I just got this in my BusinessWeekonline email.
It seems that Carmine Gallo, corporate presentation coach agrees. Click the screenshot to reach his presentation tips.
Thank you, Carmine. The facts are the facts. 🙂
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Brand YOU–You Are What They See
Building a Personal Brand–YOU
People say, Don‚’t judge a book by its cover. People judge books by covers. Covers sell books. We only have so much time to look at books, and the cover is what gets our attention. This photo lets you know how important a cover can be. As a publisher, I’d edit that old advice to say, “Judge a book by its cover, but also judge the book builder too.
Your image works the same way for you.
What people see about you, your first impression, your image, is like the book cover to your personal brand. Your first impression literally makes a mental image. Your image makes a silent promise about who you are and what people can count on when they get to know you. That mental image lasts. Pictures stay longer than words.
When there’s a question about what to believe, your image might just tip the balance. That’s a powerful reason to be sure that the big idea of your brand carries through into all things that people see around you. Here’s a checklist that might help you make sure your image supports your personal brand.
For the sake of this checklist let’s imagine that you want to be known as one who is always on top of information.
Once you start thinking in this direction, you’ll start to see that everything you do is an opportunity to enhance the big idea of your personal brand. It’s not so hard to develop habits that form around your big idea. That’s the key learning to live your brand.
People do judge books by the promise of the cover. Make a promise they will value. One that you will keep–and they’ll notice it for sure.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related article
Brand YOU – What’s the BIG IDEA?
Personal Branding: Strengths Assessment Tool
Building a Personal Brand YOU
Now that you know how to capitalize on your strengths and make your weaknesses irrelevant, you can work on the big idea of your personal brand.
What’s the big idea? People talk about the big idea of someone’s personal brand quite often really. You’ve probably even made big idea statements yourself. They sound like these.
There’s no question that folks who make such statements have a big idea about the people they’re describing. The descriptions might be accurate, or they might not be. The point is that the people talking believe them. The people being described have communicated those traits strongly over time.
The big idea of your personal brand is the most powerful point of your unique value. It’s the one sentence that folks can believe in it and can share with others easily. As I said earlier
Everything about you contributes to your personal brand–everything you say or don’t say, what you wear, your tone of voice, the look of your space, the look on your face, the way you shake hands. The quality of your work is an immense part of your brand, but not, by any means, all of it. Even there it matters whether it’s on time, done with friendliness, with teamwork, with innovation and flexibility.
Now is the time to decide the answer to this question
It’s a tough question, I know. However once you decide, you will have found your big idea–the focus of your personal brand. That will be what everyone sees when they see you, your work, your signature. It’s the promise that you stand for. Think of your big idea as a promise that you know you will always keep.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related articles
Here’s a tool to help you assess what you have to work with.
Strength _________________________________________________________
Means that ________________________________________________________
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Strength _________________________________________________________
Means that ________________________________________________________
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Strength _________________________________________________________
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Strength _________________________________________________________
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Strength _________________________________________________________
Means that ________________________________________________________
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Volunteer for jobs that play to my strengths.
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Find opportunities to learn about shoring up my weaknesses.
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Find people to work with who have strengths that balance my weaknesses.
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Remind myself to check tasks for what strengths and weaknesses I’ll be using.
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With what I already know about capitalizing on my strengths and weaknesses, I can say this about my personal brand.
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This is one kind of assessment tool you might use to get ideas from your head onto the page where you can look at them to make decisions about what to keep and what goes away.
Like any great city builder, you want your personal brand set on a foundation of concrete, not on sand. You can’t promote yourself, your brand, or your business, until you know who you are. If you take the time to think through these questions you’ll be farther than most folks are.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Building a Personal Brand–YOU
Brand YOU–Capitalize on Your Strengths
Brand YOU–Making Your Weaknesses Irrelevant
Often the easiest way to see your weaknesses is by looking at the flipside of your strengths. For example, if a strength is that you are detailed-oriented and accurate at checking specs, it’s likely that you’re not strong at seeing the big picture. Developing process models probably isn’t what you do best. In another scenario, if you’re innovative, you might take too many risks. If you value hard-won knowledge of the fundamentals, you might take far too few. Identifying your strengths is only half of the story. Next you need to be real about your weaknesses. Start by knowing everyone has them, and that knowing yours is the first step toward managing them effectively.
One of my weaknesses comes from my strength in perception. Information about people and how they think comes easily to me through normal interaction and conversation. It’s almost as if I can pick up signals from the air about who they are and what they think. Unfortunately the skill is not reciprocal, it puts the other person at a disadvantage, often making that person uncomfortable–uncomfortable being with me.Now that you’ve found your weaknesses. Look at the skills that stand behind them. If you have trouble with the big picture, get curious about it. Start asking folks who like the big picture why they go there. See what values there are in having a strength in that area. Here’s an example of how just that helped me.
My corresponding weakness is I’m the poster child for small talk. I’ve never developed the skill or the habit. Until I realized I had the weakness, I saw absolutely no purpose for it. Then I got curious. I watched and talked to people who do small talk well. I saw how it helps establish personal relationships and boundaries between people–sort of mini agreements made by conversation. I still don’t start conversations with “How’s the weather?” or “How about them bears?” But I’ve learned not to jump right in with “on page 32 you can see where I . . . ”
No matter how good I get at it, small talk will always be an acquired still not a talent, but a skill that I work on when I can. These days it’s far less of a weakness and now it’s at least an option when I need it. Folks aren’t so uncomfortable when I start talking . . . I say a few things before I get to page 32.
In like manner, no one–except my oldest brother, who’ll tell you he’s perfect already–will ever be free of weaknesses. No one can make them disappear, but anyone can control and shore them up. You can minimize their impact and make them irrelevant. They don’t need to be a burden in the marketplace, in your business or in your job. Here are some ways you might do that.
Now you’ve established the core of your personal brand. You know your strengths and weaknesses. When you’re asked about them in a first meeting–with a client or at an interview–you can articulate how you play to your strengths and manage your weaknesses.
You can articulate the unique value of your strengths and how they meet real needs with actions and benefits. You have strategies for minimizing the impact of your weaknesses. You can talk about your competencies with competence, clarity, and confidence. That’s a dynamic personal brand.
You’re well ahead of the game already. All it took was a look in the mirror and using what you found there.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related article:
Building a Personal Brand–YOU
Leaders and Higher Ground
The Only One
Business, Blogs, and Niche-Brand Marketing
I’m delighted to report that the SOB Directory is one of the MOST VISITED pages at Successful Blog. The story in the stats says that referrals come regularly to that page during the week and on the weekend. During the week, daily readers and their friends often visit both past SOB pages and the SOB Directory. I guess they’re looking for blogs they know and want to read again. On the weekend, new SOBs and their friends join the traffic to see what being an SOB is all about, I guess.
In the SOB directory, you’ll see some blogs have a blog description. Do you know about this opportunity? Send me a brief two or three sentence description of your blog. Using your description, I can write an official introduction post for you blog. I’ll feature that post on the front page before I add the description to the SOB Directory.
Introducing Brightmeadow
Introducing Clear Your Mind
Introducing The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy
Introducing Cottontimer
Introducing Simplenomics
Seems like everyone must have directory description already written somewhere on their computer. Dust it off and e-mail it to me at lizsun2@gmail.com.
Let me introduce to you all of the Successful-Blog readers.
It’s free promotion for you, your brand, your business, and your blog. Free Promotion! How much nicer could it get?
Gee, I really am the nice one.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related articles:
What IS an SOB?!
SOB Hall of Fame