I missed a huge opportunity to get some free promotion the other day. Seth Godin was being interviewed and took questions during the interview. I got 15 seconds of fame. It just wasn't the way I wanted. You can download the 50 minute interview at Waxxi.
The point of this post is to highlight an instance where we do something that is not the best thing we know to do. Often before I speak, I wonder if people in the audience are going to be sitting there saying, "Why doesn't he say something I don't know?" Yet, I know many people who know the right thing to do but they don't do it. So, I'm not sure I need to give new concepts but I know I need to give a new perspective. I need to give a new perspective so that the audience members are more likely to remember what they heard.
If you were to ask me what name should you use on a chat room where you can ask Seth Godin questions, then I would have told you to use your real name or your company name. I have been using the Internet since 1987. I have a habit of using first name, "Roger", and the first letter of my last name, "A". When I graduated, with my new PhD, I decided to add the "Dr." hence, "drrogera" which my family teases me by calling me "Doctor Raj-ee-rah". Presented with the option to input a nick I wanted to use for the Seth Godin chat, I chose "drrogera".
About 21:45 into the interview, Seth notices that "drrogera" is asking some great questions.
Wow, I got noticed….. Oh,no! He just called me "doctor raj-ee-rah" After listening to it again, it was even worse than I thought. I noticed he says. "Who is this person? How do I say HER name? Doctor rajeerah?" I tried changing my nick to ModernMagellan. At 31:30. I got another question asked, Seth says, "this is the Doctor." So much for trying to fix the name recognition problem. I should have just used my real name; during the instructions it was announced that it was acceptable to do so.
Brand awareness is something we all work on (see post from a week ago.). Getting someone of note to even mention your name is a great thing. Try not to mess that up by using a less than optimal name.
Two things happened here.
1) I just did not think about the opportunity
2) I was a little afraid to be too bold and use my Brand or Real Name
I swear I will never, ever forget this lesson. I may forget to use it but I'll never forget that it happened. I'm sure my Personal Branding hero Krishna De will smack my knuckles with a ruler when she reads this.
I'm not sure that post #50 is momentous but I wanted to do something special for an anniversary post. I hope you enjoyed it.
50 Picture from : Nigel Tooley Ltd, (Birthday cards and more)
Roger - thank you for sharing your story with us so that we too can learn.
I won't smack your knuckles - I believe that we are harder on ourselves than anyone else can be!
Yes we are often shy about coming forward about our name at virtual events - it's funny that when attending a live event we do not hesitate to share our name.
Virtual events are great if you want to learn and lurk but what opportunities are we missing for people to hear our name and our business. If we provide great insights or input of value, we are sure to be remembered and perhaps even "Googled".
Perhaps you should re-brand yourself as Dr Roger?! Or Doctor Roger. After all Dr Phil has done pretty well.
You might want to consider leaving a comment on Seth's blog to a relevant and related post and also thank him for the recognition.
What a wonderful opportunity to have him recognise you in that way. Nurture that relationship and he'll probably be one of your testimonials for your second book!
Oh and thank you for the accolade - good job
I use my real name!
Posted by: Krishna De | June 14, 2007 11:25 AM | Permalink to Comment