Personal Branding Success — Part 4

As a career success coach, I urge my clients to build strong relationships with the people in their life – to make friends.  Cindy Yantis has become a friend of mine.  She is a career architect, helping people build careers they love.   Our friendship started when I responded to a query she posted asking for advice on personal branding for her blog. 

Her query resulted in a dynamite blog post called 50 Seriously Greats Tips to Elevate Your Personal Brand in 2010.  It had some really great common sense career success advice.  I liked her lengthy post so much that I asked Cindy if she would allow me to excerpt it on this blog.  She graciously agreed.  So each day this week, I will be sharing 10 of Cindy’s 50 tips on personal branding.

Personal branding is an important key to creating positive personal impact.  As a career success coach, I help my clients create and nurture their unique personal brands.  My advice on branding building is simple.  First, figure out how you want others to think of you.  Second, consistently and constantly act in a manner that will get you to think of you that way.  You have to do all the work when it comes to deciding how you want others to think of you.  Cindy’s tips will help you consistently and constantly act in a manner consistent with your brand. 

Here are the tips 31 – 40 of Cindy’s 50 tips on personal branding for career success.  Pay special attention to # 39 and the career success coach who provided it…

31.  Forget competition; forge relationships
“Those offering similar value in a similar niche or field are not competitors because no one can offer exactly what you do, the way you do. Instead of fearing, fretting over, (or worse) ignoring or undermining these birds of a feather, turn them into allies and advocates for your own brand.  They can sharpen your focus, they can push you toward your best, they can show you what you are lacking, their success is not your downfall but a catalyst and a sign that your niche is prospering. Show them good will (acknowledge what they do well, encourage their efforts, and even share their work with your readers/clients/supporters). You will earn the respect and admiration of your colleagues but also your supporters because you’ve increased their knowledge and resources. The good will you’ve shown and spread in these directions will come back to you.”   Nichelle Strzepek, danceadvantage.net

32.  Be a Collector and Connector
“Cultivate relationships, for yourself and for others.  Those who are able to increase their personal brand are those who see the value in surrounding themselves with people who are diverse in their skills and ambitions and then connecting those persons with others, for their mutual benefit. By cultivating these relationships and helping to connect like-minded and complimentary people you increase your reputation (brand) as a person who “knows everyone” and “gets things done”. People want to be around those who make them feel good about themselves and help them accomplish their goals. Can you make people see their own worth and bring them together with others who can help them meet their goals? If yes, then you will increase your own personal brand.”  Nadine Owens Burton, www.owensburton.net

33.  Take time to stay centered
“Spend at least 2 minutes per day in silence – “meditating” or just sitting, and breathing in more inspiration and breathing out any stress. Assigning meaning to the breath makes it more powerful and gets you more centered!”  Stephanie Mansour, StepItUpwithSteph.com

34.   Protect your time by delegating
“I have hired a high school and a college intern over the next 6 months to do online research and pitching for me. I don’t have the time and they can do it at a very low cost rate.”  Abby Marks Beale, thecorporateeducator.com

35.  Broadcast your message daily
“One way to elevate your personal brand at very little or no expense is consistent and daily messaging to the audience you want to reach. Ensure your web site messaging is consistent with your blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter messaging. The key here is to communicate often and with a clear and direct message.” Daryl Wizelman, darylwizelman.com

36.  Enhance your digital presence
“There are 2 ways to do this easily, without having a lot of knowledge in the field. 
1. Subscribe to blogs that interest you and comment often.  When you take the initiative to add your thoughts to an ongoing discussion, ensure that you have something insightful to say. The more you add, the more attention you receive. The more attention you receive, the more people are interested in what you have to say. This eventually leads them to your blog. *Be sure to always take the option to leave your website URL as well as your name and email address.  2.  Offer to guest post.  Social networking is currency in the digital world.  The only way to gain “digital cred” is to make sure that you are very visible and adding something to the medium.  If you are launching a business or are a niche blogger, be sure to reach out to folks in your field. Write a post and send it over with your credentials. More often than not, bloggers and professionals are all to happy to introduce you to their communities if you have something useful to say.”  Tiffany Hill Thompson
residuemarketing.com/

37.  Surround yourself with people whose company you enjoy and who inspire you.
“I’m particularly drawn to other people who love their work and are ambitious enough to keep moving forward in life. Choose those with ethical codes similar to yours, for example: emphasizing quality in their work, aiming for sustainability, and looking to improve the industry rather than to make a quick buck before getting out.”  Colin Wright, exilelifestyle.com

38.  Engage ferociously
“Embrace, be fiercely active, engage on social media & build genuine relationships with successful entrepreneurs.”  Ros Guerrero, Ficklets.com

39.  Determine how you want to be perceived.
“Figure out how you want other people to think of you. Then consistently and constantly act in a manner that will get them to think that way.”  Bud Bilanich www.BudBilanich.com.  Congratulations if you’ve read this far.  Send me an email and I’ll send you the eBook version of my best seller, Straight Talk for Success.

40.  Expand your visibility everywhere you can
“I am elevating my brand in 2010 by subscribing to HARO and ReporterConnection.com and pitching every appropriate request that is presented. Taking just 15-20 minutes/day to carefully review the listings and responding wherever there is a good fit. I’ve been doing this for just one month and have already gotten 4 responses (1) Included in a St. Patricks Day Gift guide on a website with millions of visitors per month (2) Radio Interview scheduled for April 5th (3) Radio and Weblog – gift guide plug all of May and (4) Tying in a custom song with a double date for another Radio show. I fully believe if I continue doing this religiously day after day, week after week my brand will increase greatly in popularity and value.”   Vincent James, LoveSongs.com

The common sense point here is simple.  If you want to achieve career success, you need to create and nurture your unique personal brand.  In this post I have presented 10 common sense personal branding tips from Cindy Yantis, a career architect.  I present them here because in my work as a career success coach I have learned firsthand of the power of personal branding.  Here are tips 31to 40 of Cindy’s 50 Seriously Great Tips to Elevate Your Personal Brand in 2010.  31) Forget competition; forge relationships.  32) Be a collector and connector.  33) Take time to stay centered.  34) Protect your time by delegating.  35) Broadcast your message daily.  36) Enhance your digital presence.  37) Surround yourself with people whose company you enjoy and who inspire you.  38) Engage ferociously.  39) Determine how you want to be perceived.  40) Expand your visibility everywhere you can.

That’s Cindy Yantis – and others – take on personal branding.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

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