Maintaining your personal brand

The book is titled From Z to A-Lister: How To Build Your Personal Brand and Su describes it as a reference to the approach she used to build her career here in South Africa. She struggled to make a name for herself after moving here, despite being an A-lister, singer and established news anchor in Thailand and Hong Kong.

“I came to South Africa and I didn’t know a single person and I just thought ‘How am I going to do this’?” Su admitted.

However, after much networking and checking out the social scene, Jen Su soon rose to become a widely recognised name in South Africa, working alongside Gareth Cliff at 5 FM for seven years and then again with him at CliffCentral and befriending local celebrities such as Ryk Neethling, Bonang Matheba, Boity, Zizo Beda and Pearl Thusi.

She said she received daily Facebook messages asking her how she got into the industry, and it was her quest to help others by providing a ‘how to’ reference guide that inspired her book.

She went on to explain that the book is all about managing yourself, the image you portray to the public and using today’s technology to build your network and advertise yourself as a brand.

“It’s focused on the social scene in South Africa, how to network at events and old-school etiquette, looking your very best, making sure that your voice – what you say and how you say it – makes things happen for you. And then also social media, it’s quite detailed on various apps from Facebook and Instagram to Pinterest.

“We are our own brand and we need to control our brand. We need to focus on the direction that our brand wants to take,” she said.

She also goes through the basic do’s and don’ts of maintaining that brand, and one of the strongest points that comes through is manners which is based on Asian graces and her Asian upbringing.

Su makes sure that she thanks those who invite her to the events she attends, and if she is expected to fly out to attend an event, she double checks what is expected of her, financially and socially. Clients fly her out to attend red carpet events overseas and emcee corporate events, and Su makes sure she is 100 per cent clear of her work obligations, and terms of payment.

“Even though I have an agent who handles these matters, it is important to also read through the contracts yourself so that there is no misunderstanding.

“Just using a little bit of that old-school etiquette by remembering to say please and thank you all the time, sending handwritten notes every so often or giving a little photo gift or a token of thanks. It’s that type of spontaneous friendship gifting that leaves people with a great impression of you and sets you apart from the others.”

Jen Su’s book Z to A-Lister: How To Build Your Personal Brand will be launched on 11 November and is expected to hit bookstore shelves in that week.