How to Build Your Personal Brand in 10 Simple Steps

How to Build Your Personal Brand in 10 Simple Steps So you want to uncover, communicate, and manage your personal brand. Sounds like a rather large task, but by following these 10 steps you will build a powerful personal brand that will attract the right people and open up opportunities that would have passed you by. 1. Know Yourself to Grow Yourself Do you know how others see you? Is there a gap between how you view yourself and how those around you do? The first step to grow yourself is to know yourself and this involves both internal reflection and gathering external feedback. The  360 °Reach Personal Brand Survey enables you to gather data regarding the attributes, skills, competencies and strengths that define your brand. The process begins with a self-assessment and is followed by requesting feedback from others so you can compare how you view yourself with how you are currently perceived. The results will enable you to identify areas that you want to accentuate and areas you want to diminish as you define your personal brand. 2. Articulate your VPs The foundation of your brand is called your  â€VPs” â€" vision, purpose, values, and passions. Vision: Your image of  what  you see possible for the world â€" your desired future. Purpose: Your role in turning your vision into reality. Values: The ideals or operating principles that determine how you conduct your day-to-day activities. Your values are true to you and you do not compromise them. Passions: This is what motivates and energizes you. Your passions get you out of bed in the morning, but as a leader always have ‘pure unadulterated tenacity’ to drive your passions forward. 3. Define your Target Audience When branding yourself your job is not to be ‘famous’, but rather to be ‘selectively famous’. In other words, identify the people who need your leadership and communicate your brand only to them. This target audience are the only ones who need to know you. They are the ones who will ultimately make the critical decision to follow you. Once you know your target audience, do everything in your power to nurture them. 4. Tell Your Story You have a unique story to tell and that story is what makes your brand authentic. Of course others can relate to your story because it may be similar, but it is never exactly the same. Each story is unique.  Focus on those things that make you unique and capitalize on them. Perhaps your credentials and experience got you into your current role, but your character and story is what will compel people to follow you. 5. Create Your ‘Brand Statement’ What do you want to be known for? Having an answer to this question defines what your target audience can expect from your leadership. Remember, this statement is NOT your title! It is also not your personal mission or life purpose. It is a memorable 1-2 sentence statement that is solutions oriented. Here is a great template to use when crafting your brand statement: I want to be known for being __________  so that I can deliver __________ to __________. It is vital that you truly identify with your brand statement. You need to live and breathe this every day so take the time to make sure it best represents who you are and what you can do. 6. Build Your Brand Communication Plan Visualize your brand communication plan as the wheels on a bicycle. Without wheels you cannot move! This plan allows your brand to move forward. The center of a wheel, the hub, keeps the spokes together. Likewise the center of your plan is the core leadership message you want to communicate to your target audience. Your communication vehicles, or spokes, radiate out of your core message and provide the support to keep your plan together. These may include presenting at conferences, joining professional organizations, using social media, creating a blog, writing an article or book for publication, etc. Select a mix of vehicles that you will enjoy doing and will actually enable your personal brand to reach your target audience. Remember, a broken spoke makes a wheel wobble and lose its strength. Select vehicles that you are strong at, or at least ones you are happy to make stronger. Schedule these ‘spokes’ into your calendar and commit to executing and repeating them. 7. Follow the 3 Cs of Branding Now that you know what you want to be known for and have a communication plan in place, remember to always follow the three C’s of branding â€" clarity, consistency, and constancy. Clarity: Always be very clear about who you are and who you are not. By knowing your unique promise of value you are identifying what sets your apart from others. This is what differentiates you and allows you to attract brand loyalty among the people who are compelled to do business with you. Consistency: Once you are clear about your promise of value, consistently demonstrate your brand promise everywhere. This includes your social media profiles, your website, your business cards, your communications. Everything. Constancy:  It is  not enough to be clear and consistent if you are not always visible to your target audience. Strong brands are constant. They are always there for their customers, prospects, and those who can help them achieve their  goals. Be visible or run the risk of being forgotten! 8. Live in the Inquiry Regular maintenance of your personal brand is necessary so live in the inquiry and always ask yourself if what you are doing or saying  is on-brand or off-brand.    Is it contributing to your message or distracting from it? Google yourself regularly to see if there is anything off-brand.  Ask for direct feedback from your community or do another 360Reach personal brand survey to check if others see your brand in the same way you have been presenting it. If you find yourself going off-brand, take a moment to stop, assess what has happened, and get back on-brand as quickly as possible. By being on-brand your credibility is maintained. 9. Adapt and Adjust Your brand isnt static. It should evolve in response to the different expectations you face at different times in your career. Have the self-awareness to evolve your brand and if necessary even reinvent your brand. 10. Rinse and Repeat! On a yearly basis go back to Step 1 and start again. It is important to establish the habit of re-assessing your personal brand and creating a new plan for the year. Has your vision or purpose changed? Do you have a new target audience? Are you no longer living your brand statement? Was there inconsistency in how your communicated your brand?

Send Why Good People Send Savage Emails

Send Why Good People Send Savage Emails By Will Schwalbe Even the most placid soul can find her or himself in the midst of a full-fledged, take-no-prisoners flame war. One minute you are scoring a minor point, then a few more emails go back and forth, and soon you are choosing the perfect vicious barb to complete an angry screed. We all know jerks who live for this kind of angry exchange. This post is not for them. This is for those of us who would rather not spend our lives composing savage emails and who realize the enormous danger they post to our careers. One livid email, especially if taken out of context, can seriously damage your reputation. Recently, a distinguished UK television producer wrote an angry email to her staff when they had neglected (or purposefully forgotten?) to ask her to sign a birthday card that was to be presented to one of the employees. That peeved email is now enjoying a very active and healthy life online and in the UK press. Perhaps some major aggravation was the spark for the bosss intemperate email outburst? No one will ever know or really care. The birthday card email lives on forever. So why do angry email exchanges happen to even placid souls? Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, wrote the following New York Times Op-Ed about conflicts around the world. It seems to apply equally well to the subject of flame wars. In a study conducted by Sukhwinder Shergill and colleagues at University College London, pairs of volunteers were hooked up to a mechanical device that allowed each of them to exert pressure on the other volunteers fingers. The researcher began the game by exerting a fixed among of pressure on the first volunteers finger. The first volunteer was then asked to exert precisely the same amount of pressure on the second volunteers finger. The second volunteer was then asked to exert the same amount of pressure on the first volunteers finger. And so on. The results were fascinating. The researchers reported that the volunteers typically responded with 40 percent more pressure than they had experienced. Concludes Gilbert: Each volunteer was convinced that he was responding with equal force and that for some reason the other volunteer was escalating. Neither realized that the escalation was the natural byproduct of a neurological quirk that causes the pain we receive to seem more painful than the pain we produce, so we usually give more pain than we receive. Moral of story? For preservation of your job, your business relationships, and your friendships next time you find yourself in a situation where the emails are flying fast and furious, do consider that you may be as responsible for the escalation as the other party. When you feel your temperature rising, its a good sign that its time stop emailing and, perhaps, to pick up the phone or schedule a meeting or just let the issue go. Unless, of course, you want your version of the birthday card email to appear on the nightly news. In that case, in the immortal words of Clint Eastwood: Make my day. Will Schwalbe is the co-author with David Shipley of Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home.

Working With Product Design Contractors Consultants - Algrim.co

Working With Product Design Contractors Consultants - Algrim.co I’ve spent a good majority of my career both as a consultant to a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and types of businesses. From startups looking to get off the ground. To larger headcount industry leaders who are seeing specific struggles with certain aspects of their execution and looking for a specialist to help resolve it. And I’m about to share some of the best ways I’ve seen success both on a client level as well as a consultant working to meet the expectations of the leaders who hired me. Traditionally, consultants came to be when you had a particular problem and needed an expert. With technology and how we’re moving our new organizational structures, consultants can provide more than an expert opinion. In fact, they can provide something of an eye-opening moment for the leadership of the business, if they use that advantage. We’ll get into that in a moment. When you start to look for a consultant you may be wanting someone who has had prime industry experience in your category. That’s often a mistake. Because on the product design side in particular, what you are really looking for is someone who has been in a wide variety of categories so that they can give you the best possible data on what your options might be. For instance, we’re all still human, we all have similar behaviors and thus there are certain ways we interact with machines that contain patterns. Lets really give a prime example of this, it doesn’t matter if I’m in mechanics or if I’m in beauty, we all read email, right? See, there are certain common threads between us that a product designer, in particular, can use to their advantage. Consultants get to learn a few things that you won’t, as a leader. They get to learn how multiple companies operate, at a management level. And they get to learn what trade secrets one company has versus the other. Very quickly, because they are interacting with many types of businesses, they develop a playbook of the best techniques. I would use this to your advantage both on a visual design, aesthetic and user experience level. And then on a strategic level as well. How can you use this to your advantage on a strategic level? Well first off, you can ask the product designers opinion. It doesn’t have to be on something complex like your financial forecasts. It can be something relatively close to home. For instance, what they think of a particular solution that your product team came up with. If you are in the consumer space this makes it even easier. Because they can relate to it more closely. I call this the “fresh eyes” approach. When you can use something for their point of view and have that R&D style user interview directly with the person about to produce for the output of the company. Having fresh eyes isn’t the only thing they can provide. Because let's be honest, all employee’s start to see the same thing over and over on a daily basis and begin to get slightly stale with the strategy. But they can be nimble and work cross-functionally. Yes, there’s a time a place for seasoned veterans who know a particular role and responsibility really well. But when you are seeing these lagging components to your operations workflow, a consultant can help to bridge and connect them. They can be less defined, and thus play a much needed educational role. Both helping to improve the work of others by providing a new perspective on their active projects and mentioning strategies and techniques they witnessed elsewhere. Having said all of this, there’s still the output part of it. The actual product and visual design nature to the work. I like to start with the ephemerals you can garnish from engaging with a product design consultant because they work so well. The output for this style of role can also be very rapid. For instance, if you are a larger company, sometimes you need to be working faster than you currently are. And that can throw things for a loop. You can’t alter the way your company is managed just to meet the expectations of a single need that’s short term. It simply won’t work. You’ll end up creating too much volatility and that’s not great. This is yet another place a consultant might fit well. They are strategically moving the needle of a short-term need. Thus playing a role in the long-term need of the company without wreaking havoc on employee chemistry or work in progress. You can choose to use this person in a variety of ways, to benefit your long-term vision. I hope I mentioned a few ways you haven’t thought of.

Easy Way to Automate Your House

Easy Way to Automate Your House Home automation is basically controlling or running a home using computer and information technology to run appliances. Automation of lights requires use of a lamp module or a wall switch. For those using X10, they can automate garage door openers using universal modules. For most modules they are simply plug into the wall and just act like electrical switches. Replacement of defective electrical switch outlets is also important using the basic procedure. Having a Home Automation Computer. Usage of software other than Active home requires running a computer 24/7.Insatalllation of the software and attaching a X 10 is all you need for the system to run smoothly. Selecting a software According to actuatorzone.com, the choice of software is also important when it comes to automation of a home. For instance X10 Active home is the best when it comes to the choice of an appropriate software .In other words it is the ideal choice. It is easy to use, inexpensive relative to others. In case of advanced systems powerhouse is the best deal but it has a shortcoming in that it has a shallow learning curve. It all depends with the software you are dealing with some will provide you with the data you need for automation of your home. With some software they allow you to use voice commands to control your home and even accessing your home with just a click of the remote control button. Install in phases The aim of home automation is to make life easier and simpler but installation that is too large at once makes one feel that the opposite is true. Installation should be planned in phases ensuring that all components should be linked with those of the next phase. There is continuity in installation. In case of trouble shooting and an excellent guide schematics is available. Define your objectives How do you want your tasks to be run? Do you want to control your home from your Smartphone and check on your room temperature from any part of the world? Your goals should be simplistic. Define your ideal home automation. Start from the smallest details that you have and know where you want to end up.

Non-Medical Careers in Healthcare for the Detail-Oriented - CareerMetis.com

Non-Medical Careers in Healthcare for the Detail-Oriented Source : Pixabay.comIf you’re thinking of working in healthcare, there is one excellent reason why you should strongly consider it: baby boomers.According to the University of Cincinnati, “By 2050, the population of adults aged 65 and older is expected to be 83.7 million, which is nearly double the estimates for 2012 of 43.1 million.” Yes, you read that right.Even if you have no intention of attending medical school to become a doctor or surgeon, think of all the administrative and assistant-related support that hospitals and clinics need to continue running smoothly. You could be part of that well-oiled machine.evalWithout further ado, here are some fast-growing, detail-oriented careers to consider in the healthcare sector:1. Nurse EducatorsevalFor anyone eager to contribute to the development of the next generation of nurses and medical assistants, look no further than a career in nursing education. Detail-minded idealists with an eye to the bigger picture of healthcare will find plenty to be inspiring.For example, in 2005 the National League for Nursing developed a set of core competencies that serve as goals to which nurse educators aspire. Included in this set of skills is the ability to facilitate learning, help students develop as nurses, and operate as change agents and leaders.Because of the educational nature of the nurse educator role, aspiring educators should possess sound judgment, patience, and a professional character that recognizes the nursing role as integral to successful healthcare organizations.Nurse educators must not only develop curriculum but also contribute to academic research and scholarship. All in addition to teaching and assessing current nursing students.Although nurse educators focus more on pedagogy than direct treatment, they involve themselves in patient care â€" at teaching hospitals, for example.If hospital operating rooms and physical ailments make you squeamish, read on to learn about less medical roles for the det ail-oriented interested in entering the healthcare field.2. Healthcare AdministratorsevalAccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job growth outlook for health services managers and healthcare administrators is projected to be 20 percent. That’s much faster than the average career growth rate.There are numerous roles to choose between: You could go into information management, choose the executive route, or opt for a freelance position as a healthcare consultant.Just be aware that the further up the administrative ladder you go, the more you’ll have to deal with issues of public policy and lawsuits that may pop up at your organization.However, the pay at this level is anything but modest. If you’re detail-oriented but also enjoy taking in the bigger meta-picture of healthcare, consider an administrative role.3. Information TechnologyevalIT administrators, network specialists, and cybersecurity professionals likely have the following prominent concern at the forefront o f their minds most of the time: the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Hospitals and clinics will need radiology experts and 3D printing gurus to help run their machines. You might consider working on the design and implementation of prosthetic molds and castings for amputees and those born without limbs.Other roles for the detail-oriented include health insurance processing, which requires an eye for numbers and legal policies, as well as some mathematical prowess. Insurance professionals must be intimately aware of the nuances of the particular field of medicine they are working with.There are also opportunities for healthcare-related charitable organization work if you’re more inclined towards societal issues or special needs. Moreover, there is a dire need for healthcare professionals in developing countries, from working with Doctors Without Borders to finding a higher purpose here at home.If you’re an introvert and prefer to work alone, consider a career a s a medical librarian, forensic chemist, medical laboratory scientist, or dental informaticist. These roles require extended time apart conducting research, analyzing data, and classifying information.Regardless of where your passion lies, a career in the healthcare sector equates to the opportunity to help others. Healing and medicine are necessary, but doctors and nurses shouldn’t be the only ones these causes. They need the support of a massive infrastructure made up of information specialists, administrative professionals, and people willing to help.evalAre you up for the challenge? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Salary Negotiations Pay Hacks to Know Your Number

Salary Negotiations Pay Hacks to Know Your Number Salary Negotiations: Hack to Know Your Number Salary negotiations are tough. Too often, job seekers go into interviews for jobs for which they applied not knowing what the position might pay. Mainly because the job announcement didn’t disclose it. So therein begins the guessing game. Then, the candidate runs into the employer who is out to find out THEIR salary negotiation number. Well, it’s time to do a little mind play on employers and find out your salary negotiation number using the same tricks they use. The May 2013 edition of HR Magazine had a great article, “The Art of Setting Pay” (by Joanne Sammer), which provided some great insights of how human resource professionals go about setting pay rates. Using similar methodology, you can tap into these pointers to discover a “rough guess” of what a job might pay BEFORE you walk into the interview. Remember, knowledge is power, and you need to be as empowered as possible going into any interview. Here are some tips to try and uncover what a job might pay, and to help understand your salary negotiation power: 1) Google “compensation surveys.” Some of these are paid services, but put this into perspective… don’t you think $50 or $100 out of your pocket to gain access to information that can determine your future lifetime earnings potential might be worth it? 2) Check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. At this website, you can find a lot of information about what jobs pay as reported by employers. This can help you create a mean average of what your target position might pay. 3) Purchase salary information from a trade association. Many industries have a trade association that helps their members by collecting salary information. 4) Do some digging on salary websites. Sites such as Payscale.com or Salary.com can provide some general guidelines for your particular job target within your region. 5) Look at other comparable jobs in your market. Taking an average of the salary of the jobs that are available, you can also see what (at least on the public side), employers are willing to pay. Then find the median in the middle to find a comfortable number. 6) Scale the compensation according to the company size. A marketing manager at a 10-person company is going to get paid a lot less than the same position at a 1,000-person company. 7) Understand local geography and economic factors that can influence pay. Smaller towns generally don’t have a broad of an economic base (or job opportunities) that a larger city offers. If you can get into the mindset of the employer who has the job opening and understand the methodologies they used in setting the salary levels, then you can have a better idea of what their (and your) number will be. And you can walk into the interview prepared for salary negotiations as a well-informed candidate.

How to Write a Winning Resume For a CEO

How to Write a Winning Resume For a CEOResume writing for a CEO is a bit different than the resumes for a job applicant. It does not matter how accomplished you are or how well you do your job if you cannot meet the expectations of the business, you will not be hired.A resume is not a list of job accomplishments but an invitation to potential employers. To attract the attention of the employer, you need to follow certain steps when writing a resume.The first thing you need to do is to prepare a resume that will impress your prospective employer. To make sure that you present the most impressive resume, there are certain things you should avoid doing. These are:o Avoid bold and italicize only when you use them as headline words. That will ensure that the job applicant does not pay attention to it. To put emphasis on the key terms of the job applicant's credentials, leave some white space in between. Do not include too much information, do not include irrelevant information, and be spe cific.o Do not write the CV and resume together. It should contain only one document. The resume should act as the business owner's resume for the same. If you do both in succession, the chances of getting rejected will be higher.o Do not call yourself 'professional resume writers' unless you have someone who will tell you that you are. Be careful and spend some time researching in order to find professional resume writers who can assist you in creating a customized resume.o Be specific in describing the position that you are applying for. It will help to put some emphasis on the area where you will be able to contribute to the business.If you do not follow these few tips for resume writing for a CEO, it will be difficult for you to create a strong resume. You will end up having a document that does not impress the reader.