Taking a holiday from your personal brand

The summer holidays are here and thoughts turn to where you’ve stashed those bamboo beach mats and whether you can squeeze another year out of that old bottle of Ambre Solaire.  So I thought it would be timely to talk about an important part of your personal brand: the out of office message.  Considering, as Amazon boss Jeff Bezos said, “Your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room,” the summer holiday is a time when that absence is taken to the max.

But thanks to the out of office message (OOO), with a little thought you can still be working your brand magic even when you’re not there.

The first thing to do is to use your OOO in the first place so that you really take time off, instead of being one of those Blackberry addicts checking their messages on the beach while the kids paddle in the surf.

The second thing to do is to write your OOO message in the same way as you would if you were there to reply to the email in person, following these three top tips:

#1 Include a salutation (‘Hi there’ or ‘Thanks for your email’ are good) and your usual sign off.  Don’t forget there’s a person at the other end of that email so basic courtesy should still be shown.

I knew someone whose OOO would read, with no introduction, ’Monday: London, Tuesday: Head Office, Wednesday: Leeds, Thursday: Leeds, Friday: day off.  Call my PA if you need anything.’  As the recipient it felt like I’d been barked at by a drill sergeant instead of the person who I knew had a really welcoming personal brand.

#2 Manage people’s expectations by giving an indication of when – or indeed if – you’ll reply or who the emailer should go to in your absence.

I once had an OOO message from someone who said that due to the volume of emails they receive they would delete the contents of their inbox on their return from holiday, so if my message was urgent to resend it after the specified date.  That may or may not appeal to everyone but, for me, it was worded in a positive so I respected their stance.  The point is, they were going to do the deleting anyway so it would have been worse if I’d been expecting a reply that was never going to come.

#3 Use the opportunity to communicate something about your personal brand, especially if it gives the recipient of your OOO a hook for a personal connection.

I once received an OOO from someone who’d been at one of my seminars and part of his message said, ‘I’m away walking in the Lake District and will return on…’

It looked like a throwaway comment but he later told me he’d thought about what he’d learnt in our session and had in fact put it there specifically.  And it worked a treat because a) I learnt something about the sender I hadn’t known ie they were into hill walking b) as someone who enjoys walking in The Dales myself I felt an affinity with the person, strengthening my buy-in of them and c) it gave me a great conversation starter for when I next spoke to them, “So, how far did you go?” and/or “Was that your first time in The Lakes?” and/or “Can you recommend any good routes that begin and end at a pub?”

As you can find out from these other blogs about communicating your personal brand, every time someone comes into contact with you, in whatever way – whether you’re there or not – is an opportunity for them to receive another clue about who you are.  And when people buy people, that’s the key to letting them know what they get when they buy into you.

Let me know what the best/worst OOO you’ve ever received is or any tips you’d like to share  for making the most of your OOO.