___

___

___

John, your mantra is “Go Brand Yourself” using the principles that companies use to create your personal brand. So many people today are trying to do that. What are some of the tips you give them?

___

___

First and foremost, you have to be yourself. I just dislike this concept of a makeover. I believe in brand-overs. With a makeover, you conform yourself to what others think you should be. A brand-over is finding out who you are, what your strengths are, and then promoting the heck out of that. Go brand yourself! That’s really the secret. I guess that’s the psychologist in me.

___

___

___

___

When you were talking about that, I immediately started thinking about Susan Boyle. She’s had a huge makeover. What do you think about that?

___

___

It’s obvious that it was a makeover and not a brand-over. All the handlers were telling her to do this and do that. That’s the worst case scenario. I’ll give you a good example of this. When I first went on Neil Cavuto’s show about two years ago, the geniuses were telling me that I couldn’t wear a bow tie. You can’t wear a hat. You have to make a decision between wearing a bow tie and a hat. I looked at them and said, “You’re crazy. You’re all nuts. That’s my signature, That’s my brand! Those are my brand characteristics.” So fast forward two years to a week ago, I met Neil Cavuto in the hall. He said, “We have to get you back on the show.” I said, “Sure, Neil, anything you say.” Here’s the point: I get back to my office and I get a call from The Strategy Room where I appear regularly at Fox. They were telling me that people from Neil Cavuto’s show had called wanting to know about the guy who wears the bow tie and the hat! But that’s me. Now if somebody would suggest to you, George, that you wear a bow tie and a hat, you might not feel comfortable. That would be a makeover. It wouldn’t be sincere. Figure out what you want to communicate and then promote the heck out of it.

___

___

Come to think of it, John, I could use a complete brand-over! So how do you find your brand?

___

___

If you wanted to do what I call a brand-over, George, you would ask Mary-Lynn, “What do you think my brand is? What are my positive attributes?” Then you go to the next ring – your friends. You ask them what they think your brand is. The last group is your colleagues. Based on that data, you begin to shape your brand. Is there any discrepancy between the brand others see you as and the brand you see yourself as. If there is, do you want to make the change if you’re not being successful with your present brand?

___

___

It seems pretty simple, but it’s not.

___

___

No, it’s not, because sometimes we don’t want to hear what people are going to tell us. But it’s the best way to make yourself a better professional. It’s not just listening. It’s also evaluating whether they are realistic and whether you can integrate their suggestions into your brand.

___

Please join us next time when we continue our discussion with John. Among other things, he’ll tell us the advantage individuals have over institutions today.

Thanks so much for the gift of your time today. Until next time, here’s to your bigg success!

___

___

One of our favorite TV shows is How I Met Your Mother. On a recent episode, two of the characters, Barney and Marshall, were discussing that there could be more layoffs at the bank at which they both work.

Barney says he’s not worried about it because he has too much on them. But Marshall is worried.

Barney tells Marshall he needs a “thing” – something that makes him fun and well-liked. Barney points out the guy in Account Services who’s known as “The Food Guy.” There’s “Fantasy Guy”, “YouTube – Clip Guy”, and even creepy “Back Rub Guy.”

After several attempts, Marshall came up with “Sports Guy” – he ran the fantasy sports league at the office.

Although this is a comical way at looking at how to stand out, it probably isn’t going to help you keep your job. But there’s an underlying lesson that will help you build your personal brand.

A memorable characteristic

Our friend, Jay Ehret, The Marketing Guy, recently left a great comment on a show we did about personal branding. We said it was important to have a consistent persona. Jay added that it was also crucial to have at least one memorable characteristic.

___

People tell me all the time that they love my laugh. It’s funny – I don’t know how to develop a good laugh. But I know when I hear anyone in my family laugh, I get a kick out of it. I guess I’m lucky enough to share the same genes.

___

___

George’s laugh makes people feel good. And he has a natural ability to make them laugh. People love that about him.

___

So what about you makes you stand out? For what do people remember you? What’s your thing? It can be as simple as a handshake. You may be sincerely likable. There are a lot of possibilities.

Beyond personality

___

But it goes beyond personal characteristics. It’s also about what you’re really good at. I think I’m pretty good at audio production. I have experience, but also a real passion for it.

___

___

People often comment about the production quality of The Bigg Success Show. I tell them Mary-Lynn gets all the credit for that. For example, she created the fun sound effect for our show today as well as all the sound you ever hear on our show.

___

You may be the go-to person or the connector – you’ve got a great Rolodex. You may be the person who can lead people others can’t. Once again, there are a lot of places to find your thing.

___

___

Finding your thing

We think you often find your thing where your passions meet your proficiencies. What do you love? What are you really good at? They’re not always the same, but they often are.

If you’re a really humble person, it may be hard to think about what your thing is. But fortunately, there’s a really good solution …

Ask!

Ask your family, friends, and closest associates what they think that thing is for you.

A bigg request

We want to do more segments of Tutors on TV. We’d love it if you help us out. Have you learned a thing or two from a TV show?

Please share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

We thank Jay for sharing his fantastic insight with us. And we thank you so much for reading our post today.

Please join us next time when talk about sharing toys. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00379-042309.mp3

Related posts

For What Will You Be Famous?

Getting The Credit You Deserve

Your Potential Power

(Image in today's post by lilie)

___

___

If life on your own terms means building your own personal brand, there’s a very important principle to keep in mind:

You’re the entrepreneur, the CEO, and the brand manager!

With their careers, some people fall short in reaching their potential because they just sell a service. They exchange their time and knowledge for money.

As bigg goal-getters, we don’t want to just sell a service. We want to create our own brands.

But we don’t want to just create a personal brand, we want to build our lives on our own terms.

___

___

One crucial key to building our personal brands is consistency. There are at least three areas where this holds true:

Promotion

One of the things the biggest brands do very well is convey a consistent brand image. Yet that’s one of the mistakes that we make most frequently in building our personal brands: we’re inconsistent in showing ourselves to the world.

You want to convey a consistent message across all the media you use – your resume, your cover letters, your e-mails, notes you send, social media you might use, clubs you join, and on and on. With these materials, you create the image of who you are.

You also want to keep in mind who you’re trying to relate to in order to create the best promotional materials for your brand. Promotion sets the expectations. What can I expect from you? That’s your brand promise.

Performance

You want to meet, or better yet exceed, the expectations you set. Believe it or not, it’s better to deliver at a consistently lower level than to perform poorly at times and superbly at others.

Kind of counterintuitive, isn’t it?

However, think about your experiences as a customer. Aren’t you happier if your expectations are low but satisfied, than if your higher expectations aren’t met?

___

For a very simple example, think about getting an e-mail from me today that is written well and has no typos. Tomorrow, I send you an e-mail that’s just full of typos. What would you think?

___

___

I might think, “What’s going on with George today? Is he sick? Is he too busy? Is he just this careless sometimes?” It raises a lot of questions.

___

At the start, strive to meet expectations all the time. Then find ways to gradually improve your performance so you exceed expectations regularly. That leads to bigg success!

Persona

Have you ever dealt with a person who is very chatty and friendly one day and may seem somewhat aloof at other times?

It’s okay to be moody; we just don’t need to share it with the world! We have to find a way to control our emotions so we present a consistent temperament.

Sweatin’ to an example

Think about Richard Simmons. He’s done pretty well for himself. He’s always dressed in the same kind of clothes, complete with the shortest of shorts. He’s wacky and upbeat. He’s always empathetic and dancing to the oldies!

You may not want to emulate Richard Simmons. We can understand. However, he has done an outstanding job of building his brand. You know what to expect and he consistently delivers.

All someone has to do is say Richard Simmons and you get a clear image in your mind of who he is and what he’s about.

That’s the lesson for all of us. Consistently – in your promotion, your performance and your persona – build your personal brand so you can live your life on your own terms. That’s bigg success!

What are you doing to build your personal brand?

You can share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

Thanks so much for personally reading our post today. We brand that a good day!

Please join us next time when we share how recent bad luck and bad timing almost kept us from life on our own terms.

Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00364-040209.mp3

Related posts

For What Will You Be Famous?

Getting The Credit You Deserve

Your Potential Power

(Image in today's post by blary54)

Have you ever had a co-worker promise they would get information to you but then drop the ball?

Have you ever asked a sales person to get back to you on a proposal but then they never did?

What was your impression of that company, co-worker, or sales person when they didn’t follow-through?

It probably wasn’t favorable. You realize that you can’t count on them to do what they say they’ll do.
   
Follow-through: an essential element to building your personal brand.
A brand carries with it the promise of expected benefits. Every time a promise is not delivered, the brand suffers.

Promises are easy to make, but not as easy to keep. But if you want to build trust, you have to make good on your promises.

“Say what you’ll do, then do what you say.” Author unknown
 
This separates people who achieve bigg things from people who don’t. Even if it’s just a little thing, you risk leaving the impression that you don’t follow through.

We often have the best of intentions, but it’s impossible to judge someone on their intentions. So we do the only thing we can do – we base our opinions of people on whether they deliver on their promises.

Be careful not to over-promise.
If we surprise someone, we should surprise them in a good way – by doing more than we say we’ll do. It’s not good to disappoint them by doing less than what we say … or not doing it at all.

Today’s bigg action item – Develop a system to record every promise you make.
Do whatever works for you, whether that is an old paper system or something using new technology.

One simple way to do this is Jott. Whenever you make a promise, just call and leave a message about what you need to do. Jott will send you an e-mail or text message reminder. That coupled with your personal calendar can keep you on track. Here’s the best part – Jott is a FREE service.

There are two keys to making any system like this work:

• Budget a little extra time after each activity.
  This will allow you to write down or record anything you promised.

• Make it a habit.
  Really focus on using your system every day for the next two weeks.

Or you could do what George does. Mary-Lynn reminds him of his promises. Speaking of which, he has to go pick up the dry cleaning that was ready last week!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. 

Related posts

Don’t Jot It Down, Jott It!

3 Tips To Thrive In Your Career

Get People to Buy into Your Personal Brand with This

Ask Yourself This Before You Say “Yes” 

(Image by Henkster)

Chances are it boils down to this – you’ve come to trust that brand because you know what to expect.

Here’s a little understood point:

Consistency is critical because people like to know what to expect. That’s the reason brands have thrived.

Some of you may remember traveling in the days before chain restaurants and hotels. You never knew what you were going to get. Sometimes it would be great; at other times, it was a disaster.

So the chains grew because people knew what they could expect, no matter where they were. Travelers didn’t want to roll the dice so they settled for the consistency that the chains provided.

So how does all this apply to you and your personal brand?

It comes down to two things – performance and personality.

Performance
Performance means delivering on promises. Quality, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness all play into the value you create. Day-to-day, people form perceptions of what you can do. You have to consistently meet those expectations in order to continue building trust in your brand.

Personality
How pleasant you are to deal with? How do you handle tough situations? How do you treat people? All these, and more, form expectations of how easy is it to work with you.

One of the biggest destroyers of your personal brand is moodiness. When we’re moody, people don’t know what to expect. They start to avoid us. It’s hard to work with moody people.

You may not be able to prevent moodiness, but you can keep it check. You don’t need to share it with the world!

More on personal branding

For What Will You Be Famous?

3 Tips To Thrive In Your Career

The Best Way to Build Your Personal Brand 

Our bigg quote today comes from George Ross, the man who used to sit at Donald Trump’s right hand on The Apprentice:

And mutual trust is something you can bank on!

In fact, we used to bank there, but then a bigger bank bought them out!

Next time, we’ll look to man’s best friend for some lessons about friendship. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

(Image by rev)