brand yourself with "hitting stryde: a geny career survival guide"

HITTING STRYDE

PERSONALSUCCESS

CAREERSUCCESS

WORKSUCCESS

Chapter 1: Me Inc.How to Create a Distinctive Personal Brand 19

Chapter 2: Inventing the 25th HourHow to Find More Time in Your Day 29

Chapter 3: Fueling Your Day with PassionHow to Find Purpose in Each Day 39

Chapter 4: Listen Up: The Quintessential Business SkillHow to Hear the Other Half of the Conversation 51

Chapter 5: Managing Your BossHow to Build a Great Relationship with Your Boss 61

Chapter 6: Conducting Courageous Conversations How to Handle Tough Conversations at Work 71

Chapter 7: POP! Creating a Sticky Presentation How to Deliver a Message that Moves People into Action 81

Chapter 8: Running Kick-Ass Meetings How to Run Meetings that Keep Everyone Awake 93

Chapter 9: Staying Marketable No Matter Where You are in Your CareerHow to be Ready for the Next Opportunity, Always 105

Chapter 10: Life’s a PitchHow to Open New Doors in 60 Seconds 117

Chapter 11: Stay or GoHow to Know When it’s Really Time to Leave Your Job 127

Stryde FavesChapter Resources That Make a Difference 136

CONTENTS

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personalsuccesschapter 1: Me Inc.How to Create a Distinctive Personal Brand

chapter 2: Inventing the 25th HourHow to Find more Time in Your Day

chapter 3: Fueling Your Day with passionHow to Find Purpose in Each Day

Get the Full Version at stryde.ca

http://www.stryde.ca/book

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“regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.”

– Tom Peters in Fast Company, 1997

cHapTer 1

ME INC.



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MaTTclaim to Fame: overestimated abilities

Meet Matt: an outgoing, organized, and well-spoken young leader who’s recently joined one of the Big Four accounting firms, Matt is actively networking, getting to know his clients, and enjoying a good social life. The first 90 days of his job have been great, but Matt has started to drink a little too much of his own Kool-aid. He has taken on too much and is building a bit of an ego: two big brand killers.

Matt spends a good chunk of his workday on his Twitter and Facebook accounts, talking about things he loves, but his manager doesn’t understand, nor does she respect the use of his time. Matt is totally oblivious to this. As he connects with people around the firm, he’s more interested in telling them about his volleyball league and his personal interests than getting to know them. Matt’s feeling pretty good about where he is at, but hasn’t stopped to measure what his personal brand stands for and how it’s perceived.

The worrying part is that Matt assumes he’s building a good name for himself, but unfortunately no one of influence knows what Matt is really all about on a personal or professional front.

Are you Matt? If so, this chapter is for you?

PersonalProfile



ME INC.


Whether you like it or not, people are talking about you. You don’t need to be a celebrity like Ashton Kutcher, politician like Barack Obama, or entrepreneur like Gary Vaynerchuk to start building your personal brand. What you do need is an identity rooted in your passions and a desire to be great.

In Why Johnny Can’t Brand, Carl Nichols and Bill Schley talk about a brand’s need for a dominant selling idea. This is, in essence, what your brand is all about. It must be unique to you, rooted in your passion and built from your values. It doesn’t need to be earth-shatteringly nouveau; it simply has to tell the story of who you are and who you want to become. If you think that your personal brand doesn’t matter, you are ultimately saying that you don’t matter. Your brand is the perception others hold of you and, contrary to what your mother and grade school teachers told you, the opinions of others do matter. As the world gets smaller and flatter, your brand can take you a long way in a relatively short time.

Investing effort in building, honing, and sharing your personal brand will pay off in dividends. You’ll become more self aware, you’ll meet new people, and you’ll be exposed to opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. Your personal brand isn’t about selling yourself; it’s about communicating your beliefs. These are the elements to building a great personal brand:

1 Me Inc.How to create a Distinctive personal Brand



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Know Your sTorY

Saving your life story for your memoirs? Well, think again. The core of your personal brand is built on the things you are passionate about. Take time to make three lists: 1) List your biggest successes to date; 2) List your biggest failures to date; and 3) list the things you are most passionate about. Take time to reflect on the peaks and valleys of your life. Don’t try to invent your past, but rather invent your future: a future full of the things you are passionate about. Your brand is not descriptive; it’s a prescriptive story of what you stand for.

BuIlD on Your values, HaBITs, sTrengTHs anD weaKnesses

As you begin your career there are many things you have yet to accomplish, so rooting your brand in your personal values, habits, strengths and weaknesses is a great place to start. You don’t need to be an expert or a tried-true solider of a specific value, but you do need a willingness to grow into that value or build upon that weakness. Take some time to brainstorm your values and success habits.

To help take inventory of some of your strengths, check out Tom Rath’s Strengthsfinder.com or pick up Marcus Buckingham’s Now Discover Your Strengths and Go Put Your Strengths to Work.

1

2

WRITESuccess list. Failure

list. Passion List.


http://www.strengthsfinder.com



Be genuIne, Be BolD, Be MeMoraBle

Great brands become iconic because they are memorable and remarkable. Your brand is the same. It needs to be worthy of a remark. The easiest way to do this is to be genuine and live your passion. Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, Crush It, is a great field guide to building a brand based on passion. Gary Vee’s personal approach is oozing with his genuine passion and it isn’t always polished and classically professional. Check out some of our favourite branded people: Sacha Chua, Callum Ng, Tim Ferris, Gary Vaynerchuk, Bill Jenson, Isadore Sharp and Richard Branson.

connecT wITH THe worlD

Now that you have your brand story pulled together, it’s time to connect to the world. Check in with your Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites to ensure they are communicating your brand’s values. Take some time to clean up the images, posts, and content that detract from the brand you are building. Some people prefer to keep things completely private online, but chances are if it’s on the Web someone will find it. You shouldn’t be ashamed of your past. Is there really shame in your attendance of a 1980s aerobic workout themed keg party in college? Use sites like unhub.com to link all of your sites together. It’s important that you can be found when googled and that the information dug up is something you want to share.

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4DO

Check in on your digital footprint.

ME INC.


http://www.unhub.com


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sHare Your Message

Don’t limit yourself to just your social media profiles. Branch out into other mediums to share your story. Blogs, Twitter, bookmarking sites like Digg or Delicious, and book accounts (shelfari.com) are all good places to start. Instead of focusing on what to hide on the Web, think about what you can share. You want to start over-communicating your opinions, thoughts, ideas and goals. The Web is a space where you need to give a lot to get a little. Your spelling, grammar and tone make a difference, so be sure to have someone proofread your posts. Get feedback from friends (or strangers) to see how you are coming across. Check out tweetbeep.com or google.com/alerts to keep track of when you are mentioned. And remember, the key to all of this is to communicate your beliefs genuinely.

Develop soMe swag

We want you to think of yourself as a rock star, albeit without the band, fame, adoring fans and T-shirts with your face on them (if you happen to have those, then all the power to you!). Take some time to create unique, personal and catchy business cards. Sites like Moo.com are our favourite because of the customization options, unique size, quality of the paper, and price. Next, invest in some “thank you” and follow-up cards. As you meet people there is nothing that says “You matter to me” more than receiving a handwritten note via snail-mail. Here’s a tip: for $50 you can get a custom embosser made at your local big box office supply shop that can turn any piece of nice paper (available at art stores) into your own personalized stationary.

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CLICKCheck out

Moo.com for your next business cards.


http://www.shelfari.com

http://www.tweetbeep.com

http://www.google.com/alerts

http://www.google.com/alerts

http://www.moo.com

http://www.moo.com



THe career porTFolIo Is THe ‘new’ résuMé

For most jobs a one or two-page résumé is the norm. Definitely make sure this document communicates your values, accomplishments and goals, as its purpose is to sell you. While your résumé is important, it’s not all you can do. Take some time to create a career portfolio. This document will tell a more robust story of your accomplishments, your values, where you’ve travelled, what inspires you, what you are reading, and why you want to work in a given industry or for a specific company. As you apply for jobs and network to get interviews (informational or the real deal), imagine the amount of information you can share before or after the interview with a well-designed 10-to-20-page pitch portfolio that paints a picture of you. This will absolutely set you apart from the competition and help to increase your brand value. Don’t limit yourself to hardcopy; send a PDF or upload it to Slideshare.com to share it with the world.

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In the fall of 2008 I was busy recruiting from Vancouver to get a job in Toronto’s strategy consulting industry. I was maxing out the traditional routes and seeing some progress, but it wasn’t enough. One weekend I built a 20-page career portfolio that looked like a swanky magazine. I passed it along to my friends and former employers for review, then I tweaked it and had it bound. When I was in Toronto for a week of meetings,

I hand delivered it to a top consultancy in a big box addressed to the president. A hand-written note accompanied it: “To say I’m impressed with your company would be an understatement. I’m in town from Vancouver for the day and would very much like to meet with you. Kind regards, David Singh.” Not only did I get a call back; I was able to sit down with the president for 30 minutes at the end of the day. It was a game-changing conversation for me.

David says

ME INC.

http://www.Slideshare.com

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lIve Your BranD

This is very important: you are your brand. It’s not words on a page or text on a screen. Your brand lives inside of you. As you practice your elevator pitch (see Chapter 10) and get ready to start communicating your brand values at work, at networking functions, and in everyday life, be sure to reflect and get feedback on how you are coming across. Your body language, mannerisms and presence make a difference, so don’t ignore this in-person element.

experIMenT

Developing your brand requires work, thought, and creativity. You are not going to get it right the first time and that’s okay. It’s better to fail at trying than to fail to try. Your values might change. Your perspectives might change. Your brand needs to be able to adapt. If the constant is your passion and genuine intent, then don’t worry about implications brought on by change.

Measure, Measure, Measure

What gets measured gets done. Building your brand is only half the battle. Finding a routine for measuring your progress is the second half. Using metrics from Google analytics, sites like unhub.com, and stats from your social media sites, you are able to record changes in who is viewing you. Don’t be afraid to get feedback from your friends, family, colleagues, mentors, and lifelines (we’ll talk more about mentors and lifelines in Chapter 3). Using sites like Rypple.com, you can send short surveys for feedback. Asking an acquaintance to join you for coffee can create a safe and candid space, allowing some feedback to come your way. Remember, your brand lives through you, but it is measured through the opinions of others. As a starting point to determine the strength of your brand, check out reachcc.com/brandquiz or onlineidcalculator.com and determine your baseline.

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CLICKCheck out rypple.com

to create a quick personal brand survey.


http://www.unhub.com

http://www.rypple.com

http://www.reachcc.com/brandquiz

http://www.reachcc.com/brandquiz

http://www.onlinecalculator.com

http://www.rypple.com



Leader’s Moment

Be auTHenTIcWhen you meet Shlomo Bibas, he zones in on you, making each conversation a quest to know who he is dealing with. His brand power is in how he makes his clients, peers and friends feel. Like a great brand promise, he delivers this consistently in each relationship. This has been a key ingredient behind his advancement, in less than 13 years, to Partner at Accenture.

“I’ve been a consultant for most of my career. In the early years, I struggled to fit in. Most of the leaders in my organization seemed to fit the same mold; but as I looked around, I did not see too many people like me. It took me many years to get comfortable with who I am, leverage my uniqueness, and promote my values. Early in my career, a supervisor told me that my uniqueness is what will make me successful in my career and not my efforts to try to fit the mold. He encouraged me to get to know myself and be authentic in my style. I was promoted to Partner a few years ago. During the promotion celebration, my old supervisor, who is now our Country Managing Partner, approached me and reminded me of the conversation we had 10 years prior. He praised me for successfully building Me Inc. He said that my voice, footprint, presence, and legacy have defined my authentic style. Throughout the years, in every moment of my life, I have remained authentic and genuine. I don’t only bring my mind to work; but also my heart. This has helped me build trusted relationships and effectively perform in leadership roles.Remember: there is only one of me and there is only one of you. Be who you are. Be authentic!”

ME INC.

