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I recently had a chance to sit down with Liz Strauss and discuss personal branding.  Liz is a social web strategist and community builder, who has written extensively about personal development and its intersection with professional development.

Liz writes most frequently at Successful Blog and is a founder of the highly successful business bloggers conference SOBCon.  She has been named to the Top 100 Social Media & Internet Marketing Bloggers, Top 100 Most Influential Marketers of 2008, the 50 of the Most Powerful and Influential Women of Social Media, NxE’s Fifty Most Influential ‘Female’ Bloggers and her blog is listed on Alltop Social Media and Alltop Twitterati.

According to EatonWeb, “Liz Strauss is perhaps the most influential relational blogger on the Internet.”

TODD:  Do you believe in “personal branding?”

LIZ:  I believe in Product You.  It’s more than a brand.

You can change the positioning of who you are.  You can fit yourself into a job.  That’s how most of us were raised.  That’s branding.  It’s positioning.  If you’re a product, once you’re made, you are what you are.

Everywhere you are is an expression of who you are.  Whether you’re writing a book, or working for a company, or giving a speech . . . all of those things are expressions of who you are.  If you can get “who you are” straight, it’s getting the job to fit you rather than you fitting the job.

TODD:  So, “who you are” is more important than “what you do?”

LIZ:  Companies are starting to wrestle with the fact that with social media, to be customer facing they have to allow their employees to be people with their customers.  People are talking to people.  Are you Todd or you the company?  Are you doing this for Todd or the company?  The truth is you’re doing it for both.  And it should be.  What’s good for you is good for the company as well.

TODD:  Does becoming a product dehumanize you?

LIZ:  I don’t think it does.  Sounds more human to me than “human capital.”  I’d rather be a product than a “consumer” or a “market.”  I am a value proposition.  I have something to offer.  One of the great things about looking at it this way, is it becomes an equalizer.  When we’re all sitting on the same side of the table as individual products, we communicate our individual value along with our collective value.  We have conversations that may lead to working together.

The ultimate 30 second pitch is being able to say the phrase, “You know that’s what I do.”  It’s not at all, “Let me tell you what I do.”  It’s listening long enough to get to that pitch, which is not a pitch at all.

TODD: How do you get to the point where you know what you are as a product?

LIZ: Ask people what they see when they are looking at you.  Pay attention to how they respond when you put yourself out there.  Look for patterns.

Consider the question, “What do you talk about when you’re with your closest friends?”  That’s where your core values likely are.  What you return to again and again, that’s where you belong.

TODD:  Is online culture making us more authentic or less authentic?

LIZ:  Is there an “us”?  It depends on who WE are.

Online culture is a lot like a city.  There are places I don’t want to go.  I encourage people not to go into some of the back alleys.  The places where I hang out have helped me grow exponentially.  But it’s because of the people I talk to, not because I’m online.  For me, online and offline are always converging.  Of my online friends, I’ve probably met 90% of them in person.

I’ve met liars online and I’ve met liars offline.  I don’t think being online or offline is going to change that.  Authenticity is something you value or you don’t.

TODD:  What advice would you have for people who are just starting to define themselves online?

LIZ:  Clearly put a stake into the ground as to who you are and where your boundaries are going to be.  Define yourself well instead of letting the Internet tell your story.  That’s the point.  If you’re not telling your own story, someone else is telling it for you.

TODD:  How can people more effectively tell their stories?

LIZ:  It’s no longer possible to separate who you are from what you do.  You have to be a person first.  Then you have to be knowledgeable.  But people also have to know that you care.  A knowledgeable person that cares.

The best interview question I’ve asked for years is, “If my resume was identical to yours, what would only you bring to the table?”  Your story is wrapped around this: how are you unique?

I was talking to a talented young woman recently, and she told me that, “For years, I’ve bought into the idea to keep your head down.  Accomplish things, accomplish things, accomplish things.  Experience is everything.”  She said, “I’ve finally realized that experience doesn’t matter.  Everyone has experience.”

Experience won’t get you anywhere.  It’s who you are that matters.