Paul Copcutt - Just My Toonies Worth

What is your personal brand U.S.P. ?

I had the pleasure of attending a recent women’s entrepreneur lunch at the McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton. It included a Dragon’s Den or Shark Tank style pitch by 4 local women run businesses in competition for some services and prizes to help them with their development and growth.

The panel was made up of local service and successful entrepreneurs, but they were certainly much nicer than many of the ‘sharks’ or ‘dragons’!

None of the businesses, as far as I can determine, were the only ones of their type, they all have competition. What was very noticeable and great to see from them was some indications of their brand uniqueness.

Lunch-bags.ca. A local custom catered lunch company, with fully compostable packaging, run by one much taller owner than the other – they even made humourous comments on this. The humour theme continues as their delivered food includes over detailed opening instructions on the boxes and a list of the music they listened to while making your food!

Sounds Sports Imaging. A start-up company offering training and implementation for sports medical clinicians on a revolutionary portable ultrasound machine. The owner was very knowledgeable and passionate about the difference this was going to make.

Cake & Loaf. A made from scratch bakery with all products made fresh daily using as many local suppliers as they can find. Also a high eco-emphasis with minimal waste and local bike delivery.

Eco Lux Pet Apparel. Offering luxury pet clothing styled on latest human fashion trends and made from used human clothing, wherever possible made from natural materials etc. The owner had a very outgoing personality and used her singing skills to present part of her pitch tunefully!

All four eventually ended up receiving prizes and they all seemed set for continued launch or growth. This in part was due to varying degrees of 3 things that all small business and entrepreneurs need to consider – their U.S.P. ;

Uniqueness. 99.9% of the time you are not going to be the only one in the market, there will be competitors similar or the same to you. You have to find what your unique approach, perspective or offering is going to be and then ensure you are communicating that all the time to make it memorable.

Savvy. Have a great idea, product or service is just not enough. You have to do your research, find out what your customers other options are. Also know your numbers. One business had excellent stats and demographics - they knew the depth of their opportunity.

Passion. There are going to be bumps in the road. You have to truly believe that what you have is a winner. If you do not believe it how can you expect anyone else to? One of the businesses was rejected for funding by banks because they thought their numbers were unrealistic – they have actually tripled them! This was because they had done their homework. Blind passion can be dangerous but if you add in the Uniqueness and Savvy then Passion can make you a real winner.

How clear are you about your U.S.P?

If you are not as clear as you think you could be perhaps a complimentary strategy session might help - check out my availability.

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. 

How to build your personal brand using social media

This past week I attended a webinar by Chris Brogan, author of a great book with Julien Smith called 'Trust Agents' and Lewis Howes an expert on webinars.

There were three good take aways for me as a small business owner, especially with regards to Google+ which had given up on. I summarised them in a short video that you can watch here. (Apologies the weather was so nice I shot it outside, so it's a little bit windy!)

 

 How this can be applied to your personal brand;

1. Google+ has some distinct advantages when it comes to showing up on THE search engines. If getting to page 1 of Google is important to you and you are struggling to get there at the moment, Google+ may well be the answer. 

2. Using a webinar format to get across your personal brand could be a very differentiated way to present yourself. This could be as easy as having a few key slides and doing an audio. Even reports could be presented in this format, especially in the global world of work we all live in. 

3. Developing a more regular e-mail communication to your network, perticularly those people that you need to keep in touch with but only a few times a year. Giving them a summary of latest developments in your area of expertise, or subjects important/interesting to them in an e-mail piece could be both memorable and shareable. 

Personal Brand Book Review - 18 Minutes

18 Minutes – Find Your focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done

© 2011 by Peter Bregman, 263 pages, Hardback

5R Score: 28/35

The 18 Minutes  

Part One – Pause

Part Two – What is This Year About?

Part Three – What is This Day About?

Part Four – What is This Moment About?

 

On a scale of 1-7   

Relevance - is it right for personal branding? - 6

Resonance does it make sense to the reader? - 6

Relation is there a connection for everyone? - 6  

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

Real - does the personal brand come through? - 5

Would you pick it up? 

For me there is always one book each year that has the most impact on the way that I think, act or say. At the end of last year this was the one. People regularly identify a strength in me, organizing and I have been consistent in a related area to this – making some kind of daily planning system work for me – NOT!   

There are far too many books out there that espouse the very latest ways, ideas and ‘simple’ systems to implement and make your life easier. I have tried many of them and found that most of them require a Phd to understand or operate and ultimately get frustrating and unworkable. 

 
What I like about ’18 Minutes; is that it boils things down to the core basics of what is most important to you and ‘forget’ the rest. 
As you slip out of all the good intentions you had at the start of the year, this book can get you back on track fast. 

Relevance

Perhaps not immediately evident that this is a book about your personal brand. But once you have clearly identified what your personal brand is and who needs to know about it, then you have to get on with living and communicating that brand. The challenge is remaining focused and not getting distracted. This book and its easy to follow 18 Minutes a day looking at the 5 most important areas of focus for the year make staying on brand much more effective. It also means at the end of the year you are going to be much further forward.

Resonance

I found the 18 Minute approach quick to grasp, easy to initially implement and in most cases stick to regularly (a failing in many of the more complicated systems – one I have followed has almost 20 pages to act on - weekly!).

For me though the most compelling part of the whole system is that when I have not followed it for a day or I find my day got away from me, I can check back in and identify right away where I was falling down AND find a quick solution to getting back on track.

Relation

In today’s world of multiple demands on seemingly less and less time we can all relate to the desire to want to not just get back control of our lives and simplify them too. But deep down we also want to know we are making a difference (whatever we define that to be), 18 Minutes gives us the approach to focus just on what is most important.

Remarkability

Because the approach is so simple there is a danger that people do not see this as remarkable. That would be a shame. We do not have to complicate or over think things to have them make us more effective or successful.

Just the simple suggestion of setting a one hour alarm to do focused and concentrated work has made a huge difference to my productivity. This book review and one other article were effectively completed in one of those 60 minute bursts.

Real

The author is constantly using personal and real life work and client examples to get his points across. His blog posts do the same. The book is broken down in to very bite size 2-4 page chapters that get one key point across. This makes for easy reference and pick up again stickiness. But once ingrained it’s certainly one to keep on the bookshelf. 

 

 

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. 

Your Business Card is NOT a Queen of Spades

We love to play various card games. My kids especially love Crazy 8's, it's a fast paced game with the main goal to get rid of all your cards before any opponents. They get extra enthusiastic when they lay a card down that causes you as the next player to pick more cards up - especially the Queen of Spades, where the penalty is 5 extra cards! 

Unfortunately at many events people treat it like a game of Crazy 8's and use their business cards in the same way - they come around trying to put their cards down (or in your hands) as quickly as possible, many times moving on before even asking you anything or getting your card in return - more worried about their next turn instead. 

At two recent networking events I experienced two classic examples of this, which resulted in the damaging of each person's personal brand in a big way. 

1. At the first event I was standing at a small drinks table with three other people, all of us in conversation. This person 'barged' in to the group, had their business cards in hand like a deck of cards and proceeded to 'deal' us each one card on the table in front of us, with the comment of "I am X and I do Y" and then walked on to the next group.

We all looked at each other slightly bemused, continued our conversations and when we did depart not one of us picked up a card.  

2. At the other event I was in conversation with one other person who I had not seen for a while and was really interested in catching up. This person just came up to us both and shoved their card in our hands and walked on.

Not more than 10 minutes later they were back, had completely forgotten who they had already given cards to, and tried to give us their card again. My blue recycling bin was the only place I filed that card! 

Your business card is very often the only physical reminder someone has of your personal brand, so make sure you are using it wisely. 

Establish some kind of rapport or relationship with someone before offering your card, or wait until they ask for it. Or if you feel you can offer some value to that person make sure to ask for theirs. 

But however you decide to exchange cards, as the American Express ad's say -  don't leave home without them! 

 

A Decade (and more) of Personal Brand Book Publishing

My whole interest in the subject of personal branding started with reading Tom Peters book The Brand You 50 in 1999, since then I have avidly collected and read many others – some great, some good and some questionable!

I dipped in to my collection and picked one book printed in each year since Tom Peters book and give a quick viewpoint. No doubt going forward my collection may well include a few Kindle versions, but in the meantime I loved picking these ones up and skimming back through them, some for the umpteenth time.

Branding Yourself – Erik Deckers & Kyle Lacy – 2011 – The latest book with a strong emphasis in the area of building the personal brand by leveraging technology and social media, with a few final chapters on offline activity.

Shift – Peter Arnell – 2010 – An ad man that had to make significant personal shifts to literally survive making this much more of a personal journey focus.

Me 2.0 – Dan Schwabel – 2009 – As the title suggests the emphasis here is communicating the personal brand online and looking  at personal branding very much from the perspective of the younger ‘wired’ generations.

Managing Brand You – Jerry S Wilson & Ira Blumenthal – 2008 – Another Fortune 500 executive is one of the authors, the other a brand consultant so the book transposes many product brand approaches to the personal brand.

Career Distinction – William Arruda & Kirsten Dixson – 2007 – The culmination of the first half a decade of his work with Reach, in collaboration with another early personal brand adopter and coupled with many examples from the Reach community.

Soaring on Your Strengths – Robin Ryan – 2006 – Written from the career coaches perspective this book has some good suggestions and actual examples of its use with career marketing documents.

UR A Brand – Catherine Kaputa – 2005 – Some good tie ins between corporate/product branding and personal brand. Some good exercises to complete and part of the author’s personal brand comes through in the use of Shakespere quotes throughout the book.

Career Warfare – David D’Alessandro – 2004 – there is a very shortlist of books on personal branding written for the corporate market, this is the best there currently is and written by someone who made it all the way to the top of a Fortune 500.

The Brand Called You – Peter Montoya with Tim Vandehey – 2003 – One of the better books on personal branding for service based businesses. Written with the small business owner in mind, comprehensive steps and ideas.

Be Your Own Brand – David McNally & Karl D Speak – 2002 – One of the first books to make the connection between personal brand and employer brand. Some interesting templates to help form the basic foundation of your brand.

Build Your Own Life Brand – Stedman Graham – 2001 – Most famous for being Oprah’s partner, this is a good basic read that connects the dots between personal brand at work and elsewhere, after all it’s not just about work.

Make A Name For Yourself – Robin Fisher Roffer – 2000 - Probably one I would continue to place in my top 10 of personal branding books and one of the few directly aimed at women. A good read with a well thought out process.   

The Brand You 50 – Tom Peters – 1999 - This book still has plenty of relevant ideas and tips, particularly for those caught up in doing too much online. THE book that started it all, following on from his Fast Company magazine article, the inspiration for the forming of Reach!

Looking forward to the next decade of personal brand books and seeing where the whole subject develops. 

 

The Brand That Was Steve Jobs

The passing of Steve Jobs resulted in an outpouring of emotion and praise that I would suggest was almost unprecedented. A Google search shows over 234,000,000 web pages - 70,000,000 more than Obama!

Now part of that visible reaction was due to the fact that we have so much more ability to communicate to many more people - ironically in many cases using the very tools that Jobs helped develop. 

Also that technology and it's speed helped produce fast reactions - with many online eulogies, pieces and collections (see below). 

Also significant media responses such as whole ad-free magazines ( like Business Week, Time ) and newspaper inserts ( San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times) dedicated to him. E-books launched ( by Wired) and sold on Amazon within hours and an upcoming biography rushed forward by 6 months. 

And the inevitable surveys on the future of Apple;

Poll: How will Apple perform without Steve Jobs?

They'll do just fine (52%)

Become stagnant (21%)

Fail (10%)

I'm not sure (18%)

In currently reading Paul Allen, Co-founder of Microsoft's autobiography  it is apparent that Steve Jobs was not always a liked man, or a pleasant leader to work with and for. 

But the ultimate test of a strong brand is defined "by a perception, good or bad, that your customers or prospects have about you".

In Jobs case it would appear that with his own personal leadership brand the many positive attributes, skills and unique abilities far outweighed the negative in the vast majority of eyes. He will certainly be missed by many. 

12 contrasting and insightful perspectives I found on Steve Jobs: 

Steve Jobs commencement address at Stanford University 2005, watched the day after his death by over 8 million people. 

 

Steve Jobs - The Builder- blog post from Jonathan Salem-Baskin who worked on the PR account of Apple in the late 90's.

Steve Jobs - A Tribute - obituary from Steven Levy at Wired.com. also check out his podcast at Harvard Business Review -  The Legacy of Steve Jobs - a perfect CEO

Steve Jobs dead at 56, his life ended prematurely by chemotherapy and radiotherapy for cancer - hard hitting commentary on Steve Jobs health choices and the impact of Apple from Mike Adams, Editor of NaturalNews.com

What I learned from Steve Jobs - reflections from Guy Kawasaki, former Chief Evangelist at Apple

Apple under Jobs was quintessentially corporate - Financial Post Comment from Terence Corcoran, commenting on the irony of Occupy Wall Street protestors using Apple products. 

Social media reaction immediately following his death, captured by the Globe & Mail 

Gallery of Fortune Magazine covers with Steve Jobs on the front 12 of them in total!

The Top Ten Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Us - Forbes magazine  

The Legacy of Steve Jobs - Harvard Business Review

and of course Apples own tribute.

Personal Brand Book Review - The Fearless Fish Out of Water

The Fearless Fish Out of Water – How to succeed when you’re the only one like you.

© 2009 Robin Fisher-Roffer – 213 Pages Hardback

5R Score: 30/35

The 7 Steps

1. Go fishing for the real you
2. Use your differences as a lure
3. Find a few fish like you
4. Swim in the ocean your way
5. Put yourself out on the line
6. Evolve by casting a wide net
7. Reel in your unique power

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? - 7

Would you pick it up?

This is one of those books that I found by chance, whilst ‘trawling’ (pardon the pun) the shelves of the local library. It was not a book I was aware of, although the author I knew from her very good first book, “Make a Name for Yourself: Eight Steps Every Woman Needs to Create a Personal Brand Strategy for Success” an early personal branding resource.

This book approaches personal branding from almost the opposite direction. Robin, the author, always felt like the fish out of water, and it is people like this who really were the very early pioneers in what we now call personal branding. They already felt different, embraced it and were able to use that differentiation to their advantage in building successful careers and businesses. What I really liked about this book is there are plenty of examples and also it offers lots of practical actions and exercises at the end of each chapter.

Relevance

The reader has to be prepared to view the whole notion of personal branding from a different perspective. Something I talk about often is that we already have a personal brand, the key is understanding what that brand is and then communicating it. A number of other books try to manufacture from the other end, this one says its already there, now use it.

Resonance

Whilst the book almost avoids the label of personal branding, there are some similarities between this and her first book. However this one carries much more of Robin’s own personal brand and its 7 year evolution between the two publications.

For the more straightforward, perhaps even traditional. personal branding process I would favour her first book. This ‘Fearless Fish’ content I would almost label as an advanced approach. The reason I say that is many times you end up talking in much greater depth and much more personally to clients in personal branding than they had originally expected, because it does touch on a whole life not just career and business. Robin has captured that through her own lessons and others she has interacted with in this book.

Relation

Much of her experience has been in the entertainment field so many of the examples and profiles come from that group, but there are smatterings of others to learn from too.

For the individual looking to get a little deeper understanding of who and what their personal brand is this is a good read.

Remarkability

I really enjoyed the fresher, more authentic approach to the whole personal branding process that this book offers. It is not going to be for everyone but those that do read this book will get a lot of value from it.

One challenge might be where to find it on the bookshelf – at my local library it was under self-help, but not careers. Better to buy your own copy online!

Real

This is a very real personal branding work. Robin does not hide aspects her personal brand at all that others might be reluctant to expose. That makes for the readers greater comfort with their own brand and makes the book a much more engaging and believable piece. 

 

So if you are an accountant - is that designation really so important?

There is an interesting debate going on between the three main accounting designations here in Canada - CA (Chartered Accountant), CMA (Certified Management Accountant), and CGA (Certified General Accountant) about the value or not of a merger of two or all three organizations. 

Having spoken to audiences at conferences, professional development days and several chapters of all three, it is clear that merging is not going to solve all the challenges that accountants and for that matter many service professionals face - namely differentiation.

In fact if they end up doing a hodge podge of meregers only in some provinces and only some designations the picture may get very much more cloudy than clear. 

In the end the designations on their own are not enough. 

Unless you have sat down with an accountant and heard their explanation of their designation it is very likely that most people would not know the difference and the benefits of one over the other. BUT their buying decision might already be made, at least for a shortlist of who to use or hire. 

This is because the general perceptions are that all (accomplished) accountants are at the very least - accurate, honest and analytical - regardless of designation. so the choice becomes much more about the individual accountants personal brand and the emotional connections one makes to that person. Are you looking for a FUN accountant, or CARING or QUIRKY?  

It might only be when you find a FUN CA, CMA and CGA that the designation becomes important - at least to the buyer.