This is the final part of my series on Why Your Personal Brand Needs a Mindset Shift. You can read the other posts in this series here: Part One: Your Personal Brand Needs a Mindset Shift Part Two: Normal is Not Enough and Part Three: Answer the Why!
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I hear from job seekers on almost a daily basis that they’ve sent out 100 resumes and just aren’t having any luck.

Or perhaps you run a small business where you run yourself ragged chasing hundreds of leads each day!

Well, today is the day to rethink those strategies. To turn them on their head even.

Quality is better than quantity.

One person who buys everything that you offer is better than 10,000 people who never buy anything.

One interview is better than 100 job applications you never hear back on.

One person who visits your site every day is better than 100 people visiting just once.

One outstanding assignment is better than 20 just-what-we-expected results.

Quality is better than quantity.

And, as always, I’m going to give you a three-step tactical plan for success. So, take out a paper and pen to get the most out of it!

Step One: Identify What Success Looks Like What does success look like for you? Is it a job offer, a paying customer or a raise?

Step Two: Determine Your Time Investment Assess just how much effort (time, money, energy) you have been putting into earning this success. How long did it take you to submit 100 resumes? Or how much did the spike in traffic cost you? Whatever you do, just make an honest assessment of how much work you’ve put into your current results.

Step Three: Make an Investment in Quality If it’s taken 20 hours of your week each week to make cold calls to 100 businesses, is there a better way for you to use these 20 hours? I believe that there is. Rather than making 100 cold calls, what if you invested those same 20 hours into 5 extremely well-matched potential clients. You would have time to to extensive research on each client, create a personalized presentation and invest your time into building relationships: all of which will yield a far greater success rates.

Let’s translate this to the job search: rather than submit 100 resumes, what if you picked 5 companies or departments within companies you’d really like to work for and put 100% of your efforts into that. You would know each of those companies forwards and backwards, you would be able to do significant internal networking, you could invest in your application, showcasing exactly the things that they want to see — all without expending any additional effort.

Let’s look at one more example: you want to get a raise. To get a raise, generally speaking, you need to do more work than your job description. The challenge is that you are already putting in the maximum time that you want to allot to your own job description, so how can you add more? How can you focus on quality? Again, its all about walking through these three steps: identify what success looks like in your position: What are the three most important things you do?; look at the time that you spend outside of those three key pieces What are you doing that is sub-optimal or unimportant?; translate this into quality Meet with your boss, talk through how you can create space for you to take on bigger projects. And, when you choose the project — go for broke. Take a risk and invest yourself in it fully.

By choosing quality, you will stand head and shoulders above the crowd making your success rate exponentially higher. Making this mindset shift will get you results.

I’ve seen it work — time and time again. What does choosing quality look like for you?

Author:

Rebecca Rapple has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Keith Ferrazzi’s My Greenlight and more. You can learn more about the fundamentals of a remarkable job search on her site, The Resume Revolution.

All too often, networking events feel like going to a bad singles’ mixer.  There’s always that one guy racing around the venue, collecting contact info like it’s a contest.  Or that one woman you just met who asks invasive premature questions about your work trying to decide if you’re the “one” (who can help her get a job).  Or that one guy, who seems interesting at the event, but then calls you super early the next morning and wants you to commit (to buy his product) way, way too soon.  And let’s not even talk about the people who stand too close or mention that their mom think they’re “such a catch” (and can’t understand why her baby doesn’t have a job!)

You go to these events, all dressed up and hopeful, and usually leave feeling disappointed because – despite all the schmoozing – you still aren’t sure that you’ve actually made a meaningful connection with someone who is in the field you want.  Sometimes, you doubt that the people you want are even there -  most networking events feel packed with job seekers on the prowl, and a smaller amount of job-havers (who are suspicious that networkers are only interested in them for the referrals they can make).

So, how do you network without feeling like you’re part of a meat market?  Simple.  Network like you should look for a significant other!

Savvy daters know that they make better connections with people who share similar interests.  If they enjoy reading books, they’re more likely to meet someone compatible at a book reading than at a bar. Same for musicians, skiers, aspiring cooks, dog owners and lovers of classical music.  If there’s something you want to enjoy doing with your significant other, it’s easier to find someone already interested in that activity than convincing the guy you met at the tequilla bar to try your (sober) hobby!

The same principles go for networking.  Sadly in this world of online dating, there’s no Match.com for networking where you can filter out the things you don’t want (job hunting in your industry) and zero in on the things you do (happily employed at your dream company.)

In networking, you have to do it the old-fashioned way: by going to the places where the people you want to meet go.

If you’re interested in product development, look up interesting talks in your area about different stages in the product development cycle.  If you’re interested in the healthcare field, find out where the people in your field go to have lunch and talk about news in their field.  If there’s a big conference in your field, go out on a limb, buy your own ticket and go by your lonesome self. (Trust me, this impresses decision-makers at your target companies.)

Find learning events in the field you want to be in – and then throw yourself into them.  Ask questions, do your research beforehand, and be as engaged as possible.  If there’s a question-and-answer segment, make sure you ask a thought-provoking question.  If the speaker asks for a volunteer, risk embarrassment and put yourself out there.  Participate in those events like you’re there because you are really interested in the subject – not like you are there to network.

And then, on the side, do your networking. (But not like the typical networker!) Be friendly and try to meet as many people as possible.  Engage them in conversation about the topic – not as a job seeker, but as someone who is genuinely interested.  Then, when you go home, connect with them by sending them a link to an interesting article that builds off what you discussed at the event.

“Egads,” you’re probably thinking.  “That sounds like a lot of work!”

It is. But it pays off.

Whenever you go to a singles/networking mixer looking just to meet that certain someone, you usually run into a lot of dead ends.  But when you take the time to invest in building a friendly relationship with people who have similar interests, they stop worrying that you want too much too soon from them.  Then they relax, engage in conversation, and look forward to getting to know you.  And eventually, if you two aren’t right for each other, they introduce you to their friends – with a ringing endorsement thrown in.

And best of all, you get to go to events you actually enjoy, and connect with the people you’d want to meet anyways.  Much better than running around a mixer collecting all the cards you can in the hopes that if you kiss enough frogs, eventually one will give you a job!

Author:

Katie Konrath blogs about creativity, innovation and “ideas so fresh… they should be slapped” at www.getfreshminds.com.  She works for leading innovation company, Ideas To Go, and attributes her job to personal branding – both through her blog and by attending the events in her field.

There are many different types of potential clients you’ll come across and there will come a time where, if the discussions turn serious enough, you’ll enter what should be a negotiation phase for your services.

However, there are certain prospects who aren’t negotiating as much as playing games and it’s important to separate these pretenders from the flock.

“If you can give me a lower rate on this, I know a lot of people I can introduce you to in town. I’ve been here for many years and have a lot of connections. So give me a little leeway now and I can open a lot of doors.”

This sounds attractive at first, but consider the character of this individual in giving you this offer. They’re not dumb and realize that you have bills to pay. Yet they think you’re dumb with their “I know people” line.

There are three reasons you shouldn’t fall for this:

1) They could be completely full of it.
They may even have pictures on the wall of people they’ve met. Well, I can attend lots of events and get my picture taken with someone notable. It’s really not that hard. It doesn’t mean they have a strong relationship with any of those people. It means they paid some money to get into an event, which afforded them a photo op. That’s it.

2) If they’re “someone” in town, they have money and a good amount of it.
And if they do have money, they can pay for services rather than pretend they don’t have any, right?

3) If they’re cheap, do you want to be introduced to other cheap people just like them?
Because if they’re the kind of people who want to get out of parting with any amount of money, they’re quite likely to connect you…with other people who are going to do the same. It’s not like they’re saying, “Let me introduce you to my wealthy friends who, unlike me, aren’t afraid to spend.”

Again, there’s genuine negotiation and there’s manipulation. Don’t settle for a ridiculously low rate that compromises what you truly deserve.

At the very least, make sure you’re in control. Like so:

If they’re going to make promises about who they can introduce you to, don’t accept that at face value. Say something like, “That’s fine. I want to see a list of who you can potentially introduce me to. I’m then going to choose certain people on that list who meet my business’ goals and I’d like an introduction to those people I choose within each month. I think that’s a fair trade as I’m giving you a very favorable rate.”

Part of building a brand for yourself is making every relationship mutually beneficial. That includes specifics to your liking, whether that’s monetary, introductions or both. And not vague promises of “what could be.”

Author:

Dan Gershenson is a Chicago-based consultant focused on brand strategy and content marketing. Dan has guided a variety of CEOs and Marketing Directors at small to medium-sized companies, providing hundreds of strategic plans to help businesses identify their best niches and areas of opportunity. Dan blogs on Chicago Brander, mentors advertising students and cheers relentlessly for the Chicago Bears. Dan graduated from Drake University with a degree in Advertising.

How do you redefine yourself professionally, when you’ve spent several years getting it down pat the first time?

Timothy Brandt posed that question — sort of — to me and my Branding Yourself co-author Kyle Lacy last week on Twitter.

How can I start my IT bio when I received experiences from business positions?

For a long time, Timothy was the unofficial IT go-to guy for his office, department, and division, and has held that position for a long time. Now he wants to make it official and get into a Help Desk Technician position.

Here are a few things that Timothy, and anyone else who is significantly changing positions, can do to not only rewrite their personal brand bio, but even their whole personal brand.

1. Start with a skills-based resume.

Most of us have been taught to write the chronological resume. But if you are switching jobs, like from pharmaceutical sales to the nonprofit world, or business position to technology position, focus on the things you do know. Use the skills-based resume, which lets you list your most important skills. List the 4 – 6 skills you’re best at and want to be known for, and list a couple of quantifiable accomplishments in each.

2. Start to think of yourself as that new position.

This is a mindset issue. Stop describing yourself as a “former _________.” Former means that you’re still thinking about it, and might go back to it one day. You’re moving on with your life, which means you’re a new _________. If it helps, say it to yourself in the mirror a few times each day. “I’m a Help Desk Technician. I’m a Help Desk Technician.” And yes, speak in capital letters if it helps you. (And when you go to networking meetings, introduce yourself as a new or aspiring professional, or even just say you are one. “I’m a new Help Desk Technician” gets you in the frame of mind to think of yourself this way.)

3. Identify an area of specialty in your new career.

Maybe you specialize in security or networking. Maybe in your new career, you’re making the jump from pharmaceutical sales to nonprofit fundraising. Whatever it is, make that your focus, and the area that you’d like to work on the most.

4. Now you’re ready to write your bio.

As you’re creating your new personal branding bio, you’re going to go through several versions in the weeks and months to come. That’s okay. You have to refine anything new you work on, so this is no different. You’ve written your resume and identified your strengths, you’ve recast yourself in your own mind as that new position, and you’ve even identified an area of specialty. Now you’re ready to write your bio.

Your short bio will go something like this: “I’m a new help desk technician who specializes in network security, as well as email management.”

Your longer bio will be a little more thorough, and will help people get a better understanding of what it is you do, and hope to accomplish.

“I’m a new help desk technician who specializes in network security, as well as email management. I realized I had a real knack for this work when I was the unofficial IT specialist for my last three employers. We didn’t have an official IT person, so these responsibilities usually fell to me, which meant I had to keep up on all the changes to the technology and the security issues we were facing.”

If you start by redefining yourself in your own mind, and recasting how you think of yourself, writing your personal branding bio should be a lot easier.

Author:

Erik Deckers is the owner of Professional Blog Service, and the co-author of Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself. His new book, No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing, which he wrote with Jason Falls, is in bookstores and on Amazon now.

Since social media became an integral part of our personal and professional lives, we have witnessed a gradual shift from a more or less spontaneous and intuitive use towards a decidedly more clinical and rational approach. This process had been anticipated by analysts and experts and was after all to be expected given the upsurge in social media use by profit-making businesses and individuals. No one had a manual of how to make the most of Facebook when this network was created and there was little or no empirical evidence to create statistical models with any serious predictive value. When first confronted with the tasks of maximizing their ROI (return on investment) in Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, people and organizations had to undergo an at times painfully slow and haphazard trial and learning period: and this undoubtedly acted as a deterrent for their more rapid implementation by businesses and brands of all kinds.

Ever since – and with the benefit of hindsight – significant progress has been made. In fact, 2011 saw the consolidation of a new science: the science of social media. The drive behind this most glamorous and geeky of disciplines is no other than Dan Zarrella from Hubspot, a brilliant personal brander who has masterfully amassed enough relevance and credibility to rightfully earn the title of social media scientist. Zarrella used the term ‘The Science of Social Media‘ in a presentation published toward the end of 2010 which became a hit first within the US and later on all around the world. The gist of Zarella’s argument was that it was possible to use Twitter and the other social networks with quasi-scientific accuracy in order to maximize results.

This counter-intuitive and (at the time) altogether stunning claim was backed up by objective and replicable data and alerted us of the following:

1. Regardless of the quality/nature of the message, there are certain moments of the day when we are more likely to be retweeted (RT) than others
2. Using words such as ‘expert’, ‘founder’ or ‘guru’ in our Twitter profile generates more interest and RTs
3. A direct relationship can be established between the frequency of our messages and their viralization. This relationship can be depicted mathematically.

These are just three of the growing number of claims made by the new science of social media which will in all likelihood gain in accuracy and reliability in the coming years. And their implications for online marketing or personal branding cannot be underestimated – let alone ignored! Will this mean, however, that intuition and spontaneity will lose ground or altogether retreat in social media management? Will the social media succumb to the same scientism, coldness and lack of holism that has so damaged the human spirit since the Industrial Revolution?

Luckily for all, the answer to these troubling questions seems to be a resounding ‘no’. Intuition and creativity are crucial to the enjoyment of the social networks and so deeply ingrained for users that they will most likely continue to flourish in spite of the raging debate about ROI and the appearance on the stage of the new science. There are several powerful reasons for this to be the case: content comes in many different formats and engagement and viral marketing are the result of multifarious factors; on top of that, personal use continues to be highly idiosyncratic and the growth of personal branding will ensure that this tendency is strengthened (let’s not forget that differentiation is crucial to branding); last but not least, the new science concerns itself mostly with timing and not with style or content.

Witnessing the rise of the new science of social media is nothing short of exhilarating. Together with technology, it is destined to play a major role in the maximization of ROI and a greater degree of professionalism in social media management that should be welcome by businesses and organizations everywhere. We very much hope that, unlike in our imperfect Western culture, intuition and reason will this time walk hand in hand together for the benefit of us all.

Author:

Oscar Del Santo is a lecturer, consultant, key speaker, blogger and populariser of online reputation and inbound marketing in Spain. He has been extensively featured in the Spanish and Latin American media and is a regular contributor to several TV programs. Included in the ‘Top 70 Spanish Tweeters’ and ‘Best Marketing Tweeters in Spanish’ lists (@OscarDS), he is the author of ‘Reputacion Online para Tod@s’.

As an athlete, the sheer size and diverse nature of your fan base can seem intimidating but like any big project it becomes more manageable once you break it down. By categorizing your fans into groupings, you can better strategize on how to engage as well as grow your overall base.

Sports fans most often fall into one of four areas, with many having crossover.

Sport

A fan based on the sport the athlete plays and/or of the level of skill they play it at.

Location

Someone who is a fan because the athlete is from his or her hometown, home state, or home country

Passion

Fans based on the charity or faith or hobby alignment with the athlete.

Team

Fans of the athlete because of the team they play(ed) for.

Fans that fall into more than one quadrant tend to have a stronger affinity to the athlete. Think about your own life and when you meet someone. The more similarities you have with that person, the more you feel a personal connection. For athletes, connections create ties, ties create fans, and fans create financial and emotional gain.

The Four Quadrant Fan Base allows you to focus on your fans where you can create the biggest impact. Instead of concentrating on the sheer number of Twitter followers, Facebook likes, and event attendees, spend the time quantifying each quadrant. Not only will you gain insight into your fan base, you will also generate validation for working with endorsers. Validation and strength specifics for your brand increase endorsement dollar amounts and the type of opportunities you will be presented with. My business partner Dhani Jones spends quite a bit of time reinforcing his ties to his alma mater – Michigan. His commitment and focus on that fan base has parlayed into Big 10 commentator positions and fans that have followed him regardless of professional sports team, or post sports career.

Those four quadrants are your door openers. Use them to build a fan of you the person versus only based on connection. This is important, as two of the four quadrants are transitory. You want to build fans that follow you wherever your brand path takes you, just like Dhani did with his Michigan fans. As you know, it takes more effort to gain new fans than to continue building on the relationships you already have. As athletes truly need to be efficient with their time, focusing on the four quadrants within brand building is of the upmost importance.

Author:

Katie Marston is a partner in VMGelement , a personal brand development company focusing on professional athletes. Follow her on Twitter at @ktmarston

In last week’s posting (Corporate America: Your Hiring Processes are Branded as “Broken”!) I pointed out the tremendous disconnect that exists today between job seekers and the companies that seek to hire them because of certain current hiring processes in corporate America. In this week’s posting I am going to examine one of those processes that contributes mightily to this disconnect—the “online applications ONLY” job application requirement imposed by some hiring companies. It’s a process that usually results in a “lose-lose” proposition for both hiring companies and job candidates.

Most hiring companies today have done an exceptional job of convincing virtually every job seeker that the only way to apply for an open position is to respond to one of the company’s online job postings. “Only applications received online will be accepted,” they specify. “Unsolicited résumés will be rejected.” “No phone calls accepted.” A pretty bleak, stifling situation for a job seeker today.

As I pointed out in last week’s blog, this is one of the major reasons that many job seekers who are classified as “semi-passive” (55% of all potential candidates) will not even attempt to investigate career opportunities with companies that actually want to attract—and hire!—“good” people, in order to effectively compete in today’s extremely competitive global marketplace. Unless they are particularly masochistic, these potential candidates aren’t at all likely to subject themselves to the hassle, the rejection and, oftentimes, the humiliation that is sometimes involved in the entire “online application only” process. Clearly, then, neither the hiring company nor the potential candidate wins in this situation.

To be fair about it, I can easily understand—as I am sure most of you reading this blog can as well—why hiring companies today are putting up barriers such as the “online applications only” requirement for job seekers. With so many people, both employed and unemployed, seeking new jobs, virtually any position posted by a hiring company can—and usually does!—result in a literal avalanche of applications, many from job seekers who are in no way qualified for the positions. The flip side of that coin, however, is that, while the hiring companies are “protecting” themselves from this oftentimes huge number of non-qualified candidates, they are also considering only 17% of the TOTAL job candidate pool, i.e., those who are classified as “active” (usually, the unemployed who are looking for any type of job) and/or “semi-active” (usually, employed people seeking better opportunities)! Then, these same companies lament the fact that they can’t attract “good” people for the positions they need to fill!

How, then, can hiring companies continue to protect themselves from a potential avalanche of unqualified applicants and still engage and tap into the huge pool of fully qualified top talent who will usually never be encountered through the “online application only” process?  There are essentially only two viable methods:

• Set up an in-house recruiting team that will proactively reach out to these candidates and have career conversations with them. Until a candidate actually declares they want to proceed with the opportunity, there is no legal requirement for them to apply online. If legal concerns abound, or if you afraid of being accused of “poaching” by your competitors, or if an “in house” recruit team (that actually recruits) is not cost effective then . . .
• Engage the professional services of a good “headhunter” who specializes in recruiting top talent for your company’s particular market niche(s).

(Buyer Beware: Some “headhunters” and recruiters are really nothing more than glorified résumé screeners who tap into the same 17% of the candidate pool that hiring companies do. What a hiring company should look for is a recruiting firm that conducts “cold-call” direct recruiting into the competition to locate and engage talent “buried in excellence” at their current position but still open to other genuine career opportunities.)

Obviously, as I’ve already stated, it certainly is not only the hiring companies that stand to lose in the current “online applications only” environment. Many highly qualified potential job candidates merely assume that they are essentially powerless in such an environment and remain in place, in their current jobs, no matter how distasteful those jobs may have become. In fact, nothing could actually be further from the truth, particularly for those candidates who brand themselves as being unique, creative, persistent and proactive, as someone who clearly stands out from the crowd. (Check out, for example, how one enterprising young woman completely circumvented the “online applications only” game and won her dream job at this link: How Hannah Landed Her Dream Job!)

Another unique, very effective approach to landing a new job in today’s extremely challenging job market involves the candidate launching a direct mail campaign, in conjunction with other job searching activities. Learn all about this tactic at this link: Frustrated by “Post and Hope” Job Hunting? Try This Instead!

Even though the latest jobs report suggest that there may be—at last!—“light at the end of the tunnel,” make no mistake about it: The job market remains brutally competitive and quite challenging. I honestly don’t see that changing much for the next couple of years, at least. But that still doesn’t mean that you, as a job seeker, have to continue walking in “lock step” and totally acquiesce to the “online applications only” hiring process in place at so many companies today. If you truly are an exceptional candidate, if you have truly branded yourself as new, different and better from your competition, i.e., other job seekers, don’t fall for the “online applications only” game. You do have other options to seeking—and landing—your dream job! Make sure you utilize these other options to the maximum!

And, hiring companies: If you truly seek top talent for your open positions, continue to utilize the “online applications only” approach merely to filter and handle the majority of applicants, but also institute steps in your hiring process to go after and hire the top talent that you so badly need to compete in today’s global marketplace. That way, EVERYONE wins!

Author:

Skip Freeman is the author of “Headhunter” Hiring Secrets: The Rules of the Hiring Game Have Changed . . . Forever! and is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The HTW Group (Hire to Win), an Atlanta, GA, Metropolitan Area Executive Search Firm. Specializing in the placement of sales, engineering, manufacturing and R&D professionals, he has developed powerful techniques that help companies hire the best and help the best get hired.

Are you using the right words to build your personal brand in your resume, marketing materials, and social media updates?

Often, there’s a disconnect, or gap, between the words used in resumes, marketing materials, & day-to-day social marketing, and the personal brand an individual is trying to build.

Personal brand building is impossible if you’re not using the right words!

To make sure that you’re using the right words, I’d like to share a free online tool you can use to visually display the contents of your resume, marketing materials, and social media marketing articles and updates.

Word clouds & word frequency

Wordle.net is a free online software application that creates word clouds, like the example shown, that you can use to make sure you’re using the right words to build your personal brand.

The idea behind word clouds is very simple: the more frequently a word appears in a resume, one sheet, or blog post, the larger the word appears!

Thus, at a glance, you can see if the words you’re using are in alignment with your personal brand and the idea you’re trying to communicate in your resume, blog post, or other marketing project.

Word clouds permit you to do, in seconds, what would otherwise take a lot of tedious time.

Putting Wordle to work

There are several ways you can generate a Wordle word cloud.

Start by selecting the Create tab from the menu at the top of Wordle.net’s home page. Then, choose from among 3 options:

• Copy & Paste. The easiest way to create a word cloud of the words used in a resume, one sheet, or blog post is to simply copy and paste the text into the text box found on Wordle.net’s Create page.
• Enter a URL. Another option is to simply enter the URL of any blog, or blog post, that has an Atom or RSS feed.
• Del.icio.us tags. You can also enter a del.icio.us user’s name to create a word cloud of their tags.

Analyzing word clouds

What I like best about word clouds created with Wordle.net is their immediacy; they instantly appear after you press Go or Submit.

More important, you don’t have to “study” the word clouds to know whether or not you’re using the right words to build your personal brand. The words are either there, or they’re not there!

On the other hand, there are some lessons you can draw from comparing word clouds of different blog posts and marketing projects. For example:

• Noticeable contrast. When you look at a word cloud, the key ideas should appear noticeably larger than the supporting words.  The hierarchy of ideas should be obvious. You should be immediately able to pick out the main points. When most of words used appear the same size on a word cloud, however, it may be a sign that your page lacks a clear focus or structure.
• Alignment. The largest words in a word cloud, or series of word clouds, should support your personal brand. If you print out word clouds for the Pages of your WordPress blog, for example, each word cloud should emphasize the key words you want associated with your personal brand. Likewise, if you create word clouds of your blog posts, or newsletters, for the previous month, the majority should emphasize your key personal branding terms.

Tips for working with Wordle

The easiest way to work with Wordle.net is to immediately print each word cloud. The best way to do this is to use 3-hole paper, so you can save your word clouds in a 3-ring binder.

The reason to immediately print each Wordle.net word cloud is  because you cannot save them to your hard drive or to a private folder online. The only way you can save your Wordle word clouds is save them in Wordle.net’s public folder. This may, or may not, be appropriate.

Bear in mind that, once posted, you cannot return and search for your previously-created word clouds. Nor can you delete a Wordle graphic.

But, remember, we’re talking about a free, no registration, online software application!

Workaround, if you regularly work with a screen capture program, like TechSmith’s Camtasia, of course, you can easily create and save as many word clouds as desired on your computer.

Are you using the right words to build your personal brand?

With little effort and no cost, Wordle.net lets you see–at a glance–whether or not the words you’re using in your resume, marketing materials, and social media updates are the right ones to build your personal brand. Do you use Wordle.net, or a similar resource, to check the words you’re using to build your brand? Share your experiences, as comments, below.

Author:

Roger C. Parker is an author, book coach, designer, consultant who works with authors, marketers, & business professionals to achieve success with brand-building books & practical marketing strategy. He helps create successful marketing materials that look great & get results, and can turn any complex marketing or writing task into baby steps. Visit his blog to learn more or ask a question.

People unfamiliar with sales techniques usually become depressed by interview rejection and then lose momentum for continuing in their search for employment. From a typical salesperson’s perspective, rejections are not necessarily bad particularly when used as valuable learning lessons. BUT the seasoned sales professional, with a smile on her face, will mentally say, NEXT!

Early in my sales career, I learned that it was necessary to make 100 sales calls in order to make 10 sales. It was not motivating to learn I only had a 10% chance for making a sale. We were then told, the more “No’s” you get, the closer you will be to a “Yes!” The better news was, as practice made perfect, my success statistics would rise significantly – and they did. Hence the motivation to keep on analyzing, tweaking and try, try again.

Rejections provide excellent first-hand lessons. View rejection as your learning opportunity. The mental adjustment in outlook will help tremendously in these regards:

• Recognition of how to improve
• Refinement of what you are truly after
• Enabling a higher salary

Honest introspection will improve your future interviews. Ignoring disappointment, mentally review why someone else was believed to be the better choice. What was said and what was not said? Are you able to tweak your part in the conversation the next time around on the next interview? Is it possible that it wasn’t a great fit after all, and that you will actually be happier elsewhere?

Should you be in the favorable position of having flexibility to be selective yourself, pay attention to all of the factors surrounding you on your next interview and how they compare with the company that turned you down. Is it easier to communicate with the people you are now meeting? Is there interest both ways; you toward the job and they toward your talent? Have you spoken to the receptionist and other staff members? Overall, will you feel comfortable and happy working at this company?

It’s rare that a person will find the perfect job. Likewise, the perfect candidate rarely exists although we each like to think of ourselves as such. Your next career move should for the most part be in alignment with your priorities. Remain true to what holds most importance to you and you will find the better match. In sales we call this the qualified lead.

Persistence is the name of the game. The following story illustrates the points made above. Mid-career, my heart’s desire was set on being able to say, “I sold to that Fortune 100 Company”. The Buyer in charge was quite rude and loved playing games with sales reps without any intention of buying from them. At the six month mark, he took a leave of absence and another buyer came on board who was even worse. By the tenth month, an associate told me she knew the fellow who worked in the basement. I asked for an introduction. At 12 months, due to the friendship established with the fellow in the basement, I celebrated a very large sale!

I learned to never under-estimate anyone, and my personal brand became “Determined.” The learning experience taught me how to more quickly enjoy the Smooth Sale!

Author:

Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC, (800) 704-1499, was honored by Open View Labs with inclusion in their international list of “Top 25 Sales Influencers for 2012.” Elinor authored the International Best-Selling book, “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship Building That Gets Results”, Sourcebooks and the best selling career book, “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself On Interviews”, Career Press. She provides team sales training, private coaching and highly acclaimed inspirational keynotes for conferences. Elinor is available for consultation.

For most professionals, personal branding thrives online. Through juggling social media profiles, managing reputation, creating content, and securing our sites, we may forget that personal branding can also be done in person – and can be just as effective, if not more so.

Attending an industry event, association meeting, or even a professional cocktail hour in your city can be a great and easy way to transition the brand you’ve created online into the real world. Consider below three ways to implement your brand in person once you’re there:

Keep The Conversation Going. Since you’re aware about what you tweet and post, try to extend that same expertise when it comes to starting a conversation. It doesn’t have to all industry-related, but keep the talk professional nonetheless.

Having One Presence…On A Card. In 2010, I wrote about the importance of maintaining consistency of your brand online, yet, the same rules about having one presence apply when it comes to networking in person. You should have your information on a business card. Be sure to have your name, title, area of expertise, contact information, and even your social media handles listed. Always remember to bring enough!

Show Your Value. You can extend your brand’s reputation with your new connections by demonstrating how you’re a valuable asset to their network. Try to listen and engage others more than talk about yourself – you may get a chance to offer your expertise or someone you know that is a right fit for the challenge.

Your brand cannot risk remaining online only.  Striking a balance of online and offline interaction will sustain your personal brand in the long run.

Do you agree that personal branding is important offline? How else can you implement your brand in person?

Author:

Heather R. Huhman is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder & president of Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for organizations with products that target job seekers and/or employers. She is also the author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships (2011), #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for numerous outlets.

These 20 questions cover five key areas that are critical to your accurately evaluating how well you’re doing at work. Your answers (or score) predict whether you’re likely to be promoted, fired or kept simmering in the same spot for years to come.

Score each question on a scale of 1-10 (10 = AWESOME). Add up your total score in each category. If you are totally awesome, you’ll have a total of 200 points. If you score below 30 points in any category, it’s time to take remedial action.

Job mastery

How well do I?

1. Exhibit expertise of the particular knowledge and skills that make me a uniquely valuable employee

2. Continue to get educated to update my knowledge and skills for my position and the positions I desire to hold in the future

3. Understand the metrics by which I am evaluated as well as those that my department is judged, and work to excel at those measured behaviors

4. Manage my tasks and actions to contribute to the performance outcomes set for my department and company

Communication with my boss

How well do I?

5. Understand and articulate my boss’ top priorities and reasons for them, and approach my work in that manner

6. Know which is of greater consequence to my superior: people, projects or principles

7. Appreciate my boss’ sense of balancing the need to a) gather information and b) take action

8. Show that I understand and support my superiors’ professional aspirations

Relating to others and gaining visibility

How well do I?

9. Seek to create significant, lasting connections with everyone in my company

10. Communicate using all opportunities to strengthen my ties throughout the organization

11. Manage my intentions and actions to appropriately compete and collaborate with my peers

12. Project my desire to be a resource to others as well as a willingness to be assisted by them

Cultural sensibility, belief and belonging

How well do I?

13. Keep a clear picture of the formal and informal reporting lines in my company

14. Like my company’s overall approach to business, people and the marketplace

15. Believe that I can contribute to the larger goals and vision of my organization

16. See that opportunities exist for me to grow and gain greater responsibility and authority in my company

Good judgment and resourcefulness

How well do I?

17.  Imagine I would be able to step up and fill in for my boss or another superior, if needed

18. Seek opportunities to be increasingly effective and efficient with the tools, workspace and funds allocated to me

19. Build relationships outside of the company that can be leveraged for its benefit

20. Relate to people who have the capacity to mentor me and widen my scope of influence

There’s a wealth of free and low-cost resources to get you back on track. Let me know if there are any areas you’d like to drill down on, and I’ll be happy to send you a list to kick-start your career. Email: Nance@NanceRosen.com

Author:

Nance Rosen is the author of Speak Up! & Succeed. She speaks to business audiences around the world and is a resource for press, including print, broadcast and online journalists and bloggers covering social media and careers. Read more at NanceRosenBlog. Twitter name: nancerosen

Next to a root canal appointment, few things in life are as nerve inducing as the job interview. In this day and age, the face-to-face interview is typically the first time a prospective employee will speak to an actual person. This “actual” person literally has your career in the palm of their hand. They will determine, based on this portion of the hiring process, whether or not the process will continue or come to a screeching halt.

Wow! No wonder you’re nervous. Right?

Below are a few ideas that will go a long way toward taking some of the pressure off of you and making the most of your time with the interviewer.

1. Keep in mind, this company called you. From the stack of resumes they received, something about you gave them the confidence in your qualifications and abilities to want to get to know you better. That knowledge alone should put a spring in your step and arm you with the confidence necessary for a successful interview.

2. Save the bright colors for the first casual Friday at your new job. For the interview, though, keep it neat and professional. Doing so will immediately create an air of quiet confidence that will be evident in how the interviewer responds to you.

3. Few things in life can boost your confidence levels like a good round of exercise. Try to schedule a vigorous workout routine as close to the interview time as possible. Doing so will keep the butterflies in your stomach at bay, and will help you to interview from a standpoint of strength versus weakness.

4. Get plenty of rest the night before. You may be thinking to yourself, “Well, duh.” But believe it or not, many job seekers are so nervous they find it hard to sleep and wind up pacing the floor half the night, only to be exhausted by the time they get to the interview. I don’t have to tell you how adverse this condition can be to an interview.

5. Don’t forget to eat. Studies have proven, time and again, that a nutritious breakfast increases concentration. The ability to focus is essential for a winning interview. And besides, few things are as distracting as the sound of a growling stomach.

In addition to the simple suggestions above, get ready for your interview by conducting a few preparatory steps:

1. Equip yourself with ample research on the company’s needs. Visit Glassdoor.com, Hoovers.com, BizJournals.com, WSJ.com, LinkedIn.com, Forbes.com and the company’s website. Simply Google the company’s name or a combination of the company name + targeted keywords to vet as much detail about the company for which you are interviewing as possible.

Read between the lines about how their current growth patterns, product or marketplace positioning and so forth speaks to present and future needs – their areas of pain.

2.  From that info, ferret out where you sense their needs and your talents intersect. Make sure you prepare at least 4-5+ mini-stories (Challenge-Action-Result format) that vividly describe how you have achieved solutions similar to problems this company has faced, or will face. Paint a picture that YOU are THEIR solution, a better fit than the next interviewing candidate.

3. Prepare for the multiplicity of questions interviewers often ask, such as:

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. What is the greatest value you can bring to us?
3. Why do you want to leave your present position?
4. What qualities do you admire in others?
5. What are your salary expectations?
6. What does ‘success’ mean to you?
7. What is the most stressful situation you have experienced at work within the past year, and how did you handle it?
8. What would your current (or past) employer say about your work?

4. Prepare questions to ask them, such as:

1. What are the greatest challenges you’re facing in your industry?
2. Is your industry/business growing?
3. What is the most important thing I can do to help within the first 30 days of my employment? 60 days? 90 days?
4. What did you like most about the person who previously held this position?
5. To the interviewer: What excites you about this job? What do you like most about this company? I’d like to know something about your background and how you came to work here?
6. What main factors do you attribute to your growth?
7. What do you attribute to the success of your company?
8. What makes you better than your nearest competitor?

5. Have a friend or family member (or hire an interview coach) to act the part of the interviewer. This will go a long way to quieting those nerves by giving you an opportunity to practice your tone and ensuring you won’t verbally stumble during the actual event.

The person interviewing you has one goal in mind: fill a vacancy with the best-qualified candidate possible. You can make their job easier by being that candidate.

So practice, prepare and be cognizant of the fact that this company would not have called you, if they didn’t need you.

Author:

Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter, a member of the Glassdoor Clearview Collection, is chief career writer and partner with CareerTrend.  She has written for the Career Management Alliance Connection monthly newsletter and blog, ExecuNet’s Career Smart Advisor, The Kansas City Star, The Business Journal and The Wall Street Journal.

7 Keys to Moving Your Brand Where You Want It To Go!

There is no such thing as an overnight success! Just look at the bio’s or stories of  just about any successful small business, entrepreneur, author, journalist or media personality.

They all started somewhere and moved their business and brands in the direction they wanted them to go and were led. Building  businesses and careers over time, takes time.

I am about to celebrate 5 years in business! I can clearly see how over the last 5 years, I have thoughtfully and purposefully moved my business and career in the direction I wanted it to go and more importantly where I have been led!

The process of creating, establishing and sustaining your business brand is a holistic one. There are so many things that go into successful, sustainable branding.  How do we sustain and grow our business and branding over time?

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Warren Buffet This is so true especially today, from a very smart man, who has a lot to say about being in and succeeding in business.

Sustaining your brand is about what you do and how you are perceived while you are right here, right now and how that compounds over time! It is also the promise of how you want to be remembered long after you are gone.

Here are 7 keys that have served me well in moving my business and personal brand in the direction I wanted it to go to build sustainability and legacy.

Deliver Daily Value
Ultimately what I do and offer has to  bring and deliver value to people’s day and lives by making it better. That’s why people stay and refer others. Apple is a perfect example of this.

Be Relentlessly Consistent
People need to be able to count on me delivering that value consistently to them , so that they always get what they have come to expect from me. I have found this to be true with my 20+ year relationship with American Express.

Create An Easy User Experience
The unified, consistent experience I create for people with delivering my products, services and online presence is crucial. Make that experience easy, friendly and fun. A great example of this is Zappos.com

Always Be Authentic and Personalize
With the new and social media platforms; it makes it easier to be more accessible online and in person and give people a glimpse of me personally yet stay professionally focused. I personally try to interact with as many people as I can daily and weekly. Love Facebook for this!

Foster Mutual Engagement
Invite feedback, ideas and suggestions from your customers and community. Conduct focus groups or surveys either in person or online and harvest information from key people about what’s going on in their worlds and how you are doing. Tapping into your key people bolsters your transparency, authenticity and can yield some very useful information you can apply to your business.

Be Fresh Squeezed and Innovate
It’s so important to be reframing, refreshing, and reinventing the way you deliver your products and services. I have tried to follow important trends and review things yearly! Technology and trends have given us all so many ways to do this. Check out www.trendwatching.com for great ideas!

Rock and Reward Your Customers For Their Loyalty
Show your appreciation to all your customers, but especially the loyal long-term ones. They tend to get lost in the effort to find new customers.  They are the foundation of any long-term success.  How do you make them feel special and appreciated? Reward and pass on your success to employees and customers by giving them incentives, gifts, and premiums.

It takes time to establish yourself and claim your place, but once you do, it’s up to you to keep moving in the direction you want to go and you are being led! Stay relevant my friends and on top of trends, customer needs and market changes and please don’t forget to have fun!

People love to see businesses and brands having fun with themselves!

What brands have impacted you over time and what have they done to keep you loyal?

Author:

Deborah Shane is an author, media host, speaker, writer and branding strategist. She hosts her Toolbox Blog and is in her third year of hosting a weekly business radio show called Deborah Shane’s Metropolis that has over 32K downloads! She is a regular contributor to several national business, career and marketing blogs and websites. Her new book Career Transition-make the shift is available on Amazon.com and all major book sellers. Deborah delivers smart, no-nonsense ideas and solutions, which make her a popular go-to resource for clients, national media and influential blogs.  Visit her at www.deborahshane.com.

Many readers of this blog are great businesspeople.  Entrepreneurs who started from scratch and built something profitable, and successful professionals that are integral cogs in their company’s machine.

We’re masters of social media.  Blogging.  SEO (get me some links!), paid traffic, promoting ourselves online and off.

But I’m willing to wager big that few of us know how to code.

Code = program = be a developer.

And it’s funny, because all of us depend on coders one way or another in our business lives.

This is a big deal

Recently, Andy Young from the UK published an article called: Coding For Success.  I think it’s the most important article I’ve read in a year.  Everyone should read it and take note.

Plain and simple.  You should learn to code.

Young takes aim at common misconceptions about the nature and difficulty of coding, while also deftly describing the macro state of technology, the skills of our workforce, and the economic needs of the future.

In short, too many of us think that learning to code is hard and boring and not worth doing.  “Ah, have the nerds take care of it.”  I’ve shared that sentiment for a decade.  But there are numerous reasons we can’t keep thinking like that.

Coding isn’t just for nerds and techies

First, programming isn’t just for nerds.  Technology is so ingrained in our daily lives that leaving just to the nerds is incredibly stupid on our part.  As a business owner, you expose yourself to needless vulnerabilities.

How?  Do you know how to fix your lead management system if it goes down?  I know I don’t.  At the mortgage company I was CMO at, that system is our lifeblood.  It’s maintained by 8 or so people.  In a company of 750.

For so many of us our websites are our business.  If SuretyBonds.com goes down, or the lead form breaks, I ain’t making money for awhile.  Not cool.  If I knew how to fix it, that’d make me sleep a little better at night.

I’m sure you’ve got a similar situation.  I know problems for a web-based business can come from external sources (power goes out, server goes down, hackers).  But we should be empowering ourselves more by learning to code.

Teaching our children to code, ’cause it gets you a job

Looking at the bigger picture, Young very quickly states that we should teach all of our children to code.  This is 2012.  Software runs everything.  Learning to code should be like learning to read and write.  That’s interesting right?

The ability to code will get you a job.  That’s a fact, and that’s just today.  10 years from now, when 12 year olds are entering the workforce, it might not just be a leg-up on other job candidates.  It might be a requirement to be in the job market.

I’ve implored friends and employees to learn to code.  “If you can program, you’ll always have a job working for me making good money.”  Few, if any, have followed through.  I’m still trying to hire coders.  Every week.

The easiest path to code excellence – self taught

One thing that’s cool about learning to code is you don’t have to go to college to do it.  Save the online degree this time around.  Just click away from this article and start.

You already have a website.  Go mess with WordPress.  Create a custom plugin.  Take some lessons on Codecademy or setup something easy on if this then that (both mentioned in Young’s article).

Don’t buy a book.  Don’t enroll at the community college.  Seriously.  Just get an FTP client and start at the beginning.  Your 2014 self is going to love you.

The ability to code will improve your life

To come full circle, if today you’d consider yourself that social media savant, or the expert in creating info products to sell on your blog, remember the day when you knew nothing about it?  I’m sure it’s been a fun and wild ride getting to where you are today.

It’s not too late to learn how to code (great article from Jean Hsu).  And learning to code will be no different.  So long as you get past the preconceptions about its “nerdiness” and come around to how unbelievably useful it is to be able to code.

Find easy wins in the early days.  You can make the computer take in 3 numbers and spit out their cube?  In a big purple font?  Hell yes!

Soon you’ll be better at managing your website, protecting your business, marketing yourself as a job candidate, and enriching the lives of your children.  Win, win, win, win.

Author:

Nathaniel Broughton is a veteran internet entrepreneur and investor.  Dating to 2002, he has helped produce 3 Inc 500 award-winning companies.  Nathaniel owns Growth Partner Capital, a venture fund that provides SEO consulting, premium link building and online reputation management services.  He is also owner of SuretyBonds.com, a nationwide bonding agency.   Previously he served as CMO of VAMortgageCenter.com, a $65 million nationwide mortgage bank which acquired his marketing firm Plus1 Marketing in 2008.   A resident of San Diego, Nathaniel often writes from his experience as an investor, marketer, and advocate of “networking like Paris Hilton parties – Nonstop”.  Follow him on Twitter – @natebro.

This is Part 3 of a 4-part series on Why Your Personal Brand Needs a Mindset Shift. You can read the other posts in this series here: Part One: Your Personal Brand Needs a Mindset Shift Part Two: Normal is Not Enough — and make sure to check back next week for the final post!
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Its easy to get pulled into the idea that your personal brand is all about you. It is your personal brand.

But, the key component to your personal brand actually has nothing to do with you and everything to do with your audience.

Shifting your mindset from a question about you: Why am I awesome? to a question about your audience: How can I help them? is one of the most powerful mindset shifts you can make. This is because, fundamentally, success comes from delivering value to other people — to your audience that is!

To make this mindset shift, you’ll have to take on four tactical steps, so let’s get started.

Step one: identify your audience

You can’t make it all about them if you don’t know who your audience is. In other words, this is a key step. Actually, it is a key step that you will have to repeat and repeat — as your audience is made up of lots of people and is constantly changing. But, let’s start with just a few members of your audience first.

To identify your audience, think of the people you would like to influence, the people you would like to have help you and the people who help to shape your own success.

Action: Write out a list of your top five audience members.

Step two: define their success

Now that you have your list of audience members, dig into each of those people and define what success means to them. Success has many components: not only is there business success, but also personal success.

Success could be putting together a successful marketing campaign, running a marathon, getting a job at Google or even finding a wonderful new wine vintage. In other words, think outside of the box when it comes to success and happiness!

Action: Next to each person you have listed, write down at least three things that defines “success” for each person.

Step three: figure out how you can add value!

Now its time to start thinking about the value that you can offer to your audience. This is where things really start to come together.

Its time to think about what you can do for them: Can you help them produce a successful marketing campaign? Can you help them run a marathon, get a job at Google or find the perfect bottle of wine? This is time where doing research and sharing information is often extremely valuable.

Action: Next to each “success”, write down something that you can do to help them reach that success!

Step four: focus and act

Now that you’ve identified ways to bring your audience value, let’s take it to the next step and focus those ways that you can help into a to-do list!

For example, if you think that you could help someone train for a marathon because you’ve run one before, break that down into a specific to-do list item: send your training schedule or introduce your trainer.

Action: Next to each way that you can help, write down something you could do in less than 30 minutes.

Congratulations, with these steps your brand is now about delivering value to other people. And, you have a list of 15 specific ways to add value to the most important people in your network: talk about a to-do list. Its time to get working.

Author:

Rebecca Rapple has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Keith Ferrazzi’s My Greenlight and more. Your can learn more about the fundamentals of a remarkable job search on her site, The Resume Revolution.

Its common knowledge that you need a personal brand to succeed on the job and on the job market. Yet many people – even those with a personal brand – find themselves underemployed, unemployed or simply dissatisfied with their current position.

Hence dissatisfaction, stagnation and boredom are viewed as normal and even acceptable.

Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. Your can create a new reality by re-shaping the way that you think of your personal brand.

In fact, the success that you are looking for is both much, much harder AND much easier than its ever been to attain.

How can that be?

Well if you do everything exactly as you are supposed to; you turn in your assignment on time, your resume is excellent, you possess the technical skills you need, it is MUCH harder to get ahead. The reality is that the competition is unrivaled today.

But, if you change your mindset, if you radically re-evaluate what it means to be successful, it is actually easier than ever to achieve it!

When you stand out effectively, you create opportunities to achieve. Those in power are looking for success themselves and anything you can do to help them achieve that, will you success too. Whether this is being such a standout job applicant that they don’t have to weed through 500 other resumes or being known as the person who can get anything done in your office. When you stand out as a rockstar, you will achiever your success.

And don’t worry – you can be a rockstar. You don’t have to be a genius or work more hours in a day; you just need to work smarter. And, at the core of working smarter is a simple mind shift will transform you and your personal brand.

The three components of your mindset shift

1. “Normal” is not enough. 

   Look around you, do you want what everyone else has? If you do, normal is enough. If you want more, if you want different success, if you want your own vision, normal will never be enough. You need to stand out. You need to be remarkable. And, most importantly, you need to be you.
2. It’s not about you.
   I say this all the time. Your personal brand is not about you, its about them. It’s about creating value for others. When you create meaningful value for other people, you are rewarded. That is success.
3. Quality is better than quantity.

   20 mediocre assignments is less than 1 amazingly good result. 100 template resumes is less than 1 full-blown love-affair with a job opportunity. Doing things well and really standing out takes effort – but, its worth it.

Changing your mindset around your personal brand isn’t always easy. In fact, it can be downright hard and even intimidating.

Over the next 3 weeks, we’re going to look at some concrete strategies that will help you put these mindset shifts into action.

But first, take the next 5 minutes to really consider what this could mean for you. Close your email, silence your phone and list out 3 things under each category that you could do to change the way you present yourself.

How could you really stand out?
Who do you help on a daily basis and how could you do it better?
What is the one thing that, if you did an amazing job, would be a game-changer?

If you’re on the job search – here is my take on what you can use as revolutionary strategy.

Author:

Rebecca Rapple has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Keith Ferrazzi’s My Greenlight and more. Your can learn more about the fundamentals of a remarkable job search on her site, The Resume Revolution.

Ramit Sethi is a friend of mine who is known for his blog, I Will Teach You to Be Rich. Unlike most personal finance experts, Ramit tests all of his theories and has real results to show for them. One of the big projects that he’s been working on lately is helping people find their dream job. He’s offering a course (Dream Job Insider’s List) where you can get specific tips on landing your dream job that will help you in months instead of years. He’s been helping people, like you, have successful interviews, get raises, and find what they love.

Here are some of the topics he discusses when you sign up for his list:

• What if you could interview better than 99% of the people in the world?
• How to Get a Raise — Including the Exact Words I Use
• 80/20 Guide to Finding a Job You Love
• The 3 biggest interviewing mistakes

Here is a sample video from his course on how to get your dream job:

At any given cocktail party and networking event, sometimes you’ll see a circle of people that, at first, appear to be interacting with one another.

But look closer.

Of a group of 8, you’ll have one or two loud people who dominate the conversation while the rest don’t talk nearly as much. The give-and-take among the entire group could be better but there’s too much of a constant stream of interaction between those select few. So the rest of the group shuts up and probably can’t wait to move away from the circle to get away from these constant talkers, if not leave the party altogether.

Each day, we see the same cocktail party dynamic played on social media networks. Take Twitter, for example. A Harvard study not long ago claimed that 10% of the people on Twitter are responsible for 90% of the content. The inference was that there are a whole lot of people on Twitter who are watching on the sidelines as opposed to a lot of people talking and socializing with one another.

And as a channel like Twitter grows, all it means is more people are getting invited to the party. If they stand against the wall when they get to the party, honestly, big deal how big the party gets.

Believe it or not, this is not a rant against Twitter by any means nor is it a rant against the 10-percenters who drive Twitter content. It’s a point of view against those who choose not to socialize in a social setting and then blame the medium for their inability to socialize. “I’m over Twitter.”

Really. You’re over Twitter, huh?

Was that because you blathered on about yourself or your product/service all day?
Or did you graciously Retweet other people’s comments you found useful to the group?
Did you see the forum as another method for 1-way advertising?
Or did you seek to ask questions and make a 2-way conversation?

I mean, I get that you’re running a special deal right now, but what else have you got for us?

In order to maximize social media situations, you need to engage with other people consistently. Plain and simple. If all you’re doing is talking about yourself, you’re a noise maker, not a conversationalist. If all you’re doing is listening, you’re going to get bored pretty quickly. Whether it’s Twitter or a cocktail party.

If balanced conversation isn’t happening, those people will continue to drop out of Twitter. Maybe they’ll find a better conversation somewhere else. To which I say…so be it. It benefits us all to have richer interactions no matter what social arena we choose to connect, not just a place where many of us just use posts as billboards for our own gain. As a result, the better the quality of interactions, the better the overall quality of that particular social media arena.

It’s so ironic that no matter how sophisticated our communication tools get, it’s mastering the basic art of conversation among us that makes those tools more and more successful.

Author:

Dan Gershenson is a Chicago-based consultant focused on brand strategy and content marketing. Dan has guided a variety of CEOs and Marketing Directors at small to medium-sized companies, providing hundreds of strategic plans to help businesses identify their best niches and areas of opportunity. Dan blogs on Chicago Brander, mentors advertising students and cheers relentlessly for the Chicago Bears. Dan graduated from Drake University with a degree in Advertising.

It was long overdue that someone should “sound the death knell of all things personal branding”. After all, we personal branding enthusiasts should not expect we deserve any better treatment than SEO, Klout or Facebook (let alone, as Nietzsche proclaimed, God). This time round the honor belongs to blogger and author Olivier Blanchard, who in a recent post entitled ‘R.I.P Personal Branding‘ mounts perhaps the fiercest attack on record against the process and philosophy of personal branding, wishing it “safeways and a heartfelt farewell in 2012″. Such a pity he had to mar this otherwise nice conclusion to his argument with an unnecessary “don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out”, but as we are about to learn Olivier’s sharp tongue is almost a trademark and paradoxically part and parcel of his own freely-espoused personal branding style.

In the best spirit of the festive season we’ve just ended, I won’t hold that against him. At least not as much as his ignorance of the principles, guidelines and values behind Personal Branding posited in this blog and other personal branding quality materials. I was in fact put at rest reading Olivier’s post that his critique is aimed at a personal branding model mostly alien to us. Reading in-between the lines of his latest blog entry we also come across a number of inaccuracies that I would like to address with the hope that readers will be in a better position to assess the value of his radical criticism or lack thereof.

To be sure Mr Blanchard’s post could not have been more ill-timed, since we are witnessing renewed interest in all things related to personal branding at a global scale: bestselling titles like ‘Me 2.0‘ are being translated into countless languages, bloggers on both sides of the Atlantic are raving about its benefits and personal branding services are becoming mainstream for social media, communication and PR agencies everywhere. Once more, we will not hold this against Olivier: there is intrinsic value in being counter-current, especially if one offers alternative views from which new valuable working ideas can emerge. He does in fact offer 5 tips in his post that could fit nicely into this category had they not been put forward long before in this very blog.

But let’s follow his anti-personal branding offensive and the reasons behind it. His tirade begins with a statement that sadly lacks philosophical or sociological sophistication and can therefore be easily dismantled: “People are people,” he tells us, “they aren’t brands. When people become brands they stop being people.” Not quite, I’m afraid. By the same token and under the same faulty premises we could fallaciously argue that people are not consumers, clients, voters, patients, citizens or biological entities. Yet people are of course all of those things and many more depending on the specific context and focus under consideration. And there is no question in my mind that in our digital 2.0 world people are (perhaps for the first time) also brands and have brand-like attributes they can use for their benefit without in any way, shape or form forsaking their humanity or their identity as people.

From the ulterior development of his argument, we learn that the animosity Mr Blanchard feels towards brands and personal branding stems from his negative associations with selling and the misconception that we can only sell by becoming “a character or a product”. “That core need to build a brand to ultimately sell something”, he states, “is at the very crux of the problem with ‘personal branding’. Can you realistically remain authentic and real once you have surrendered yourself to a process whose ultimate aim is to drive a business agenda?”. The answer to his question is obviously a resounding ‘yes’: I have not surrendered myself to any evil process or become inauthentic to create a successful personal brand and sell my services any more than I believe he has done so in order to become a social media author and sell his books. To claim otherwise without proof is intellectually arrogant and plainly misguided. And of course, both he and I – along with everyone else with a career – have “a business agenda to drive” (even if it is is just to remain in business!) and need to sell a product, service or idea: and we are none the worse for that.

I am glad to find in his post the words transparency and authenticity and once again sad that he should need to retort to expletives and offensive accusations to put forward his case (“those extra layers of personal branding are artifice… They’re bulls**t… Don’t be a fake. Drop the personal branding BS”). On at least one account I can most certainly put his mind to rest: nobody here is trying to be a fake or condone such behavior. In fact, our personal branding philosophy goes well beyond his own premises and not only has transparency and authenticity at its core, but is emphatically built on the primacy of values, can be profoundly spiritual, and is open to people from all walks of life including minorities. Once more Olivier’s uptake on branding shows itself to be dangerously limited and his anti-personal branding stance almost fundamentalistic: apparently unbeknown to him, a brand can be much more than “an icon” and to assert as he does that “personal branding schemes” are antithetic to trust proves nothing other than misinformation together with the fact that he has not been exposed to the right sources and models. Luckily for all both can be easily remedied.

To end on a positive note, I was reassured to read his recommendations to “go build something. Make something happen. Create. Invent. Help. Rescue. Solve. Improve.” That is indeed what we have been preaching (starting with personal branding trailblazers like Tom Peters or Dan Schawbel) all along. The case remains that in the 2.0 economy there is no better set of tools and principles to do so for ethical and well-meaning people who want to add value, yes sell their product and services and give a boost to their careers than personal branding. Not the distorted view of personal branding he holds, to be sure, but the one that is directly responsible for my success and that of many other often disadvantaged people in America, Europe and beyond. I can therefore only conclude with a ‘Long Live Personal Branding’ for 2012 and an invitation to Mr Blanchard to learn more about personal branding from its leading proponents before he needlessly disparages and alienates again its growing community of supporters.

Author:

Oscar Del Santo is a lecturer, consultant, key speaker, blogger and populariser of online reputation and inbound marketing in Spain. He has been extensively featured in the Spanish and Latin American media and is a regular contributor to several TV programs. Included in the ‘Top 70 Spanish Tweeters’ and ‘Best Marketing Tweeters in Spanish’ lists (@OscarDS), he is the author of ‘Reputacion Online para Tod@s’.

Having just experienced the Rose Bowl game and a win by my alma mater, I was overcome by love and a slight hero worship for Oregon’s coach Chip Kelly. How can you not love a coach full of gusto, standing at the helm of a ship that is hell bent on reaching greater heights? Yet I also reflected on how different it could have been for Kelly coming in to replace the beloved Mike Bellotti. Bellotti, who was synonymous with Oregon Football and who is an icon in Eugene, was a man who couldn’t be replaced. Or could he? The same could be said for Steve Young replacing Montana, Seifert replacing Walsh, or Rodgers replacing Favre. None of them had it easy, and all of them had to forge a unique path.

Having to replace someone who was successful at his/her position is no doubt difficult and takes a strong personal brand to do it. Replacing a legend…well, only a few survive. Whether in business or sports, the spotlight is already there, and only one thing calms the skepticism – success. More than likely you are the type of person who is used to being the one to setting a foundation; the difference now is that someone else has already set one in place. Your focus becomes two-fold, keeping the momentum and making it your own. There are are strategies to help ease the transition, for instance:

PAY HOMAGE TO YOUR PREDECESSOR. You are the successor so even if the one you replace thinks less of you, be the bigger man. This video example showcasing Steve Young and what he went through replacing Joe Montana offers a glimpse into the feelings of one who replaces greatness. The emotion in his voice is so evident and raw, and the stakes so high, that you can almost experience what he was feeling the first time the two met on their career stage. Montana not acknowledging Young in the KC v. 49er game also gave a glimpse into the deep rooted feelings of the one being replaced. In the video you only hear Steve speak positively of Montana and turn any blame and pressure on himself. For fans it allowed them to still cherish their beloved and set the wheels in motion to embrace a new hero.

LEAD WITHOUT BLINDERS. There is much to be learned from tradition and past but you will never best showcase your personal brand if you only duplicate. Concentrate on what you can do to demonstrate leadership on your terms. Chip Kelly is a man that clearly wears no blinders. He took the program Mike Bellotti passed on and did what he needed to do to win while bringing attention to Duck football. Colin Cowherd recently said this about the Ducks under Kelly “(They) never made decisions based on anything other than what makes us better tomorrow.” This mentality is undoubtedly working.

Most people hate change so PICK YOUR BATTLES. Only you can decide what traditions forge ahead and which need to come to an end. Use your brand values to help you gauge which changes are needed. The results of those changes will then align with your personal brand and be worth any headaches.

BE A MENTOR/COACH. As painful as it is to think that someday you might be leaving, whether or not by choice, make sure that a part of you is left behind. Believe that there are elements of significance you provided that will aid in future success for the team/school, company, and more importantly the people that you influence. This applies even if you weren’t successful in your endeavors, but even more so if you were. Brett Favre was the antitheses of this, feeling that his teaching only needed to come from witnessing his play. His statements about Aaron Rodgers this year in early October only added to his recent actions for tarnishing what was a legendary image. This video on the other hand, which posted only a few days after Favre’s comments, shows Rogers paying homage to his successor. Same position, same team…two very different personal brand strategies.

Author:

Katie Marston is the CEO and founder of DYME Branding, a personal and lifestyle branding company focusing on professional athletes. Follow her on twitter at @ktmarston or learn more at dymebranding.com.