world. It's just not clear what he actually does.

There's plenty of posturing about 'The Government is not a bank' and 'The lender of last resort', then we get measured words of how not every business will be saved and that those with more environmental friendly plans will be saved in preference.

Except, of course, the car industry - there are some industries, said Mandelson, which were too strategic to left the wither.

Mighty strong words. This was back in January and since then we have seen car companies announce massive decreases in sales, start to lay people off, cut wages and production and working hours in an attempt to stave off what seems to be inevitable. Some have been in dire need of support - LDV trucks, owned by Mandelson's good friend, Oleg Deripaska, has frozen production, Toyota have announced big cuts as have Honda while Vauxhall teeters on the brink of extinction.

Yet still we see nothing on the £2.3bn rescue plan which Mandelson announced back in January.

Criticism Does Not Help - Action Does

So today we have Mandelson issuing his own defence as to why the £2.3bn package remains just words. He blaims the fact that talks between the Treasury and the Bank of England, who in his estimation are in 'pole position', have taken too long in talks on this supposed 'complex area'. If it was that complex, then don't announce it, surely. Besides the Bank was probably oo busy printing money - at least that was doing something.

Mandelson effectively sidesteps any criticism and has dispatched one of his lackys, fellow peer Lord Davies, to find out what is going on. It seems in Government these days you don't use the vast arrays of communication technology at your disposal, you dispatch ones man.

Earlier yesterday Union officials, bankers and car company executives arrived at the Department of Business to discuss the Government's support package. No doubt Mandelson trotted out this pathetic excuse that others were to blame and so nothing happened.

The operative words are, this was the Dept of Business' support package and it was their responsibility to make it work. If they thought the car industry was dying and needed their help, then it was the Dept of Business who should have led the process, led negotiations between the Treasury and Bank of England and kept the industry at large informed. Instead, Mandelson has been too busy hobnobbing in New York and having fun on TV playing the 'Big Man'.

Once again, Government Minister's think by just saying something clever, it just happens, exactly as the ideal world scenario says it should. But like big bank bails outs and fat cats, the devil is in the detail and there is a huge difference between ideas and their execution. Big numbers don't impress us anymore - it's all about what is going to be done about it.

Once again, we got a lot of pretty talk and no action which will probably cost a great deal of jobs through dalliance and indecision. Mandelson should stick to getting green liquid thrown at him, at least he's good at that.