“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

10 Ways to Work Yourself Back To Work by Kaplan Mobray

1.    Filter Your Dreams through the funnel of Reality. Make a list of what jobs you would be willing to do at the lowest salary that you would be willing to accept.  And what jobs you simply will not seek under any circumstances.

2.    Set up a Dating service for your skills.  Match a specific skill you possess to a specific human contact who you will flirt your credentials in front of.

3.    Take a Financial Gymnastics Class.   Understand how much capital you need to survive, how much you have to invest in your search, and at what point canned tuna gets added to your shopping list.

4.     Run for Office.  Make yourself a public figure by campaigning your platform on all the job boards, company job sites, help-wanted ads, linked-in.com, facebook.com, and by attending professional networking events.

5.    Make a Withdrawal from the Google ATM. Build a one page personal website that displays your picture, credentials, contact information, a statement of something you did to drive value for someone or something else and a referral of your work from a former boss or supervisor.

6.    Go Back to Your First Love.  Track down all your former bosses or people who know your work value and ask them to write you an online appraisal that you can post to your site or if they will take you back to reunite the union.

7.    Get a Personal Brand Makeover.   Get someone to evaluate your personal appearance, professional network, value-based skills, mindset, external reputation, and repackage you as a product worth buying.

8.    Find Your Lifeline. Get Security for Your Blanket.  Call home, phone a friend, identify your fallback source so you know where you would end up if your supply of financial resources runs dry.

9.    Find a Cause.  Be the Cause.  Find a charity, or cause-related association and volunteer your time to help someone who is just fighting to live.  It will give you needed perspective to understand the opportunity of temporary unemployment vs. the certainty of terminal illness.

10.    Start a Therapy Practice.  Set up a newsletter, a blog, self-publish a series of articles to create an official means by giving others advice on a subject you have an expertise in.  The more people who think you are the authority the easier it will be to break through the clutter and get hired for your expertise.

Kaplan Mobray, Author The 10Ks of Personal Branding

In times of economic uncertainty we often seek to shed items that have lost their value or are considered a non-essential expense.  Product brands that become less relevant, behaviors and processes that yield no return and people resources all become subject to a higher level of scrutiny when times get tough.  Sometimes we call this a “cut back”, a” reduction”, a “tightening”, or a “downturn”.  When uncertainty hits however, what we strive for, is to be a “cut out”, “an addition”, “a fastening”, and an “upswing”.

When you think about the brands that do survive, they are the brands that have value, offer performance, are well known, and are historically consistent in delivering quality.  These are the brands we trust and the ones we expect to weather the storm.

But what about your personal brand?  Is your brand recession proof?

Championship teams win by working hard in the off season.  Similarly, great brands retain their value because they are rooted in years of building an affinity in the minds of their customers that drives loyalty and a pre-established expectation of trust.  We often run around on pins and needles when the thought of volatility hits close to home.  But in the absence of economic concern, we may not be as focused on preparing for the inevitable and thus we are caught by surprise or worst yet, caught off guard.

So here are 10 tips to recession proof your personal brand.

1.    Figure out if you are an expense or an asset

Always have a full understanding of the value you deliver, the equity of your worth and the consequences that would arise from your absence.

2.    Have tangible examples of how you are sustaining your value

Being busy does not always mean you are building value. It could very well mean you just have a lot of to-do’s on your list.  Sustaining value means finding additional ways to make yourself a relevant part of the forward progress of your organization’s domain.  Have a list of specific things that you do that help drive your organization in the direction where it is seeking to go.

3.   Uncover your fan base and confirm your loyalty

Great brands have loyal customers. Great leaders have loyal followers.  Great people brands have loyal supporters.  Loyalty trumps volatility always.

4.    Make an appointment for an expectation check-up

When was the last time you confirmed that you were doing not just what was requested but what is expected.

5.   Give yourself a promotion

It is not enough to stand by and wait for someone to discover that you actually do great work.  Tell them, tell them again, and tell them to tell someone else.

6.    Connect the dots. Dot-Dot-Dot…

When you are connected within and outside your domain you build a team of investigative reporters that have a constant eye open for opportunities for your personal brand to shine.

7.    Understand the playing field

Sometimes it’s not the requirements of the job that have changed; it’s the playing field and the rules.  Make sure you know the rulebook and understand how to play so you are not left behind when they build a new stadium.

8.    Charge your battery

If you are always on “E” you won’t get to “F”.  Find ways to reinvent yourself, learn new skills, and become more efficient.

9.    Become a public servant

Service is the foundation for survival. The more people you help the more insulation you receive to keep your personal brand warm in times of cold uncertainty.

10.    Make someone better

If you are not making the people around you better, then you are only making it worst for yourself in the long run.