The Business Growth Blog by Rob Cuesta

Networking through Meetup.com

I recently discovered meetup.com, a site that allows you to connect with people with similar interests in your area. As soon as I saw it I was struck by the fact that you could just as easily use it to connect with people who share your passions while you're travelling. And that's exactly what I did.

Managing your personal brand

Fellow brand strategist Hajj Flemings, author of "Brand Yu" has some great info on his blog, and is well worth following on Twitter. His blog post on reputation management is a great checklist of actions to take to track what's happening to your online reputation.

And the folks over at Jobmob have put a lot of time and effort into tracking down pretty much every tool you could want for managing your online reputation. For the most comprehensive list I've seen head on over to their site.

Putting back into the community - the Financial Services Career Bailout

We are living in "interesting times". Even with the many government-funded interventions around the world, with the collapse of so many old and respected financial institutions, I know many people on Wall Street and in The City who are still worried about their future. For those who have already been caught up in the turmoil, I - in common with many of the Reach Personal Brand Strategists - am taking part in a worldwide initiative called the "Career Bailout" programme.

If you are an employee of one of the failed banks or financial institutions and recently lost your job, you qualify for a free career services package that includes a CV review, 360°Reach personal brand assessment and an Online ID evaluation. This package will help you differentiate and position yourself in a crowded and competitive job market.

Whether you are in the UK, the US or any other country, if you are a former employee of Northern Rock, Alliance & Leicester, Bradford & Bingley, or other affected UK firms, or of one of the American banks (Bear Sterns, Wachovia, WaMu or Lehman Bros), and have lost your job as a result of the recent failure, you qualify for brandedLeader’s  career bailout package free of charge. This package is comprised of:

• a resume review;
• a 360°Reach personal brand assessment;
• an online ID evaluation.

In addition, affected financial service professionals will receive preferential rates on related products and coaching services. These services are limited, and will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis.

To get started, contact me by email. Please provide your former institution, position, date of separation, and the type of position you will be seeking. You can also expedite your access to your free consultation by making sure to include your CV in Word ro PDF format.

Want to know more?

Star of the small screen!

In September 2008, Dexter Moscow of the Entrepreneurs' Forum interviewed me on why organizations need to develop and leverage the power of the individuals in the company to survive the economic downturn. We discuss the idea that HR has become as much the custodian of the corporate brand as the Marketing Department, and HR managers now need to see themselves as brand champions.

I was also interviewed with fellow personal branding expert Tessa Hood on the subject of our forthcoming seminar in London for HR professionals.

The videos are all on www.robcuesta.com/video

Turning your people into Brand Ambassadors can recession-proof your company

That's the message that Tessa Hood, a fellow personal branding expert, and I are promoting at a forthcoming seminar in London.

Stories to build your career

I'm a great believer in the power of stories and metaphors as a communication medium. For marketing and job search, stories are an essential tool for illustrating your skills and your personality, as well as your experience, and effectively communicating your personal brand.

The main problem, though, is that many candidates struggle to make their stories engaging. Just how do you make the everyday minutiae of your job into a compelling tale that will keep the recruiter listening?   

Time to revamp your LinkedIn profile?

I was an 'early adopter' of LinkedIn, and my profile - as you'd expect - has been through several revisions. Nevertheless, there's always more that can be done to improve these things, so I was intrigued to find an old post by Guy Kawasaki based on advice he received from LinkedIn's inhouse design team. The post is...

Personal Branding and NLP

Inevitably, over the last few weeks I've been pondering on the links between Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Personal Branding. I've met people who believed the two were incompatible. If you think that NLP is about 'fixing' people then I suppose it would seem odd to compare it to Personal Branding, which is all about "authenticity" and "the real you".

If, on the other hand, you see NLP as a set of tools for developing greater understanding of yourself and of others, then it's application to Personal Branding becomes a lot more apparent.

NLP - blowing my own horn

OK, I finally got there. After almost 10 years of using NLP both professionally and personally I have been certified by the Tad James Company as a Trainer of NLP, so watch out here on the blog and on my website for announcements of upcoming training courses (or read the main post for a sneak preview of what's coming up).

Are today's executives more like the free agents we associate with sports teams than the 'company man' of days (and years) gone by?

Some time ago, I saw a question on LinkedIn about  how the  behaviour of executives is changing. The questioner (Bradley Foster) asked:

"Are today's executives more like the free agents we associate with sports teams than the 'company man' of days (and years) gone by?

A lot of the executives I coach are more like lone wolves than what we have come to think of executives as team players who are loyal to the company they serve. Are executives more like the free agents we associate with sports teams than the 'company man' of days (and years) gone by? "