More important than marketshare

A few years ago, I was invited to do a conference at a tech show on innovation and entrepreneurship. Another speaker on the bill got me curious. He was talking about how to 'be approachable'. His name was Scott and he was dubbed 'The NameTag Guy'. Another corny gimmick I thought.

I popped in to see his presentation (I was secretly looking for a good laugh, I must admit). Was I ever wrong! To his credit, I felt like an idiot to have judged the guy without understanding his message. Full of sound content, he was showing us how to be 'that guy', just like he was the NameTag Guy. His moniker came from one day, as a student, wearing a nametag saying 'Hello, my name is Scott' and then deciding to never take it off afterwards - sleep and shower included. He even tatooed on his chest. This social experiment led him to discover how approachable he became just by wearing a permanent nametag. It also led him to become a world expert on personal branding.

I've been following his career and blog since then and he has not ceased to impress me with great content and material. I often use him as an example in my classes. Recently, he did a post that cuts to the core of branding for entrepreneurs :

what is your mindshare.

He describes the 4 variations of mindshare, with accompanying questions:
- When you’re the FIRST person that comes to mind. (Immediate Mindshare)
- When you’re the OBVIOUS person that comes to mind. (Duh! Mindshare)
- When you’re the ONLY person that comes to mind. (Sole Source Mindshare)
- When you’re the BEST person that comes to mind. (Number One Mindshare)

It got me thinking about what kind of mindshare I wanted to give off personally and professionally. I want to be 'that guy' but what is the 'that' ? In my case, the difficulty comes from having built and sold multiple projects. I'm close to figuring it out, but I thought the principe that Scott put forward should be shared.

The post here
The blog here
The main website here
The video website here