2010 A YEAR OF FEAR? In my business 2010 has for me been a good year, on par with 2009, which was particularly pleasing as 2009 was my best since starting Square Peg over 7 years ago. But what has been even more fantastic this year has been seeing my wife Keri develop in to a very capable and successful business owner and leader. Last week I was so proud… Read More »Is Your Personal Brand Ready for 2011?
You may know that Tiger Woods has a new coach – Canadian golf swing coach Sean Foley. Apart from working with a few other PGA golfers he was relatively an unknown, until he started to coach Tiger. Now he has hired a sports agency to represent him, launched his first product – an instructional DVD and had to defend his style and methodology from people accusing him of borrowing heavily from other… Read More »Even with Tiger Woods as the student – you have to brand
With the current economic climate and on and off again employment prospects, many people are exploring the idea of not going back to the corporate life and embarking on the life of an entreprenuer. There are a myriad of things to consider, not least of all what you are going to do for whom and is there a demand for it? One area that raises a lot of conversation and… Read More »Nobody owns your personal brand…….except you.
Tolerance is increasing for employees with tatoos according to a recent Challenger, Gray & Christmas survey and with 38% of 18-29 year olds and 32% of 30-45 year olds sporting some kind of body art the reaction that seeing an "I Love Mum" heart on someones sleeve or a discreet single earing is probably a lot more tempered than a few years ago, in fact in some industries it might also gain more of… Read More »Are you a branded employee?
Last week I was delivering a workshop to a group of senior professionals and executives who had been let go by their previous companies, many of them after one or two decades or more of service. One of them observed that with the advent of social media, in particular LinkedIn, it highlighted for him how important networking was in the job search process. It also equally was observed by another… Read More »STOP your social media branding
According to a recent Princeton study money can buy you happiness – to a point – around $75,000 as an annual household income apparently. More than that has limited or no effect on your emotional well being or how elated, sad or stressed you feel on a day to day basis. Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money—the… Read More »What drives your personal brand?
While we are seeing some recovery in the job market it seems to be evident that the recovery is going to be a slow process. This means that companies will continue to be cautious in their hiring and likely to more readily look internally than externally first and with employees less likely to be active in a depressed external job market the competition is going to be tougher. So are you ready… Read More »Are you ready for the internal interview?
One of the exercises I have introduced in my workshops is taking a before and after headshot and getting the audience to guess the vocation of the individual. There seems to be several schools of thought out there at the moment as to how you should present yourself in terms of picture in online profiles. I have seen a number of leading social media experts advocate the use of the same… Read More »Are you being one dimensional with your picture?
When it comes to your personal brand, how much of it's reputation is being communicated by word of mouth? Or how much is being 'put out there' using the many forms of social media? Having a good online brand is important, but in the initial stages of consideration and comparison do not underestimate the power of word of mouth. One definition of 'brand' is "What other people say it is".… Read More »How much are people talking about your personal brand?
Last week someone bid $2.6 million for charity to have lunch with Warren Buffett – now that really does place value on someone's personal brand and expertise! My Dad always said there was no such thing as a fr^e lunch and when you are meeting someone for lunch for business you need to make sure that you treat it like any other business meeting. Define the objectives and goals for… Read More »Who would you pay to come to lunch with you?