The Business Growth Blog by Rob Cuesta

Changes

I've made a few alterations to the blog. FIrst off, you may have noticed the change of title - this is now The Business Growth Blog, reflecting the fact that personal branding is a tool for achiving just that: business growth. The content of the blog will also broaden to reflect this new focus.

Second, I've added a new Amazon bookstore in the links on the left hand side. I realised that a lot of my readers are in the US, so I've created a bookstore on Amazon.com alongside the existing Amazon.co.uk store. So now, if you're visiting from the US feel free to visit the new store.

OK, it's 1.24 am here - time this blogger was off to sleep!

Do Your Targets Hear The Sizzle?

There's an old advertising adage that says "Sell the sizzle not the steak". In recent years, it's been distorted and misapplied by less scrupulous ad-men, to become "sell the sizzle, and forget the steak". marketers have taken products with little or no real value to the consumer and hyped them up just to increase the price. It's the basic premise behind the book "Never Mind the Sizzle...Where's the Sausage?" which I reviewed last year.

Of course, one of the common misconceptions people have about personal branding - and branding in general - is that it's ALL about the sizzle, so I thought this afternoon I'd look at the world of sizzle and steaks.

The name's Bond, James Bond...

I remember the first time I heard that line. I was four years old, sitting in a darkened cinema watching a rerun of Goldfinger (my parents were pretty liberal when it came to things like that, and we knew the manager of the cinema).

For two hours I sat, transfixed as 007 battled the bad guys, got the girl and saved the world. Without knowing it, though, it set the tone for many aspects of my life over the years since then.

Where's the Sausage?

It's been a while since I posted a book review, but don't let that fool you into thinking I've been avoiding Borders. My latest acquisition is a slim book, one of those 'business fables' that set out to teach some principle of business through a story. Some of these books can be very badly written - I'll gladly share some of the howlers I've read with you if you drop me a line. Others are actually a good book to read in their own right. Fortunately, 'Where's The Sausage?' by David Taylor (of BrandGym fame) is one of those books that falls right into the second category.

My online personal branding bookstore

I was doing my regular 'self-google' the other day, and just for laughs I decided to carry on past the first 3 pages. I was delighted to discover that people have been tagging my online bookstore at Amazon on Del.icio.us and other social bookmarking sites, and sharing it with their friends as a site worth visiting. Thanks for the support folks :) it encourages me to keep reading and keep bringing you my the picks of current personal branding-related books.

It's here!

OK, if you've read my blog for a while now, you know that I'm an avid book reader. So I was really excited the other day when a package I'd been waiting for for quite some time finally arrived. Inside was a copy of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand (or HERE if you're in the US), hot off the presses.

New personal branding book store opens its virtual doors

If you've read more than a couple of my posts, you'll have picked up on my love of books. I am an avid reader, particularly in the areas of branding, business and personal development, and I've decided to share the benefits of my extensive reading with my subscribers.

Book Review: Transparency Edge

Well it's been a while since my last post, and this is another book review. Now, I hadn't intended this blog to be a book review site, but given my twin addictions to Starbucks and Borders (which I've alluded to in past posts) it was inevitable that books were going to feature heavily.

Anyway, I recently picked up a book that isn't actually 'new' as such - it was first published in 2003 - but the topic is just as relevant now as then. The book is Transparency Edge: How Credibility Can Make or Break You in Business by Barbara Pagano, Elizabeth Pagano, and Stephen C. Lundin. It caught my attention because, as a consultant, I have always been respected for what one of my past managers described as 'intellectual honesty' - the courage to tell a client that they are wrong, and the refusal to write a report that rubberstamped a decision I didn't agree with. At times this has seemed a career limiting move, so it was interesting to see a book that highlighted the business advantages of honesty and transparency.

Book review: The Power of Personal Branding

Well, it’s been a while since I last posted – over a week in fact. The simple reason? I’ve been engrossed in a new book by fellow personal branding expert, Tim O’Brien. I’ll confess, I’m an avid reader – I’ve seen the inside of more Borders stores than I’d like to admit, and my office floor is groaning under the weight of rather more books than I can probably expect to read in an average lifetime *grin*. Nevertheless, I was delighted when Tim asked me to review his book, “The Power of Personal Branding, Creating Celebrity Status with your Target Audience”, and I’m glad I agreed.

Personal Branding for Technologists

Rajesh Setty, author of Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps!, has written a free 40-page ebook on Personal Branding for Technology Professionals. The principles he sets out are valuable not just for technologists, but to everyone. Here are my reflections on what he says:

1. build your brand before you need it: too many professionals start thinking about their next job or client only when their current one is over or almost over. The time to start thinking about it, however, is as soon as you've won the current one!
2. give and get lots of help: building a brand is about creating value for other people. As I explained in my last post, you should look for ways to help those who are best placed to help you: they'll be more inclined to help you, and if you need to call on them they'll remember who you are
3. leverage all your projects: if you don't manage your brand then you're only as good as your last project or piece of work. If you go through the full cycle of the personal brand strategy, from discovering what your brand is, through finding ways to express it, to building it into the way you live your personal and professional life, you can make sure that people are aware of, and take into account, all of your skills, experience and accomplishments
4. Practice patience: creating a strong personal brand is not a 5 minute exercise of writing an elevator pitch and getting some glossy business cards printed. It takes time and effort. Not everything you try will work first time, but you have to be ready to learn from the failures, pick yourself up and keep going. I once managed to accidentally spam 50,000 people. My inbox was full of what amounted to hate mail for days, my internet account was suspended and various people thereatened me with everything from ethics tribunals to investigation by the US Secret Service (I'm not sure that their jurisdiction extends to rural England though, so I'm pretty sure I was safe). Over the days that followed though, I put in place a recovery strategy, and slowly the mail turned into praise for how I had handled the situation. One of these days I'll have to blog it so that others can learn from my mistake, and my follow-up.
5. Be comfortable with being uncomfortable: the world is changing all the time. Sometimes you just have to go out on a limb, but the people you interact with will know if you're congruent, and comfortable with yourself, or if you're faking it. LIke I said above: be prepared for failures, and be aware that a failure is just an opportunity to learn and to do it better next time
6. Balance is critical: I've lost count of the number of professionals I meet (especially, as it happens, technologists) who spend all their time with their head down, doing good work and waiting for recognition. Then they discover personal branding, and all of a sudden that takes up all their energy and time. Then I have to remind them that the branding process is not everything: they need to balance it with all the stuff they used to do before, too. That's just one way in which a brand strategist can help: by providing tools and guidance to ensure that you're covering all the bases and making progress but not at the expense of their career