The Business Growth Blog by Rob Cuesta

"But my skills speak for themselves..."

I was having a discussion today with one of the big-brand IT consultants working on a project for the same client as I am helping. Sadly, his reaction was exactly what you hear all too often from knowledge workers: "But my skills speak for themselves!"

The truth is, skills will get you so far in a career, but eventually you reach a point at which the realities of business will start to hit home: managers don't promote skills, interviewers don't hire skills, and investors don't invest in skills. They promote, hire and invest in people. And if they don't know who you are as a person then you're not going to get that promotion, job or investment you've been hoping for. Unfortunately, most knowledge workers don't realise this until it becomes an issue in their career. And of course, by then it's too late.

So if you're a knowledge worker who has spent the last few years with your head down, learning your trade and going from project to project on the wave of your technical prowess, take a little time now to think about your brand:

• Why do I do what I do? What's the ultimate vision behind what I do?
• What is it about my work that is getting me to that vision?
• How have I been doing it? What do my colleagues and clients see as my core strengths and values? What about my weaknesses?
• What is it about all of the above that makes me different from all the other people in my company and industry who do what I do? And, above all, why should that matter to my clients (and does it!)?

The killer, here, is the last point, of course: having to think about what sets you apart from your peers and compeitors will eliminate most of what you think of as your core skills. What's left, however, is the stuff that will make people remember you, the stuff like your good humour, or high energy, your ability to get on with people, or your willingness to help a hand - whatever it is that you do around the main business of delivering your knowledge and competence.

That's just a very high level view of what it takes to start to define a personal brand. Once you have that in place you need to think about how you communicate it, who to and how, and, even more importantly, how you build it into the way you live your life - in work and out of it.

It's not an easy task. It takes time, attention, and a willingness to let go of old preconceptions and look into who you really are deep down. But if it stops you from ending up in a career rut then it has to be worth it!

OK, enough from me for today. Catch you next time.

Rob

Shooting yourself in the foot...

Or how to turn a brand building exercise into a PR mess

Earlier today I went to a certain large bookshop which sounds like it could be on the frontier between two countries... Let me explain, though, that there's nothing special about that in itself - I spend large amounts of time and money in that particular chain of bookstores.

Anyway, here in the UK they're running a loyalty card scheme. You get a stamp for every £15 you spend, and once you have 6 stamps you get £10 off your next purchase - I worked out that's about 10% discount. So far so run of the mill. It's still not as much as I could save by going to Amazon, but I love the immediacy of walking into a store and walking out with my book.

So today I bought £40 worth of books and redeemed a full stamp-card in part payment.

Problem number 1: I hadn't told the cashier that I wanted to use a stamp-card before she rang the sale through. Now, in any other store that doesn't seem to matter much - they ring your voucher or coupon or whatever through and the balance goes down as appropriate. Not so here. The cashier had to cancel the whole transaction and start again. Since I was eager to get on the road for a 200 mile drive that wasn't too impressive, but then things got worse.

Problem number 2: as she handed me my books I asked the cashier for a new card with 2 stamps - for the extra £30 I'd spent on top of the value of the old card. 'Oh no,' she said 'we don't give new cards if you're redeeming one.' Now, if I'd been told that at the start I'd have split my purchases, used the card against one, and got a new card for the other. As it was I was only missing out on two stamps, but imagine if I'd just bought £400 of books instead of £40. I felt like queueing up at the next till and returning the whole lot. Instead I'll use my blog to rail against the stupidity of the scheme.

More importantly though, the store has lost my custom for a while. The incident lost it a lot of goodwil, and with no partially completed card to lure me back I think I'll go and pay full price for my books somewhere else. Heck, I may even get them from Amazon!

Now, how does this apply to personal branding? All branding is promotion, and in a rare show of symmetry, all promotion is an act of brand creation (hmm, does that make sense? I'll have to come back to that in a later blog). Many independent professionals use promotions of one sort or another to build their brand - twofers, discounts, rewards for referrals, the list goes on. If you are one of them then ask yourself a few questions:

1. are the rules of the promotion clear and well understood by your clients?
2. are the rules sensible?
3. is it easy for your clients to call on you to honour the promotion? In other words, is the experience of claiming on the promotion enjoyable? Or is it a chore?

If your answer to any of these questions is no then rethink the details of the scheme until it is clear, sensible and simple.

Rant over :-)

The Acid Test

In my last post I promised some example client profiles to give you an idea of the kind of details that are needed.

When I sit down to put together a personal branding programme or coaching product, I'll plan it out on paper then ask myself "would Alison, Peter or Michael be interested in this? Would they buy it? Would they get value from it?"

1) Alison

Alison is a 28 year old MBA. She wants to make the kmost of her MBA, but she's unsure that her pre-MBA experience will catch recruiters' attention.

She rents an appartment in a 'young professional' neighbourhood outside the city centre, and wants to save for her own place. She drinks Mojitos and Starbucks.

2) Peter

At 35, Peter is a senior manager in industry. He lives in the suburbs with his young family.

Peter trained as an engineer, which has stood him in good stead getting him to where he is, but now he has reached a career plateau: he is looking to move up to a board position, but he is perceived as an operational expert, not a leader. He wants to stay with his current employer, but unless he can find a way to break through the barriers holding him back then he may have to move on.

3) Michael

Michael, 43, is sick of the rat race. Having risen to the top of his career, he has all the trappings of his success - he lives in a large house in a leafy neghbourhood in one of the many small commuter towns, he drives a Mercedes. But his children are growing, and he wants to be able to spend more time at home, so he wants to cash in and set up in business on his own.

Unfortunately, over a long Tanqueray and Tonic in a city bar with a close friend, he realises that his business contacts only know him in one role, and he is not sure how to reposition himself credibly.

The acid test

These are the clients - composites of real people - at whom I target my personal branding services and products. If I can't see that one or more of these three would be interested in something, and get real value from it, then I won't offer it.

So now you have a model, think about your own business and marketing - do you know who would most benefit from your service or product? How well do you know them? How often do you test your services and products in terms of the appeal they have for them?

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

I was on a call with online branding guru Kirsten Dixson earlier today, and she reminded me of a technique which I originally learnt from the marketing manager of my local radio station. It's a technique that helps you make sure that everything you do is in line with your brand at all times, and in the radio station they called it the 'Maria Test'. 'Maria' was an illusion, a figment of the marketing manager's imagination, a painting in words, but everyone at the station knew her like their best friend.

They knew where she lived, where she worked, what car she drove, where she ate, what kind of coffee she drank. They knew where she'd been to school, and what she did for a living. They knew who her friends were, and where they went on a night out. They knew EVERYTHING about her - even though she didn't exist. Why? Because Alison was exactly the listener they wanted to attract.

It meant that when they went to a potential advertiser they could tell them exactly who would be hearing their message.

It meant that whenever a DJ came up with a new idea for content, the station manager could ask "would Maria listen to this?"

And it meant that everyone at the station lived and breathed the need to please Maria.

She was a great point of reference.

Only, until this afternoon, I'd forgotten all about Maria. And more importantly I'd forgotten that my own business needed it's own Maria, and her friends, to keep me on track. In the next few posts I'll introduce you to Alison and her friends. They're my 'Maria', the kind of people that Personal Branding can help. Read the pen portraits, and ask yourself "does my business have a Maria?"

See you soon

Rob