How do you learn about the brand you have already built?
I thought my ‘brand’ started when I left TV and launched my women’s leadership platform in 2012. Last night, I was reminded me that my brand started many, many years before that.
For 15 years, I hosted a TV show on Saturday mornings, piping me into the living rooms of first and second generation Indians across the country. Each week, in the show, I shared about the newest release from the Indian film industry. For my mom, it was her connection to home-a land thousands of miles away, and left behind for a better life in America. Hosting the show connected me to my childhood. Each night, as a family, we would watch a Bollywood film. I learned to speak Hindi by connecting the words in the subtitles with the emotions on screen.
For the many years that I hosted the show, I travelled to a closed circuit studio in New Jersey, pre-taped it and returned to my life in New York. I wrote everything I said, and I loved the creativity of that exercise. It balanced use of the left side of my brain, which delivered business news on network TV on the other days of the week.
Last night, we signed up for an intimate dinner in the Lower East Side, sponsored by Air France. It was an activation inside the annual New York Wine and Food Festival. The featured menu and prix fixe dinner was the creation of Chef Chintan Pandya of Indian restaurant Dhamaka and serial restauranteur Roni Mazumdar.
I haven’t hosted the show since **December 2017***but folks still do a double take and say “Joya?” with a ready recognition from the show. I realized that my ‘brand’ actually started in December 2002, when I started hosting AVS.
How do you learn the brand you have already built?
I ask my clients to do “First Impression Audit”
We find out what you are ALREADY known for. What’s the ONE word people associate you with when you aren’t in the room? What do friends constantly ask your advice on?
Ask six people you trust the questions below.
Try not to pick the ‘yes’ people or people who tell you what you want to hear. They can be former employers, colleagues, current clients. The goal of this exercise is to get clues on what you are already known for. Who will these 6 people be?
The questions:
What do you see when I walk into a room? What’s the first impression I make?
What skills can I improve to be a better ________
What do I do well now?
What can I improve on in the future?
What is the one word you think of when you think of me? What do you associate me with?
Admittedly, it takes a bit of courage. In my Mastermind, we talk about our findings in an intimate circle. I’m currently enrolling the 2024 class.
