Paul Copcutt - Just My Toonies Worth

What does your business card communicate about your brand?

Last week John Baird, Foreign Secretary and one of the Canadian governments leading figures, caused a bit of storm with a recent business card re-design. 

He seems even to have strayed from the 'brand standards' that are recommended and his Chief of Staff even had to sign a disclaimer to formally acknowledge that his office was advised against the changes. 

There is always the challenge of wanting to have a business card that best communicates your brand, but it also has to be remembered when representing an organization that the card also has to convey their brand - even when it comes to Government. 

In a rush to stamp his own brand on the card, Baird seems to have committed three sins of business card design:

1. He actually had the 'Canada' word and brand of the flag removed entirely from the card. If you represent a well recognised brand have that on your card, it adds to your credibility. 

2. He changed it to a unlingual card, not having the reverse done in French, even though he is bilingual and represents a bilingual constituency. If you have a unique or differentiating skill or strength, see if you can highlight this - having the card double sided with a second language is very visible and memorable. 

3. His mailing address in the capital Ottawa was at a building named after a Liberal prime minister AND Nobel Peace Prize winner - but not from the same party as Baird. If you have an issue that you would rather not be associated with but it's a key part of your professional details, the business card is not the place to display this dis-satisfaction - have a little more class. 

Even in this very technological and connected online world, the business card is still an important part of your personal brand communication, in fact it might be the only printed tool you have. Take some time to ensure it is a balanced and clear reflection of who you are and what you want to be known for. 

And the new Premier of Ontario is..........likeable?

The provincial election in Ontario is a little over a week away and depending on which poll you believe anyone of the three main parties could end up winning. 

But if it came down to backyard barbecue invitations instead of votes NDP leader Andrea Horwath would be the winner with 37% of respondents to an IPSOS Reid poll saying they would prefer to have her than 32% for PC leader Tim Hudak and 31% for Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty. 

The reason...........?

LIKEABILITY.

With all three leaders so closely matched it's the emotional attribute of Horwath that makes her more appealing than the others. 

If you had asked in the same poll what words people would use to describe each leader the chances are a few would come up for all three such as;

Leader like

Confident

Ambitious

Honest .... (well on second thoughts!)

If all three posess the same words then these are what we term rational attributes - i.e. they are what we expect to see in any leader of a provincial party. They are the table stakes, they get you in the game and seriously considered. 

However - they will not be the deciding attributes in why someone will vote for them. The differentiators are the emotional attributes - such as Likeable.

When you are communicating your personal leadership brand be sure that both the rational AND emotional words are included in your language - written and verbal - it's critical to your success. 

 

Are markets too quick to judge female CEO's?

The appointment of Meg Whitman as CEO of Hewlett Packard this week brought immediate doom and gloom predictions from analysts and market experts - unfortunately this comes as no great surprise. 

Regular surveys including yearly studies by Catalyst find the following:

• Companies with the greatest number of women on their boards performed significantly better financially than companies with fewer female board members.
• Women in high-ranking corporate positions offer their companies many benefits, so much so that many firms purposefully seek out female directors.
• Because there are so few female CEOs, a new female CEO appointment generates more uncertainty -- and more negative reaction -- among investors than the appointment of a new male CEO.
• A principal reason why there are so many more male CEOs than female ones is the incompatibility of family dynamics and the way the work world is structured in the U.S.
• Men aren't more likely than women to be born with the qualities of a successful CEO, but the opportunities to develop those qualities are weighted toward men.
• As the proportion of men to women in the C-suite becomes equal, women leaders should be less interesting, unique, and noteworthy -- and therefore less subject to skepticism and negative reactions.

it is a shame that the positive aspects of Whitman's personal leadership brand such as 'Communication" are not valued more in these equations (but then how do you measure it??!!), especially as the nay-sayers are more focused on the challenges that the business faces (problems that were in place well before Whitman joined) rather than her ability to solve them. 

The recent firing of Carol Bartz at Yahoo only helps ingrain these negative perceptions. Short term expectation, pressure on profit figures and rapidly changing markets will likely not improve things for all CEO's (male and female) for the forseeable future. 

"I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation."

These are not always the words you would expect to hear from a leading CEO when admitting that a move they made in the market was the wrong one, or at the very least one that should have had a more considered approach. 

They are certainly not the words that Jim Balsilee the Co-CEO of Research in Motion, makers of the Blackberry, has uttered (well at least not publicly). The latest analyst reaction to RIM's worsening performance is not positive, siting current executive leadership as one of the barriers to returning glory.  

But this is exactly how Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix started off a recent blog post to explain that the move the company made on increasing prices without consulting their customers was perhaps the wrong one.  He went on to admit the fears he faces from being so successful in one realm that any other new ventures may never match up. Finally he went on to say:

"I want to acknowledge and thank our many members that stuck with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions."

Some commentators felt that this was just too little too late, given that the price changes were announced back in July and that this open letter of apology only came after Netflix reported losing over 1 million subscribers. and they had a 'new' service to launch, namely the re-branding of the mailed DVD service to Qwikster. 

Both close in age, Hastings a masters graduate of Stanford and Balsillee a masters graduate of Harvard are certainly no dummies - so what are the lessons you can learn from their respective personal leadership brands?

1. Clear belief in a vision that was inspiring, innovative, and moved markets to a whole new level. When you have such a vision be sure to clearly communicate it to those that need to know about it and don't waver from that belief and message. 
2. Know that you cannot do it all yourself. Identify where your strengths and your operating uniqueness lies, do that and find other ways to get the rest done. Your leadership will be much more effective hiring others to do what you do not do well, outsource areas that are not a core expertise, be open to others input and insights. 
3. Listen to what is going on in your marketplace. Trailblazing got you to where you are, but it may not sustain you as your market matures, competitors catch up or overtake you and customer demands change. Gather feedback, ask for opinions, watch reactions to ideas - but then act on them, do not plug your ears, sing loudly and pretend you cannot hear the noise. 
4. When you make a mistake fess up. And do it sooner rather than later. in today's world where transparency is so evident and expected, people may not love what you have done but will respect you more for admitting when you are wrong and doing something about it versus hoping its all going to go away or continue doing what you have always done. 
5. Know when it's quitting time. When you have built something so impactful stepping aside is going to be extremely tough - look at how hard it must have been for Steve Jobs. But sometimes the damage you are doing to yourself as well as the products, service, company and all of its employees is greater than the benefit of your staying, bow out gracefully versus getting the Carole Bartz phone call. 

Define what you want your personal leadership brand to be and stick to the plan. 

Too many jobs?........head east!

Perhaps not surprsingly 57% of North American recruiters and managers have reservations about hiring candidates who have numerous employers or short job tenures on their resumes according to a Right Management study recently. 

Asia was almost equally cautious at 50% but not going so far east has its advantages in that only 38% of European managers had the same issue. 

Rather obviously it's stated that these moves will need to be explained at interview. To be honest this might be the easier part of the equation. The tougher piece is getting the interview in the first place.

This is why I am such a proponent of not using the resume as a first step career marketing document. Get in front of the hiring manager using a branded bio that talks generally about your past experience without the chronological details and injects some of your personal brand attributes. Then attach an achievements sheet that speaks to specific examples of your strengths in action with measurable results. 

Then you are being selected on what you have done in terms of accomplishments and general experience instead of rejected because of a couple of career moves that turned sour quite possibly through no fault of your own. 

Personal Brand Book Review - The Unauthorised Guide to Doing Business the Jamie Oliver Way – 10 secrets of the irrepressible one-man brand.

The Unauthorised Guide to Doing Business the Jamie Oliver Way – 10 secrets of the irrepressible one-man brand.

© 2010 Trevor Clawson – 210 Pages Paperback

5R Score: 29/35

The 10 Secrets

1. Be yourself, but more so
2. Extend the brand
3. Build on what you’re good at
4. Remember the social dimension
5. Become the face of a supermarket
6. Deal with adversity
7. Go international
8. Protect the brand
9. Be controversial
10. 10. Be bold

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? - 4   

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

Real - does the personal brand come through? - 7

Would you pick it up?

Normally I may not have even noticed this book, but it was one of those “others also bought” books that you get when checking out from purchasing online (see it does work!) and I am really pleased I took a gamble on the book (I liked the title and the subject matter and most readers would be immediately aware of who Jamie Oliver is). This is a UK published book so may be harder to find in North American book stores, but worth the searching out, especially for the self-employed / entrepreneur looking to work on their personal brands.

As the title lets you know this is not an interview of Jamie Oliver and he had no part in putting this book together, but the author Trevor Clawson has done an excellent job of dissecting Oliver’s personal brand and relating it to his business success.

Relevance

One of the few books on celebrity personal brands this book does a much better job than any of the others I have read. It is especially relevant for the small business owner, certainly more so than for someone in a corporate career, although they would still get plenty of insight and enjoy the read. 

Resonance

The book does not go in to any great deal about a specific personal branding process or approach, so if you are looking for that then there are others out there that would more readily satisfy that need.

What it does do however is really open your eyes to the fact that defining, developing and continuing to work on your personal brand can really pay dividends. I would have to disagree with the author when he talks about Oliver’s brand being born at some point (we all have a personal brand) – what was really happening was that he had finally defined what it was and started to realise what he could do with it.

Relation

For the entrepreneur there is a lot of content that is very relevant and even gives good insights in to times that Oliver’s brand has not lived up to it’s definition. Also content is up to date, talking about moves he has made during the recent recession and the benefits of his strong brand and consistent focus in the area of strength he has – namely food.

Remarkability

The challenge for this book is probably getting noticed on the shelf enough that people will pick it up, I will certainly be checking out others in the series now. I really enjoyed reading it, in part because I am an Oliver fan, but also because I liked the writing style, excellent research and insight and how the author made the whole subject matter easy to understand – after all personal branding is not rocket science – unless you are a rocket scientist!

Real

 The real personal brand of Jamie Oliver came through, the author has to be commended on his work. He has provided a great insight in to a strong personal brand who has developed a company that truly lives it values and mission to “help as many people as possible eat better food and live a better life”. 

 

Is Personal Branding Just Skin Deep?

You may have heard me speak or write about my wife’s business in the past? Well, two years into the business, she is now a Regional Vice President, Independent Consultant with Arbonne, a Swiss company offering vegan herbal botanical based health and wellness products www.kericopcutt.myarbonne.ca and continues to look for opportunities to share these amazing products with others.

Well we were talking about this and the fact that I have 50 one year memberships to an online self-study personal branding program that includes workbook, interactive modules and lesson plans, from Reach the leader in personal branding along with 50 passwords to the really popular 360 Reach personal brand assessment that need to be used in the next week and decided we could combine the two and give you and your friends the benefits of personal branding and great health and
wellness products, especially as the summer time is a great time to get together with friends and family.

So we are offering a chance for you and 4 friends to each get a membership and 360 personal brand assessment (worth $200 per person) if you book an Arbonne summer party, first come first serve, plus a special hostess gift to you as the person hosting the party.

THIS OFFER IS ONLY GOOD FOR THE FIRST 10 PEOPLE WHO RESPOND BY MIDNIGHT ON WEDNESDAY JUNE 29^TH.

If this is all a little too much and you would just like to try these amazing products for yourself, let me know and we can arrange to get a sample or even a full tester kit to you to try.

WHAT TO DO NEXT IF YOU DO WANT A PARTY……..

- Pick a day or evening to hold your party, in July or August, about 90 minutes is all you need.

- Decide who are the 4 people you want to come, invite them and confirm they are going to come and what e-mail address they want the login and passwords sent to.

- Contact me directly to reserve one of the only 10 spaces and send me the following information;

Location, date and time of the party
Names, emails and telephone numbers of the attendees

- We will then confirm the party and hostess gift

- Then finally we arrange to get the logins and passwords to everyone

Don’t delay this offer is only good until June 29^th at midnight or the first 10 bookings – whichever comes first.

Thanks for considering this and have a great summer

Cancer is personal, so it's part of my brand

"You're not alone, in fact this type of cancer is the fastest growing type of oral cancer in men under 55, who do not smoke and are not heavy drinkers"

That word "cancer" immediately causes a heightened level of awareness as well as obvious concern.

Last October after a great summer vacation with my family in Jamaica and what I thought was a viral lump in my neck gland had seemed to go away and come back, I finally went to see my family doctor.

Within 72 hours I had most medical exams and tests you could imagine for this and was told that nothing appeared sinister and that I was being referred to an Ear, Nose, Throat Specialist. After two appointments with him and two inconclusive biopsies, he felt it was better to refer me to a head/neck colleague.

The appointment with this Dr came within 5 days (I figured not a good sign) and just a few days before Christmas last year, he sat down with me and very calmly and with much care said "I'm sorry, but I am 95% certain this is HPV cancer."

The week between Christmas and New Year the results of his biopsy came back and he confirmed that the lump in the lymph node was the secondary site of a head/neck cancer and that I was going to be referred to the Juravinski Cancer Centre in Hamilton for next steps. As you can imagine my mind went in to overdrive - all the negative, worse case scenarios as well as positive and even humorous takes on the whole situation.

The early January meetings with a round robin of Dr's resulted in mixed courses of action; surgery, immediate radiation, etc but the senior Dr wanted to take a little more time to see if the primary source could be located. He won out the day and after a left hand side tonsillectomy it was confirmed the tonsil was the primary source AND that it was HPV (Human Papilloma Virus). Believe it or not I was actually quite excited for a couple of reasons. Having lost my step mother to a cancer where they were never able to find the primary source and therefore treat it effectively, with me this meant we knew what we were dealing with. Secondly through the power of Google I was becoming quite well informed about HPV cancers in men, various treatment approaches, clinical trials - prognosis and success rates were encouragingly high.

After the surgery, a course of radiation and chemo treatments were recommended and at the beginning of March, I embarked on the first of three chemo and the first of 35 consecutive weekday radiation treatments. The treatments are now concluded and I am awaiting further tests to determine levels of treatment success and next steps.

Overall the whole process was probably better than was first laid out to me, side effects and the severe burning (like extreme sunburn outside and inside the whole neck throat area) have quite quickly subsided. Although I need to put back on some weight and muscle tone, my levels of energy are improving daily and I am back to eating almost normally.

But what I have also discovered on this journey so far, are a number of far more impactful things;

1. Most people, that I have come across, who are diagnosed with cancer ask a question of themselves along these lines - "If this was it, am I going to be happy tomorrow doing what I am doing today?" - for me this was probably in part one of the easiest questions to answer because I love what I do - helping people realise the impact of personal branding. I am going to be re-designing my business model in a number of areas over the coming weeks and months and priorities for some things are going to less and for others more (you will be reading more on all this in the blog over the coming months), but personal branding will still be at the centre.

2. You're not alone - everyone you speak to has been touched either directly or indirectly by cancer and have stories and words of encouragement to share. Do not be afraid to reach out and ask for perspective and insight from others.

3. I am very grateful and blessed to be surrounded by a loving and supportive family, fantastic network of friends and colleagues and many more I hardly knew but who have become more to me through this experience.

4. There is always someone who has it way worse than you, it may not make easier to bear, but it puts it all in perspective. You can find much strength from others who face the same challenge, there is a 'club' to which you belong and immediately you have a new set of cheerleaders.

5. Kids especially can help that perspective, we were very upfront from the beginning with our two about the whole situation, not hiding facts or conversations from them. They have been amazing and the card that my daughter gave to me within days of knowing what was happening says it all for me "Be happy and healthy - I will always love you" - I will be reading that in my father of the bride speech in 20 years (or hopefully longer!).

I spent a lot of time considering whether this type of post or topic has a place in a blog that has always had a business bias, but the more I realise what it is I offer, the more it made sense.

In the re-worked words of Larry Winget - "They call it PERSONAL branding for a reason" - cancer is very personal, but its part of my brand - thanks for reading.

Make a commitment - however small, but do it.

 

Last week I spent a very worthwhile and enjoyable two days at the first Women in Leadership Conference put on by Ildi Wiley of Results Continuum. The keynote speaker was Arlene Dickinson from Dragons Den, who shared her inspiring story of where she came from and how she built her company. I also presented with good friend and personal brnad colleague Valerie Sokolosky and had the chance to meet in person for the first time good friend and another personal brand strategist colleague Rachel Gogos. We really had fun presenting and even had people labelling us as the Guru and the the Grandma!

One of the regular themes I heard throughout the conference was making a commitment to implement something you learnt and an exercise we got participants to do was commit to taking one step forward with the development of their personal brands. What was refereshing in their responses was not trying to set lofty expectations or unrealistic targets, but finding something that is workable in to an already busy life and committing to taking steps to get it done.

Think about this for your own personal brand development:

What one thing might be a more obvious step or action, but you have yet to take it ?

What one action can you take today to move toward the successful completion of that action?

What step will you take tomorrow?

Make that commitment, take small steps each day and it will get done.

Is optimism part of your personal brand?

"The future ain't what it used to be" - Yogi Berra

Whether you consider optimism to be a value or an attribute or perhaps even both, having it in your personal brand arsenal can certainly be an advantage - not just from your outlook being better, but measurable in terms of your career.

According to recent research out of the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US, researchers who studied MBA graduates and students during their job search and for two years afterwards found that those with a positive disposition were more likely to experience a less intensive job search  and after two years were more likely to have been promoted.

There is probably more to this that just having an optimistic outlook. It is likely that those upbeat people are also more likely to have prepared more because they were looking forward, made more concrete plans for their careers and continued to track and monitor their progress once hired.

As you consider your personal brand and career having a clear picture of your career goals and looking forward are a key element to being more successful and with an optimistic outlook perhaps more ready to deal with the bumps in the road, or as an optimist do they not appear?!

How important do you feel optimism is for career success? Add your toonies worth below.