Reflections of a Square Peg

12 Days of Personal Branding - Day 7

 

On the seventh day of Christmas my brand strategist advised to me;

Have a clear PBS,

Know your key strengths,

Make... it... u-n-i-q-u-e.

Decide on a niche,

Conduct a 360,

Set measurable goals,

and have very clear and focused VP’s.

When you have clearly understood who you are, who needs to know about you and why you – then you need to have a clear statement that captures that and becomes your guiding mantra as you move your personal brand forward. This is your PBS – Personal Brand Statement.

12 Days of Personal Branding- Day 6

 

On the sixth day of Christmas my brand strategist advised to me;

Know your key strengths.

Make.. it... u-n-i-q-u-e.

Decide on a niche,

Conduct a 360,

Set measurable goals,

and have very clear and focused VP’s.

Why spend so much time looking at improving weaknesses? You will have a handful of really key strengths that if you spent more time emphasizing you will be way more successful.

If you cannot articulate your strengths take the time to uncover them, use something like StrengthsFinder to get clear on these- its critical to your personal brand.

12 Days of Personal Branding - Day 5

 

On the fifth day of Christmas my brand strategist advised to me;

Make it u-n-i-q-u-e

Decide on a niche

Conduct a 360,

Set measurable goals

and have very clear and focused VP’s.

It’s no longer enough to have X years experience and a good qualification – sometimes those are just the entry stakes to get considered. There are many out there with similar skills and experience – you need to have something more that differentiates you.

What is it that you do that no-one else does?

12 Days of Personal Branding - Day 4

 

On the fourth day of Christmas my brand strategist advised to me;

Decide on a niche

Conduct a 360 assessment,

Set measurable goals

and have a very clear and focused VP.

Everyone is incredibly pushed for time, so ensuring you make the most of it is key to personal branding success. That means being very clear about who you need to be connecting and communicating with so that you gain maximum exposure to them.

Not having a focus will mean dilution of your time and ultimately your message.

12 Days of Personal Branding - Day 3

 

On the third day of Christmas my brand strategist advised to me;

Conduct a 360 assessment,

Set measurable goals

and have a very clear and focused VP.

The 360 Reach assessment now has a new version about to launch. The 360 enables you to go to a wide range of people (not just in work) and gather feedback as to their perceptions of your personal brand.

This feedback is incredibly important in the personal brand process as you start to uncover what are your rational attributes (those expected of someone in your position with your experience etc) and the emotional attributes – those that make you different, stand out and quite often are the reasons people work with you and for you and why you get hired over someone else.

12 Days of Personal Branding - Day 2

 

On the second day of Christmas my brand strategist advised to me; 

Set measurable goals

and have a very clear and focused VP.

Once you have clarity on your vision and purpose you can put yourself through a goals exercise that looks at where you want to be over the next 10 years.

With some goals you will have a clearer picture of where you want to be, by when. But distractions will arise that will cause you to stop and question your direction or make you reconsider a decision. That is why the second VP - Values & Passions - are an equally important appointment that you make early in the personal branding process.

12 Days of Personal Branding - Day 1

  On the first day of Christmas my brand strategist advised to me, to have a very clear and focused VP.

A critical aspect of your personal brand foundation is to appoint the first VP and decide both what you would like to see for the world (your vision) and then also your personal role in that world (purpose - or mission).

Your second VP - Values and Passions are your guiding lights that ensure you keep on track for the long term but more importantly become the beacons that you will not compromise. These are you true underlying motivators that get you fired up when its all heading in the right direction and upset or angry when you have to compromise them or they are challenged.

12 Days of Christmas Job Hunting

  David Perry, author of the Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters book has released a FREE e-book - The 12 Days of Christmas Job Hunting which can be download from his blog - many of the tips are from his book but its also a great reminder to all job seekers not to stop looking at this holiday time - in fact take it up a notch becuase no-one else will be doing it!

Business could learn from Obama style, experts say

  This is a copy of a recent Reuters article by Ellen Wulfhorst that I was quoted in.....

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If Barack Obama were a corporate chief executive, the incoming U.S. president already would be winning high marks for his management style, experts say.

The president-elect's steady hand and calm demeanor that have earned him the moniker "No Drama Obama" are traits business leaders could well learn from, according to management experts.

"What he's doing is masterful," said Paul Reagan, a management consultant and senior lecturer at Wayne State University in Detroit. "His value system is clear, and he spends a tremendous amount of time reinforcing that he does what he says he will do.

"His credibility right now is so high most people already see him as the corporate head," Reagan said.

There's one particular aspect of Obama's style that business leaders likely do not share -- an acute awareness of his own strengths and weakness, said Paul Copcutt, a personal brand strategist based in Dundas, Ontario.

That awareness is evident in his cabinet selections, in which Obama has chosen veterans to provide the expertise or experience he lacks, he said.

"In corporate, we're brought up to look at our weaknesses and how can you improve those and what can you work on," Copcutt said. "Really good leaders should be focusing on what they're good at and either delegating or finding other ways to achieve what they're not good at."

From Hillary Clinton, a former campaign rival, to Robert Gates, a holdover from the administration of Republican President George W. Bush, Obama's cabinet choices show an effort to build a coalition with voices that may disagree with his own, Reagan said.

Chief executives, on the other hand, often build a "go-to team" of supportive advisors who "don't bring in all of the voices that they really need to lead all of the organization," he said.

'JURY IS STILL OUT'

Obama's demonstration of skill is still in its early days, however. All he has done so far is pick some key cabinet members and urge Congress to act swiftly on an economic stimulus plan when it takes office in early January.

"The jury is still out," said Nancy Koehn, a business historian and professor at Harvard Business School.

The tougher tests come once Obama moves into the White House on January 20.

On the downside, a management style that appeals to so many constituencies, such as Obama's, poses the risk of broad disappointment, Reagan said.

"He may have oversold change," he said. "If there is a vulnerability, it will be in a lack of clarity or, because it was so general, an inability to make good on what everyone interpreted was something for them."

Chief executives could borrow a page from Obama's responses to two hurdles in his path to the U.S. presidency -- his loss in the New Hampshire primary and the maelstrom over his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright, said Koehn.

In each case, Obama responded with an "emotional competence" that leaders could use, especially in today's troubled financial climate, to cope with currents such as fear of job losses or anxiety over poor performance at their organizations, she said.

"Business leaders need to be very conscious of those aspects to their people and their organization that are more than just, 'What are our tangible resources?' 'What's our head count?' 'What's our market?' 'What's our customer?'" she said.

CEO coach Deb Dib can tick off a list of traits she sees in Obama -- caring, confident, consistent, commanding, calm and more -- traits she tries to teach business executives.

"If you look at any really effective CEO, they almost all share in one way or another almost every one of those attributes," said Dib from her office in Medford, New York.

"It transcends politics. You really have to look at him and say, 'Wow, I can learn something from this."

(Edited by Philip Barbara)