[비즈한국] If you remove the company name, who are you? Can you describe the kind of person you are without erasing your job title from your business card or explaining your affiliation and career history? Even for those who have worked for a long time, this is a difficult question to answer. More often than we think, we borrow the company's name to define ourselves, and we go through life mistaking the weight of our job titles for our own weight.
At one time, that was enough. It seemed that joining a good company, doing recognized work, and climbing the corporate ladder increased one's own value as well. However, in an era where AI provides fairly plausible answers to anyone, the story changes. Knowledge and skills are rapidly leveling out, and a skill that was special yesterday becomes a common function tomorrow. Ultimately, what matters becomes "how you think and judge" rather than "what you know how to do."
'How to Become a Brand' starts from this very question. After spending over 20 years passing through various companies and building brands, Jeon Woo-sung has now become a solo entrepreneur working under his own name. If his previous work, 'That’s Why You Need Branding,' talked about the 'work' of branding, this book talks about the 'person' who does that work. It is a text in which a man who has created numerous brands looks back on how he himself became a brand.
The book breaks down the process into four categories: 'thinking,' 'attitude,' 'relationships,' and 'work.' Instead of grand theories, the author shares experiences he encountered in the field. It’s a story about how to develop a perspective different from others, why completion is more important than perfection, what kind of responsibility a decision-maker must take, what kind of people to build relationships with, and how to work under your own name rather than a company's. Thinking builds your own perspective, attitude translates it into action, relationships build trust, and work proves all of it. As these things are repeated over a long period, "something that is uniquely that person" is created. The "how" in the title likely refers to this process.
This book has a slightly different tone from common personal branding books. It doesn't teach you how to polish yourself up or become famous. The brand the author speaks of is closer to memories and expectations. It is about the specific sentences that pop into someone’s mind when they hear your name, such as "someone with good taste," "someone who eventually solves even difficult problems," or "someone you can trust and rely on in this field." Perhaps a brand is simply that invisible line of reputation that follows your name.
That line is not easily created. The author tells us to dig deep, fail, and sometimes go against the grain. When everyone else follows references, find the gaps, listen to opinions widely but make the final judgment yourself, and take responsibility for the results. And you must leave a record of what you have done. Because achievements that are not recorded disappear, but writing remains to explain who you are even when you are not there.
This story is even more meaningful in the AI era. It is no longer difficult to get a good answer. Just by entering a few lines into an AI, plausible names, copy, and planning documents pour out. If so, what is left for the human? Ultimately, it is judgment. What to ask, what to discard, what to choose, and whether you can stake your name on that choice. AI can create answers, but it does not take responsibility for them.
The difference between 'Doing' and 'Being' that the author realized after leaving his company is the same story. In an organization, it is visible how busily you are moving, but when you work alone, that is not important. Customers do not pay for how many hours Jeon Woo-sung worked, but for 'how Jeon Woo-sung would view this.' An irreplaceable person is not someone who works a lot, but someone who has a reason for others to entrust work to them—'because it’s that person.'
After closing the book, you eventually return to the initial question. Without the company name, who am I? What sentences will people think of when they hear my name?
Job titles disappear one day. You will also eventually leave your company. Some of the skills you proudly boast about now might be done better by AI. However, a person's taste, judgment, attitude, and trust, accumulated over a long period, cannot be so easily replicated.
Perhaps becoming a brand is not about making yourself widely known. It is, in fact, the opposite. It is not about what more you can add, but about stripping things away one by one. Stripping away the company name, the job title, the flashy career, and seeing what remains until the end. Even so, it is about making someone say, "I want to entrust this work to that person."
If what remains at the end is your own name, that is how that person becomes a brand.