7 Things You Can Do To Build An Awesome Personal Brand

On LinkedIn, Shama Hyder shares her terrific recommendations on how to build an awesome personal brand.  Shama writes:

Here are seven ways to start building an awesome personal brand.

Start thinking of yourself as a brand

What do you wish for people to associate with you when they think of your name? Is there a certain subject matter in which you want to be perceived as an expert or are there general qualities you want linked to your brand? Once you understand how you wish your brand to be perceived, you can start to be much more strategic about your personal brand. This doesn't mean you can’t be human. On the contrary, as Michael Simmons writes, authenticity is key in the digital age. A strong personal brand can yield tremendous ROI whether you are working with an organization or leading one. Here are some examples of individuals who have built up authentic and powerful personal brands: Michael Port, John Bates, Mike Michalowicz, Dave Kerpen, David Meerman Scott, John Jantsch, Dave Carroll, and Barry Moltz.

Audit your online presence 

You can’t mold perception without first understanding the current status. In other words, Google yourself and setup alerts for your name on a regular basis. Have a fairly common name? Consider using your middle initial or middle name to differentiate. Cultivating a strong personal brand is just as much about being responsive to what is being said as it is about creating intellectual property.

Secure a personal website

Having a personal website for yourself is one of the best ways to rank for your name on the search engines. It doesn’t need to be robust. It can be a simple two to three page site with your resume, link to your social platforms, and a brief bio. You can always expand on the website with time.

Read the full story at 7 Things You Can Do To Build An Awesome Personal Brand 

Define Your Personal Brand With These 3 Questions

From Career Sherpa, Hannah Morgan provides outstanding guidance on how to define your personal brand.  Answering the three key questions helps you define your brand and what you want to be known for.  Hannah writes:

What Problem Do You Solve?

Every business has a problem that needs fixing. This is why companies hire new people. It is also the reason companies buy services. When you understand this simple rule, it will help you convey your message.

Businesses want to hire people that will increase profits, decrease time or labor or improve efficiency. No one is going to hire you based only on your degree or an impressive list of past employers.

The problems companies face come in all shapes and sizes. But to get you started thinking about the problem you solve, think about times when you have come up with an innovative solution. You may be known as the original thinker of the group. Every company needs an out-of-the-box mind.

Perhaps you implemented solutions that saved time. Your new process may have reduced hours worked on a project or enabled a new product to reach the market faster. Time is money, so if you possess the knack for saving time, your skills are in demand.

Making something easier, whether ordering a product, speaking to a customer service representative or streamlining an internal process, is a skill most everyone appreciates. If you’ve ever removed red tape or automated tedious work, you’ve made some people very happy.

Write down the top problems you’ve enjoyed solving.

How Do You Meet or Exceed Expectations?

The work you’ve done in the past is indicative of the work you will do in the future. If you have met or exceeded expectations, that says a lot about you. But you’ll need to be specific.

Have you made it easier to get projects completed? Have you made it less risky to do business with your employer? Do customers love to refer new business to your company? If you serve internal customers, in other words, other departments within your company, you are measured the same way.

Start asking yourself how you made it easier for departments to interact with you. Have you anticipated potential problems and proactively put measures in place? Do you listen to what your internal customers are asking for?

Identify the situations when you’ve improved how customers interact with you, your team or the company, and you’re one step closer to pinning down why people like working with you.

Write down the examples of times you’ve met or exceeded expectations.

How Do You Make A Difference In the World?

Personality goes a long way to differentiate you from the competition. Think about what people have said about why they enjoy working with you.

It could be due to your management style or how you communicate. Or maybe you’ve been recognized as the person who gives 110 percent to get things done. Is it possible that people come to you because you put them at ease and they trust you will provide the best solution?

Take note of the positive feedback you’ve received and look for recurring patterns. You shouldn’t take this for granted or be humble. Your unique way of getting things done makes a difference in the world. Capture this feedback and use it to market yourself.

Read the full story at Define Your Personal Brand with these 3 Quesions and sign up for the Career Sherpa newsletter for great career advice.

8 Reasons a Powerful Personal Brand Will Make You Successful

From Entrepreneur, Matt Sweetwood shares 8 reasons that a powerful personal brand is a key element of success.  Matt writes:

Here are the eight reasons why I tell people you must have a top-notch personal brand if you want to be successful today:

1. Opportunity finds you.

When your personal brand is attractive, customers, clients, vendors, press and even companies looking to hire, will find you and reach out to you. I am the CEO of a new social media platform, and I had them contact me for the job. I didn’t even know the position was available. I have gotten media appearances, writing opportunities and speaking engagements because I get noticed and folks reach out to me.

2. Online networking power.

When you have a compelling personal brand, people find you interesting and desirable, so they are willing to connect with you. I get dozens of new Linkedin and Twitter connections every day. People look at my profiles, follow me and want to know more about me.

3. In-person networking power.

When I'm at a networking event and I engage others, I have many aspects of my brand to share. It makes me more interesting than the guy who walks up to you and says, “Hi, My name is Joe, and I sell insurance.” I have many facets to my brand, both professional and personal. That makes people want to connect with me and do business with me. I can demonstrate proficiency and have the online assets to back them up on many topics like photography, entrepreneurship, my Man-Up Project and fatherhood, blogging, speaking, social media, men’s health, non-profit work and more.

4. Build your business.

When I had to reinvent and rebuild my photography business in 2007, which was failing because of the rapid decline of film, it was my powerful personal brand that drove much of our success. Customers, clients and vendors are more likely to do businesses with a company when the leader has a killer personal brand. Good examples are Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Fred Smith, Warren Buffet and even Donald Trump -- whose personal brand may be bigger than his business. Where would their companies be without their personal brands shining on their company brands?

5. Get hired.

According to SHRM, 84 percent of hiring managers use social media to hire -- 96 percent use Linkedin, and 53 percent use Twitter. Many companies post jobs on Twitter before anywhere else. But the most revealing statistic is that 66 percent of hiring managers use Facebook to hire. They are doing that because they are trying to find out more about you than just what’s on your resume. They want to know you as a person and understand whether you are going to fit into their corporate culture.

It’s a logical approach for selecting the best candidates. Candidate A has an impressive resume. Candidate B has a similarly impressive resume, but their strong personal brand shows that they have a blog with articles on topics relevant to the company’s business. They tweet about news and ideas from the industry. They do yoga, run half-marathons, and they volunteer for charity. Who do you think is getting the interview and the job?

Read the full story at 8 Reasons a Powerful Personal Brand Will Make You Successful

6 Personal Branding Rules to Being Popular and Profitable

From Entrepreneur, Patrick Allmond shares his 6 rules for personal branding.  Patrick recommends:

Here are six tips to being profitable and popular:

1. Be loud and opinionated

Some people just can’t over-tweet or make too many videos. Their audiences are huge, and people pay attention every time they open their mouths. Even if you don't love everything a loud person says, you have no choice but to listen. They invite conflict and debate and don't care whether you like them. 

2. Teach

The best way to help elevate yourself is to elevate those around you.

Give until hurts. Teach everything you know. Teach your secrets. Walk people step-by-step through what you do and how you do it. Make your failures just as public as your successes. Use every lesson in your life as good advice.

Remember: Nobody listens to the silent expert. 

3. Break all the rules

Productive people are too busy knocking over barriers to help their audience to waste time on rules. They don’t have time to ask whether they are doing it the “proper” way or not. One of the worst things you can do is look at somebody else’s rule list and apply it to your marketing. No two people or companies are the same. Determine what your mission is and goals are. Then make up your rules along the way. 

4. Have no shame

Sometimes, people are afraid to share their knowledge because they don’t want to seem arrogant. They might not want to making a scene over a controversial topic. But, if you don’t speak up on your expertise, people will turn to the guy who does.

I stopped being embarrassed a long time ago. I know I am going to look like a fool part of the time. I am going to make mistakes. That said, I’d much rather come crashing through the wall than cower in the corner when it comes to being an expert in my field. 

Read the full story at 6 Personal Branding Rules to Being Popular and Profitable

The Proven Guide to Using Live Video to Build Your Personal Brand

From QuickSprount, Neil Patel offers a terrific guide on how to use video to grow your personal brand.  Niel provides exceptional advice for social media and in this blog post, he provides great advice and discussion of each of these core recommendations.

1.  Make your videos personal
2.  Don't script it
3.  Go for quick delivery
4.  Don't go cheap on hardware
5.  Be funny, with a purpose
6.  Maintain Authenticity
7. Diversify your content
8. Build your audience to promote your stream
9. Always bring value
10. Brand yourself
11. Go Live Regularly

Read the full story at The Proven Guide to Using Live Video to Build Your Personal Brand

Personal Branding: 10 Steps Towards a New Professional You

Thank you to Hannah Morgan and her Career Sherpa  newsletter for sharing the following terrific infographic created by Delightful Communications

Source:  Personal Branding:  10 Steps Towards a New Professional You

What You Need to Stand Out in a Noisy World

From Harvard Business Review, Dorie Clark share great advice on how to stand out in a busy, noisy world.  She offers three key features:  social proof, content creation and your network. She writes: 

Social Proof

Humans, especially busy ones, have a bias toward conserving mental energy. It’s cognitively taxing for them to independently evaluate every person they come into contact with to determine, “Is this person credible?” Indeed, performing that calculation is almost impossible if the person is outside their field of expertise, because they simply may not have enough information to know. That’s why social proof is so critical. Social proof is a heuristic that allows people to judge something — in this case, you — based on your affiliations with brands they already trust. If you went to Harvard, the thinking goes, you must be intelligent; if your book was a New York Times bestseller, it must be good. 

Obviously, these are exceptions (sometimes glaring), but in general, social proof provides shortcuts that are helpful for people most of the time. You can leverage the power of social proof to ensure your ideas are taken more seriously — immediately — by making an effort to align yourself with people and institutions that are known and respected within your industry.

For instance, if you make it a priority to start blogging for a publication that everyone in your field reads, that can be a quick shortcut to credibility. If you’ve worked at an industry-leading company, make sure that it’s prominently featured in your bio and that you periodically share anecdotes highlighting your time there. If you take on a leadership role in a professional association, that sends the signal that your peers respect you enough to select you as their leader. Social proof enables others to “relax” about you; they don’t need to be so vigilant in evaluating your credentials because you’ve already been vetted by others. That primes them to listen to your ideas more carefully and with an open mind.

Read the full story at What You Need to Stand Out in a Noisy World