Paul Copcutt - Just My Toonies Worth

What's your next job in the tech sector?

In some areas of products and services the technology sector is booming, in others it is going.....going....gone - FAST.

I have attended a couple of local events recently that highlighted a very innovative and growing tech hub in the Hamilton area - there is a new smartphone app from Snap Pay for example that enables anyone to take credit card payments in seconds . One presentation from Pipeline Studios (a highly successful cartoon house) informed us of one of the best kept secrets, that Canada is the largest producer of digital content for TV in the world!

This is all great news. Unfortunately this past week we have also seen the bad news associated with tech companies that were not able to keep up, were too big (or too slow) or just missed the opportunity and catch up was the worst game to play. This past week we saw thousands expected to be let go at RIM and HP announcing 27,000 lay offs.

Three things that you can learn from this for your career, regardless of the industry.

1. Never settle for what you have. You cannot afford to stay where you are in terms of skills and strengths. You have to be continually looking to add to your portfolio of experience and knowledge. What is in demand today is tomorrows forgotten role.
2. Remain flexible and open to new ways of doing things. The next best thing (or person) is just around the corner. They have figured out how to do things faster, smarter etc. They may not always be right, but when they are be ready to make a switch in the way you do things to stay ahead.
3. Cut bait and run. Sometimes you have tried everything you know and more and it is just evident you have either missed the boat or run out of steam. Know when its time to quit. Not from just a quitting point but so that your energy and resources can be directed to another area that makes more sense and is a better use of your time.

Now go make today a brand YOU day.

When In Doubt Deny....Then Lie

Well it was only a matter of time before we saw it again.

People seem to easily forget that celebrities and CEO's are human too. That means a small percentage will also do things that surprise the rest of us.

This time it was Scott Thompson, now former CEO of Yahoo, the beleagured internet company, uncovered as having lied on his resume.

His claim was to have a double degree, when an unhappy investor discovered that one of those degrees was not even offered by Thompson's school until after he had graduated!

Three things that Thompson did that accelerated his downfall;

1. He first of all pleaded ignorance.
2. Then he lied
3. Finally he did not apologise

It now has been reported that Thompson may be suffering from thyroid cancer, my empathy to him if that is the case. But his actions have now damaged a leadership brand that previously had been held up as a technology success and likely a strong factor in his being hired for the Yahoo position.

Hopefully you will never be in this situation or something similar, but if you are three simple rules to follow;

1. Admit all that you know about the situation. Come clean. People will react badly for sure, but not nearly as much or for as long if you drag things out.
2. Do not lie. This is worse than trying to hide the truth and could damage your personal brand for the long term.
3. Apologise unreservedly for any errors or mis-judgements that are yours. Take full responsibility and accountability. This is likely your only hope for keeping your job, but be prepared for the inevitable that you might have to resign.

Thompson may not be concerned about working again, although reports say there is no severance package. But most of us are likely going to have to and want to work again. So if you do have to, do it on your terms, do not leave it to others to fire you. Falling on your sword when it is entirely your doing really is the only honorable thing to do

Want to see who else in senior levels of responsibility (including the current vice President of the United States) have been in a similar position? CLICK HERE

Do you think Thompson handled this the right way? Would you do things differently? 

 

What is holding you back from your personal brand?

Through my wife's business I have had the opportunity to be connected to Keith Kochner at Mentorfish.com for the last few months and have found his teaching exactly what we need in the 21st century. Lots of great content, he is prolific with new insights and learnings - even for someone like me who tends to explore and read a lot! 

Keith is coming to Toronto next week to hold a live evening event so you can get a full experience of what he has to offer. Cost is just covering running costs of the event, but I know you will get way more value - hope to see you there. 

Why are you still sending your resume?

According to recent Ladders.com research, the average time spent by a recruiter reading your resume is now just 6 seconds! Hopefully if the recruiting person is internal or a hiring manager the time is longer, but realistically it still might only be a few more seconds.

The article shows images of two different resumes and the heat spots where eyes were tending to focus on in the short time they spent scanning the documents. Having information properly formatted and well laid out and clear is obvious.

BUT isn't the more pressing point why are even we still bothering with a resume?

If you are in mid-career with at least 10 years of professional experience you are easily capable of supplying enough information to write a 3-6 page resume - not the accepted format - rather than a 1-2 page targeted resume. The trouble is that if a company is hiring for a number of positions and is accepting referrals, or the position is internal, you, based on your experience might be suitable for more than one role, but that generic resume is a potential barrier to being considered.

That's where the use of personal branding can come in, being used to create different career marketing documents as the door openers, giving you time and hopefully greater knowledge to follow up with a targeted resume once specifics of a position or openings are known.

Some of the key elements of personal branding are to understand yourself from both an internal and external perspective. Being able to identify and communicate key strengths and differentiating attributes can really be used to your advantage in creating powerful career documents that make people take notice, but do not give away all the information in one go.

The Brand Skills Sheet. In personal branding work and through the use of specific personal branding assessments you are able to identify what your peers and colleagues, managers and even friends and clients perceive as your key brand skills. Then you can take the time to create your brand stories around how you have used those brand skills in specific job situations with measurable results. This becomes a sort of 'brag sheet' that gives the reader a real flavor for who you are, what you might bring to the position or company and how you have been successful in the past. One of the best predictors of future success is past accomplishments

The Branded Bio.  Now using the feedback about differentiating attributes and strengths and merging that with a high level view of your work experience you can craft a one page branded biography that again gives the reader a good sense of who you are, where you have been and what you have done. This helps eliminate pre-conceptions of how long you were at company XYZ or why you took a drop in job title after leaving company ABC etc.

Brand Testimonials. An added bonus to the equation is that with the personal branding assessment feedback come comments from the people who you have chosen to respond. The assessment itself is anonymous to allow for honest and objective feedback, but the comments are still un-attributable testimonials and the positive ones can be used to inject in to the Brand Skills Sheet to highlight specific experiences of the skill in action and a third party's reaction. Also any other positive feedback, performance review comments or LinkedIn recommendations can be used in a similar way.

In Summary.  The Skills Sheet and Bio can prove to be very useful documents that allow you to still be proactive and responsive to a request for more information but still give you control over information specifics that can be saved for the tailored and targeted resume at the next stage of the conversation or process.

The content created in the skills and bio sheets can also be used as copy or structure for on line profiles on networking sites, even in the resume posting sections of job boards and certainly in any other type of web presence such as portfolios or blogs. Also for those internal uses such as talent files they have equal benefit.

PRE-PUBLICATION ANNOUNCEMENT  If you found this information useful then you might find my soon to be published book a valuable addition to your library.  "STOP Sending Your Resume" is a how to guide on creating your Branded Bio and Brand Skills Sheet and will help you stand out in a crowded job market or head and shoulders above your peers for that next great role before the promotion race has even started.

Prior to publication I am offering this book at the face value price and I will pay the taxes and shipping costs if you order before it is printed. This offer is limited and ends on April 30th 2012. To pre-order just CLICK HERE

It's time to play the music, its time to hit the lights - its time to stand by your personal brand

The very public resignation by Greg Smith from Goldman Sachs last week using an op-ed piece in the NewYork Times is not a recommended tactic for your career!

Certainly not at the top of your personal brand communications plan!

However, what he did was good personal branding. One of the very first exercises that I get clients to undertake and a core part of the personal brand building foundation is the Values exercise.

I describe Values as being your moral compass. The things that we stand by in all situations, or if they are being compromised either by ourselves or someone else it makes us angry or upset. You only have to see Greg Smith's outburst to understand that on some level his personal values were being effected by working at Goldman Sachs.

Now in reading the 'backlash' from his very public outburst there may be other underlying reasons for his departure. But none the less he finally reached a point where all the benefits of working there could not outweigh how he truly felt.

Was he wise to do it so publicly is a whole different conversation. It may well come back to bite him. But I wager there will be a company out there who will hire him because of what he said, it just my not be in investment banking!

Personal Branding is an Uphill Climb

When you walk in to the lobby of a tall office building, often you will see the sign for the stairs. But does that sign say enough to make you ignore the elevators and walk the stairs?

Unless you are still sticking to a new years resolution chances are no!

But if you saw the sign above, chances are by over 35%, that you would. Even 9 months after the sign was first posted. This is what researchers in New York found after placing a few of these around the city. 

So if something that simple can cause that type of re-action and continued action, what can you be saying about yourself that might get the same result? 

One immediately obvious place would be your business card. 

Rather than say Accountant. What re-action might you get if it were to say - Honest assessment. Accurate results - Accountant? 

Or better still, include one of your emotional attributes.

Honest assessment. Accurate results. Fun approach. - Accountant. 

When communicating your personal brand it's important to reflect the real you, after all it's going to be the reason why people want to hire you, work with you and for you. The fact you can perform great tax returns is a given. If you have a little fun too - that's the difference. 

100 Toonies Worth

With consistency and progression comes change. As you spend more time consistently delivering on what you say your brand is and find your career progressing in the right direction, you are going to reach a point where new challenges and opportunities arise. New skills are developed and new ways to communicate your uniqueness present themselves. 

This week see's the 100th edition of the Tuesday Toonie weekly e-tip, which I feel is quite a milestone. Thank you for reading, commenting and recommending to others for the last 2 years. 

It is also a great time to announce some small changes to the format and delivery of this weekly resource. When we started the Tuesday Toonie the rise of Facebook and Twitter was really starting to gain traction and people subscribing to news and blog feeds was rising. Now this weekly Tuesday Toonie is only being read 10-20% of the time by people via the e-zine delivery method - the rest of the time you are reading it or getting to it via social media or directly at the blog. 

This does not make the content any less valuable but with our inundated in boxes and busy lives it does beg the question about sending it out in full format in an e-zine rather than a quick mailing, linking to the blog for the full content. So going forward the Tuesday Toonie is going to be a 21 second or less read. Enough for you to maybe stop and think for a moment about your career and if you want to understand more then go to the blog to get more on that weeks topic.  

We will be continuing with the monthly Inukshuk e-zine that delves deeper in to the subject of career management and personal leadership branding and provide in there links to all the previous months weekly Tuesday Toonies for anyone you might have missed. We also continue to blog and post other very latest links and resources via social media - especially our Facebook page and my LinkedIn updates, or you may just prefer to be made aware of the Tuesday Toonie via one of these methods - so if you have not done so please connect with us at;

www.facebook.com/personalbrand and http://ca.linkedin.com/in/paulcopcutt 

Thank you again for reading and we look forward to continuing to serve you. 

Personal Brand Book Review - Standout

StandOut – The groundbreaking new strengths assessment.

© 2011 by One Thing Productions Inc, 227 pages, Paperback

5R Score: 25/35

The Three Strengths Principles

1. Your Genius is Precise
2. You Can’t Respect What You Don’t Remember
3. You Must Reach Beyond Your Roles

On a scale of 1-7   

Relevance - is it right for personal branding? - 7

Resonance does it make sense to the reader? - 6

Relation is there a connection for everyone? - 5   

Remarkability - does it stand out, will it get noticed? - 5

Real - does the personal brand come through? - 2

Would you pick it up?

Since getting involved in the whole personal branding area, one of the core pieces of work that I use and refer to on a regular basis has been “Now Discover Your Strengths” by Buckingham and Clifton and other updated versions of the work.  That is until now.

I have always enjoyed the work of Marcus Buckingam and he has been personally branded as the “Leader of the Strengths Revolution”. He is a joy to watch and listen to as a speaker (I would kill for a fraction of his speaker fees!). But what I really like is his continued efforts to make understanding your unique strengths, simple. With this book he has taken it all a stage further.

Now you just need to know your top two strengths, (mine were Equalizer and Influencer) and there are only 9 strengths in total, so it’s also easier to understand others as well.

Relevance

One of the core foundation pieces of personal branding is to understand your strengths. If you cannot immediately identify what those are then you need to invest in a book like ‘StandOut’. Each book comes with a unique code to take an online assessment and Buckingham has obviously spent a lot of time and resources in getting this working optimally set to give best results.

Resonance

Strengths are just one part of your personal branding puzzle, but a key one, so not underestimate the need to do this. The book is mostly made up of chapter explanations of each of the 9 strengths, so on first read you might skip a lot. But if you go further with this, start to know others strengths it’s the type of book that should almost be on your desk versus a bookshelf.

What is really excellent about this book is that it helps you understand how you can maximise your strength in various situations;

-      You are at your most powerful

-      How to describe yourself (in interviews and performance reviews)

-      How to make an immediate impact

-      How to take your performance to the next level

-      What to watch out for.

-      How to win as a leader.

-      How to win as a manager.

-      How to win in sales.

-      How to win in client services.

There is also a team strengths version which is very neat.

Relation

I firmly believe that if you are going to live any type of life you love then understanding and playing to your strengths is key, so this book and its approach and principles applies to anyone at any level.  In fact it is a good leveler – it does not matter where you are, strengths are strengths.

Remarkability

In much of my work with personal brands I would say the most underplayed element of most peoples personal brands are their strengths. It is what you do naturally and so well that it’s almost a sub-conscious action. Many people might look at this work and think it rudimentary, but I will bet most of them are not leveraging their strengths anywhere at the level they could be, so there are many lessons from this.

Real

Marcus Buckingham has one of the most amazing strengths based stories about his personal brand, but apart from a few anecdotal personal pieces you are going to have to go somewhere else to find that one out. As most of the book is specific to understanding the strengths you would hope there were more examples, but it lacks that level and is the most disappointing part of the book.

Having said that this is a must for all my future personal branding work.   

 

 

Is your career facing a Kodak moment?

No doubt the business school case studies in years to come about the sad demise of Kodak and it's brand will raise many questions about the effectiveness of it's leaders. 

The filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy by Kodak this week has many lessons for all businesses, but what can you learn from this and be sure that you are not facing the same in your career?

1. Don't underestimate the impact your ideas have. 

It was the mid-70's when Kodak actually developed for the first digital camera. Can you imagine how far ahead they may have been in the market place and for how long had they moved on this revolutionary idea. 

Personal Brand Lesson - just because your industry or vocation has done it the same way for a long time and everyone is comfortable with that way does not mean an idea out of left field is not a better one. Be willing to challenge the status quo. 

2. Don't be complacent or greedy. 

Kodak leaders decided to shelve the digital camera because they felt it was going to do too much damage to their highly lucrative and profitable film business. 

Personal Brand Lesson - it makes sense to maximise your value with the core strengths you have. But know that you need to continually develop yourself and add new skills. Demands and markets change, so your brand has to evolve over time. Anticipate demands and start adding to your skill set now. 

3. Be Prepared to Re-brand

The plan for Kodak is to sell it's $2 billion worth of patents and emerge as a more agile company in the printer business. They see revenue and profit in ink (HP generates $9 billion a year in ink cartridges). But does the tagline of the "Kodak Moment" still apply? Likely not, as they become less and less synonymous with photos a re-brand of the company would almost seem inevitable. 

Personal Brand Lesson - the experts tell us that the workforce of the future might well be in many different vocation, not just jobs, in their lifetime. The foundation and core of your brand might remain the same, but sometimes the message and your target audience will change and a re-branding is necessary. 

How do you see business the lessons from the likes of RIM and Kodak apply to your career and personal brand? 

 

 

How E-mail Damages Your Personal Brand

The recent report of an executive recruiter in the UK being fired for e-mailing a job candidate to go away using colourful language - but accidentally copying everyone (all 4,000+ of them!) on the candidates blast list, highlights the dangers of damaging your personal brand and career by relying too much on technology. What is that recruiter going to say when the question comes up "Why did you leave your last job?"

The candidate also was obviously damaging their brand (and job search chances) by sending out such a generic application to so many people. I am seeing far too much of that at the moment. I get you that finding a job is tough, but use time wisely to be more targetted, not spray and pray job seeking that says I don't really care. 

Just last week, I was talking with both a colleague on the very subject of e-mail versus picking up this still very useful piece of technology called the telephone and also coaching a client on the dangers of mis-understood communication, when a quuick conversation would have eliminated all the angst that they ended up experiencing. 

All the 'gurus' are telling us that 2012 is going to be the year of mobile, but with that will come an even greater temptation to say it in text versus verbally. 

Some quick tips to keep your conversations live and real in 2012; 

1. Resist the temptation to respond to an e-mail straight away. A client once said to me there is rarely such a thing as an accounting emergency, and the same should apply to your situation. 

2. Before you pen an e-mail or a reply, consider if this form of communication is the best way to get your message across?  If it is, be sure to re-read it once and double check the to, cc and bcc box recipients.

3. When in doubt pick up the phone or arrange a face to face. So much can be mis-interpreted by the written word, if it's important let the other person know that by having a conversation. 

4. Make time for 15 minutes every day. We are all guilty (me included) of not connecting properly with people because we feel that we have no time. Stop the Facebook likes, Twitter re-tweets and Four Square check-in's and use that 15 minutes a day to pick up the phone to three people you know and say hello. 

As my colleague Dave Howlett said, "I am much more likely to remember you for that call than a tweet, like, poke or follow".