The Importance of Defining Your Personal Brand
I recently did a radio interview with Lois Frankel, PhD, author of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office and Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich and our discussion included some valuable tips from Lois on the importance of developing a personal brand for career success.
Here is an excerpt from my interview with Lois on personal branding.
“This is probably one of the most important things I think right now. As the economy has gotten tighter, as jobs have gotten harder to land, you need to see yourself as a personal brand. And when you think about brands, we buy brands because we trust them. We know them. If you’re a brand, then you need to be communicating why should people trust you. Why should they buy you? One of the ways you do this, and I actually have an acronym I use for this. It’s called WALLET to build your brand: W‑A‑L‑L‑E‑T.”
“What I say to women is “Write down” what you want people to say about you when you walk out of a room. There’s a word on the street about all of us. It’s what people say about us when we leave a meeting, but you can craft that. You can decide what you want that to be, so write it down.”
“The A stands for “act on it.” It’s not enough for me to write down what I want you to say. Now I have to identify the behaviors that I have to engage in for you to see those things about me. So if I want you to see me as self confident, what do I have to do? I may have to speak more loudly. I may have to speak more often. I may have to use numbers more often, which means I need to do the research. So write down the actions that you have to accompany the brand statement.”
“The first L stands for “Look to the edge.” That means look to the edge of your playing field. What are the women doing in your organization who are successful? because they’re playing their game at the edge of the playing field. Games aren’t won in the middle of the playing field. They’re won at the edge. So look at what the other women are doing, and most of the time, emulate those behaviors. There are always exceptions, as I said.”
“The second L stands for “Let other people know about it.” You could have the best brand in the world. But if you don’t talk about your achievements and your accomplishments, don’t expect other people to kind of dig them up. So there are subtle ways you can do that. There’s a wonderful book that’s called “Brag: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It” by Peggy Klaus that I recommend women read. Learn how to brag a little bit.”
“The E stands for “Elicit feedback.” All brands do brand research, or do focus groups. Well, your focus group is 360‑degree feedback. It’s getting feedback from the people who work with you, who work for you, who you work for, clients, customers all around you. Find out what they’re saying about you. What are they saying about your brand? That’s the only way that you can hone your brand and make it a better brand.”
“And then last, the T stands for “Treat others with abundance.” I’m just a firm believer in the more you give away the more you get. So make abundance part of your brand.”
To hear more from Lois Frankel, you can listen to the archived interview:
http://www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vepisode.aspx?aid=42576
Also, check out my new January teleclasses:
Promote Yourself to Success (3 one hour sessions). $99. Class limited to 6
90 Day Action Marketing Group (6 one hour sessions). $99. Class limited to 6.
for more information and registration:
http://womenssuccesscoaching.com/services/group-coaching/
‘Tis the Season to Celebrate YOU!
Pretty soon we’re going to be flooded with blogs that talk about creating new goals for the new year and the importance of making new resolutions for 2010. ‘Tis the season, right? I am not even going there. You will hear enough from myriads of others about setting your intentions.
Let’s focus instead of 2009. Let’s reflect back on the year and think about our successes this past year and write them down. What a great exercise!
You can categorize all your wonderful accomplishments in 3 major categories:
1. WORK: What fabulous things (big and small) did you accomplish at work this year?
2. FAMILY: What incredible things did you do for your family?
3. SELF: And last, but certainly not least, what empowering,, rewarding things did you do for yourself this past year?
As you look over your lists, it should be readily apparent where you focused the most energy in 2009. Surely, it will be the list that will have the most success entries. So, what does that say about you? Do you need to modify your focus going forward? What can you do to better balance your life in 2010?
Most of all, this is a time to celebrate YOU. Your achievements in 2009 contribute to who you are today. Make them a source of your self-confidence going forward. If you achieved all this in 2009, think about what wonderful things you can do this next year. There’s no stopping you!
Recording our successes is important. We often don’t take the time to acknowledge how wonderful and unique we are and celebrate who we are. The time is now.
Happy New Year!
Womenomics
Recent research studies indicate a very strong correlation exists between corporate performance and gender balanced leadership; the more diverse the leadership team, the better financial performance of the organization.
Focus on the diversity of corporate boards has been viewed as an important step to a more gender balanced leadership. The intent of initiatives to increase female representation on boards followed the assumption that this would lead to the promotion of more female leaders within a company.
Now there is a new study – Womenomics 101, that focuses on the representation of women on the executive committee. This survey, done by 20-first, is designed to take a serious look at which companies are truly embracing gender balance.
The United States came up on top with 89% of companies having at least one women on their executive committee. However, when the study investigated further, they found that the women who are promoted to the executive committee are often in a support role like legal, HR, communications. Often these roles, do not have profit and loss responsibility.
According to Avivah Wittenberg-Cox of 20-first and co-author of Why Women Mean Business, “Companies that only manage to promote women into leadership through staff roles demonstrate that they have not yet worked out how to gender balance their leadership development systems and their talent pipelines”.
Wittenberg-Cox suggests that companies still don’t get it. They don’t get “womenomics”. It is mostly women who are purchasing their products and having more women in leadership positions is the key to understanding and tapping into this growing market.
Listen to my interview this Tuesday, December 15th 2-3pm EDT, with Why Women Mean Business co-author Alison Maitland as we discuss the next economic revolution: womenomics.
Listen live or download mp3.
http://www.modavox.com/voiceamerica/vepisode.aspx?aid=43110
You’re Driven, But Where Are You Driving?
Most of the professional women I coach, whether entrepreneurs or corporate executives, are driven. I recognize certain characteristics that accompany this drive. Very often these type A personalities are totally focused on the work at hand and tend to be more reactive than proactive. Head down and nose to the grindstone.
Does this sound familiar?
If this is true for you, I would like to ask you, where are you driving and most importantly, who is driving?
The benefit of strategic thinking is to step out of your box and look objectively at yourself and your career. Strategic thinking moves you from reactive to proactive, is future/goal oriented, and allows you to see the bigger picture.
It is important to take the time to identify who you are. What are your strengths? How have these strengths helped you past positions and how are they helping you now?
What are some of your recent accomplishments and what do they say about you?
Create your own brand message and connect with your value and talent. This is who you are and what you need to communicate to others about yourself. Be clear about what you want others to know about you.
Next, identify where you are headed. What is your career goal? Who are the key influencers you need to be in front of in order for you to reach your goal?
Create an action plan to be visible and credible with these key people.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking your career will just happen without good planning and strategic thinking.
Who’s Driving? Know yourself. Be clear on your personal message and what you want people to know about you.
Where are you Driving? What is your goal? Who needs to know more about you for you to reach your goal and create an action plan for ongoing communication of who you are and your personal brand message.
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