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 tips 21 – 30 of Cindy’s 50 tips on personal branding for career success…
21. Write and self-publish your own book
“As an author my tip would be SELF-PUBLISH! The big companies want to eat up your potential profits so print your own book. And don’t advertise on Amazon or use a distributor who will steal your profits – create a site and push it hard. Start small, make your initial money back, and reinvest in advertisement, maybe even video advertising to gain sales momentum on your product(s), keeping in mind that is not the book that is selling, its the author!” Romaine Williams, readtheblackbook.com
22. Be visible speaking in public
“I’ve planned to engage in at least three public speaking events in my business area because it puts me face-to-face with people I want to meet.” Ford Kanzler, prsavvy.com
23. Keep it simple and unforgettable
“It’s basic, but important. Keep it simple, make it unforgettable, insure it tells your story. As ‘The Timeshare Crusader’ and my tagline, ‘Never Fear A Timeshare Salesperson Again’, my brand does that.”
Lisa Ann Schreier, timeshareinsights.com
24. Keep it clean
“Clean up, and use proper wording, in all of your social media. It’s a great way to boost natural search traffic.” Charlie Riley, skmgroup.com
25. Connect in a genuine way
“Arguably the most significant way to take your personal branding to the next level is to be genuine and participate in a thoughtful way. Self-promotion and personal brand development is always about connecting with people in a meaningful way. In the new world of social media, personal/professional transparency and real time information you simply cannot afford to be anything but genuine. Being genuine and thoughtful increases the return on all of your branding activities and without a doubt will add to personal brand value.” Morgan Christian, tweetbender.com
26. Live it!
” Live it and have passion for it. Establish yourself as an expert at SOMETHING. That means you, not your company or work. And get as much press in your expertise area as you can. This will make you relevant, credible and findable. You can do this by writing something others will find helpful and pointing to it, then look for ways to guest blog it, post about it in relevant communities and network yourself with like experts. You can also respond to HARO when you’re qualified to speak to it. Find as many ways as you can to be part of it. Brent Shelton, FatWallet.com
27. Be true to YOU
“When it comes to elevating your personal brand, so many people seem to fall short. The number one tip to elevating your personal brand to the next level is to be true to yourself. When you are not genuine and truly passionate about your life, career and business, it shows. Decide what values in your life are most important to you, and be sure that your whole life is centered around living those values. The best way to be successful in life and business is to be genuine to your core values.” Megan Kline, megankline.com
28. Be truly accessible
“Surprise people by being overly accessible. I created the SNAC system to help kids and parents learn how to eat correctly in a way that speaks to kids. By doing this sometimes parents may have questions about a certain situation and when I call them personally, they are really surprised and thankful.” Carrie Chacon, SnacCards.com
29. Have a crystal clear vision
“Elevating my personal brand has been a top focus of mine this year. The one thing that has really been most beneficial is having a crystal clear vision of what I want my brand to be and positively reaffirming it to myself daily. I have to believe in myself and believe in me as a brand before others will. This has allowed me to really be my brand.” Laina Turner-Molaski, lainamolaski.com
30. Get a Facebook Fan Page
“Get a unique URL and then point all of your offline branding to this URL. So, if you do direct mail, radio, tv advertise this new URL and point people to your Facebook page – this way you can capture your audience and have the chance to market your brand to them over and over!” Lisa Johnson, Facebook.com/PropertyMatters
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 21 — 30 of Cindy’s 50 Seriously Great Tips to Elevate Your Personal Brand in 2010. 21) Write and self publish your own book. 22) Be visible speaking in public. 23) Keep it simple and unforgettable. 24) Keep it clean. 25) Connect in a genuine way. 26) Live it. 27) Be true to you. 28) Be truly accessible. 29) Have a crystal clear vision. 30) Get a Facebook fan page.
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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