Today's tough times got a whole lot more real for me last week, when ones of my best mates was fired from his job in the city. Kids in private school. House with a mortgage. Worked his ass off for years, getting up at 5am to slog into town. And then, boom. Timed to perfection so he missed out on his bonus by a matter of weeks.
I'm now helping him with the brand positioning for a new solo business. Trouble is, he has a lot of catching up to do to create a compelling story about himself, and to get his network of contacts buzzing. And this got me thinking about how important it is to keep your "personal brand" positioning and marketing mix up to date NOW, when you're in a job. That way, when you need to find a new job, or start your own solo business, you're ready to hit the ground running.
Here are some simple suggestions on what you can do:
1. The brand called you: First up is to think about and capture in a sentence or two your personal brand positioning. What makes you different and better in your chosen field? For example, "Business savvy brand manager who knows how to make money, not just ads"
2. Build your profile: Look for ways to start building your name in your chosen industry, through speaking at conferences, or contributing to magazine articles. Link your personal brand to brand success stories in the company where you work. If you work in a "real job", as opposed to being a consultant/agency person ;-), then this is relatively easy. Journalists and conference organizers are always looking for marketing directors/managers to tell real-life growth stories.
3. Keep you press book up to date: when you do get featured, keep a press book. My mate from the City had been in the Financial Times, and on CNN. But he never kept personal copies of these media appearances, and will now find it hard to get them.
4. Network, network, network: I know you're busy. But take a bit of time now to network with your peers. This could be through industry events, such as The Marketing Society. Or it could be through personal contacts you can connect your with people in industries you are interested in.
5. Link-in: Linked In has contributed to at least one major new business win for me. And its a handy online CV that more and more people are using. But its no good if your Linked In page is empty, and you look like "Johny No Mates" by having only 3 contacts. You can easily import your whole Outlook address book, and Linked In will then tell you which are available to link to.
If you want to know more about personal branding, the definitive article by Tom Peters on "Brand You" is here.
Who cares? Nice. I guess we should all be happy to slmpiy surrrender small work while HP/ Logoworks affords a 13 year old in Dubai with a second copy of CS3 the ability to design, or copy a logo from a design annual, for small companies in America who can't afford to pay $1,000. Who cares? Right.
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Posted by: mystic | June 16, 2011 at 10:30 AM
Awesome read- just what I needed to inspire my personal growth and make that 'someday I'll have my own business' a little closer to home.
Posted by: Mara Roberts | December 31, 2008 at 11:11 AM
Great advice David. I think the way you manage your own personal profile and the Brand Gym acts as a role model to us all. The only other 2 suggestions I have are:
1. Help others. Be generous with your time and your advice when people ask for it. People have long memories and it will stand you in good whenever you need support.
2. Start a blog. Even if few people read it, it encourages you observe, reflect and capture your own points of view on the world.
Posted by: Tony Franco | December 22, 2008 at 01:54 PM
You could also collect all the places you are online in one place. They you can share that one place with people. Why wait for google to find you? Why make other people wade through google results (yep, no, no, yep, no)?
Odds are people have more than just one profile around at different sites. If not make some and get content out there.
I use http://www.extendr.com for this. It's like my table of contents for the internet.
Posted by: Joseph Rueter | December 09, 2008 at 06:06 AM