Follow her example by using bold authenticity to stand out in the marketplace
Gabourey Sidibe is using brand consistency to make the most of her big break.
This game of life requires you to be confident and consistent. If you say you are the best—then bring it. Show your successful projects, letters of recommendations, and praises from your (former) employers and colleagues.
The competition to secure an opportunity can be challenging—entrepreneurs must deliver a consistent and confident brand each time. Branding—as mentioned in earlier posts is—a consistent feeling, image and experience desired from a product conveyed to the general public. Basically, you the entrepreneur are the brand.
Enter brand Gabourey Sidibe, the NAACP Image Award recipient and Academy Award nominee. She is the unlikely next big star, her debut role as Claireece “Precious” Jones in Precious: Based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire, she has been working consistently in Hollywood. Brand Sidibe has allowed her personality to take center stage and foment demand simply by being herself.
We get it that Sidibe isn’t the “standard beauty” that Hollywood seems to crave, and she isn’t being raved about as much as uber-waif and fellow Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan, but Brand Sidibe is a one-woman show oozing with determination, talent, and girl next-door appeal. Her brand is unconventional, confident, consistent, powerful, authentic and well liked. What could have been easily 15-minutes of fame, is still a precious moment developing for the star.
As entrepreneurs and women we must learn from Brand Sidibe to love the skin we are in to attract the big break. How many of us miss the mark because we don’t believe in our gifts? Is it because we are busy worrying about the competition, or is because we lack confidence as it relates to our talent? All you need to succeed is within you.
When shock jock Howard Stern made his crass comment, “…Everyone’s pretending she’s a part of show business and she’s never going to be in another movie. She should have gotten the Best Actress award because she’s never going to have another shot.” Sidibe made Stern eat his words when she recently hosted Saturday Night Live, and announced that she’ll have a recurring role on Showtime’s new comedy “The Big C,” along with the upcoming film “Yelling to the Sky” and co-hosting "The View" next month. Not bad for an actress who had never acted before.
Start your campaign of brand confidence and consistency today. Trusting that you have what it takes to win; showcase your character and knowledge to standout; deliver to your client what you pitch; and display the confidence to make it happen. Here are some tips to get started:
1. Define yourself and love the skin you are in by your standards (warts and all).
2. Do your research as it relates to the marketplace. What can you bring differently to the job/contract?
3. Show up to win, it’s all an attitude and mind-set
4. Have fun and enjoy each moment of life.
What are your strategies for winning? Let me know your thoughts.
Karen Taylor Bass, The PR Expert, provides entrepreneurs, corporations, and mompreneurs with essential branding, marketing, and public relations coaching; www.karentaylorbass.com and www.taylormademediapr.com. Follow Karen's tips and Caviar & Chitlins moments at Twitter, twitter.com/prexpert.
