Editor’s Note

By Rachel Gogos

Personalizing Facebook

Are you sick of reading and hearing about Facebook yet? I hope not because with the announcement of their IPO I think they’re only going to get better and stronger. But this article isn’t about their valuation or how an IPO will impact Facebook it’s about a fairly new feature that you may have already heard about called Timeline.

Timeline gives you lots of space on your profile page – it’s a super banner the entire width of your page and about 3 inches high. It’s a lot of real-estate so use it wisely. You can upload a jpeg of a photo collage, one large image or design but whatever you do take this opportunity to communicate more about you and what you stand for.

It doesn’t have to be overt – subtle and subliminal work too. Just like a logo on your website or your clothing during a job interview the Timeline banner gives you an opportunity to communicate with your audience.

It also tells “your story” in a more visual way. You can learn all about it here.

As of February 29th Timeline will roll out to pages. Solopreneurs, entrepreneurs and business owners take note and be ready to use this real-estate to tell the world about your business, your products or your passion depending on the purpose of your page.

You can read more about Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages in this article on SimplyZesty.com.

A few examples of well-done Timelines can be found here:

• Amy Porterfield
• Mari Smith
• Jonathan Fields
• James Wedmore
• Chris Brogan — couldn’t resist including this one. It’s hysterical.

How can you personalize your Timeline?

Rachel Gogos is the Chief Brand Builder at brandiD, a digital marketing and web design firm specializing in building unique, attention-getting, online identities through personal branding, social media, and highly differentiated WordPress sites.

Career REinvention – Dream BIG!
By Susan Guarneri
Looking for your dream job? Ready to try something new? Helpful tips and tools to move you from one career to another.

Identify Your Motivated Skills

Job satisfaction statistics in recent years have indicated that only 45% of Americans are satisfied with their jobs, leaving 55% dissatisfied. Whether you are happy in your job or not depends on many factors. Some are external, such as working conditions or compensation level. Other factors are intrinsic to who you are; these include (among others) your motivated skills, passions and interests, and values.

What are motivated skills? Here is the simple definition: skills you perform at least reasonably well (or perhaps even better) and enjoy doing. On the other hand, burnout skills are those you do well but do not enjoy – in fact, you may even detest doing them.

One method to evaluate your motivated skills involves constructing a Jobs Chart. For each job you have held, ask yourself what job functions you enjoyed and list them. These would correspond to your motivated skills. The job duties you found boring or disliked doing would be your burnout skills. List those as well because you will want to minimize those in your next career or job.

Your job description is a great place to start this informal assessment. It contains the formally recognized functions of your job. But, as with so many people these days, you are probably performing additional job duties not listed in your job description. So include those job functions in your evaluation as well.

If you are having difficulty distinguishing between motivated and burnout skills, you could rate each job duty on a scale from 1 to 7 for your level of enjoyment / engagement. On this scale 7 would be the most enjoyed job duty or functional skill and 1 would be the most boring and/or disliked. Then when you are done, the highest-rated job duties would reveal the pattern of your motivated skills.

Online assessments available through the U.S. Department of Labor can also evaluate your skills:

• Skills Profiler
• Myskills Myfuture

But be careful! These online assessments do not distinguish between motivated and burnout skills. Keep that in mind as you read the job descriptions for the suggested careers that are generated. If 50% or more of the job functions listed in the job description are your burnout skills, then you may want to consider another career field.
Use the new-found knowledge of your motivated skills to make better choices when changing jobs or careers.

Susan Guarneri, Career Assessment Goddess and Reach Master Branding Strategist, can guide you to your best-fit career options and help you land your Dream Job.

Personal Brand Book Reviews
By Paul Copcutt
Wondering if you should read “that” book? A seasoned personal brand strategist offers his in depth reviews.
18 Minutes – Find Your focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done

© 2011 by Peter Bregman, 263 pages, Hardback

5R Score: 28/35


The 18 Minutes

• Part One – Pause
• Part Two – What is This Year About?
• Part Three – What is This Day About?
• Part Four – What is This Moment About?

On a scale of 1-7

• Relevance — is it right for personal branding? — 6
• Resonance — does it make sense to the reader? — 6
• Relation — is there a connection for everyone? — 6
• Remarkability — does it stand out, will it get noticed? — 5
• Real — does the personal brand come through? — 5

Would you pick it up?

For me there is always one book each year that has the most impact on the way that I think or act and what I say. At the end of last year this was the one.

There are far too many books out there that espouse the very latest ways, ideas and ‘simple’ systems to implement and make your life easier. I have tried many of them and found that most of them require a PhD to understand or operate.

What I like about 18 Minutes is that it boils things down to the core basics of what is most important to you and ‘forget’ the rest.

As you slip out of all the good intentions you had at the start of the year, this book can get you back on track fast.

Relevance:

It’s not immediately evident that this is a book about your personal brand. But once you have clearly identified what your personal brand is and who needs to know about it, then you have to get on with living and communicating that brand. The challenge is remaining focused and not getting distracted. This book and its easy-to-follow 18 Minutes a day looking at the 5 most important areas of focus for the year make staying on brand much more effective. It also means at the end of the year you are going to be much further forward.

Resonance:

I found the 18 Minutes approach easy to understand, implement and in most cases stick to regularly (a failing in many of the more complicated systems – one I have followed has almost 20 pages to act on — weekly!).

For me though the most compelling part of the whole system is that when I have not followed it for a day or I find my day got away from me, I can check back in and identify right away where I was falling down AND find a quick solution to getting back on track.

Relation:

In today’s world of multiple demands on seemingly less and less time we can all relate to the desire to want to take back control of our lives and simplify them. But deep down we also want to know we are making a difference (whatever we define that to be), 18 Minutes gives us the framework to focus on what is most important.

Remarkability:

Because the approach is so simple there is a danger that people do not see this as remarkable. That would be a shame. We do not have to complicate or over think things to have them make us more effective or successful.

Just the simple suggestion of setting a one-hour alarm to do focused and concentrated work has made a huge difference to my productivity. This book review and one other article were effectively completed in one of those 60-minute bursts.

Real:

The author is constantly using personal and real life work as well as client examples to communicate his points. His blog posts do the same. The book is broken down into bite size 2-4 page chapters that get one key point across. This makes for easy reference and more likely I’ll pick it up again. But once ingrained it’s certainly one to keep on the bookshelf.

Paul Copcutt, Personal Brand Architect, is a sought after speaker and coach who uses real client stories and practical applications to help successful professionals and executives get clear about their uniqueness.

Commercial Break
By William Arruda
What can personal branders learn from TV advertisements? Take a break and take a peak.

Westfield Stratford City: 100 years of Fashion

I love this ad because: It uses dance – something we can all relate to – to showcase the event being advertised. The special effects are great and there is no dialog, yet you stay engaged.

This ad and your personal brand: Think about something everyone can relate to and connect it to what you offer. This is a great way of getting your message across to everyone who needs to hear it. Know that images often speak louder than words.

Community News

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PwC’s Personal Brand Experience
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PwC has launched their second annual Personal Brand Week this week from February 6-10. William Arruda and Reach Personal Branding are involved. Encourage your clients and associates to follow along with the daily tasks.

If you have college-aged children, relatives, clients, etc. tell them about it. There is a contest they can enter with a great grand prize that will be announced on the 10th: Personal brand experience contest. The entry deadline is February 9th, so make sure they enter.

Here is what they can win:

• A one-on-one coaching session with William Arruda, the world’s leading personal branding expert.
• Meeting with an image consultant to fine tune their professional presence and a $300 gift card to help them get started.
• A trip to New York City to spend a day with a member of PwC’s US Executive Team to learn about how he/she uses his/her brand to be an influential leader and achieve career success.
• Creating their own videoBIO to showcase their personal brand.

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Like William Arruda on Facebook
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Head to Facebook and please like William Arruda’s newly launched Facebook page! Please share it with your friends, associates, and clients too.

Thanks and see you there!
 

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Personal Branding Trends for 2012
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Have you read William Arruda’s latest article for MarketingProfs?

He talks about his personal branding predictions for 2012.

Now it’s time for part two!: Career Management — Personal Branding Trends for 2012 (Part 2)
 

What’s ON at Personal Branding TV?
A viewing list of the latest video features playing on personalbranding.TV.

Jordan Friedman – Reach Personal Branding Series (second *). The second Reach Interview with Jordan — find the first here.

Personal Branding – Is Orange the Color of Your Personal Brand?

Commercial Break: VW Jetta: Memories

Personal Branding – Creating Your First Video

Editor’s Note

By Rachel Gogos

Resources for a Stupendously Successful 2012

It’s nearly the end of January – by now your goals have been set and your action plan is likely in full swing. If you need some additional resources to help you stay steadfast and true to your 2012 plans then keep reading.

Over the last few months I have found some excellent resources to help you meet your resolutions, work on your various strategies and continue on the yellow brick road to success. Below I’m going to share links to some of the best resources I’ve seen on the web (no affiliate links are listed below – just sharing some worthwhile resources):

Focus & Planning

• An unusual approach that I really like is Chris Brogan’s three words. Ever since I read about the “three words approach” a few years ago I try and do it myself. The concept is pick three words to guide your goals and actions vs. making one or two lofty resolutions. My three words for this year or Laser, Heart and Write.
• Marie Forleo has put together some easy to use tools to help you plan out your goals for the upcoming year and to help you focus on accomplishing your most important thing as well as a nifty yearlong action-planning tool. I love the simple planning template because you can use it for various aspects of your company – editorial calendar, marketing tactic calendar, networking check-ins and much more.

Media, Marketing & Social Media

• Derek Helpern’s, How to Get Major Media Coverage with No Connections is excellent! Check out his free Social Triggers Master Class called Social Media Insider – it’s entirely web-based but so far, has some great content. Derek’s high energy and no-nonsense approach makes him easy to listen to and learn from.
• A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation is a pretty hefty report prepared by Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group. The focus is to help you get control of your social media before you get overwhelmed and over-saturated. Haven’t read through this in it’s entirety but Altimeter is an excellent group.
• If YouTube and video creation is a big part of your marketing this year then definitely check out James Wedmore. He’s making a splash with his YouTube marketing business but he also passes along lots of great advice via his blog posts. And given that Google owns YouTube – your time with James will be well spent. You’ve probably noticed that Google is indexing video more and more and higher and higher on its search results!
• The best all-in-one free marketing course out there is by Copyblogger Media. These guys have their game down to a science. Sign up for the course and receive it right in your email inbox.
• One of the best Facebook marketing resources is Amy Porterfield, author of All in One Facebook Marketing for Dummies. Amy released an excellent product to help you build your brand on Facebook called Facebook Influence (along with Lewis Howes). I highly recommend checking it out.

Business Growth

• A former client of mine, Ashley Acker, recently launched her terrific new business called Entrepreneur Jungle. If you’re starting a business or need marketing help check it out. There are loads of free things that can help you get moving in the right direction. Ashley’s content is extremely well thought out and packaged. You can learn so much just from seeing how she markets her own work. But start with her Jungle Survival Kit or by enrolling for her free Wednesday webinars.

There is lots of incredible content out there for free. You can learn so much just by investing some time, if you have it! If you’ve stumbled upon some other great resources, because I’ve merely touched on a few here, share them through the comments section.

Here’s to a stupendously successful 2012.
Rachel Gogos is the Chief Brand Builder at brandiD, a digital marketing and web design firm specializing in building unique, attention-getting, online identities through personal branding, social media, and highly differentiated WordPress sites.

William’s Words By William Arruda
A note from the Founder of Reach Personal Branding.

Change

It’s a constant – and here is some employment data from Fast Company to prove it!

Tenure: In the US, the median tenure in current job is 4.4 years which is down sharply from the 70s. This decline in average job tenure is bigger than any economic cycle.

No. of Jobs: In a lifetime, men will average 11. 4 jobs and women will average 10.7. The day of the 30-year career is long gone!

What does this mean for you? BUILD YOUR BRAND. Your personal brand is the constant in a world where change is the norm.

Wishing you a 2012 filled with professional success and personal fulfillment!

Career REinvention – Dream BIG!
By Randi Bussin
Looking for your dream job? Ready to try something new? Helpful tips and tools to move you from one career to another.

Successful Goal Setting Strategies

Happy New Year and best wishes for a healthy, happy and prosperous 2012!

The beginning of the New Year is a perfect time to reflect on where you have been, your successes and where you are going. This month, as you step back into the workplace or continue with a job search/career change, take a moment to reflect and do some serious career planning.

Goal setting is key to a successful search or reinvention. It helps you get crystal clear on what you want, the distractions that might block your success and helps motivate you to be successful. But, goal setting is hard- you have to stop, think and get specific. Here are some quick tips for writing and achieving your goals:

1. Be specific — Don’t just say I want a new job. Answer the who, what, where, when and why questions.
2. Measure for success — How will you know if you reach your goal? How will progress be measured?
3. Stretch yourself — Set a goal that is realistic, but that will also get you to stretch, learn, stay motivated and grow.
4. Urgency counts — A goal should always have a time frame associated with it, otherwise you’ll flounder.
5. Have a support team — Identify a list of family members, work colleagues, and mentors you need to achieve your goal.
6. Celebrate Wins — Treat yourself to mark the final accomplishment, or small steps of progress along the way.
7. Take baby steps — Break your goal down into smaller steps, but do something every day. Keep the momentum going.
8. Tweak for success — Review your progress and tweak and adjust the goal to stay motivated.

Good luck!
Randi Bussin, a Career Reinvention strategist, guides executives and business owners towards a renewed sense of direction, an actionable career reinvention and personal branding plan.

Personal Brand Book Reviews
By Paul Copcutt
Wondering if you should read “that” book? A seasoned personal brand strategist offers his in depth reviews.
Stand Out – The groundbreaking new strengths assessment by Marcus Buckingham

© 2011 by One Thing Productions Inc, 227 pages, Paperback

5R Score: 25/35

On a scale of 1-7

• Relevance — is it right for personal branding? — 7
• Resonance — does it make sense to the reader? — 6
• Relation — is there a connection for everyone? — 5
• Remarkability — does it stand out, will it get noticed? — 5
• Real — does the personal brand come through? — 2

Would you pick it up?

Since getting involved in the whole personal branding area, one of the core pieces of work that I use and refer to on a regular basis has been “Now Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham and Clifton and other updated versions of the work. That is until now.

I have always enjoyed the work of Buckingam and he has been personally branded as the “Leader of the Strengths Revolution”. He is a joy to watch and listen to as a speaker. But what I really like is his continued efforts to make understanding your unique strengths, simple. With this book he has taken it all a step further.

Now you just need to know your top two strengths, and there are only 9 strengths in total, so it’s also easier to understand others as well.

Relevance:

One of the core foundation pieces of personal branding is to understand your strengths. If you cannot immediately identify what those are then you need to invest in a book like ‘Stand Out’. Each book comes with a unique code to take an online assessment and Buckingham has obviously spent a lot of time and resources in getting this working optimally set to provide best results.

Resonance:

Strengths are just one part of your personal branding puzzle, but a key one, so do not underestimate the need to do this. The book is mostly made up of chapter explanations of each of the 9 strengths, so on first read you might skip a lot. But if you go further with this, familiarize yourself wtih others strengths, it’s the type of book that should almost be on your desk versus a bookshelf.

What is really excellent about this book is that it helps you understand how you can maximize your strengths in various situations;

• You are at your most powerful
• How to describe yourself (in interviews and performance reviews)
• How to make an immediate impact
• How to take your performance to the next level
• How to win as a leader
• How to win in sales
• How to win in client services

There is also a team strengths version that is very interesting and well done.

Relation:

I firmly believe that if you are going to live any type of life you love then understanding and playing to your strengths is key, so this book and its approach and principles applies to anyone at any level.

Remarkability:

In much of my work with personal brands I would say the most underplayed element of most peoples personal brands are their strengths. It is what you do naturally and so well that it’s almost a sub-conscious action. Many people might look at this work and think it rudimentary, but I will bet most of them are not leveraging their strengths anywhere at the level they could be, so there are many lessons from this.

Real:

Buckingham has one of the most amazing strengths based stories about his personal brand, but apart from a few anecdotal personal pieces you are going to have to go somewhere else to find out more, since most of the book is specific to understanding the strengths. I wish there were more examples of strengths and how they are applied – that is the most disappointing part of the book.

Having said that this is a must read for all.

Paul Copcutt, Personal Brand Architect, is a sought after speaker and coach who uses real client stories and practical applications to help successful professionals and executives get clear about their uniqueness.

Hard Won Wisdom
 

Date: Thursday, January 12, 2012
9:00 a.m. Los Angeles | 12:00 p.m. New York
5:00 p.m. London | 6:00 p.m. Paris

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This Reach Interview is sponsored by Stress Coach U. Learn to teach your clients effective stress reduction techniques while earning 5 ICF CCEs. This 5-session tele course starts February 1, so register now for the few remaining spaces: www.stresscoachu.com.

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We are delighted to start 2012 by hosting one of our nation’s most sought after inspirational speakers, Fawn Germer. Fawn’s recent book, Hard Won Wisdom, was declared by Oprah Winfrey to be “very inspiring.” And considering all the extraordinary stories Oprah has reported, if she finds the book inspiring, you will too. The book is the result of over 50 interviews with some of the world’s most success female leaders. It includes stories from businesswomen and politicians, athletes and scientists, and activists and actresses. Gentlemen, don’t exclude yourself from the event just yet. The leadership lessons are universal. Although the stories originate from successful women, the concepts can still apply to male leadership roles too.

Four-time Pulitzer-nominated journalist, Fawn Germer, is our distinguished guest for the January 12, 2012 Reach Personal Branding Interview at noon EST. Fawn will discuss her new book, Hard Won Wisdom, in an interactive, one-hour conversation with William Arruda, founder of Reach Personal Branding.

In this interview, which will be recorded, you will learn:

How risk-taking will separate you from your peers

How to expand your influence and authority instead of waiting to be given power and position

To define yourself with viability and relevance

To put your self-esteem and insecurity in check and believe in your ability to achieve your own personal greatness

How to thrive in your discomfort zone

How to balance your work and life while reducing stress

BIO: Fawn Germer
Fawn Germer will reach into your heart to inspire you to perform at a level you never dreamed possible. She is the best-selling author of seven books, including the Oprah book, Hard Won Wisdom. She is a four-time, Pulitzer-nominated journalist who went on to interview the strongest leaders of our times. Fawn speaks globally on leadership and, in recent months has headlined in China, Spain, United Arab Emirates and India. She was a speaker at the Harvard Business School’s leadership conference and has keynoted for Coca Cola, Ford Motor Company, Cisco, Boeing, Kraft, PepsiCo, ConAgra, Unilever, Novartis, Microsoft and many, many other companies and organizations.
LINKS:
Fawn’s Website: www.fawngermer.com

Fawn’s Blog: www.hardwonwisdom.com

Fawn on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fawn.germer
DOWNLOAD HANDOUT: http://360rea.ch/AmGngz

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The January 2012 Reach Personal Branding Interview is Sponsored By: Stress Coach U
Learn to teach your clients effective stress reduction techniques, earn 5 ICF CCEs, and distinguish your practice in 2012 with a valuable and sought-after service.

This 5-session tele course starts February 1, so register now for the few remaining spaces: www.stresscoachu.com.

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If you would like to sponsor an upcoming Reach Interview, please send an email to advertising@reachcc.com.

Community News

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Like William Arruda on Facebook
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Head to Facebook and please like William Arruda’s newly launched Facebook page! Please share it with your friends, associates, and clients too.

Thanks and see you there!
 

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Personal Branding Trends for 2012
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Have you read William Arruda’s latest article for MarketingProfs?

He talks about his personal branding predictions for 2012.

Get a head start!: Career Management — Personal Branding Trends for 2012 (Part 1)
 

What’s ON at Personal Branding TV?
A viewing list of the latest video features playing on personalbranding.TV.

Gretchen Rubin – Reach Personal Branding Series (*second). The second Reach Interview with Gretchen — find the first here.

Personal Branding – Is Red the Color of Your Personal Brand?

William Arruda Explains the 360Reach Personal Branding Assessment

Brand with a Strong Elevator Speech

William’s Words
By William Arruda
A note from the Founder of Reach Personal Branding.

Serendipity
I was sitting in my favorite seat (4D) on my way to Barcelona and I was feeling really lucky. The seat next to me (4G) – my second favorite seat – was vacant and I was going to use it as my office in the sky. There are NEVER open seats in business on transatlantic flights, so I felt I had won the lottery. Then, seconds before the flight attendants closed the airplane door, a woman rushed onto the plane – out of breath and looking exasperated — and she plopped herself down in seat 4G.

I was disappointed. There went my chance to spread out.

After I got over the loss of my in-flight office and extra elbow-room, I started a conversation with my new neighbor – Fawn Germer. She told me she arrived late from Tampa and just made the flight by a matter or seconds.

I was so glad she did.

Turns out that we were both delivering keynotes at the same event in Barcelona and had lots in common. Although I had a lot of work to do, we spoke non-stop for the entire flight. Now, Fawn and I have regular conversations about our businesses and I consider her an important member of my brand community and a great friend.

That’s the power of serendipity. A casual conversation with someone sitting next to you can forever impact your career or business. It’s important to open up and share your brand story!

Fawn just launched an amazing new book called Pearls: Powerful Wisdom from Powerful Women (great name, right?!).

Here’s how she describes it:

Get ready for the most life-changing mentoring session you have ever had, guided by many of the strongest, most accomplished women of our times. Pearls brings together the wisdom of prime ministers and presidents, CEOs and Nobel Peace Prize winners, adventurers, Academy Award winners, scientists, journalists, Olympic athletes, newsmakers, senior executives and other women who have captured our hearts while making history.

You can get your copy here. I got mine already and my favorite ‘pearl’ is on page 163.

Wishing you serendipity!

Using the Web for Work
By Kristen Jacoway
Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a job seeker learn about the latest and greatest tools to help you succeed.

I’ve Got Followers, Now What?

Following and engaging in chats on Twitter isn’t as daunting as it may seem if you employ one of the Twitter management tools such as TweetDeck or HootSuite.

TweetDeck is a desktop application for Twitter. Tweetdeck is a free download at http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta. When I discovered TweetDeck and Hootsuite (in a later section – http://www.hootsuite.com), it really helped me to answer the question, “I have followers, now what?” Initially, after joining Twitter, I could not understand how I was going to “engage in the conversation” as everyone kept saying that you needed to do.

Let’s start with TweetDeck and I’ll show you how you can use this tool to follow chats of interest.

• On TweetDeck, you will want to add a column by clicking on the “+” button as pictured. Click on the “Search” and then put the hashtag and the name of the chat in which you are interested in participating.

• When you click “Search,” TweetDeck will show a new column with your hashtag search (see picture below). By having this separate column, you can easily participate in the chat utilizing the tools you already know how to use to engage with people on Twitter.

HootSuite provides a quick and easy way to follow chats on Twitter, too. Simply click on “Add Stream” and you will see a pop-up window as pictured below. Next, click on “Keyword” and then type the name of the Twitter chat (make sure to use the hashtag {#} before the name of the chat). Click “Add” and HootSuite will create a new column so you can follow the tweets from that particular chat.

Basically, you want to set up a column to follow the conversation on a Twitter Chat. Let’s walk through this example:

As you can see, this person posed this question on #jobhunt and #careerchat. If I wanted to provide an answer to him, I would add the “@” before his Twitter user name and answer the question followed by “#jobhunt #careerchat” so that it shows up during the live chat and other people can see my answer.

Kristen Jacoway is the principal of Career Design Coach and authored the book, “I’m in a Job Search-Now What???”

Career REinvention – Dream BIG!
By Susan Guarneri
Looking for your dream job? Ready to try something new? Helpful tips and tools to move you from one career to another.

10 Tips for Career Decision-Making
While conducting your dig-deep research into best-fit career options, you may find that you are easily overloaded with information or suffer from “analysis paralysis”. This can be common when sorting through the vast information to be found online and offline.

But remember, the purpose of all that research is to determine one option that you can actually focus on now, for your job search or career development. Here are some tips to help you through the sometimes confusing and seemingly impenetrable career decision-making process:

1. Time Frame: When do you need to come to a decision? Having a deadline means you will feel the push to organize your time to do the necessary research and evaluation of career options.

2. Practical Questions: For each career you are considering, ask yourself:

• Does this occupation seem interesting to you?
• What training is needed? How can you get it? Are you willing to put in the time and effort to complete the training?
• What is the salary level, both now and projected?
• Is there an opportunity to advance in this career? Is there more than one way to advance?

3. No Assumptions: Check out the facts. Do not rely on your own opinions or the opinions of others as the ONLY basis to eliminate (or keep) a career option.

4. Multiple Sources: Use many avenues (Internet, library, network connections, thought leaders in the career field, etc.) to research each viable career choice. Keep track of what you find via a spreadsheet or organized paper file method.

5. Gut Check: How do you feel about the careers you have short-listed? Pay attention to your physical stress zones (head, neck and shoulders, stomach, etc). If you are getting signals from your body that indicate something is amiss with a prospective career, do not discount this factual input. What might this be saying about your ability to actually perform in this occupation on a daily basis?

6. Pros and Cons: Look at the pluses and minuses of each possible choice. Prioritize the pros and cons in side-by-side columns, and rate each of them on a scale from one to ten. Then compare the total scores in each column. What career has the highest score for Pros and the lowest score for Cons?

7. Problem Solve: How can you overcome the Cons (negatives) listed above if a particular occupation really appeals to you?

8. Intuition: Which ONE occupation do you seem to be drawn to again and again in your research and pondering? Why is that? Balanced decision-making requires that you incorporate both logical analysis, as well as your feelings and values.

9. Commitment: Are you ready to make your decision and stick with it? If not, why not? What exactly is holding you back?

10. Get Unstuck: Contact a career counselor or career coach if you find yourself mired in decision-making limbo. Sometimes a trained professional, who is also an objective third-party, can provide the needed guidance and input to clarify your confusion and get you moving.

Susan Guarneri, Career Assessment Goddess and Reach Master Branding Strategist, can guide you to your best-fit career options and help you land your Dream Job.

Personal Brand Book Reviews
By Paul Copcutt
Wondering if you should read “that” book? A seasoned personal brand strategist offers his in depth reviews.
You, Inc. The Art of Selling Yourself.

© 2007 Harry Beckwith and Christine Clifford Beckwith – 316 Pages Hardback

5R Score: 21/35

On a scale of 1-7

• Relevance — is it right for personal branding? — 5
• Resonance — does it make sense to the reader? — 5
• Relation — is there a connection for everyone? — 4
• Remarkability — does it stand out, will it get noticed? — 4
• Real — does the personal brand come through? — 3

The ‘Steps’

• What people buy
• Planning and preparing
• Communicating
• Listening and speaking
• Relating
• Attitude and beliefs
• Tactics and habits
• Successes and delightful failures

Would you pick it up?

Probably one of the more instantly recognized books on personal branding, this book left me a little disappointed or rather confused. In the Introduction the former husband and wife team comment that this is really a fusion of three books that they were working on at the time – hence I suspect the resulting confusion.

Having said that, there is a wealth of nuggets to be gleaned that can be applied to personal branding. What is really missing is a true process, there are steps but the content just seems to be haphazard. Harry Beckwith’s other books seem to have better structure.

Relevance:

This is a personal branding book that has more sales emphasis than most. In part caused by one of the authors being very sales focused, in the instances that this area is covered it almost seems disconnected from the rest of the book.

Resonance:

If you are looking for a personal branding book with structure and step-by-step instructions and actions this is not the one. There are a number of others published that are much clearer and simpler.

This book reminded me strongly of Tom Peters’ original personal branding book, The Brand You 50. The ideas and tips are in short 2-3 page format. So punchy and quick. This makes it a good book to pick up and put down numerous times in the week, or to dip in to when you need something specific.

Relation:

There are many references to the world or product/service marketing and branding, naturally given the authors line of business and backgrounds. Much of the advice is very applicable for the company employee, perhaps less so for the small business owner – although the sales aspects may be more appealing to that group.

Remarkability:

I liked the fact that I could pick up and put down this book, especially as I normally have two or three books on the go at the same time! The entire tactics and habits section is the best part of the book, with lots of common sense ideas and good etiquette reminders too!

Real:

The personal brands of the writers do not really come through at all, although there are some good final examples of delights and failures of other personal brands at the end of the book.

Paul Copcutt, Personal Brand Architect, is a sought after speaker and coach who uses real client stories and practical applications to help successful professionals and executives get clear about their uniqueness.

Community News
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Join the January 2012 Reach Personal Branding Certification Program
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December 2011 is a great time to invest in Reach Certification! Not only will you be working on your own brand and ready with new, high-value offerings for your clients in early 2012, you’ll also have an end-of-year tax write-off (please check w/your accountant to see if you qualify). Plus, our programs are approved for ICF continuing education units!

Special Offer to Join the January 2012 Reach Personal Branding Certification Program Extended

This is the complete program for learning how to discover, communicate, align, and manage your client’s brands. And, you will also get help with applying the Reach methodology to your own personal brand during this course. When you register by Tuesday, December 20, 2011, you will also receive complimentary access to the on-demand version of Reach’s Online Identity Certification Program (a $497 value). By taking advantage of this offer, you will be eligible to earn three Reach Certifications for the single investment in this program since you also become 360Reach Certified in this core program (CPBS, 360Reach and OnlineID certifications included).

You’ll also be able to enroll in the course for just $250 down now when you choose the four-payment plan and take advantage of the early-bird discount on the website. If you’ve already invested in the 360Reach training, we will also deduct that from your second payment.

You can get more program details and register online at http://www.reachtrainingprograms.com.

Questions about becoming a Reach-Certified Personal Branding Strategist or a 360Reach Analyst? Email our instructor, Kirsten Dixson, at kirsten at kirstendixson dot com.

Note: Our 360Reach Certification, CPBS Certification, and Masters programs are approved for ICF CEUs.

What’s ON at Personal Branding TV?
A viewing list of the latest video features playing on personalbranding.TV.

Daniel Pink – Reach Personal Branding Series (audio)

Personal Branding – Is Yellow the Color of Your Personal Brand?

Consistency vs. Conformity

Believe. Become. Be Your Brand by Peter Sterlacci

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Editor’s Note

By Rachel Gogos

10 Thanksgiving Do’s and Don’ts

As we continue our month long celebration of Reach’s Tenth Birthday our final November issue of YOUnique includes a few more 10’s! Hope you enjoy this issue and for those of you celebrating Thanksgiving, we at Reach wish you a joyful time with family and friends and….

1. Don’t fall asleep at the host’s house!
2. Do remember to give thanks for all the abundance in your life.
3. Don’t answer emails from work if you don’t have too. Enjoy your loved ones on Thanksgiving and unplug.
4. Don’t post photos to Facebook or Google+ that you might later regret!
5. Do post appropriate photos to social media platforms that reflect your authentic personal brand.
6. Do say a prayer or remember with a moment of silence those loved ones, friends or family that are no longer with you, and for those in our Military Services that were lost.
7. Do something good for someone else.
8. Do invite someone to celebrate with you and your loved ones who would otherwise be alone.
9. Don’t overeat.
10. Do save room for dessert!

Rachel Gogos is the Chief Brand Builder at brandiD, a digital marketing and web design firm specializing in building unique, attention-getting, online identities through personal branding, social media, and highly differentiated WordPress sites.