Personal Branding 101 » Guest Article

Personal Branding Through the Eyes of an Introvert

Ryan Rancatore — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:35:20 +0000

The following is a guest article by Joshua Waldman of careerenlightenment.com. Enjoy the article and check out Joshua’s site for tons of additional tools and resources.

There isn’t much of a choice. People who deny they have a personal brand simply end up with a very bad one and struggle with their careers. But people who proactively manage it are ahead of the game.

I was at a Project Manager’s networking event the other night. I noticed something about them that I noticed about many other job seekers… they were technical, to the point, but not necessarily comfortable networking. Let’s just say they were more introverted than other groups I’ve spoken for. Sure, these qualities can be great assets; they get their jobs done, don’t let emotions get in the way of delivery, and don’t waste time.

But these skills don’t necessarily translate well in a job search.

Everyone Has a Brand

During one conversation, a man told me that even just coming to this event was a huge challenge for him. And that running his job search around building a personal brand was WAY outside his comfort zone.

So I explained that a personal brand doesn’t mean you have to jump around the room pretending to be something you are not. Think about Spock, from Star Trek. He certainly has a brand: “meticulous,” “professional,” and “straight to the point.” Spock’s character is so consistent that you can almost anticipate what he’s going to say next.

Start Finding Your Brand

Your personal brand is a combination of who you are and how you can solve someone’s problems. And having a consistent and compelling brand will help you throughout your career.

As an introvert, you will probably find the self discovery side of branding easier than the other-person’s-problem side. So here is a quick, three step exercise you can do in the next hour to get yourself a personal brand and avoid getting stuck.

The next time you are at a networking event, or writing your profiles online, you’ll be much more confident about how you present yourself.

Step 1: Ask Yourself and Write Down the Answers to the Following-
What qualities do you have that help you do your job better than anyone else? How have you been remembered by potential employers in the past? What are the three things you want someone to remember about you when they first meet you?

Step 2: Make Sure Your Answers are Consistent
Take a look at what you wrote down. Do the answers reflect who you are as a person? Do they solve real business challenges of the companies you’ve targeted? Do your resume and online profiles reflect this message? If not, make adjustments to your brand position.

Step 3: Boil it Down to it’s Essence
Once you are comfortable with the description of your brand, boil it down to a statement. Your statement will be like, “I’m Josie and I’m a database wizard with a passion for complexity” or “I’m John, and I love translating business problems into on-time deliverables.” Mine is, “I’m Joshua, and I love helping job seekers find their dream jobs though the use of social media”.

What’s yours? Feel free to comment below with your brand-statement.

For more great tips to help you discover and communicate your own personal brand, check out my new book Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies.

Joshua Waldman helps frustrated job seekers leverage social media to find work FAST! He is the founder of CareerEnlightenment.com and the author of the new book, Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies. Sign-up for his newsletter today and get access to his exclusive training videos for free.

Fear Factor: How to Face Any Work Situation with Confidence

Guest — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 03:56:53 +0000

The following is a guest article by Joseph Gustav of Pounding the Pavement. Enjoy!

There are some situations that employees dread: the evil necessities. These situations are uncomfortable for many people because one has to assert oneself and often do so to authority figures. However, they are necessary to get what you want, need, and deserve as an employee. Here are some of the most common awkward work situations and how to approach them with confidence — and handle them professionally.

Asking for a raise. Money matters are always hard to deal with, especially when asking for more of it. First off, research your company or firm’s pay raise policies. There may be a process for asking for pay raises, or you may receive an annual pay bump automatically. After you’ve scheduled a meeting, prepare your case — prove that the work you’ve done is valuable enough to warrant a pay increase. Your request should be based on reasons of merit rather than your own financial status. Be straightforward, be specific about what you’re asking for, and if your request is denied, do not take it personally. Instead, ask what you need to do work-wise to make it happen in the future.

Disagreeing with a supervisor. Though this may be extremely uncomfortable, it is your duty as an employee to let your boss know when you think a decision of theirs is hurting the company. When approaching your supervisor, be completely objective; anger and defensiveness have no place in these kinds of meetings (and I emphasize meeting, NOT confrontation). First, think through as much as you can your boss’ perspective on the issue. During the meeting, let him or her have the floor first and voice their reasons. Ask questions to help you understand better their rationale. Then present your case as diplomatically as possible. If it becomes clear that your boss agrees, ask for a follow-up meeting to work further on the topic.

Expressing an unpopular opinion. Again, this is not easy, but necessary for the good of the company. Telling a boss their new plan has serious holes in it or telling a co-worker their work is subpar and hurting the firm is an unenviable task. The best way to go about it — without hurting feelings — is to justify your responses and offer solutions. Come off as a critical thinker looking out for what’s best for everybody rather than someone looking to attack others’ work and person. Be tactful, not caustic, be honest, and be positive.

Alerting a supervisor to a troubling situation. You’ve got a situation on your hands, like a deadline will be missed, you may lose a client, or your numbers are down, and your boss doesn’t know yet. It’s always better to be proactive and up-front rather than hide; doing so will increase the ramifications of the event and show you to have less integrity and professionalism. Be responsible and acknowledge your part in the situation, be direct and forthcoming about the situation, and then offer solutions. More often than not, your boss will be all ears to work with you on righting what is going wrong.

Joseph Gustav regularly shares his insights as a guest blogger for Pounding the Pavement. He also works as a contributing writer for Guide to Career Education on topics related to completing your high school diploma at home.

Photo credit, Jake Mates.

7 Tips for Personal Branding in a Socially Networked World

Guest — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 21:48:46 +0000

The following is a guest post by James Adams. Enjoy it, and share your thoughts on these tips in the comments section below.

Your personal brand separates you from the nameless masses. The label that you place on yourself identifies who you are and what you do. To promote that personal trademark, your strategy needs to include social networking venues like Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn and Technorati. Establish long-term goals for your personal brand and work toward a definitive purpose. Here are several tips for developing your personal brand.

Planning is essential

Before embarking on your brand quest, set specific goals. What do you want others to think when you speak about yourself? Take a critical and objective look at where you are now. Set realistic goals based on those observations. These goals should not be hollow. It is easier to create a map when you know your destination.

Find your niche

Where do your opinions diverge from the conventional thinking? What aspects of your expertise have not gotten enough attention? What sets you apart from those who have already created their personal brand? Knowing this information will help you further define your own identity.

Treat it like a strategy game

In strategy games, you need to think several moves ahead. You need to have contingency plans for your opponent’s activities. The best time to come up with alternatives and branding ‘moves’ is before you go live with your ideas.

Engage social platforms

You have been told that you need to have a presence within every single social networking sphere. Each audience is different. Each sphere adds to your brand and your personal reputation. Start with two or three methods of engaging your audience. Use forums and LinkedIn. Use Twitter and your personal blog. Pick two of these platforms. Watch the activity within these arenas to determine whether they are appropriate for your needs.

Perform a trial run

Bloggers can lose interest in their subject long before they have established a personal reputation. Before advertising yourself and establishing authority, make sure that you can follow a writing schedule. This will prove that you can stay on subject as well as give you content.

Execution is the next step

After developing a framework for your personal branding strategy, you need to execute your plan. Each step for the first year should be planned. You should know how often you will post on your blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook. You should know what your profile will say on LinkedIn, and which blogs on which you want to guest post. Give yourself ample time to determine the effectiveness of the campaign.

Domain name

Choose your domain name based on the personal brand which you wish to create. If you are the X expert, make sure a correlation is made between you and X. The simplest option is to fashion a domain based on your name or a permutation of your name.

Interaction

You know who the movers and shakers are within your field. They are the ones with thousands of unique monthly readers. They are the ones with whom you need to associate. Interact with the bloggers of your favorite blogs by intelligently commenting. Do not say, ‘hey, nice post,’ but give those people an idea of why you enjoyed the post and why it was poignant. This gives you exposure and a reason for readers to come to your blog.

Scheduling

Create a schedule which is based on your personal habits. Do you write your words for the week in a single sitting? Do you wish to have a theme for the following week? Each move which is made should be absolutely deliberate. Focus on having more interactions which will positively promote your brand.

Planning is the foundation of your personal brand. Execution builds the structure of that brand. Your brand is your business and your reputation.

James Adams currently works at Cartridge Save where he reviews and compares printer ink.

Photo credit, susanne nybergh.

Why Undergrads Can’t Ignore Social Media

Guest — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:00:00 +0000

The following is Part 1 of a 2 Part series by guest blogger Cassie Wallace, a Carnegie Mellon student with marketing and SEO expertise. Find out more about Cassie here, or click here to read Part 2.

I’ve been hearing some interesting things from my college friends when it comes to social media.

One told me she wouldn’t use LinkedIn because “she was just a nobody” (she’s a Masters student, applying to top PhD programs, with impressive research and community involvement under her belt); another asked what exactly employers didn’t want to see online; and a third professed to just adding whoever requested to connect on LinkedIn without ever filling out the profile because she didn’t know what it was all about.

What?!? What happened to our generation being digital natives?

Their lack of understanding of and hesitance about social media for professional applications intrigued me. While almost 100% of my friends, their friends, and their friends’ friends have Facebook, most of my peers’ LinkedIn profiles are only about 25% complete (if they have them at all) and few have Twitter or other social networking accounts. But I have never thought in depth about why.

So why? Why, although millions of college kids use Facebook religiously, do they avoid other social networks?

Here are some of the reasons undergrads might lack strong, cross-network online personal brands (add your ideas in the comments section).

Privacy and paranoia. Many people, young and old alike, feel secure on Facebook because they can set custom privacy settings that seem to block out the world. However, as time and trial have showed, Facebook’s privacy is far from lock-tight. And besides, you shouldn’t be doing or saying anything you don’t want the world to see anyway.

Obliviousness. I think many students have just never given a second thought to the fact that they could leverage the internet to help them professionally, beyond using job boards. (Pass this article along so we can change that!)

Busy schedules. Effective social media engagement takes time. You need to set up profiles, maintain them, build and foster relationships, and read and comment on other people’s content. College students, while often thought as fun-loving partiers, actually struggle to balance rigorous coursework, extracurricular activities, and function as independent adults for the first time. However, this can often be an “excuse” instead of a “reason” – 15 minutes less on Facebook and 15 more on Twitter sounds efficient to me.

“I’m not there yet.” Students often fall into the trap of seeing professional communication and networking as something for the realm of “professionals”, forgetting that they will join those ranks in a mere few years. If students feel they nothing to talk about, they should still log on and listen – eventually something will strike a chord and elicit a response, putting their social media communication in motion. And internships and undergrad research definitely count as experience.

No matter what their reasons, undergrads can’t continue ignoring the other social networks. While Facebook has its place, other platforms can be more valuable for your personal brand, allowing you to populate the first page of search results for your name with content you control, and establish yourself as someone who “gets” it to potential employers, who are definitely using social networks.

While a Managing Director or HR person wouldn’t friend you on Facebook, he or she might see your intelligent YouTube tutorial videos, engage with you in a Twitter chat, and or see an answer of yours on LinkedIn.

If you’re only a sophomore, the job search seems ages away. But these and other effective personal branding tactics can pay off in both large and small ways along the road – whether it’s an internship or project offer now, a connection to another Director, or even that being remembered during a job interview.

Next time, I’ll go beyond discussion and give actionable ways that undergrads can begin establishing their brand online.

Cassie Wallace is a junior at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in social media and search engine optimization. You can find her marketing portfolio at http://cassiewallace.net, and connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Photo credit: Icky Pic.

How E-Mail Signatures Can Boost Your Personal Brand

Guest — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 06:57:04 +0000

The following is a guest article by Alexandra Bideaua. Alexandra is multi-lingual, multi-talented, and wrote this article from her home country of Romania. Read much more from her on her personal blog.

Nowadays, personal branding and differentiation are crucial to success and, most often, the key to finding opportunities and jobs. In order to make a name for yourself, no matter what your area of expertise is, you need to invest a little time in the persona you present online – via your online profiles, your personal blog, or personal website. There is another aspect you can use to your advantage: a signature within the e-mail you send every day.

There are many add-ons that you can download and use for free (Wise Stamp, for example) in order to create your personal signature. The best part about them, aside from being very user-friendly, is the wide range of options they give you. You can add a picture, phone number, job titles and links to your sites, profiles on Facebook, Flickr and much more, all in your desired colors, size and font.

Another important aspect is that you can create multiple signatures for different purposes. You can have one for your job (where you may not go public with the links for your personal profiles or blog), another one for your family and even one for friends. It is very easy and all you need to do is change the signature you add with just two clicks. It’s just as if every time you send an email, you attach your card to it. But remember, the key word for your virtual identity should be consistency. Make sure that all the data you give is correct and it adds up to build the image of a great professional.

By using a complex signature for your emails, you can gain these great benefits, which might just be the solution to the “What’s his name?” problem:

Personalization: If you have multiple email exchanges with different people, you can make sure that each one of them will associate a face, a job or a punch line with your face.

Professionalism: By taking the time to develop a complex email signature to represent you, you can show your clients or collaborators that you are truly interested in what you do.

A rise in traffic for the sites you link to: Even if you emphasize your company’s site, your twitter account or your personal blog, the ones who receive your emails will be curious to explore the resources that you consider important enough to be mentioned every time you push “send”.

It transforms itself into your virtual business card: Every time you send out a business proposal or try to close a deal, your signature will transform into a business card, helping you to transmit a great amount of information in just a couple of lines.

So make a change for the better for your personal brand and promote yourself and the services you have to offer every time you e-mail. Everyone will appreciate your commitment and the interested you show in building a complex online identity. Stop being that John Doe who e-mails!

Alexandra Bideaua is a 20 year old Communication and Public Relations student from Romania, Europe. A social media enthusiastic, she’s training to become a PR Specialist. Follow her at http://twitter.com/28Alexandra and find out more.

GMail photo by rovlls.

Personal Branding: 2000 Years Old, More Important Than Ever Before

Guest — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:39:58 +0000

The following is a guest article from friend and fellow blogger, Jake LaCaze. Jake writes about social media, communication, marketing, and human behavior – a little something for everyone! Check him out at JakeLaCaze.com.

Personal branding seems to be all the rave on the World Wide Web at the moment. People everywhere are spending a portion of their lives to spread the message all over Twitter and Facebook. These same people are dedicating blogs, writing books, and giving seminars about the concept. People are making a career out of spreading the gospel of this new buzz word. But that’s just it, that’s the thing — personal branding, at its root, is nothing new.

The foundation of personal branding has been around for the entirety of man’s existence. You may think that you heard of personal branding only a while ago, but chances are you heard it under a different title — protecting your reputation. To an individual, reputation is very important. Sometimes it’s all that a person has. It may take years to build a certain reputation. However, that’s only the beginning of the work. Then the individual has to protect his reputation and keep all his years of hard work from being tainted.

A person’s reputation is basically how he or she is perceived by others. Think of titles such as hard worker and good guy or gal. Once you’ve got people drinking the Kool-Aid, you want to keep them thirsty for more. But merely protecting your reputation isn’t enough. The qualities that come with a reputation — hard worker, good guy or gal — those are qualities that everyone is portraying nowadays. Promoting yourself through reputation alone is a cookie-cutter way of progressing your career. It’s no longer enough.

Personal branding is very much like building and protecting your reputation. In both instances, you’re developing and nurturing a certain image of yourself that you want others to see. Both strategies require you to conduct yourself in manners that make you desired and sought-after.

But there’s one big difference between personal branding and reputation management. And here’s why I think personal branding is incredibly relevant: personal branding requires you to take a more active approach.

With personal branding, you are not only defending your image. You are not sitting back, hoping that nothing happens that destroys your image before your very eyes. With a personal branding mentality, everything you do is in an attempt to create an image. You are trying to create an image that says that you are indispensable. To steal from Seth Godin, you become a linchpin through branding, not through defending your reputation.

Have you heard the phrase “the best defense is a good offense”? That is certainly true in today’s evolving labor market. When you market yourself as a hard worker, or Mr. Punctual, or Mr. Reliable — you’re saying the same things that everyone else is saying. You have the same reputation as the guy next to you.

But the person who comes in with a more active mindset and brands himself as an expert in his field — he’s the one everyone wants. This is the guy (or gal) that we all need to be. No one else is going to take charge of our careers and show us the way to prosperity. We have to grab our careers and our futures by the reins. We have to be active and take a few chances. It is our responsibility to find the unmet needs of employers (and consumers) and to meet those needs. That’s something you don’t do when you’re defending your reputation.

Things change, things evolve. Just as the labor market has evolved, so have the effective strategies for achieving prosperity and fulfillment. And sometimes a simple name change improves everything.

To prove the point, let’s play a bit of word association. Which of the following items do you respond more positively to:

Secretary or executive assistant?

Janitor or custodian?

Cheap or frugal?

Protecting your reputation or personal branding?

There are countless other things that we identify with multiple titles. But in our minds, they’re not exactly the same. There’s always a subtle difference between the two titles that makes one more pleasant and favorable. Yes, you can refer to personal branding as merely protecting your reputation. But I don’t really care what you call it as long as you take an active interest in yourself and your future.

Jake LaCaze is a social media and personal branding enthusiast. You can find him at jakelacaze.com or connect with him on Twitter: @jakelacaze.

Photo credit, cote.

The Ultimate Personal Branding Exercise

Guest — Sat, 15 May 2010 22:21:39 +0000

Personal Branding 101 is yet again pleased to feature an article by the excellent career and personal branding blogger Jorgen Sundberg. Enjoy!

The trouble with your personal brand is that in order to strengthen it you more or less have to blow your own trumpet. What if there was a way to boost your personal brand absolutely free by simply keeping in shape and doing some good for the world?

Answer: Easy. Just run a marathon race for charity!

What exactly is a marathon?

It’s a big old organized race with shed loads of runners. There are thousands of marathon races taking place in the world every year, all of which are at a set distance – 26 miles long. The most famous ones are probably the New York, Boston, Paris and London marathons and these races will have tens of thousands of participants.

What’s the word all about?

The word marathon comes from Greek mythology. Legend has it that a soldier with the tongue twisting name of Pheidippides was a messenger (this was before Twitter) that ran from the Battle of Marathon to Athens, a distance exactly 26 miles. He delivered his message, which was that the Greeks had beaten the Persians, and then promptly collapsed and died. This is obviously not the most encouraging story for any first time marathon runners, let’s just assume he hadn’t trained properly.

Can anyone run a marathon?

The answer is yes – all you really need is a pair of running shoes and the time to prepare properly. As a marathon typically takes about 4-6 hours to run, you’ll have to do a fair bit of training before your big day. It’s advised to start training at least six months before the race, by running 3-4 times per week. The runs you do are a combination of long distance runs, up to about 20 miles, taking about 3hrs, speed training and the dreaded hill training which leave your legs feeling like spaghetti.

Personal branding benefits of running a marathon?

If you are struggling to see the connection, here are five personal branding benefits to running a marathon for charity:

1. You have an excuse to contact people

We will assume that you run the race for a charity of your choice. The charity will set up a fundraiser site for you that you can forward on to your network. You now have a great excuse to catch up with anyone you have ever known. Go ahead and blitz everyone including colleagues, customers, friends and family. Unleash a social media campaign, create events on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter so people know when you are running and how they can donate money. Some folks will contribute, some won’t. The point is that everyone will take notice– and your personal brand goes up in value as a result.

2. Increased recognition and respect

People know what a commitment running a marathon is and they will respect you for it. Anyone that manages to do it demonstrates exceptional determination, and when you run for charity you’ll score even more brownie points. Just think of how you will be positioned with your customers and stakeholders in your business, I would venture to say that your credibility will skyrocket. You have now turned into a force for good in the eyes of others.

3. You’ll have a story to tell

The next dinner party or networking event you find yourself at, you’ll be the center of attention with your compelling marathon story. After almost a year of training, you’ll be bursting with tales of progress, setbacks, success and adversity – all full of emotion that people tend to lap up. Use the story of your big race freely and make it your signature dish as it were. Give a speech on it, or why not write a blog post?

4. It will boost your confidence

One of the main ingredients of a really strong personal brand is confidence. When you finish a marathon race, you’ll be oozing with confidence and you’ll feel like you can take on any challenge. Next stop the Ironman challenge?

5. Great return on investment

Your race will be almost free in monetary terms; you will however pay with sweat equity and your time. However way you look at it, the return on investment is unbeatable. The results are all beneficial: you keep very fit, you raise money for charity and your personal brand gets a boost in the process – everyone’s a winner.

Call to action

If you are ready for the challenge, look up a marathon going in your area at Runners World. Sign up for a race taking place 6-12 months time from now and this will give you plenty of time to train and mentally prepare.

Before you go, it just so happens that I will be running the Stockholm Marathon on the 5th of June, in case you would like to help me raise some money for Cancer Research http://www.justgiving.com/Jorgen-Sundberg . Your money goes straight to life saving research. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Jorgen Sundberg is a personal branding consultant and blogger based in London. You can find him at JorgenSundberg.net, The Undercover Recruiter and at his company Personal Branding UK. Connect with him on Twitter @jorgensundberg.

Photo credit, informatique.

Giving Up Center Stage for Effective Personal Branding

Guest — Tue, 11 May 2010 05:47:42 +0000

The following is a guest article by Melissa Cooley, one of the most engaging bloggers on the web. Enjoy the article and check out “The Job Quest” at MelissaCooley.com for wisdom on how to find a job and advance your career.

Personal branding requires much introspection. You have to think of things such as:

Who do I want as my target audience?
What message am I trying to convey to that audience?
How can I best showcase my talents?
What do I ultimately want to achieve?
How can people help me?

And the me-centric list of questions goes on.

In an article entitled Personal Branding Essential, it said, “People working on their personal brand sometimes seem a little snake-oil salesy-like.”

Ugh… Doesn’t that just sound slimy to you? Like someone actively promoting his/her personal brand could come across as a used car salesperson trying to sell you a lemon.

“But, wait a minute,” you might say, “I’m working on my personal brand, and I have a lot to offer! I don’t seem that way, do I?”

Well, hopefully not. But you might. Really, it can be easy to do when you spend so much time thinking about yourself.

So how do you do personal branding the right way?

For a good example, let’s look at Bobby McFerrin. Yes, THAT Bobby McFerrin.

Pamela Wilson wrote about a recent Bobby McFerrin concert that she attended. The experience was not what she had expected, and was probably unlike any other concert out there. Here, let me provide you some snapshots of Pamela’s account of the concert to give you an idea of why it was so unique:

“Bobby comes out, sits down, takes a sip of water, and brings the microphone to his mouth. He starts to sing, softly at first, then louder…

“Then he turns that spotlight around…he asks if we know ‘Ave Maria.’ We all laugh…He begins to sing an accompanying melody…The hall fills with the sound of the audience singing ‘Ave Maria.’ It’s beautiful.

“Bobby pulls his chair over to the edge of the spotlight. He says, ‘…I want to ask if there are any dancers in the audience…’ Four people make their way to the stage. Each one takes a turn dancing in the middle of the spotlight, while Bobby, off to one side, improvises music that they respond to with their bodies.”

Think about this – here is Bobby McFerrin, world-renowned singer. He steps into the spotlight with no fanfare, and then he drags his seat to the periphery so he can use his wonderful talents to provide backup to the audience members’ performances. He helps them reach their latent desires to perform and feel proud of their accomplishments.

Wow.

Following Bobby McFerrin’s model is an excellent way to promote your personal brand when you are networking or in an interview:

1. When talking about your background and skills, do so in a basic, matter-of-fact way. Yes, be prepared to give examples of your work that represent you well, but there’s no need to be a braggart about it. That just makes you look, well, like a conceited, self-absorbed jerk.

2. “Turn the spotlight around.” In both networking and interviewing, it’s good for you to engage the other party – find out what’s happening with them, what’s going well, what needs some help, what really matters to them. Ask questions that will allow you to learn more, and then really listen to what they have to say.

3. Instead of jumping back to center stage when they have answered your questions, stay on the fringes and demonstrate how you can complement their efforts. Maintain a focus on them and show them how your combined talents can help them reach their goals and possibly shoot even beyond them.

By keeping these three principles in mind when promoting your personal brand, prospective employers and new networking contacts won’t avoid you like they would some shifty salesperson. In fact, they will be clamoring to help you reach your job search and career goals.

Melissa Cooley is a career consultant with a passion for helping people reach their goals and maximize their potential. As the founder of The Job Quest, she assists individuals who are seeking employment or facing the confusion of navigating a career path. Melissa provides a fresh perspective and other resources on her blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook. You can also connect with Melissa on LinkedIn.

Photo credit, ChrisGoldNY and Jazz Fest Wien.

Enough With the Apologies – You’re Killing Your Brand!

Guest — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 06:47:49 +0000

The following is a guest article by Melissa Cooley, one of the most thoughtful and generous career bloggers you will come across. Enjoy the article and be sure to check out “The Job Quest” at MelissaCooley.com for wisdom on how to find a job and advance your career.

Everyone makes mistakes. C’mon, admit it – even you’ve had a flub or two, yes? Maybe you’re in the midst of having to do damage control right now.

So what’s a good way to start repairing your reputation? Saying “I’m sorry” for what you did is an excellent first step.

But can you express too much remorse? YES, you can.

Case in point is Tiger Woods. We’ve all heard at least a little bit of the sordid scandal that has tainted his previously positive reputation. We all also know about the press release he did in February issuing a public apology.

Now Nike has come out with this ad showing a somber Tiger staring into the camera while his late father’s words eerily intone disappointment.

Enough already!

It was one thing to hold the press conference to satisfy the rubberneckers and to attempt to preserve the goodwill he had remaining with sponsors and the public. But this ad really caused his regret campaign to jump the shark and could actually bring about further damage to his personal brand.

So, before you launch into a litany of apologies for something you’ve done, consider the negative consequences that may occur as a result:

1. Too much focus is placed on the mistake.

The more you reference the problem, the fresher it will stay in people’s minds and easier it will be to continue to associate the negative issue with you. The goal is to put more distance between you and that fateful day, not keep it close to you.

2. It comes off as desperation.

Seriously, stop pleading for forgiveness! More than anything, it just looks pathetic.

3. There’s no action.

Tom Peters says that when you make mistakes, you should “make those responses [to the errors] positive, quick, and overwhelming.” Continuing to simply express feelings of guilt does none of that. They’re just words. Keep in mind what John Kador, author of Effective Apology, says: “The meaning of apology is in the action, not the words.”

4. It feels like you want things to go back to the way they were before it all blew up.

As much as you can wish for it, you can’t go back in time. You can be forgiven, but you can’t expect that your gaffe will be completely erased from people’s minds. Deal with the fact that this is the new normal and change your actions to work within that paradigm.

5. “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”

If you keep insisting again and again and again how sorry you are, people are going to start to think that you’re pushing that message a little too hard and stop believing it. Who are you trying to convince, anyway?

Coming back to the current state of affairs – you screwed up. Give a sincere, heartfelt apology, but don’t belabor it! Get on with it, and use your actions to rectify the situation. Wow them and make that mistake a faded memory.

The Dot Com is Taken for My Name…Am I Screwed?

Guest — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 18:45:46 +0000

The following is from Jörgen Sundberg of The Undercover Recruiter, a blog that contains pearls of wisdom on recruitment, careers, social media, personal branding and more. Today, he has a question for all of you – please leave a comment!

I always advise people to make sure to buy their own .com name domain, either to set up a blog or website today, or to just hold it for the future. It’s obviously great for personal branding – the URL with your name in it will be about as search engine optimized as it gets.

Why should it be “.com”?

The .com is the default suffix online and it is probably more SEO friendly than any others. I say probably as some would argue that the content matters, not the suffix. Whatever the case may be, the .com is where people start their search and you should aim to be there waiting.

What if it’s taken?

Not really practicing my own preaching, I have missed to register my own jorgensundberg.com name domain. Well, in my defense it was taken about ten years ago, but it is gone nevertheless. My namesake in the wild north of Sweden has some sort of blog going there. Before you ask, no he won’t sell the domain at any reasonable price.

I now find myself in the position where I want to set up a site in my name but the obvious domain choice is gone and lots of options are lined up. My goal is to have my personal site up in a few weeks so need to get this settled once and for all. The options lined up:

1. Use “.com”, hyphenate full name.

Ryan Rancatore and Mike Cliffe Jones both advise going for jorgen-sundberg.com. This as the .com is favored by Google and separating the first name from the last name can actually help in searches.

The problem I have here is that it’s simply not pleasing on the eye and people will always ask about that hyphen.

2. Use the .net suffix

Darren Rowse is someone that has done alright out of a .net domain with his his problogger.net. Some say .net is the best domain to choose when .com is gone, as it is not tied down to a specific country and doesn’t denote industry like .edu for instance.

My reservations here: is it a bit too Microsofty? How well could Darren Rowse have done if he had gone problogger.com straight away?

3. Use the .me suffix

The .me has grown in popularity for personal websites and blogs. Its growth has been fueled by the John Smiths of this world (well, only one of them actually, but you know what I mean).

I’m not convinced because a.) the .me doesn’t look entirely professional and b.) I can’t actually think of anyone that has used this to much success.

4. Try .co.uk, org. or .info

There are lots of other suffixes to choose from, country specific ones like .co.uk are useful on a domestic basis but don’t help you much overseas. Using the .org makes one look like a charity case (there is some truth to that), the .info looks like a public awareness campaign of some sort.

5. Give up

Should I just not bother as people will find me anyway? I do have profiles on virtually every social media network under the sun already. I dominate the first page of Google when searching for me anyway.

My reservation here will be that while the social media profiles are great, their purpose it to be outposts that drive interested readers back to the spiritual home – my personal website. Please help!

Can you please have a think and let me know what you would do? Or what did you do? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments and I promise to let everyone know what I went for. Many thanks in advance folks!

Jörgen Sundberg is a Personal Branding Consultant based in London. He helps entrepreneurs, sales people, managers and executives to create, optimize and maintain their brands. He works with individuals and businesses, doing consulting as well as in-house trainings and workshops.

Jörgen has a strong commercial background, having worked in the FMCG, banking, insurance, technology, recruitment and consultancy sectors. After 7 years of marketing people in recruitment, he started Personal Branding UK , the blog The Undercover Recruiter and other projects in 2009.

Connect with him on Twitter (@jorgensundberg @undercoverrec) and Linkedin.

Photo credit, dot com sign and www dot sign.

5 Reasons Your Resume Makes Me Sick

Guest — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:31:57 +0000

Personal Branding 101 is proud to present the following guest article by Tim Tyrell-Smith of www.TimsStrategy.com. Tim clearly has a passion for helping others build careers. His blog contains a wealth of information to jump start your job search, networking efforts, social media presence, and more – enjoy!

Yes, I know what you are thinking. ”Really? Another article telling me what to do with my resume?” But until I start seeing a better paper flow, I’ll keep bringing it up.

And, remember that this little two-pager is often the first thing people see from you. The first flash of your personal brand. It better be easy to read and worth reading. And while a lot of interesting formats for exposing your brand are now available (LinkedIn, Twitter, Visual CV, Facebook), people still expect a traditional resume prior to and during an interview. Even if they didn’t find you that way.

So here today I’ll offer 5 reasons your resume makes me sick. I haven’t left my breakfast on the page yet, but I’m getting a tickle in the back of my throat. And will soon experience a queasy feeling. One that compels me to move your information to the “other” pile.

#1. Poor Or Over-Use Of Formatting

Style does matter in life and in the hiring process. So if you are bolding, underlining and italicizing everything on the page, you are telling me that everything on the page is important. Or nothing is. Hard to read and makes me dizzy. Or maybe you are using multiple fonts or font sizes. Or you’ve created a resume that looks like the front page of the NY Times. And I don’t know where to start. So I don’t.

#2. “No White Space”

Great print advertising uses the page well. It places just enough information in the ad to allow the reader to naturally find important content. There is a flow to it. And the eye is given room to work. So when you use a margin of .2 all around to keep your resume to two pages, it leaves no white space. No place for my eyes to rest as I am scanning to quickly learn where your resume fits against the job requirements.

#3. Poor Use Of The “Top Third”

You have an opportunity in the top third of your resume to grab people. To quickly communicate important and unique aspects of your skill and experience that will trigger a decision to keep reading. I’m not saying that people will not look at last employers, positions and accomplishments if your top third is bad. But it is kind of a shame. Because with an enticing positioning statement, a strong career summary, and a short list of key strengths, you can brand yourself up front. Before someone drops you into a mental pile based only on their take on the facts.

#4. Drowning In Responsibilities

Resumes should be full of relevant and tangible accomplishments. Relevant in that they will make the hiring manager think “that’s the kind of impact I’m looking for”. Tangible because it measures the impact and suggests a direct benefit and value. We all want to interview people who can come in and make a big impact or solve a problem. If your resume details the role you played for each company without detailing the value you added, you will look like everyone else. So in two short sentences under each prior position, tell me what you did. And in 4-6 bullet points tell me what you accomplished while there.

#5. Who Did You Work For Again?

Maybe I’m not as worldly as I’d like to think, but I see a lot of resumes that include companies I’ve never heard of. Don’t know what they do, how big they are and how influential they might be in their industry. Are they great at training their employees? Are they global? What brand names do they own? If you are not providing a quick company profile, especially if your company is not well known, you are letting me assume things. And if I assume that the company is “just OK” you may lose some credibility. In short, it helps to know where you’ve been and how you’ve been influenced and educated in the world of business.

I don’t like to feel sick. When I do, it compels me to get rid of the source. If that source is your resume, then take action to control this aspect of your job search effort. Make it easy and comfortable for people to learn about you. And to find key points that create a growing sense that you might just be the one. To help my company grow.

There. Now I feel better.

Tim Tyrell-Smith is the founder of Tim’s Strategy: Ideas for Job Search Career and Life, a fast growing blog and website. Tim is also the author of: 30 Ideas. The Ideas of Successful Job Search. Download the book and other free tools at http://www.timsstrategy.com and follow him on Twitter @TimsStrategy

3 Steps To Branding Through Social Media

Guest — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:00:35 +0000

Personal Branding 101 is proud to present the following guest article by Mike Stenger of MikeStenger.com. Mike’s passion for social media shines through in his writing – enjoy!

I don’t know about you, but I Twitter and Facebook a lot. In fact, social media has been my number one traffic source and brand building tool for quite some time now. At the end of the day however, you can have an amazing website publishing amazing content, but if you aren’t building a brand, what makes up you and what you and/or your site is all about, you’re wasting your time.

Social media can be confusing and it can sometimes be complicated. Most cases people make it out that way to be complicated or “gurus” help further that problem. Branding yourself, your site, your business through social media is not as hard as you’d think and there’s a few steps to keep in mind…

- Have a clear, precise image. This is a BIG mistake many people make. They’re not clear and specific enough. They don’t have a good, instantly recognizable image. And if there’s one thing to know about branding, it’s that if people don’t remember who you are and what you’re about, they’ll forget about you, period.

Coca Cola: Clear and precise.

Walmart: Clear and precise.

Nike: Clear and precise.

Get the picture?

- Keep it simple. In fact, the simpler, the better. You don’t need to spend hundreds on a logo and thousands on a website/blog design. You don’t have to put in all these hours crafting a perfect brand image that represents you and who you are. Just create something simple and make it easily remembered.

When you go to the store to buy a pop/soda/whatever you wanna call it, you don’t look for a cola. You look for a Pepsi or a Coca-Cola. And how do you spot them? Bingo…the logo and brand image. It’s instantly recognizable (like we talked about in the last step) and it’s simple.

Us humans tend to remember and learn the more simple and finer things in life. We don’t want all this confusion. And if we are confused, we won’t always particularly remember.

- Want to explode your results? BE your brand. Become a part of your brand. What I mean by that is find the nitty gritty details on what your brand is all about and portray that through your interactions, marketing, website, etc.

Your brand is only so powerful by itself. However, when a personality like yourself is added to the mix, a catalyst so to speak, the brand becomes much more powerful and capable of growing at a faster rate.

How are you using social media to build your brand?

Mike Stenger is a social media consultant with a strong passion of business and all things Internet. You can find Mike at his blog where he talks about success, business and social media strategies. You can also follow Mike on Twitter.

Photo credit, Thomas Hawk.

Personal Branding 101 » Guest Article

Personal Branding Through the Eyes of an Introvert

Everyone Has a Brand

Start Finding Your Brand

Related Posts

Fear Factor: How to Face Any Work Situation with Confidence

Related Posts

7 Tips for Personal Branding in a Socially Networked World

Planning is essential

Find your niche

Treat it like a strategy game

Engage social platforms

Perform a trial run

Execution is the next step

Domain name

Interaction

Scheduling

Related Posts

Why Undergrads Can’t Ignore Social Media

Related Posts

How E-Mail Signatures Can Boost Your Personal Brand

Related Posts

Personal Branding: 2000 Years Old, More Important Than Ever Before

Related Posts

The Ultimate Personal Branding Exercise

What exactly is a marathon?

What’s the word all about?

Can anyone run a marathon?

Personal branding benefits of running a marathon?

Call to action

Related Posts

Giving Up Center Stage for Effective Personal Branding

Related Posts

Enough With the Apologies – You’re Killing Your Brand!

Related Posts

The Dot Com is Taken for My Name…Am I Screwed?

Related Posts

5 Reasons Your Resume Makes Me Sick

#1. Poor Or Over-Use Of Formatting

#2. “No White Space”

#3. Poor Use Of The “Top Third”

#4. Drowning In Responsibilities

#5. Who Did You Work For Again?

Related Posts

3 Steps To Branding Through Social Media

Get the picture?

Related Posts