Profile @ MindSay

Almost every day I hear something about Twitter. I hear it on the news, I read it online, I hear it in conversations with my friends, I hear it on the radio, etc. I just don’t get it. I was even more amazed when I saw a blog titled “How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business”, by Michael Stelzner. How can giving pithy statements grow a business? A “tweet” (an entry in twitter) can only be 140 characters at most. How does this GROW a business? Michael himself stated that he didn’t think twitter made that much sense at first. However, if you read his article, you will see that he is now a fan. Personally, I just don’t get it … STILL.
Tony Hsieh, CEO of zappos.com said, “We use it to help build our brand, not drive direct sales.” Tony gets it.

My bottom line thoughts are that twitter can help a business with a known brand grow, such as zappos. Companies like zappos have instant followers, whether they have helpful thoughts or not. People will give them a look just because of their brand.

Oh, just another reason to work on your professional brand.

However, if you are a small business owner … I just don’t get it. Taking a lot of time to try and get your new brand out there does not seem like a good way to spend your day. If you were going to hire someone, I would not spend a lot of time reading the different tweets of a potential employee. I would spend time and read their resume again and look at their professional portfolio at PersonaVita. Take time to call their references. These indicators will give much more evidence to potential employee possibilities, not a bunch of random 140 character (or less) statements. Just my thoughts.

Each day as I read the news and hear about more about our job market, I am more convinced that all professionals need to be constantly working on their brand. Beverly Macy in her blog today says, “These days job candidates – from the boardroom to the mail room - need to articulate a promise of value that will convince the prospective employer you can add to the growth of the company. Your personal brand promise needs to be apparent in your resume, your cover letter, your “look”, your approach, your conversation –and especially your online presence.” The one thing I would add to Beverly’s list above is a professional portfolio. Read my previous blogs to learn how to do this at PersonaVita.

Below are four good nuggets from Beverly’s blog - tips to the mid-career person for branding themselves.
1. Use more than one channel to promote your personal brand. Create a personal, blog, or online resume that prominently features your Personal Branding Statement
2. Tell readers what they will gain by hiring or working with you
3. A picture is worth 1000 words. Use photos and graphic designs that reinforce your verbal message to create memorable.
4. Reinforce your personal brand in all your interactions with others. Mention your key attributes and special qualities in voice mail messages, your email signature, and whenever you speak with current or potential clients face to face.

News is circulating today that The White House may want back the $165 million that AIG is planning paying it’s top executives in bonuses. Whether they do or not, AIG is going to have to spend a lot of time repairing it’s brand. Currently, America sees them as irresponsible and a lacking leadership for taking a bailout. Now in addition the leadership of the company wants to get bonuses that fully exceed most of America’s annual salaries. AIG’s brand is damaged.
We have to realize that our brand, what we are communicating to others about ourselves, never goes on vacation. Rather, in the worst of times people scrutinize us even more. The question I have to ask myself (and of course I am therefore also asking you to ask yourself), what am I communicating to the world about who I am as a professional???? For if your brand is all a farce, then at some point or another it will be exposed. However, if you have character, loyalty, a strong work ethic, excellence, integrity, etc., all these will show through when things get tough. And don’t just sit on your brand; show it off to the world.
Again, PersonaVita is a great resource for you. You can document a project that you have been working on and then have your co-workers give the project validation. It’s simple. Once inside PersonaVita go to the BEaT tab, and then to the projects and reviews tab. Then click on “document a project”. Fill out all the needed information, click save, and then add reviewers. Your co-workers will get an email asking them to validate your experience. It’s that simple and you can do this for past, present and future projects.

President Obama gave a speech last night on his economic plan. A good idea for his next economic speech would be to deliver it from Wall Street, because the market has fallen yet again. Yahoo Finance reported today, “Stocks fell on Wednesday as President Barack Obama's first address to Congress shed little new light on how he plans to stabilize the economy and shore up banks, and gloomy home sales data fed the negative sentiment.” Even the NFL’s Commissioner, Roger Goodell, is taking is cutting his own pay by 20-25% as the league staff is trimmed by 15 percent.
This brings me back to my point from yesterday – our job security is in question with the financial market in such turmoil. As a professional you need to have a brand. It is almost guaranteed that your employer is either thinking about the potential of a lay-off or possibly even planning one. In light of this, you need to take the extra time to make sure you are someone they can’t let go.
As promised, I wanted to share a little more about how to create a professional brand at PersonaVita. I will try and walk your through a little each day and within a week or so, you should have a great looking portfolio. Remember, that you want to showcase your professional experiences, your talents, and your unique set of skills. This is what sets you apart from other employees and what makes you valuable to your employer. The end result will be full professional portfolio with a personalized URL, which can be given to potential employers, current employer, family, friends, etc. You can give it to anyone you want in order to show off your brand. The portfolio can have as many pages as you want, which are chosen from a drop-down menu. I will discuss what pages I would encourage you to put into the resume later.
First, it makes sense to convert your resume over into a PersonaVita page. This will not replace the transitional resume on nice paper, but just give the same information within your portfolio. Once you are in PersonaVita, simply click on the profile tab at the top, then click on the pages tab, click on create page, and choose one column page. Then simply create new text sections and copy and past the information on your resume into your new page. Don’t forget to rename the page at the top and save your work.

Katie Konrath had an interested blog yesterday about unconscious personal branding. She gave some interesting points that different cultures around the world perceive our body language in different ways, and therefore communicate different things about our brand. Smiling and making eye contact as you are walking down the street in one culture can mean “hello”. However, in a different culture this can mean something totally different.
I believe that she is right about this – on a personal branding level. However, when we are creating a “professional” brand there are so many values and virtues that communicate the same thing. For instance, honesty, hard work, and loyalty all communicate a commitment to the business you are working for. And these characteristics are post visible when they are written down.
I personally don’t think you should be logging every thing you do all day, which is not an efficient way to spend your time. However, I do think you ought to be logging the projects that you are working on.

I will continue to share how I have done this through PersonaVita. The last post we talked about recreating your resume with a PersonaVita page. Now we are going to create a page that lists your skills with different software. In today’s age you need to know your way around the computer. If you are applying for a job that has computer skills needed, you can simply attach this page to your profile. This would be totally optional – meaning you can attaching this page or simply leave it off.
To create a computer skills page, click on the profile tab at the top, then click on the pages tab, click on create page. Choose either a one, two, or three column page – use your creativity. Have at least three categories, like advanced user, proficient and exposure.
Don’t forget to rename the page at the top and save your work. This is just another way to show the world your professional brand.