Gideon, the $6 billion OG personal brand

That’s the firm founded by Gideon Gartner, the chap from my headline.  It was so influential in the tech space that our first team trip to the US was built around a visit to their office. Clients were in charge of handing out million dollar IT services contracts to companies such as Infosys, IBM or Wipro, often in technologies that were changing rapidly and where a contract could last up to a decade. How could they be sure they were making the right choice? That’s where the Gartner influencers – they are called analysts – enter with their sophisticated research reports and branded frameworks like the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

Any boardroom conversation about revenue today for a B2C or D2C (I know, I know, I dissed them as fake last week!) will also talk about how there is a shift in spends from traditional media to digital media and to influencers. Here is where Gartner -and B2B marketing – have learnings to offer.

 

Gartner was an influencer way before he founded the firm. He was a top analyst at Oppenheimer writing financial research reports about the nascent tech industry. He then started a firm founded on research driven insights, and importantly, served as a conduit between the buyers and the producers. Annual subscriptions to Gartner can run to millions.

 

A real influencer can shape buyer AND seller behaviour – if they say “this stuff is good” people go buy it.  If they say ‘I don’t know about this stuff or this stuff isn’t good” people don’t. And sellers should change their product as they represent buyer opinions.

Should you invest your marketing bucks with an influencer? Totally. If you think you can shape their opinion in your favour.

Some deliver reach with their relevant audience. Others curate relevant content for their audiences. You need to figure out who you are paying and for what – here is a simple explainer video on how to go about an influencer marketing campaign.

 

The difference is the credible personal brand.

 

Gideon Gartner built his name into one that you could trust with your millions. He did this based on having solid, research based opinions. He was also an astute content marketer long before the term became popular. One of his most famous internal mandates was: “If what you’re writing about isn’t controversial, don’t write about it.”

 

While many of the biggest influencers like Cristiano Ronaldo or Virat Kohli have built their credibility and reach in their professions, Gaurav Chaudhary a.k.a. technical guruji is an example of someone who has built credibility through consistency and advice.

1. Identify the root of your credibility, and how you will build on it

2. What is your audience looking for? What problem can you solve and how much is it worth to them?

3. What is being an influencer worth to you? Because it requires a lot of investment in both research and publication.

I’ve been invited to join Tanya Dubey’s workshop on Personal Branding this Saturday in Bangalore. She’s going to share the processes and systems you need. I am going to tell you my perspective – which is that it is really hard to be consistent – this is issue 622 of my newsletter – if you don’t enjoy what you do! So the hard work is to figure out the why 🙂

 

BTW, Gartner passed away in 2020 but the company is listed and generated $6+ billion in revenue last year.