Here’s your latest issue of Influence Anyone—where you get a playbook each week to shape decisions, change behavior, and become impossible to ignore, from Howie and the Behavioring Company team.

🚨 NEW! I have a new SPLURGE section at the end, where I share a recent favorite purchase of mine.

Sorry Jeff, I’m going to refine it. “Your professional brand is what decision-makers remember about you when an opportunity arises.”

That’s my perspective — the difference between a personal brand and a professional one. A professional brand needs to attract the right opportunities from the right people.

And today, I’m going to give you the four-steps to get your boss (or any decision-maker) to think about you first, when an opportunities appears.

Ready? LFG 🔥

🎁 There are thousands of you and I have only 10 Inner Propaganda books left. (Number 1 USA Today Psychology Book Bestseller, Number 1 USA Today Business Book, and LA Times Bestseller.)

If you want to understand what drives our beliefs and our lives, you’ll want to read this.

Want it for free? Details at the end of this email.

To be considered for an opportunity before you even say anything… that’s your professional brand at work.

A brand is nothing more than a web of memories (associations) in the mind of those you wish to influence. Want proof? Here’s a thought experiment: Think about any known brand out there. Say Volvo.

And in your head will be the image of the car, the idea of safety, the logo, maybe ads? This web of memories is brand. And so anytime someone thinks “I need a safe car for my new family”, the brand Volvo appears. Because they’ve been installing these memories, these associations in your head for the past decades. That’s it.

What about your name? What memories are you installing? What associations appear?

As promised, influence in 60 seconds.

If you want the deep dive 👇🏽

Maybe your boss is looking for someone to lead an important project, or a client needs help solving a problem, or a conference organizer needs a speaker.

You’re not physically there in the room, making your case, and yet, your name comes up… why?

It’s because of what already exists in their mind about you. That’s the power of having a professional brand.

Everyone tells you to “niche” down. I agree with the principle, that you need to be focused on a type of person, because if you are for everyone, you are essentially for no one.

But the problem with most niching or segmenting exercises is that it often begins with demographics — industries, titles, roles, gender, age etc, then going deeper on the problem they are facing.

That is backwards.

When you do that, you may be artificially limiting your market and you are assuming that people with the same demographics have the same issues (hint: they don’t.)

So don’t start with demographics, start with the trigger.

“What happens right before someone starts looking for a solution you are best suited to provide?”

For example, imagine Maya is a director at a large company. She wants to take on bigger leadership opportunities.

She could say: “I want to be known as a great leader.”

But that's vague.

Instead, she identifies a specific trigger:

“When a complex, cross-functional project needs someone to lead it, I want people to think of me.”

Now we have something to design around.

Your trigger could be:

Notice how different this is from simply picking an audience.

You're identifying the moment you want to be retrieved from memory.

So ask yourself:

What needs to happen for me to want someone to think of me?

Write down that moment.

Now that you know the trigger, ask:

What do I want them to think about me?

This is the association you want attached to your name.

Back to Maya.

Her trigger is:

When a complex, cross-functional project needs someone to lead it…

Her desired association might be:

“Maya is a cross-functional leader, she excels at simplifying complex ideas and helps everyone involved feel at ease with her dry wit.”

Maya is connecting herself to something specific. Think of it like creating a mental shortcut:

Complex cross-functional project → Maya.

Your goal isn't to have people remember everything about you.

It's to make the right association easy to retrieve at the right moment.

What are the three most important associations you want with your name?

Here's where most people get professional branding wrong. They think they can simply tell people what they want to be known for.

Those things can help, but memories are built through repeated signals and experiences.

Maya can't simply announce: “I'm great at aligning cross-functional teams.”

Again and again and again.

Eventually, something interesting happens. People stop needing Maya to tell them what she's good at.

They've experienced it and they start to repeat it to others and to her.

It then becomes more and more true in the minds of all those who’ve heard and experienced this about her. This is called the Mere Exposure effect: a psychological phenomenon where people develop a preference for a person, song, product, or idea simply because it becomes familiar through repeated exposure.

This is why repetition matters so much in branding. If you're already tired of talking about what you want to be known for, there's a good chance other people are only beginning to make the connection.

So ask yourself:

What can I repeatedly DO, SAY, and SHOW that reinforces the association I want to own?

Finally, you need to know whether the memory you're trying to install is actually there.

Because there's a big difference between:

What you want to be known for and what people actually know you for.

Here's a simple experiment.

Find three to five people who know your work reasonably well and ask:

“If someone asked you what kind of problem they should come to me for, what would you say?”

Then listen. If it’s what you wanted, great. If it’s not, keep going.

TRIGGER
When do I want to come to mind?

↓

ASSOCIATION
What do I want them to remember about me?

↓

REINFORCE
What evidence am I repeatedly giving them?

↓

TEST
Is that actually what they remember?

Then repeat.

The ultimate test happens without you knowing about it. Someone encounters the trigger: “We need somebody who can get these teams aligned.”

And another person responds: “Call Maya.”

That's first in mind.

Brand is one of the most powerful ways to influence.

(Do you have what it takes to build your professional brand? Find out with a free assessment here: professionalbrandquiz.com)

Disclaimer: I am NOT paid by Ridge (and it’s not an affiliate link)

This is definitely one of my favorite purchases this year. The Ridge 20W Magnetic Power Bank. It charges my phone quickly, it has all the cables you need embedded in the device AND the best part? A digital readout of how much power is in the battery ❤️

I took this bad boy to Italy this summer and it kept my phone ready to navigate and take pictures all day.

🎁 10 copies of Owen’s new book Inner Propaganda left! Does no one read books anymore? (this is hilarious btw) All you have to do is reply to this email and say “I want it!” and you get a free book.

Don’t forget to give me your mailing address.

Unfortunately this will only be for folks in the USA.

Professionals of influence, I’ll see you next Sunday! 😉

Change behavior, change lives 🤘🏽

Howie Chan

Creator of Influence Anyone

P.S. Still looking for feedback on what you think of being a professional of influence 👇🏽