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Meet the Relationship Geek — Phil Gerbyshak

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Everyone Knows Phil

We had met at the first email and by the last, we had decided that we would be attending Phil’s speaking event in Chicago together — two weeks later. Somewhere around emails three and four he said “I’m not a stalker.” and I laughed, thinking I’m the one who usually writes that. Not bad for an email conversation that only lasted only 42 minutes.

That’s how my relationship with Phil began. I suspect it’s that way for everyone.

Read the whole feature in today’s Blog Herald by clicking the logo.

The Blog Herald

It’s about blogging and real life.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Liz Strauss at The Blog Herald, The Blogging Times, and Who’s One in a Million?

Branding: A Tagline Is Not A Brand — How to Build a Positive Brand in 3 Steps

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Your Unique Brand Identity

Personal Branding logo

People talk to other people about other people, products, and companies.

What we say to each other about what we like —

  • the other people, products, and companies we champion and warn folks about,
  • the other people, products, and companies we hold up as models and that we boycott
  • the other people, products, and companies we don’t ever mention, i.e. that we make invisible,

— becomes the brands that define the other people, products, and companies we talk about. Not one voice, but many voices form a brand. The branding voices come not from the ones who wear the brand from the ones who interact with them.

Everyone has brand.

Your brand may be as simple as You are unknown.

Not everyone has a unique and positive brand identity.

A Tagline Is Not a Brand

Some folks seem to think that putting a tagline on their business, their product, or their blog establishes their brand. Would that it were so easy.

A unique and positive brand identity is a concise, consistent, compelling message that conveys your unique value. It arrives before you and lingers after you’re gone. It describes you, defines you, and develops positive interest in you. It’s very definition of you weeds out people with whom you prefer not to interact.

This following statement is key.

A tagline is not a brand. It’s a suggestion for folks to start thinking about your brand.

These key assumptions underpin the ability to establish a positive brand.

  1. Start by knowing that other people decide what they think about you.
  2. Realize that their perceptions will be their reality.
  3. Know that most people fit you into THEIR world view.

Knowing that our role in a branding strategy is to provide the unique and compelling reasons and the outstanding examples folks need to naturally want to share. In other words, as Seth would say, “It’s about being remarkable.”

A tagline is just words. A brand is actions that people talk about.

How to Build a Positive Brand in 3 Steps

Because customers are the branders, it makes sense that they should be the center of any branding effort. Customers at the center means that they get to talk. We get to actively listen. If we’re fixing a broken brand, we get to spend even more time with them while we’re listening, because they’ll need to hear our apology.

Step 1 — Listen to Your Branders

The first step is to find out what folks already think. Focus on the people — to know their needs, desires, and pains — and to find the one thing you might do to serve them better than anyone else can. Here’s how to do that.

  • Find your branders. Find the folks who talk about you. Find those who say both positive and negative things. Find the folks who don’t know who you are. Ask permission to talk to them.
  • Talk to them as much and as often as you can. Be a learner. Explore their thinking with them. Use it all to identify what skills you have to offer.
  • Listen actively to what they are not saying as well. Find their unexpressed needs and desires. Look for their points of pain. Look for solutions that you might be able to offer.

Gather all you’ve learned from your branders. Reflect on how it matches your unique skill set and your personal passions.

Step 2 — A Promise that You Put Others First

Use what you’ve gathered to write a customer-centered tagline to say you . . .

Do what you love in service to those who love what you do Steve Farber says.

Think of your tagline as a promise.

Not: The oldest bank in the Western Hemisphere.
But: Your bank, when you’re available, with your interest at heart.

Step 3 — Live Your Promise

Live your promise. Be your brand 100%. Actions speak. People tell more stories about what happens than they do about what they’ve read. Positive actions that meet people’s needs speak loudly and are shared with friends.

Have you heard stories about the great things that these two do? I’ve told a few myself.

  1. Phil Gerbyshak IS a Relationship Geek, who Makes it Great!
  2. Wendy Piersall is a successful home-based e-business mom.

Phil or Wendy live their unique brands. No need to try to live theirs, yours is just as uniquely compelling and just as important to the world.

Successful-Blog is where you’re only a stranger once.
After that, you’re a friend.
–ME “Liz” Strauss”
To have Liz help get your brand just right, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related
Branding, Self-Promotion, Selling: Are You OverDoing?

Phil Gerbyshak Is a B.A.D. Blogger

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Phil there?

By a weird turn of the calendar and of the clock, I didn’t realize it, but I was blogtipping Phil on Friday, and he was my B.A.D. Blogger call. It was 6:30a.m. when I spoke with Phil. Yes, he’s the same cheerful guy even then. If he wasn’t truly that way, it would be really annoying. Instead he’s kind of amazing. Talking to Phil is a great way to start any day. I highly recommend it.

Phil is the VP of the Help Desk Department for a company of over 2000 people and the Wisconsin President of Help Desk International. We talked about how Help Desk is internal customer service. I asked what sort of folks are drawn to that group. He said people who like computers, but want to work with people not machines.

Phil said that it’s not uncommon for people who work Help Desk to have a poor self-image, that they are often treated as the lesser half of IT. We discussed how that was a skewed perception, that the Help Desk was more of a bridge than a back yard. Phil said there’s not much support for Help Desk people about their jobs — that’s why he decided to take on the Help Desk Notes Blog for Know More Media.

I couldn’t help but point out what a helpful guy Phil is. We talked about that for a few minutes. I got on the subject of stories from childhood that seem to define us before we even know who we are.

As an example I told him a story in which I changed a question on test because I couldn’t answer it the way it was written, and though I got every answer right, my teacher took 10 points off for editing her test.

I asked Phil if there was a story from his childhood that predicted the consummate helper he grew up to become. Phil thought for a minute and then told me this one.

He said it happened when he was two years old. He was in church with his family. A little girl he didn’t know fell down. He immediately ran over to her, bent and kissed her knee to make it better.

As I said, if it wasn’t he truly that way, it would be really annoying. 🙂

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

There’s a lot of nice people out there that needed the blogosphere to connect. Isn’t it great how you can open the network and people just help?!!” — Phil Gerbyshak

Stop by Phil’s Blog, Make It Great! and say hi!

Thanks, Phil, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.

Once Upon a Time: Five Things in a Story

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Oh Okay
I’m not a big believer in memes or tagging games. Most folks have plenty to do. Plenty of them want to keep their blogs focused on their blogging goal.

However, this one is short, and seems to fit almost any blog scenario — it offers more details about the blog writer. Our friend, Phil Gerbyshak passed it me, Troy Worman, Jodee Bock, Ted Demopoulos, and Kammie Kobyleski. That hero man, Troy, already has his up. AND it’s not just some list; it’s packed with his personality.

So here I sit with the gauntlet on the flat screen before me. I feel the beads of sweat beginning to form on my forehead. Where will I find five things about me that the committee of me will agree are interesting enough folks will want to read them? Perhaps if I pick five things and put them in story form. That will make the difference.

Once Upon a Time: Five Things in a Story
Once upon a time a little girl was born, and though today many people know her, details from those days aren’t well known. That’s what this story will share.

The little girl’s surname at birth is Italian. It’s long and musical. It means “star of the mountain.”

It could be that the star name ties to the branch in her family tree where she shows up. She’s the second daughter in three generations on one side of the family. On the other side, she’s part of the third generation that is made of two boys and a girl. Figure that one out.

She was a long-awaited daughter of an Italian father. So when she finally came, her proud papa rented a 40-acre farm and hired an accordion band for a party.

She was painfully shy as child, totally not a risk taker — even grass was suspect in her book. People, however, could win her over. That’s how she ended up with two childhood nicknames — Bashful and Mushy. They came at almost the same moment in time.

Her mother sent the three year old off to traditional dance training because she said the child was clumsy. The little gifl must been very clumsy because she was still training 14 years later.

The rest of the story is not nearly so interesting. . . .

Ah, to have the best life details of your story show up before you are four. I guess worse things can happen. 🙂

Now I tag Mike Sansone, Drew McLellan, Delaney Kirk, TechZ, and Ann Michael.to do the same. What are five things we don’t know about YOU?

Liz's Signature

PS. I’ve been tagged again.
Tag It Is, Then

December Blogtipping Positivity!

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Link Love for Making Things Brighter

blogtipping icon 1

Today I’m celebrating official Blogtipping Day. How about you? As the song goes “Give a little bit . . .” Here’s how it works.

  • Choose three bloggers you admire and link to them.
  • List three reasons why you admire each one.
  • Then add a tip at the end.

That’s all there is to it.

Phil Gerbyshak

  • When it comes to positivity, Phil, you are the REAL THING. No question.
  • On and off your blog, Make It Great! you take genuine pleasure in the success of others. You’re not shy about saying so.
  • I’ve read your entire blog. Your ideas are compelling. You write well and with passion. You are one in a million.

Tip: Keep some of that energy just for Phil. Don’t ever forget that folks who know you are with for the long haul.

Dr. Kirsten Harrell, Psy. D.

  • The Think Positive Blog is popping with energy. I feel it as soon as I click in there.
  • Kirsten, you are the same way. It comes through in every blog post you write and in all of your ipopin affirmations.
  • You’ve brought a bundle of positive insights to discussions throughout the blogosphere. I always look forward to your comments when you visit here.

Tip: You have so much to offer. My only tip is that we want more.

Troy Worman

  • Anyone who’s been to Orbit Now knows that it’s a positively amazing place. It’s always changing in a way that makes me look forward to going there for a fresh new outlook. I find myself re-reading nuggets of wisdom, just to stay a little longer.
  • Troy, you have a positive world view that is creative, clever, and contagious. And interwoven through that is a quite dose of compassion.
  • You and your blog are a category of one. It’s a category worth keeping.

Tip: I think your “I want to be your mentor idea” is fabulous. Please ask for help if you need to find people to sign up.

Thanks to all three of you for bringing positivity to the blogosphere. I’m smiling just to think of the contribution you make.

–Me “Liz” Strauss

Related article
Blogtipping Three of the Best
Link Leak Virus Page

Ode to Easton the Blogtipping Man (Part 4)

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Part 4 of 4

Easton was dressed in a nice clothes — not college-kid rags,
But his clothes were a cloud of Technorati tags.
His backpack was full of compliments for handing out freely,
He was a blogger, on a mad posting spree.

His words-how they tickled! His remarks, oh, how insightful!
He could devise a surprise that was truly delightful!
Blogtipping was a phenomena, an artist’s creation!
Throughout the blogdom, blogtipping was now an occasion.

Yet Easton, the Blogtipping Man, didn’t know,
That bloggtipping day, we wait for him to show.
We know he’ll come to leave that one comment,
To say that he saw it. We wait to see what he says!

He slides into the comment box leaving a word,
And next thing you know, only laughter is heard!
Easton says: “Good job. I guess, it’s all in the wrist,”
And you wonder, Where does that guy get lines like this?

Then he springs to his blog, to his fans gives that smile,
And he’s gone before you can say, “Come back in awhile.”
But I saw him post once in very tiny, fine print,
“I love blogs. I love blogging. I love bloggers!
(and I just made you squint)”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

See Parts 1, 2, and 3 at:
Part 1 at Manage To Change
Part 2 at Converstations
Part 3 at Make It Great!