A Brand You World: Global Summit

Online Identity: Headshots That Make A Compelling First Impression

By Sue Brettell, Online Identity Design and Communication specialist creating compelling personal brand web design and copy for dynamic solopreneurs and professionals.

When building a strong and compelling brand for yourself, quality professional photographs are essential. Whether you're a solopreneur or practitioner, an executive or a careerist, your headshot can make a big difference to how you are perceived.

If you are communicating a message of quality, your entire marketing campaign is dependent on strong personal images. The portrait on your website attracts or reassures your prospective clients; the headshot on your CV or resume could make a first impression that determines whether you get the interview or audition; the picture that accompanies your fabulous magazine article gives you credibility.

It's well documented that people make up their minds about each other within the first few seconds of meeting. The way you look, your body language, your tone of voice and your overall presentation comprises a staggering 93% of the criteria people use when they form an opinion about you. This impression tends to stick, no matter what you say or do subsequently. The same can apply to your online identity, including your photograph.

Even the most beautifully crafted layout and copy can be let down by a poor head shot, yet many people make do with home snapshots which do them no justice at all.

7 Simple Steps to Nurture Your Personal Brand

By Krishna De, Ireland's leading employer branding, personal branding and social media expert. Krishna is the chair of the organising team and a speaker at "A Brand You World - Global Telesummit".

Building your reputation and your personal brand today is a life long journey. I do encourage you to dismiss anything you read about ‘creating your personal brand’ as that is not authentic and you already have a personal brand.

The question for you to address is whether what you are known for and what comes to peoples minds when they think about you or talk about you to others is what you want it to be? Will support your career success?

Here are seven actions you can take today to further nurture your personal brand and build your reputation as the person to know:

1. CREATE YOUR CAREER STRATEGY

Many of us spend more time planning our vacations than planning our future success. Consider your career in the context of you being the CEO and appointing a board of directors to support you – perhaps your mentor, a colleague and your career coach.

Take time out to develop a career strategy just as you would develop a business strategy. Document your strategy and use it to establish your game plan for your future career success.

2. PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS

Get clear about your strengths and talents and ensure hat you put your strengths to work each and every day. Make sure that you nurture your strengths through further study, learning and most importantly applying your strengths in projects and assignments you are appointed to.

Personal Branding? At my age?

By Walter Akana, Life Strategist and owner of Threshold Consulting. Walter is one of the event organisers and a host at "A Brand You World - Global Telesummit".

Whenever I talk about personal branding with mid-career people, I often notice a look that suggests just a bit of skepticism, even if they seem to be agreeing. I can almost hear them thinking, “Personal branding? At my age?”

You may remember that the idea of personal branding was first promoted by Tom Peters in landmark 1997 article in Fast Company. You may have read it and applied it to your career. Or maybe not. If you haven't and you are at mid life, you may feel you’ve gotten this far without it, so it’s pretty easy to dismiss personal branding. Yet, in my roles as both a personal branding strategist and as a retirement coach, I assure you that personal branding has a lot to do with the quality of your career - and the quality of your life!

For now, let’s just stay with the idea of personal branding as a career management tool. Okay fifty-plusers, pay attention.

My friend Wendy, owner of Gen Plus, a blog for 50+ readers, notes the importance of establishing a personal brand that conveys the fresh approach that you bring to your work. She points out that you need to offer a promise of value that will convince a prospective employer you can add to the growth of the company, and goes on to say that your contribution “…needs to be apparent in your resume, your cover letter, your "look", your approach, your conversation -- essentially, your personal brand.”

So, who needs personal branding? You do.

CEO Branding: Once a Novelty, It’s now a Necessity in the Battle for Top Executive Jobs

By Deb Dib, “The CEO Coach”, Certified Personal Brand Strategist, Branded Resume Expert, and On-line Identity Coach. Deb Dib is one of the event organisers and a panelist at "A Brand You World - Global Telesummit".

People have been talking about personal brands since Tom Peter’s ground breaking article “The Brand Called You” appeared in Fast Company magazine in 1997. Since then the world of branding has exploded, with experts and novices alike extolling the virtues of personal branding.

Human branding has become a force in personal and career development because the process and outcome of personal branding works. It authenticates and clarifies the value of an individual and empowers that individual to be more, to achieve more, and to contribute more—with a natural enthusiasm and vigor that attracts success, satisfaction, and happiness.

Why identify and leverage a CEO brand?

Communicating your personal brand

By Sue Brettell, Online Identity Design and Communication specialist creating compelling personal brand web design and copy for dynamic solopreneurs and professionals.

"An image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service." Daniel J Boorstin

How does your personal brand sound or feel?

When you're developing your personal brand, chances are you'll have a very good idea of what it looks like – the colours, images, designs, written words you use to communicate your brand to your target audience. But have you ever considered what your brand sounds like? If your client was deprived of sight and hearing, what would it feel like? If you were a scent or a food, what would you smell or taste like? Daft questions?

Take Richard Branson. Visually, he looks like a permanent student wearing his Mum's knitted sweater. Each of us will have an auditory memory of the bands he's launched, or we will remember his voice. I think he would feel whiskery, woolly and safe, but you may disagree. Smell and taste are harder to define, but apple pies come to mind for smell and strawberries for taste (something to do with the red of the Virgin logo).

Are Your Professional Photographs On-brand?

By Krishna De, Ireland's leading employer branding, personal branding and social media expert. Krishna is the chair of the organising team and a speaker at "A Brand You World - Global Telesummit".

So you are going to be featured in the press and now the journalist asks you for a photograph to add to add to the article.

Or perhaps you are speaking at a forthcoming conference and the event organiser asks for your photograph for the conference brochure.

Or maybe you have realised the time has come to add a professional headshot to your website or business blog or your social netowrking profile at Facebook, LinkedIn, Ecademy or Ziggs?

How confident do you feel that reflects the brand that is truly you?

I remember doing a website makeover for a client on one of my programmes last year and they had what I can only describe as something worse than not having a photograph on their website – they were using a photograph that was damaging to their personal brand.

When we are asked for a professional photograph it really must reflect our personal brand and also be one that your ideal clients will respond to.

Here are five tips you can use to ensure that your profession photograph reflects who you really are and exudes credibility:
 

The CEO Branded Value Proposition: It’s all about ROI

By Deb Dib, “The CEO Coach”, Certified Personal Brand Strategist, Branded Resume Expert, and On-line Identity Coach. Deb Dib is one of the event organisers and a panelist at "A Brand You World - Global Telesummit"

A branded value proposition is what your brand looks like when you take it to work. It’s the “what happens” when you do what you do. For CEOs, it is the result that you deliver to your company, shareholders, and stakeholders, using the skills and strengths that form your leadership brand.

Your brand’s strength is determined by the marketplace—and so is the strength of your CEO value proposition. In fact, the strength of your value proposition lies in the confluence of its relationship to your brand and its relevance to the critical needs of your target market.

When exploring and developing your branded value proposition, it may help you to imagine an organizational chart with you at the top (value proposition / presidential message) heading a core group of direct reports / core managers with distinct supportive rolls (brand and value-added attributes /skills).

Blended Living in an “Always-On” World

By Walter Akana, Life Strategist and owner of Threshold Consulting. Walter is one of the event organisers and a host at "A Brand You World - Global Telesummit".

In their book, Career Distinction: Stand Out By Building Your Brand, William Arruda and Kirsten Dixon make the point that the lines between work and personal life are blurring; they say:

“The BlackBerry, ubiquitous Wi-Fi, and mobile phones have created a ‘work anytime, anywhere’ world. This blurring of boundaries between professional and personal life will only increase as being in the office becomes less and less necessary for knowledge workers.”

They go on to spell out the implications. First, with less time in the office, it takes a strong personal brand to continually convey the value you deliver. Second, living a life with an “always-on” career, you will want to align work with your values and passions to achieve a sense of fulfillment.

I think there is another implication…

… In this new world of work, the long-held concern with work-life balance needs to give way to a new focus on blended living. As one blogger has put it, blended living is based on the insight that work and life don’t exist in separate boxes. They naturally spill over into each other. Of course, pursuing a blended life has its own set of issues – not the least of which is knowing what you truly want in each area of your life.

No easy task.

Yet, the place to start is with clarity about your values, passions, vision, and purpose. In short, you need to know who you are and what you stand for. Having this kind of insight can help you to find sources of true satisfaction for yourself while also seeing what you bring to others. 

At all times, you are at the center of your life circle. So, if you want to own a nicely blended life, then you need to be you!

What do you think? How are you using self knowledge to live a more blended and satisfying life?

The Benefits of Personal Branding and Employment Branding for Talent Management and Career Management

By Nancy Branton, M. A., Founder/Owner People Potential Group, Inc. Nancy is one of the event organisers and a host at "A Brand You World - Global Telesummit".

While working in human resources, I heard managers say: “He doesn’t fit in well here,” “What can I do to get more qualified employees?” and “How can I get employees to stay here longer?”  Now, as an independent career coach I hear clients say:  “I don’t like working for this company;”  “I don’t like the management style where I work;” and “My work lacks meaning and I want to find more purposeful work.”  Personal branding and employment branding can address these concerns.

Many companies have discovered the competitive edge of employment branding.  Candidates who know a lot about a company’s values, culture, jobs, work expectations, and typical staff can determine to a large extent whether or not it’s a good fit before they put the effort into applying for a specific job.  And, that saves both the candidate and the company time and money in the selection process.  Furthermore, it can prevent a poor hiring decision and the costs associated with it, e.g., onboarding, on-the-job training, performance coaching, discipline, discharge, and possible lawsuit. At the same time it prevents the candidate from the negative consequences of a poor fit or discharge, e.g., stress, bad references, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, and more.

The other side of the equation is personal branding for candidates and employees. Candidates who work with a career coach to discover their personal brand become clear on their values, signature strengths, areas of weakness, and distinguishing attributes.  They are able to discern what companies to work for and which jobs to look for.  Employees who work in a company need personal branding, too.   Personal branding helps employees to target their immediate development needs, design a career plan, pursue leadership development (if appropriate), and determine if it’s the right company for them.

For best hiring results, the candidates’ personal brand needs to match the employers’ brand.  The likelihood of this matching greatly increases when candidates know and communicate their personal brand to the employer and employers know and communicate their brand to the candidates.  It’s at the intersection of personal branding and employment branding that the best hires are made for lasting results!

Career Satisfaction and Personal Branding

By Susan Guaneri The Career Assessment Goddess, is a National Certified Career Counselor and Certified Personal Branding Strategist. Susan is one of the event organisers and a panelist at "A Brand You World - Global Telesummit".

Just as a building requires four cornerstones to support the superstructure, so too career satisfaction requires a good match with four essential areas:

1. Motivated Skills – skills you are reasonably good at and enjoy using,

2. Interests and Passions – topics and causes that engender energy and passionate involvement,

3. Personality Type – personal style of behaving and communicating, and

4. Values and Goals – WHAT you want out of life (mission, vision, needs and objectives), as well as HOW you want to attain them.

These cornerstones, the building blocks for sound career change, can be determined through discussion with family and friends, journaling, “trying out” different kinds of jobs or volunteering. However, these methods can be time-consuming, erratic, and confusing.

Personal Branding for Career Management: A Whole New Mind

By Walter Akana, Life Strategist and owner of Threshold Consulting. Walter is one of the event organisers and a host at "A Brand You World - Global Telesummit".

If you are at mid-life (or any stage of your career), I can’t imagine that you feel your job is really secure. You may even have a game plan for what to do should a pink slip find you. Well, if your plan includes dusting off the ol' resume and going on the internet, it’s time to rework the playbook around the new model for career management: personal branding.

The idea of personal branding first appeared in the landmark 1997 Fast Company article, “The Brand Called You,” by Tom Peters. Fundamentally, personal branding exists at the intersection of two ongoing trends: the new world of work wherein organizations value innovation, and egonomics which is the craving to be recognized for one’s unique contributions. So, to manage your career today, there are two broad questions to consider: What is innovative? What value do you contribute?

CEO Brand Communication: "One size fits all," fits no one!

By Deb Dib, “The CEO Coach” Certified Personal Brand Strategist, Branded Resume Expert, and On-line Identity Coach. Deb Dib is one of the event organisers and a panelist at "A Brand You World - Global Telesummit".

Every CEO has a brand, but not every executive knows he has a brand. Understanding your personal brand and value is your best offense in today’s world of work, where C-level tenures are shrinking at an alarmingly swift rate.

Successful, brand-savvy CEOs know that to out-compete in this new world of work, their career communications must be branded, differentiated, refined, and continually reworked to attract and maximize every opportunity. They know that “one size fits all” does not exist in successful CEO career management.

When preparing to write your CEO communication package of resume and collaterals, launch your job search, or plan career management strategies, ask yourself the following questions. Then use your answers as the foundation for all of your branded career development activities.

How Smart People Brand Themselves for Business Success

By Catherine Kaputa, author of U R a BRAND!,
winner of the Ben Franklin Award for Best Career Book 2007

You have to tap into “soft power” to succeed in business today.
The truth is, smarts and hard work are not enough to ensure career success. We all know lots of hard-working, intelligent people who are underemployed or even unemployed. Personal or self-branding is about “soft power.” It’s about developing a personal strategy that positions you differently from others and formulating the tactics that get you from A to B all the way to Z.