Reflections of a Square Peg

Define Marketing - Discuss

Fellow masterminder and business coach Chris Barrow has an interesting blog post - A New Definition of Marketing - about the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK and their decision to try and redefine marketing.

It really does bring home why we are seeing such shifts in the whole branding and marketing approach - the consumer is now such an integral part of the mix and how they are treated, spoken to and interacted with now directly affects the success (or failiure) of a brand.

Now take that for a moment and think about your own personal brand. It is not just about what you are doing to communicate it but also how you are doing it and the impact it has on your target audience that determines if it is embraced or rejected - or something in between.

I am expecting to see in 2008 a surge of more people actively loking to manage their personal brands, taking many more pro-active steps and actions to ensure that they are reflected correctly and in turn moving in the direction that they want to go.

Brand & Culture More Important Than Money

According to a recent poll by SEI (a provider of solutions to the financial services industry) Relationship Managers in the industry are more likely to stay at their current employer based on culture versus compensation.

69% said Culture was making them stay and 56% had said was the original reason they joined - 59% placed brand and reputation as the main reason for choosing.

This is not just going to apply to financial services but many industries. As markets tighten and companies again consider retaining the best and looking for others they are going to have to take in many other considerations in constructing an enticing package.

We are now seeing many companies starting to incorporate the use of personal branding in to their development and training programs as a differentiator - engaging and retaining their brightest and best to the future leaders.

Lost for words? - Well I am just in the pink!

How do you get 70+ MBA students and a room full of alumni talking if its not immediately about jobs?

Hold a networking event where there are 4 chairs like this that are sold for $10,000 each!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to work with one of the current Ivey MBA classes on personal branding , time just flew by as we talked about personal brands and how they might start to look at the way they are communicating and portraying their brands differently. I feel that we shifted, I was certainly energized by the students interest and enthusiasm for the subject and certainly the feedback was positive - many liked the fact that the presentation included references to pop culture and related to them much more.

It was then enhanced when we got to spend a few hours in the evening at Ultra Supper Club on Queen Street in Toronto where they had just taken delivery of the Verve Cliquot loveseats designed by Karim Rashid. The full story on the chairs can be read in this Globe & Mail article.

A fun conversation piece, an ice breaker even - it just went to show that sometimes you do not have to worry aobut what you are initially going to say when you have a fibreglass chair in the room!

How Clear Are You About Your Brand?

Ogilvy & Mather have done it again - another great, thought provoking, no holds barred viral ad as part of their Dove work - See ad 'Onslaught' on You Tube - just brilliant.

O&M have done a fantastic job of getting their client very clear on their positioning, target audience and brand - are you able to say the same about your personal brand?

Women May Not All Be Geeks - But They Do Use Technology

According to a recent survey "Lady Geek" put out by Saatchi & Saatchi in the UK - women are feeling left out of the equation when it comes to buying technology.

You just need to take a look at the advertising that most of the Canadian electonics retailers put out there to understand if they get it or not.

Future Shop is all about loud music systems and TV's that cater to the sports jock - I do not recall seeing an ad that is female oriented.

Best Buy did have an ad recently that had a woman watching a love scene in a movie on a big screen tv - but the guy with the sales associate switched it to a foreign language sub-title - hardly women friendly! Although Best Buy in the US recently announced store makeovers to be more women friendly.

As technology becomes more and more the norm for all of us to use and be building our personal brands in the process, then women will be equally demanding in wanting the latest and greatest to do that - and making it fluffy and pink is not going to cut it. 

Same Old, Same Old - Does Not Apply

There is a good article in this weeks Globe & Mail written by the president of one of the large ad agency offices in Vancouver - "Enough With Follow-the-Leader Marketing" giving examples of how some successful brands have broken the traditions of what was expected in their space and subsequently been noticed.

This tactic can apply just as easily to building your personal brand.

Personal branding is about demonstrating your unique value to a hiring manager, boss, prospective client etc etc - if you are too much the same as your peers and competitors then you might not be standing out enough to get noticed.

Andrea Southcott writes "Rather than seeking incremental share, the goal should be to create an entirely new market space for the brand, expanding the role the brand plays in the lives of its stakeholders or target group." - think about your personal brand - how does this approach apply?

If you are just trying to take mini steps or advances it is too easy for others to catch you up and even leap frog over you.

First you need to identify what is the norm for your voacation, industry or business - what is expected? Part of the work we do in the personal branding process is use a brand feedback tool that identifies the attributes that others use to describe you. Some of these attributes are defined as being rational - the ones you expect for a person like you in your job, title, business, industry etc

But then there is a group of emotional attributes, real connectors to why people like you, interact with you, work for you or with you, buy from you. These can start to be the basis for really differentiating yourself in the marketplace and standing out.

Andrea goes on to say "Once these market conventions are identified, the next step is to determine how to overturn or disrupt one or more of the rules to break the mould and propel the brand or business forward."

She gives Virgin as a company and brand that apporaches this disruption all the time in building its business.

So what should you be doing to 'virginize' your own personal brand?

Brand Connections

There is an interesting white paper recently placed on Brandchannel.com - "The Seven Doors of Connection" - the seven areas as the potential common grounds that can bridge relationships and build connections between people and brands.

This directly relates to personal branding - people love to connect to people - the essence of personal brand perceptions and also what many are looking for in terms of their relationship with their employers, jobs and lives.

Photo by Chris M70 on Flickr.com

Cross posted on Branding Personal blog

Monster Roars!

10 years ago when I first arrived in Canada the daily main newspapers were full of jobs, on a Saturday as many as 30 pages - now you are lucky to see 3!

The on line job board has taken over, but according to CareerXRoads survey their impact is not as great as perhaps you the job seeker might think.

In fact I will bet that if you are in active job search mode you are spending way more time looking on the job boards than is either necessary or warranted.

The smart job boards are starting to try and do something about this.

Monster.com has added a couple of new features recently that make your job searching life a little easier and even let you know how you stack up against other candidates for a particular job;

- Previously on this blog the JASPER (Job Assets and Strengths Profiler) was mentioned

- Last week they introduced the ability for job canddiates to compare their application against others and see how they stack up - see Press Release. Job seekers can now tell what percentage of other applicants share similar qualificiations in terms of educational level and years of experience. This should also enhance more quality matches. 

- Also there is a quick online assessment you can take to see what type of personality you are, what jobs you are suited to and then direct links to the list of similar positions on their job board. See Discover Your Perfect Career

I was advised that career counselling, management consultancy or HR is where I belonged - PHEW - I thought I was going to have to look for a new job!

Corporate Guide to Blogging

Edelman the global PR company has just produced a very interesting report on blogging - including some great demographic data in terms of who is reading blogs and how often.

If you are thinking of adding a blog as part of building your personal brand you would do well to take a look at this first. Download it here.

Blogging is not the answer for everyone when thinking of building a web presence - if your target audience is Americans over 65 you might want to have a second think!

Big Companies Are Blogging

According to an Edelman study of the top Fortune 500 companies - 32% are blogging in some way or another - download the report here.

If you are planning to utilise blogging as part of raising your personal brand and have some target companies in mind that you might be interested in working for - check out who is blogging and who is not.