As a career success coach, I urge my clients to build strong relationships with the people in their life – to make friends. Cindy Yantis has become a friend of mine. She is a career architect, helping people build careers they love. Our friendship started when I responded to a query she posted asking for advice on personal branding for her blog.
Her query resulted in a dynamite blog post called 50 Seriously Greats Tips to Elevate Your Personal Brand in 2010. It had some really great common sense career success advice. I liked her lengthy post so much that I asked Cindy if she would allow me to excerpt it on this blog. She graciously agreed. So each day this week, I shared 10 of Cindy’s 50 tips on personal branding.
Personal branding is an important key to creating positive personal impact. As a career success coach, I help my clients create and nurture their unique personal brands. My advice on branding building is simple. First, figure out how you want others to think of you. Second, consistently and constantly act in a manner that will get you to think of you that way. You have to do all the work when it comes to deciding how you want others to think of you. Cindy’s tips will help you consistently and constantly act in a manner consistent with your brand.
Here are the final ten tips (41 – 50) of Cindy’s 50 tips on personal branding for career success…
41. Know your stakeholders
“Know who your stakeholders are, what they need, what they’re interested in, and how you can make a difference. Genuinely engage your stakeholders in conversation. Ask questions that matter. Offer insight that is fresh by doing your homework. Dont be phony. Participate in conversations. Read blogs. Write a blog. Follow people and organizations who you think are interesting; maybe theyll follow you back. Comment on their work. Make a contribution that will add value to your brand.” Christopher R. Groscurth, Ph.D., drgroscurth.com
42. Be strategic in getting attention
“I exploded my personal brand into a Resume Magazine called SEEKERS. I printed a bunch and have circulated them among employers. They loved it. I also created personal bookmarkers, tassel and all, to have employers bookmark my website and invited them to go visit. I also developed a postcard as a direct mail piece and sent it to employers. The resume is dead. My strategy is getting attention.” Gina Marie Mangiamele, ginamarie.biz.
43. Create a video resume
“We created a video resume to help marketing professionals elevate their personal brand. This is a compelling and engaging way to reach targeted audiences – prospective employers, clients or partners. The response has been tremendous!” Tara Greco, blackscreenstudios.com
44. Do great work
“Do a really great job on a client’s case, so you can truly believe in what you do. It gives you the confidence to elevate your brand.” Jay Weinberg, Esq., www.jayweinberg.com.
45. Seriously use video online!
“To personalize your brand, include a different You-Tube video on each page of your website. WHY: In order for potential clients to connect with us personally, we put a U-Tube video on each page of our website. Since doing that, our website has come to life and has cemented us at the center of the brand. This use of three-dimensional media not only enables audiences to listen to information about Success Trek, but it also allows them to tap into the energy, voice and look of the presenter who someday might be leading their focus groups, retreats or trainings.” Theresa Valade, SUCCESS-TREK.COM
46. Really do things differently than anyone else
“We have elevated our business through cafes. We started our business as a group of freelancers in cafes… a lot of our business came from the people we would meet in the cafes. Now we are a full-service agency and cafe agency with our own studio in chicago. We attract several clients since the front half of our studio is a Doejo cafe. Doing things different than the average business and standing out is the key to elevating our business.” Karley Hall, http://doejo.com
47. Hone in on your core values
I recommend sitting down and thinking through your core values. Too many of us know the values we were brought up with (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “Money doesn’t grow on trees” etc) but few of us have thought through what we really stand for. Company’s have mission statements that include their core values– each of us must as well. Do you prize responsiveness? reliability? flexibility? creativity? attention to detail? punctuality? clarity? brevity? Spell it out for yourself, then embody it in all you do, say, write.” Frances Cole Jones, thewowfactor-thebook.com
48. Be REALLY effective on Twitter!
“Google’s real time search has changed the way the search engine finds tweets. Now, tweets must include keywords that your clients, prospects and press use to find information about products, services and businesses. For these reasons make sure you: run a Google keyword report on search trends and use these keywords in your tweets; use Trendistic.com – A Twitter application that allows you to search for what’s trending on Twitter; review Twitter trends daily and incorporate these trending keywords and phrases into your Tweets as long as they are relevant to your target audience, otherwise it’s spam! Use #hashtags to #SEO your message via Twitter so you can be discovered; use simple language that offers advice, how to’s and important information that is Google-friendly to real time search, this is how you really get your search engine optimization tactics up.” Valerie Jennings, jenningssocialmedia.com
49. Talk about the benefit you provide instead of what you DO
“Is what you do for a living perceived by potential customers as being a mere commodity; more or less the same as others in your profession? The good news is you can change customer perceptions by changing the way you describe what you do. Rather than describing yourself in terms of a generic label, you can instead refer to the ultimate benefit that you deliver, inviting them into the conversation. Bottom line: next time you need to set yourself apart from the competition – beyond just lowering prices – try changing the way you talk about what you do for a living.” Jeff Mowatt, JeffMowatt.com
50. Follow the A B C’s of personal branding!
“You are your own best walking advertisement, your own walking billboard. When you “show up” anywhere, you are both the message and the messenger for your brand. Align your physical image with your brand image and you’ll see — people will hear you, see you and “buy” you much more quickly, more easily. Accentuate your best assets. Balance your message from the inside out and head-to-toe, and Camouflage anything your adoring public does not need to know. It’s as easy as A B C!” Lauren Solomon, LSimage.com
The common sense point here is simple. If you want to become a career success, you need to create and nurture your unique personal brand. In this post I have presented the final 10 common sense personal branding tips from Cindy Yantis, a career architect. I presented Cindy’s thoughts on personal branding all week because in my work as a career success coach I have learned firsthand of the power of personal branding. Here are the final 10 of Cindy’s 50 Seriously Great Tips to Elevate Your Personal Brand in 2010. 41) Know your stakeholders. 42) Be strategic in getting attention. 43) Create a video resume. 44) Do great work. 45) Seriously use video on line. 46) Do things differently than anyone else. 47) Hone in on your core values. 48) Be really effective on Twitter. 49) Talk about the benefits you provide, not what you do. 50) Follow the A B C’s of personal branding.
That’s Cindy Yantis – and others – take on personal branding. What’s yours? Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us. As always, thanks for reading.
Bud
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