The US Presidential Election is upon us, and it's creating global interest on a number of levels. For a start, we'll either get the first African-American President or the first female Vice-President. Second, with the current financial crisis, it's fascinating how are the candidates raising and spending money. You have four seeds to sow in building your reputation - your time, your influence, your talent and your money. Let's take a look at how the money works in building your personal brand...

Take any global corporate brand such as Nike, Ikea, Coca-Cola or Virgin, and you'll find millions upon millions of dollars behind the branding. Take any global micro-brand such as Tiger Woods, David Beckham, George Bush, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, and you'll see a scaled-down but still substantial investment in image, exposure, profile, presence and reach. For the first time ever in U.S. history, the candidates for president have raised more than $1 billion. Much of this has been spent on TV advertising. Imagine what kind of reputation you could make for yourself if you had $200m to spend on getting your face and your messages out to your target market?

Money is a powerful reputation-building tool. Remember that your reputation is what people think, do, feel and say when they come into contact with you or your name. It comes from your character and values, and is formed when people come into contact with your personal brand - those messages, signals, ads, campaigns, conversations and web hits. Money buys you greater reach, more reinforcement of your brand and your messages, and greater depth of penetration. You are seen, recognised and remembered by more people when you do three things:

1. Appear in the media - television, radio, newspapers and magazines
2. Raise your online profile - blogs, social media, articles and commentaries (both by and about you)
3. Increase your reach - networking, advocacy, viral marketing

Money plays a huge part in all of these, although you can work them on a low budget. It just takes longer. The things to remember are to pick your medium, pick your messages, pick your audiences and pick your moments. If you get that right, then usually the player with the biggest pot of money wins. And that's going to be Barack Obama.