My trip last weekend to keynote at Ball State University took me in to the heart of basketball country. Everywhere you looked there was connection to the game. Coupled with this has been the meteoric rise of Jeremy Lin over the past two weeks. A social media personal branding sensation. It was a case of basketball, basketball, basketball! It truly has been LINsanity (he has just applied to trademark that… Read More »Is Your Personal Brand LINtastic?
In all my presentations the subject of Google comes up. I usually ask the question; "Who Goggled me before they came today?" A few hands usually get raised. Then I ask; "How many people here have Googled themselves?" Invariably almost the whole room lifts their arms. I joke that it is called ego-surfing. But beyond the immediate fun and frivolity it is a serious situation. If you do not know… Read More »Are You the Master (or Mistress) of Your Own Domain?
Do you love YOU enough? How often do you take time to reflect on your strengths? I would quite confidently suggest very little. In my work with leaders and employees in Fortune 500 Companies the most under leveraged part of their personal brands are their core strengths. Your core strengths are the things that you do so naturally and so well that you perform them almost sub-consciously. When I… Read More »What’s Love Gotta Do With It? – Your Personal Brand That Is!
When you walk in to the lobby of a tall office building, often you will see the sign for the stairs. But does that sign say enough to make you ignore the elevators and walk the stairs? Unless you are still sticking to a new years resolution chances are no! But if you saw the sign above, chances are by over 35%, that you would. Even 9 months after the… Read More »Personal Branding is an Uphill Climb
While waiting for his owner to return from some local shopping, Bernard here knows where his boundaries are and he is not going to stray at all. If he were to jump out of the back of the truck he would certainly be placing himself in danger. Unfortunately, at work, this is something we are all a little guilty of. Perhaps on occasion, assuming it's not going to be life… Read More »Step out of your personal brand comfort zone
With consistency and progression comes change. As you spend more time consistently delivering on what you say your brand is and find your career progressing in the right direction, you are going to reach a point where new challenges and opportunities arise. New skills are developed and new ways to communicate your uniqueness present themselves. This week see's the 100th edition of the Tuesday Toonie weekly e-tip, which I feel… Read More »100 Toonies Worth
StandOut – The groundbreaking new strengths assessment. © 2011 by One Thing Productions Inc, 227 pages, Paperback 5R Score: 25/35 The Three Strengths Principles Your Genius is Precise You Can’t Respect What You Don’t Remember You Must Reach Beyond Your Roles On a scale of 1-7 Relevance – is it right for personal branding? - 7 Resonance does it make sense to the reader? - 6 Relation is there a connection… Read More »Personal Brand Book Review – Standout
No doubt the business school case studies in years to come about the sad demise of Kodak and it's brand will raise many questions about the effectiveness of it's leaders. The filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy by Kodak this week has many lessons for all businesses, but what can you learn from this and be sure that you are not facing the same in your career? 1. Don't underestimate the… Read More »Is your career facing a Kodak moment?
For those of you that have heard me speak you know that coffee is one of my popular brand examples. After all why drive past five Tim Horton's to get to a Starbucks black coffee – especially now that you can get 4 oz of extra liquid for at least 60 cents less in Tim's new Extra Large cup versus a Venti? The answer is it's not just about the… Read More »Does Size Really Matter? It’s not just about the coffee
This past weekend saw the kids first ski lesson of the season. We were all prepared, everything was laid out ready. Boots, gloves, helmets, ski's, poles, jackets, pants……only one thing was not – SNOW! In fact the weather has been so unpredictable that even the picture above is last years! Global warming suggests that we might have to be looking further afield in the future for guaranteed winter! But we… Read More »Personal Branding Is Snow Joke