Are You a Part of Someone’s Upturn Plan?
By Kaplan Mobray

It’s true, in case you have not heard that the “Great Recession” is about to become the “Great Awakening” — as economic conditions continue to show signs of recovery, companies and businesses all around the world are bracing for what is now called “The Resume Tsunami.” Companies that were once quick to cut workers loose are instead loosening their purse strings to ensure their organization is opportunity-ready. Skilled candidates who were once sidelined by the loss of job prospects are now lining up to be a part of someone’s upturn plan. Is this YOU? Have you secured your place in line? And have you made yourself just as marketable during the recession as you hope to be during the recovery?

If you have not focused on your brand, now is the time to create your online sound-bite so that you will be sought after. The very best companies are already looking for people who can fill immediate demand and deliver immediate results to help them catch up during the upcoming growth spurt. Here are five things you can do to make yourself upturn-ready.

Your Upturn Readiness Plan – Five Things You Can Do To Make Yourself Upturn Ready

1. Re-Key Your Online Career Profile with Upturn Keywords
During an economic recovery top candidates will be found through keyword searches. Make sure your profile is posted on professional networking sites like linkedin.com, amightyriver.com, and facebook that can be easily found in a three word search. For example, Computer-Technical-Analyst, Marketing-Sales-Professional, or Healthcare-Administration-Specialist. Your keywords will put you at the front of the line when they come searching for you.

2. Build an Inventory of Professional References for Jobs you have not yet Applied to Fill
References will become more important during the recovery because jobs will be filled more quickly, through referral sources. So don’t wait until the interview to ask for a reference. Build your reference yellow pages now. When you ask for a reference you automatically put yourself in someone’s mental rolodex which makes you more memorable when an opportunity becomes available.

3. Research Your Sector to Understand How You Fit into the Recovery Plan
The upturn in hiring across sectors will be driven by immediate needs that prompt an opening. This means that companies will take fewer risks and select candidates who already have a track record in a particular area. So position yourself and your elevator pitch as a solution to a specific issue, crisis, or current opportunity that a company is dealing with, that can be met with your capabilities.

4. Let Your Contacts know You are Available
It seems obvious but the reality is many candidates do not make it known that they are available. Instead, they wait for the opportunities to trickle their way into their email inbox. In an upturn, waiting puts you at the back of the line. Make yourself a commodity by asking others in your network for the opportunity to make a contribution. Devote at least one hour a day toe-mailing your professional contacts. Let them know you are taking your career to the next level and that you want to make a difference, perhaps with their company. Your attitude in the recovery should be driven by the confidence you have in your skill.

5. Ask an Influential Executive to Represent you for Future Opportunities
Business relationships are often predicated on the mutual exchange of value. Did you know that you can help someone just by letting them represent you to other influential contacts in their network? When you are referred for an opportunity that helps improve the relationship someone has with one of their contacts because of your capabilities, you become a gift from one business partner to another. So ask someone to represent you and use the upturn to turn yourself into a “gift” not just a “find.”

What Does Your Face Say About Your Life?
By Kaplan Mobray

Have you ever thought about what your face says about your life? We all walk around with faces of the experience of our day, the journey of our years, and the struggles and battles that we have overcome or fallen victim to. What we may not always think about is how our face can shape our fate.

Your face is the window to the opportunity gained or lost from an encounter with you. In the first three seconds of meeting you people are either drawn in or pushed back. And the result of their response to your face will shape the outcome for you being picked or discarded. So as fate would have it your personal brand is shaped by the face you wear every day. Does your face reflect your brand?

In the 10Ks of Personal Branding I discuss the importance of your packaging. People buy into a product first from an impression of its package. If you are looking to be picked for something or to be considered a valued asset to a team pay close attention to how your face positions you for opportunity.

• A smile puts people at ease and says it is ok to do business with you or to consider you as someone to know

• A frown poses the question as to your mental state, your state of personal comfort, and may cause a delay in ones willingness to want to know just how good you are

• A worrisome face may convey that you are too concerned with being concerned about something to convey you are capable of producing something positive

• A worn down face may indicate that you are too tired to be someone who is going to work hard for someone else and thus your brand becomes less desirable to one that shows an eagerness to learn and grow

• A curious face shows that you are eager and open to create and explore new possibilities and that you will use thought and logic to arrive at an innovative conclusion

• A doubtful face closes the door on options and may connote that you have all the answers and are less interested in being a team player but more interested in getting your way

These are some of the faces of life that shape the fate of opportunity for your brand. Have you thought about the face you are wearing? And what does your face say about your life?

Times Have Changed: It’s Not What You Know, nor Who You Know, It’s What They Know about You That Counts by Kaplan Mobray

It is true. Times have changed and to succeed in this fast-paced digital world of friending, linking, accepting, and commenting you must be known for something.

It used to be that who you know got you the job or made you a better candidate than your opponent but today who you know is not enough. It takes an inventory of reputation built online where others can openly and candidly validate your value to make it to the next level. So what can you do to stand out, and what are some effective ways to be known for something when it counts?

10 Tips to Brand Yourself as Someone to Know

If you are looking for a job in this tough economy, looking to protect your brand, or looking to establish a presence where you can be known for something here are 10 things you should do now!

1. Change Your Last Name to “Dot Com” – To build instant credibility create a website that includes your name.com. This will not only give others a way to get to know you. It will give them something to say about you to others making your brand viral.

2. Comment on Three Blogs a Week – Find a blog, any blog of interest and begin having a dialogue in the blogosphere. You will be surprised to see how people like to comment on what others have said. When they comment on you they will also now know you for your insight.

3. Post Photos of Yourself at Important Events – People associate your value with the places you go, the events you attend and with whom you are seen. To stand out as someone worth meeting let others know that you are at the center of where the action happens.

4. Respond in Writing to Current Events and News Stories – Have you ever written a note to the President, or a congressman, or an anchor on your local news station with a response to a breaking story. You may not think these actions matter but they can make you a standout overnight. More importantly they let others know that you have an opinion and are not afraid to take initiative.

5. You Tube Your Way To Fame – The power of internet video is that you can create millions of impressions, receive thousands of accolades, and make a strong statement of why you should be picked for something. Also people remember video twice as much as they remember written content.

6. Get a Reference Quote from A Credible Source – It used to be that you made your references available upon request. Today others need to know what others are saying about you. Collect quotes like “An incredible talent”, A financial genius”, “An uplifting speaker” that will help others put you in the context of the desirable.

7. Choose Charity Always – When you are “giving back”, others you will find you more appealing to talk about and your brand will be a favorable one to remember.

8. Make New Friends – The best way to become known is to make new friends who can know you in different scenarios. The more circles you travel in, the more mileage you will gain in making yourself memorable.

9. Don’t Wear a Nametag – Wear a smile instead. It’s easy for someone to dismiss you when they think you are not approachable. A smile is the best way to give others access to find out just how good you are.

10. Become an Advisor…on Anything – When you give advice you increase the perception that you actually know what you are talking about. If your advice helps even one person you can say you have a proven track record. Your track record is the lifeline of your reputation. Make it work for your personal brand.

Featured on Ad Age May 2009

If They’ve Got Strong Personal Brands, Use Them to Call Attention to Your Company

by Kaplan Mobray
Published: May 28, 2009

Kaplan Mobray

To stand out in an environment where it seems that everyone is talking but no one is listening, forward-thinking Fortune 500 companies are trying a new tack: They’re tapping into the personal brands of their most inspiring, effusive and public executives. In fact, rather than being viewed as renegade moonlighters, motivational speakers at companies such as Deloitte, Nike and Pitney Bowes have become their company’s most coveted brand ambassadors.

Personal brands can bring to life an organization’s culture as no print or digital image can, especially for a professional-services firm. Deloitte, an organization known for having several authors and renowned speakers, touts employees Brian Dzingai, a 2008 Beijing Olympics 200-meter finalist, and Tiffaney Florentine, a former participant on the hit TV show “American Gladiators.”

Author and speaker Kevin Carroll, founder of Kevin Carroll Katalyst and also known as Nike’s “Katalyst,” travels the world promoting the culture and spirit of Nike. His personal brand has nurtured the company, provoked new ways of thinking and doing, and inspired the entire organization. Kevin has created value for his personal brand as an author and speaker and as a result has driven exponential value for Nike’s brand.

Keith Wyche, president of operations at Pitney Bowes U.S. and author of “Good Is Not Enough,” travels the country inspiring minority professionals. Through his work outside of Pitney, he is able to make meaningful connections with potential customers, businesses and retail consumers that translate into bottom-line value for Pitney Bowes.

Consumers increasingly base their feelings about a company on what they know about its people, rather than what an ad agency’s creative team can portray. As companies begin to understand the interdependent relationship between employees and profits, a new model for hiring and sourcing talent emerges. Social media will pave the way for applicants to build strong relationships with recruiters well before a face-to-face interview. Now, instead of taking traditional applications, jobs will find recruits after they have built powerful personal brands online or through other forms of recognition.

Hiring employees who have established personal brands will help companies immediately inherit value and relevance in a crowded market and may lead to quicker results in meeting growth objectives. Similar to following a popular icon on Twitter as a way to access a wider network of buyers, companies today will look for prospective employees who bring skill as well as recognition.

Bottom line: There’s a new and largely untapped resource within corporate walls that can help companies build brand equity, and it’s your employees — specifically those employees with individual personal brands. It’s those employees and their speaking engagements and other ways of reaching out that can help make corporate brands real, trusted and relevant in the minds of prospective recruits and customers.

Want to tap into the personal brands on your staff? Here are five tips.

Leverage the PR department. PR departments can play a critical role in helping companies establish directories where their personal brands can be put on display.

Promote from the inside out. The company e-mail newsletter or intranet is an effective way to find interesting facts about the people who sit right next to you. Use these vehicles to promote employees’ outside interests and accolades, creating tons of internal buzz that will have your company’s brand soaring and your people proud to wear your logo.

Tweet your people right. Social-networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are powerful tools through which companies can discover and promote their personal brands. As the lines between professional and personal continue to blur, companies that create more access for employees to tweet and add friends will bolster the bottom line.

Advertise online. Use the internet and search-optimization strategies to enhance the brands of your employees, not just your service or corporate brand.

Measure the impact. No personal-branding effort should go without measurement. Successful companies promote personal brands to help achieve a specific set of results. Have a measurement plan that includes a focus on awareness, recruitment, retention, innovation and culture. Measurement will reinforce the value of the people you promote.

Are You Prepared For Your “Now What?”

If you have lost your job, seen your friends lose their job, or are frantically holding on to your seat the two words “now what” may be staring you right in the face.  Furthermore with each day of economic data you may be asking yourself who am I without a paycheck?  What will I become without a paycheck?  Or how do I protect the paycheck I have been accustomed to seeing monthly.

The real question you should ask yourself as you endure through today’s economy is simply, are you prepared to face your own version of the uncertainty of tomorrow?  In other words what’s your “now what?”

Life may throw many curveballs at you but it also offers the opportunity to answer this very important question.   Reflect for a moment on the following statements:

• • If you can see the opportunity that can come from loss you can be the gain that comes from uncertainty.
• • If you can prepare for life with less you can live your life with more
• • If you think about your “now what” you will plan for your “what now” and your “what now” will become “what next”

It all starts with preparing your life, managing your personal brand and having an approach to your career to always have an answer to this important question.  So here are 10 tips to prepare for your “now what”.

10 Tips to Prepare for Your “Now What”

1. Create a pre-established automatic renewal agreement with five people who will give you a positive reference without you having to ask their permission.
2. Always have two business cards with you one from your current employer and a generic one that lists your transferable skills
3. Turn your resume into a website about you that allows others to learn about you and spend more time assessing your skills outside of the interview room
4. Make a plan to get together live with one person a week who can give you advice on how to further your career, or plan your next move
5. Write out your five most appealing qualities and five specific jobs that would make the best fit. Find five people who work in those occupations and invite them to lunch over the next five weeks
6. Save $50 a week for the next 10 weeks to build a reserve fund just for your job search activities.  Your fund should help you buy a domain name, build a website and enable you to participate in key networking opportunities to meet contacts who can help you in your search
7. Spend an hour each day building your reputation online by joining a social media website like facebook or professional networking websites like amightyriver.com and ihispano.com
8. Carry an About Me card in your wallet that reminds you of:
   a.    what you aspire to be
   b.    what you need to do to get there
   c.    what training have you had so far to prepare
   d.    what contacts you need to make to get you closer to your goal

9. Spend an hour a week volunteering at a charity or cause related organization then email the board members of that charity to connect and share your capabilities
10. Write the highest ranking person whom you have a connection to within your organization a note stating how you have created value for your organization and what more you can do to help your organization grow
    

“Make Yourself Memorable”

In these challenging times the people who make themselves positively memorable are the ones most often kept, treasured, valued, and positioned for opportunity.

As you look to keep your job, regain employment, or move from one career to another, ask yourself what you are doing to make yourself memorable. Your personal brand is your ticket to standing out from a crowded field and to being considered an asset.  How memorable is your brand?

Personal Branding: 10 Methods to Make Yourself Memorable

1. Have a strategy for your facebook page and begin to use your wall as a living testimonial of your value
2. Create an innovative approach to solving a problem and post it as an ezines.com article so it is captured as a listing when others search your name in Google
3. Revise your resume to list your most significant transferable skills first before listing your work experience
4. Update your profile on twitter to reveal what others would say about you outside of your title or occupation
5. Inspire others with a welcome greeting each morning that is positive and deflects any gloom and doom
6. Wear an article of clothing in your personal appearance that is a conversation starter
7. Volunteer to help a charity that allows you to demonstrate your unique skills and capabilities
8. Create a business card for yourself that just lists your name and the contributions you have made to help turn something around
9. Create a blog on wordpress.com and begin sharing your insights with others to build your network
10. Attend a networking event or gala dinner and email each of the speakers comments about their message