Richard Anderson personal branding

Is there a real You?

2012-02-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

I watched an interesting video presentation the other day by Julian Baggini on TED - (Baggini is the author of several books about philosophy written for a general audience. He is the author of The Pig that Wants to be Eaten and 99 other thought experiments (2005) and is co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Philosophers' Magazine.

He promotes the concept that there is no ‘real You’ He says we have no binding core or essence but are made up of Memories, Desires, Beliefs, Knowledge, Sensations and Experiences and it is these that make us who we are. This counters the thought that there is a core You that gets modified in some way by beliefs, desires, experiences and the like.

Baggini posits that we are ever-changing and require direction. He says that having no permanent being is a great opportunity to expand that which is You.

This fits well with how I work with Personal Branding. My work with hundreds of executives has confirmed that we continue to evolve through our experiences, learnings, relationships and desires. The secret to success is in knowing which of the vital life ingredients to focus on, what parts do we build on and promote to achieve the mix and momentum to succeed. Of course we need to understand that there are limits ( we all cannot be elite athletes or world-class musicians) but we all need to question what stops us from being the You that we want to be.

What is the story you are telling yourself and others? What is your personal brand message for 2012 and where is it going to take you?

It is easy to damage your brand.

2011-11-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

There have been two well publicised national incidents in Australia this week that have the potential to cause major brand damage to the large corporations at the center of them.

Qantas, the national airline, grounded all flights across the globe in response to ongoing labour contract disputes with three major unions. This act left 60,000 passengers stranded around the world for two to four days and for all those concerned this resulted in stress, missed flights, additional cost and a burning desire not to fly with Qantas again.

The second incident was the National Australia Bank who decided not to pass on all of the Reserve Banks latest interest rate decrease in spite of announcing a record profit for the year (19% up on last year). This same bank had spent millions building a brand about being different than the other three major banks and caring for its clients. For all of .05% or $68 million a year they have hurt their brand by showing they are just a callous as the others and they are now back to where they were a year ago – firmly in the disliked 'Big Bank Bully' camp.

While both of these incidents may have stacked up from a financial point of view they have both done considerable damage to the brand which over time is likely to have a far bigger negative impact on the bottom line.

This same short term/ unbalanced thinking also happens at the Personal Brand level where we all can make decisions that feel right in the moment but can do considerable damage to our long term brand.

Things we do that can negatively impact on our brand are:

That email or phone call made in response to an incident where our blood is boiling and we want to get things off our chest – unless your brand is “Hothead” sleep on it and look at the incident from all aspects and respond in a manner that suits your professional style/ brand.

Someone in the organisation (or outside like a client or supplier) has just done something to upset you and your first reaction is to get them in to rip a strip off them – there are always two sides to every story so get theirs first without taking a position and then think on it overnight to ensure your reaction is measured and in line with your brand.

That job you have accepted that will bring in some much needed cash but that also devalues your main offer and confuses the market – If you have to do it how do you isolate it and keep it off the radar – or just refuse it as not being your area of expertise.

That function you go to over the Christmas break where you had a bit too much to drink and told a few people what you think of things (business, politics) and people – know your limits and remember that these are branding networking opportunities where people are observing all around them. Have a buddy keep close to tap you on the shoulder if necessary.

You are about to post some new photos onto Facebook showing the great function you were at last night – consider how these will be viewed by all who can see them as they may hurt your brand, or hurt others, which will still hurt your brand.

You are a young executive and want to be seen as a mature, responsible professional but on the weekend you dress down and hoon about in the city and on the streets – there is no down time when building a brand and people who see you “out of work’ will still be expecting to see the mature, responsible adult you aspire to be so dress and act accordingly at all times. Look at your casual wardrobe and ask “what does this say about me?”

Remember Branding is about being authentic all of the time and being conscious of the fact that we are always under the spotlight and it can only take a moment to destroy the work of years.

Is the art of good conversation missing from your brand?

2011-09-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

I got into a good debate with my business partners yesterday regarding the difference between communication and conversation and whether good conversation is a dying art.

We looked up the meaning of conversation and it is quoted as:

A talk between two or more people in which thoughts, feelings and ideas are expressed, questions are asked and answered, or news and information are exchanged. An oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas.

Based on the above we determined that conversation has been replaced with communication and that in the process it has become more a one way process than the two way art of good conversation. Too much today we communicate our thoughts, decisions and instructions to our wider world (family, work and non-work network) with the intention of not receiving feedback and or debate on the subject. At the same time we still relate this to “good communication’ because we are getting the message out and letting people know what we think and what we require.

We all agreed that modern society is lacking the skills of good conversation and online media such as email, SMS and Twitter has reduced us to snippet communication rather than a commitment to better understand the person and the message.

From a personal branding perspective most of my clients state they are good communicators but few have ever branded themselves as great conversationalists. Why is this?

A great conversationalist is a unique brand attribute that defines someone as having more than just communication skills with things like emotional intelligence and strong networking ability added to the mix.

To ensure your brand remains authentic what do you need to do to move from being a communicator to a great conversationalist?

Should you separate the personal brand from the organizational brand?

2011-08-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

“In the past, the corporate brand was everything. But it is really the leaders that make the brand come alive. It is the personal brand that enables the company to thrive. And with technology moving so quickly and so many new companies coming into their own, the brands of those that run the company are actually defining the corporate brand, not the other way around.”

Organizations spend thousands of dollars in building a strong brand and this will include their online brand identity. Many will see this as the best way to reach their target audience and some will see it as the only way. While not disputing the value of corporate branding I will throw a grenade into the room and say that while most organizations see the value of a charismatic CEO most miss the opportunity to brand their executives and middle managers and it is this group that offers tremendous untapped potential.

By branding staff I do not mean getting them to wear the corporate uniform or logo though this is a small part of it in certain organizations and departments. What I mean is organizations supporting their staff to build strong Personal Brand awareness and communication skills and even supporting them with their online brand identity.

We all accept that most people today have an online identity with social sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Blogger, Twitter all contributing to this mass of data. Organizations to date play no part in what their staff do on these sites as they are seen to be personal (except where the negative is seen to impact on the organization reputation/brand) but there is the opportunity to support and influence what is going on across these sites and simple training and skills development is a start.

Let’s look at LinkedIn as an example. Most business executives use this site and it is seen as a business network yet most are poorly branded and do not strongly align to the organization. Few organizations use LinkedIn to set up company sites and networks and even less support their staff in building strongly branded pages that will reinforce the organizational brand. We know that someone checking out your organization will look for senior executive LinkedIn pages, we also know that searchers using LinkedIn will gain an impression of the organization from the comments and caliber of the executives who work for it – so it stands to reason that supporting staff to build strongly branded LinkedIn pages will benefit the organizational brand. (just as poor executive pages or negative comment can hurt the brand)

Strongly branded executives will be better at promoting the organization at functions, networking events and more importantly when facing the client so building a confident team of ambassadors who have strong awareness of their authentic brand, their value proposition, and the ability to communicate such to others is a simple exercise. You will also find your executives are looking for this support as they see the personal value in it as part of their career development. A classic win-win situation.

I would be interested in your thoughts so please feel free to comment.

Personal Brand or just Reputation?

2011-08-01T17:16:00.000-07:00

As I work with, and communicate with people on their personal branding I regularly get asked the question “Isn’t branding the same as reputation?”

If your brand is authentic, and it needs to be so, then brand and reputation go closely together. To create a brand that is false, or just based on your perception, is likely to be questioned not just by others but also you. The simple answer to this is to ask others who know you well what is their perception of you – from this you will get your current brand/ reputation, i.e. your current brand is in the hearts and minds of those who know you.

What you will find is that you will get a wide range of perceptions based on your old and current personas, skills, knowledge and how well the people know you. Family and friends may see you one way and colleagues another and each of them may be correct. The skill of a personal brand is to take this feedback and turn it into a compelling, future-facing, brand statement and bio that you can use to focus on the future goals you wish to pursue.

Personal branding highlights the positive personas (we all have a number of these) and strengths quoted and creates an emotional value proposition around these. Highly successful people promote their strengths rather than being seen as good at most things or bad at some things. By emotional it means you get passionate when you talk about it and people are interested in you, what you have to say and offer, and will actively promote you and your services to others. This will support you in gaining new business, a new role or just to build stronger networks where you wish to be seen in a certain light.

Some people are critical of personal branding and see it as a false representation of self and ego driven. If your brand is authentic but differentiated (makes you stand out from your peers) where is the issue with this and if you do not promote yourself who else will do it with your focus and enthusiasm?

We all have a brand whether we like it or not, or believe in it or not. Make sure yours is authentic, emotional, future-focused and communicated consistently (in what you say and do and what you communicate to the world via networking and online media) to your target audience.

“A reputation for being positive about most people and things is a great brand to start with”

Build your online personal brand - digital obscurity to digital distinction

2011-07-07T18:12:00.000-07:00

Can people find you online? Are you aware that 70% of people do not go beyond the first page of a ‘web search’ and less that 10% go beyond page three?

If someone searches for you, or your business, will they find you on page one? This is the question you should know the answer to and it needs to be YES.

So how do you get onto page one without paying money for the privilege? Well it is quite simple if you have a strong personal brand identity and you master the five prerequisites I will discuss below. This is after you have established a clear personal brand and identified the target market you wish to be located by. A clear personal brand includes the unique promise of value that you offer to your target audience and is described in a Brand Statement, Bio, Profile and all other forms of communication you can use online. This message needs to be clear, consistent and constant to ensure that the message ‘rings true’ across the full online experience. Once you have established a clear brand message then use this (cut and paste) across all online media to get a consistent message out and when updating this message ensure you do so across all sites.

Up until a few years ago Online Identity was based on Volume of hits and the Relevance of those hits to you and your desired message. With the ability todays’ search engines to use blended search there are now another three prerequisites you need to add to the list these being:

Purity – Of the hits how many relate to you? If you have a common name what keywords do you need to have people know to find you? Searchers today are sophisticated and will use keywords to reduce the search volume. A strong brand will make it easier for you to establish these keywords.

Diversity – Words alone are not enough and you will need to use the full gambit of online experiences to get a high hit rate. This needs to include images, videos, social media, realtime media, thought leadership sites, websites and various links just to mention a few. A common message needs to come from all of these and remember the growing power of video as this is the medium of the future for online communication.

Validation - Credibility comes from having others speak for you. LinkedIn for example allows you to include recommendations in your profile. Branchout allows Facebook friends to provide testimonials and honestly.com allows for candid, anonymous feedback. These and other sites are now springing up to provide validation and while these can be influenced (you asking for specific feedback)they do work in making searchers more comfortable with the online identity/ reputation you are looking to establish.

If you work on all of these you will find that you will move quickly from digital obscurity to digital distinction. Start today.

Tip: Do you own your name as a domain name (for example: www.richardanderson.com.au)? If not, see if it is available (www.crazydomains.com.au) and secure it even if you are not ready to use it yet. Check out your children’s’ names and secure these as a great investment for their online future. This is a low cost investment and is an important step in building your personal online identity.

Is there a link between Personal Brand Development and Job Engagement?

2011-05-30T23:05:00.000-07:00

The recent global engagement report from Blessing White (Global Engagement Report 01/11) showed that fewer than 1 in 3 employees (31%) are engaged with nearly 1 in 5 (17%) actually disengaged. With 3 groups in between these being the Almost Engaged, The Honeymooners, and the disillusioned and partially exhausted Crash and Burners there is 51% of the workforce not fully engaged.

These figures move slightly around the world and have remained roughly stable since 2008. The challenge ahead for Australian organisations is the growing skills shortage and the increasing availability of roles attractive not just to the disengaged but to the engaged top 37% who will always find it easier to move into new roles.

‘Engaged employees plan to stay for what they give; the Disengaged stay for what they can get’

Employees worldwide view opportunities to apply their talents, career development, and training as top drivers of job satisfaction.

With most organisations now accepting that it is no longer their responsibility to manage the career of their employees there rests responsibility on both sides to get engagement high and who better to lead the charge for career development, and a role that applies talent, than the employee themselves. This is where Personal Brand Development comes into play as this can align both the interests of the individual and the organisation and brings the vital discretionary effort into being (such as creativity and innovation).

Executives with clear career focus and personal brand development/communications plans in place are likely to be more engaged and more productive because they are involved in areas that they are passionate about and are working toward a career goal that gives them energy and a purpose in the present.

A simple reminder of the basic rules of networking into a new role

2011-05-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

I conducted my last network breakfast, within a specific contract, last week and thought it an opportune time to remind clients of the simple key points to networking into a new career.

High confidence within one self and the professional career management process is vital for without this confidence you will be a reluctant networker and one who does not create and leave the best impression. And where does this confidence come from?

Focus for one, without a clear vision or goal you will not be able to articulate your value proposition and not be able to get people to support you on the journey. Focus is knowing the role (even if this means just the activities) and the sectors/ industries you are interested in networking within. Focus means you can research in detail organisations of interest and prepare your marketing materials to better reach the decision makers/ influencers within.

Understand your Brand. What makes you successful, unique and appealing to your target market? Remember your Brand is already in the market place so find out what this is and then future-focus this to better suit your new career while still remaining authentic. Brand awareness is also about how you communicate this to the market so understand how to get the right message out. Networking professionally is just one method that needs to be mastered and use the latest Online branding tools to support your case and provide increased confidence to the market.

Professional networking is still the best method to get a new role with over 65% of roles filled in the non-advertised market. This means getting out and letting people know who you are, what is your value proposition and what are you interested in. Networking is not about selling or asking for jobs as both of these will close more doors than open them. Networking is the seeking of information and advice (about your targeted goals and sectors for one) and is more about giving rather than taking so get out there and give of yourself and what you come across on your journey (networks, news, research, invitations, articles, books, websites, blogs, aps, etc). Remember as you grow your networks so you must nurture it through constant contact and giving is the best method to do this (give to receive). Your network will support you strongly in your career planning over the years ahead but to do this they need to have confidence in you, know your true brand, and know your future plans – where do you stand with your current network?

Brand Development and Career Planning is a constant pursuit and one that needs to be planned and reviewed on a six monthly basis. What are you doing today to build and communicate your brand, increase your skills, increase your networks and progress your career to where you wish it to go. I hope you are not waiting for others to manage this for you as this is doomed for failure. If you are happy in your current role then great but what is your next role and what are you doing to transition into this over the next year or two? If you are not happy in your current role, then start to do something about it today.

What is Personal Branding and Why do we all need it?

2011-04-16T23:58:00.000-07:00

As part of my career management programs over the past three years I have introduced the concept of Brand to my clients and in the most part this was just a simple means of identifying the unique role and value proposition that each client had so they could better communicate this to the market. Over the past 12 months I have become far more involved with Personal Brand Development and as part of my search became aware of Reach© in the USA the pioneer of personal branding (as the Americans call it).

Personal branding is the key to future individual and organisational success and leading organisations overseas are now seeing the real benefits of embracing this fundamental shift in career development. Career focus and success is now firmly in the hands of the individual and it is beholden of the organisation to support their staff in this process.

Career focus comes when an individual understands and can articulate what they are good at (and love doing) and purposefully builds more of this into their career. Someone with career focus knows where they want to go and what they want to be doing there. There are many ways to progress once focus is gained, and all paths lead to the individual delivering to their full potential.

Career success comes out of career focus. Understanding your unique “brand” and the skills that underpin it enables people to progress to where they want to be so they can do what they do best. The brand aware individual stands out from the crowd and finds how to contribute to the organisation in ways that make them productive and happy.

Here is what William Arruda (Reach Branding Founder and CEO) says about personal branding and the part organisation's play in the process:

In 2011, the global leader in branding Reach Personal Branding will turned ten. For our first few years in business, talent development executives were leery of personal branding. In fact, many thought personal branding would make their employees too valuable and incented to leave the company.‘

Today, personal branding is a topic that is understood and appreciated by talent development professionals around the globe. Companies realize that the 30-year, one-company career is a relic and that their employees are constantly considering their next professional moves. HR leaders understand that a better way of retaining talent is to increase engagement and help employees apply what makes them exceptional to what they do and how they do it.

In the coming years, personal branding as a development tool will grow from standalone programs (the current norm) to fully integrated learning systems. This means there will be elements of personal branding included in soft skills training at all stages of the talent grooming cycle - from new-hire orientation through leadership development. As you participate in development programs in the coming year, listen to how many times you hear references to your personal brand.

Personal Brand development is something that all executives and managers will need to do from now on as your career is in your hands - so handle it well.

The fear of change – it strikes the most experienced of us.

2011-04-10T04:27:00.000-07:00

I am about to go through another big change process and I know at the end of it I will say “that’s it for ever” but it won’t be I know that for sure.

After four years in a new apartment on the city edge we are moving to the beach and while this may sound idyllic it means the chore of selling and moving all the stuff. This is about move 18 since getting married and this has involved five cities and two countries so we are used to it but stress is hard to avoid with memories of difficult moves and ones at the bottom of the property sales cycle (are we heading there again?)

To top this off I am also moving roles and offices within the city and while this is part of a great team it will still involve higher stress due to the extra risk we are taking on (will the market firm or are we going to remain soft for the rest of this year?) and the extra work required to pull it all together as managing partner.

So what makes me do this? The promise of something better, the escape of something bad, the search for challenge and excitement, or just the need to move on and do something different? In my case I am an optimist and the continual search for new experiences and a better future is all I need (and a wife who is also a bit of a gipsy) We all have different reason to take the big plunge and most of us can say we got the timing wrong more than once so why is this?

As executives we are under stress most days but when it comes to the additional stress of moving jobs so many of us procrastinate until it becomes a problem (for us, the family and the organisation). We need to get used to the stress that goes with looking after our own career as long gone are the days that someone else will do this for you (your employer for example). You can minimise stress by having a clear career focus, knowing your unique brand and value proposition and through planning, practice and professional networking.

As an experienced mover, senior executive, coach and brand strategist I will walk you through this process (and my pending moves as well) and hope that I can support you to move faster and surer through this stressful but exciting phase of your life. Most of the tricks you can use time and time again - and you will need to as this next move is not the last I am sure.