Brand U by Wendy Marx by Wendy Marx

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Careers: Personal Branding Wunderkind

In honor of summer casualness, here's a diz dat list -- a bit of diz, a bit of dat.

For those on linkedin, check out this article which tells you how to use the business networking site more effectively. And for those not yet on the site, get your fingers moving .

By now you've probably heard of Timothy Ferriss, a 29-year-old self-described wunderkind who is the PT Barnum of self-promotion and the author of The 4-Hour Workweek. Ferriss is so over the top as to be almost a caricature when he talks about himself, yet at the same time you want to sit up and marvel. He's managed to get himself quoted everywhere and as of today is Number 20 on Amazon's bestseller list. Steve Rubel in Ad Age explains how Ferriss worked the blogosphere to build buzz for his book. (You need a subscription for Ad Age so email me if you want to see the article.)

Ferriss' book is also chuck full of good advice for personal branders -- a lot of it worth paying attention to, especially his advice on becoming a top expert. A few Ferriss suggestions:

* Join trade associations.
* Give free one-to-three hour seminars
* Write articles for trade magazines
*Join ProfNet, an expert service of PR Newswire

Beware, however. Ferriss, who has the cockiness galore of a young pup, makes it all sound as easy as sliced bread. In fact, it takes time and continual effort for most people to establish their street and online cred. However, much of what he says will work over time. Just don't expect to be an overnight wonder unless you're Timothy Ferriss.

08:45 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Careers: Tech Geek Turned Personal Brander

Bet the name Rick Mahn doesn’t mean much to you…yet.

But Google the 39 year-old IT consultant and you’ll get page upon page mentioning him.

Welcome to the new world of personal branding where anyone with an online connection, some personal smarts and dedication can be an Internet star.

Mahn, a self-described “tech geek,” who claims abstract thinking to be a new skill, has become an expert in getting himself known online. He blogs, “twitters,” “linkedins" -- and if he has his way he will soon be doing online video.

“I had thought self-promotion was very egotistical,” says Mahn. “But then it dawned on me that on one will know about me unless I talk about myself.”

Mahn’s online conversation has not only paid off with reams of Internet pages talking him up. Online personal branding has begun to change Mahn’s life. Recruiters call him about job offers. Microsoft wanted his take on some pre-production and just-shipped products. And reporters at publications like the Wall Street Journal Online want his ear.

He’s also met many other bloggers that have become part of his online network. “It’s opened up a whole other level of professional interaction and peer networking,” Mahn says. This from a guy whose prior interests began and ended with concrete tasks like figuring out how something works by disassembling and reconfiguring it.

Mahn says if he can make the transition from tech geek to online personality, anyone can. His advice for those of us who are still waiting for online lightning to strike:

• Blog. Have a blog and have your own domain name point to it. Use real names, not a handle.
• Opine. Don’t be afraid to voice your opinion. Otherwise what you write is meaningless.


• Network. Leverage social networking sites like Twitter and YouTube.
• Techno edge. Use as much new technology services as you can. Only by trying many of the new ideas that are being developed will you find the right ones that can help promote yourself.

08:53 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Careers: Leadership and Personal Branding

There’s a fascinating article about leadership in the June issue of Harvard Business Review that has a lot of relevance for personal branding.

The author, Roger Martin, observes that we’re drawn to the stories of great leaders in part because they “implicitly promise that we can achieve the success of a Jack Welch or a Larry Bossidy” – if we could only learn to act just like them.

But just focusing on the actions of great leaders misses the point. The secret, according to Martin, is not what a leader does but how he thinks.

Martin’s leaders don’t approach decisions as most of us do as a series of mutually exclusive options: Pick option A and forget about option B. Like a creative strategist, they integrate seemingly contradictory options and in doing so create a new perspective. Think of the idea of selling software for free but making money on the services. That's the synthesis of two contradictory ideas -- free products but a profitable service component.

Ultimately, Martin’s leaders are not content to settle. Rather than accept “unattractive trade-offs,” they welcome the challenge to make the world better. They’re drivers of change.

What do these leaders tell us about our own personal brands?

Here are some questions they raised for me:

• As we define and refine our own personal brands, how we can avoid settling?

• Are we making our careers narrower than they need to be?

• Have we tossed out ideas and options too quickly because they didn’t seem to fit?

• How can we learn to integrate seemingly disparate ideas so that we can create something new?

How are you thinking like a leader? I'd love to hear what your leadership style is.

08:27 am | 0 recommendations | 3 comments

Constructing a Personal Brand

What does a down and dirty construction guy know about building a brand on the web?

More than most folks if you’re “Ask The Builder” Tim Carter. Carter, a 55-year-old Internet phenomenon makes in the mid to high five figures a month from ads on his web site. Yes, you read that right…a month. And, on top of that he earns a no slouch six figure annual income from the ebooks he writes and sells on every conceivable home building and remodeling topic. Not content to rest on his laurels, Carter is busy churning out videos for YouTube where he has his own channel. Here is he is talking about pressure washing.

It’s not just the quantity of content that differentiates Carter. A throwback to a day when the owner of the local hardware store was a friend and neighbor, not a cog in a corporate wheel, Carter is your folksy, trusted companion. He will tell you exactly how to do a job and won’t mince words if it’s tough. “I try to tell you the hard, cold facts,” he says. “A swig of juice can be bitter but it makes the job go easier.”

So how did Carter go from builder to Internet publisher? It all began in the pre-Internet days in 1993 when Carter, a Cincinnati, Ohio, builder, was selected by Remodeling magazine as one of the top 50 US remodelers. Someone else might have just hung his certificate on the wall and went back to work. But Carter, with his wife Kathy’s urging, realized he could fulfill a life-long dream to write about how the average homeowner gets taken by builders and remodelers. In October 1993, the "Ask the Builder" column was born in the Cincinnati Enquirer. Fourteen years later, the column appears in 100 newspapers nationwide, syndicated by Tribune Media Services. In 1995, Carter took the column online, becoming in effect his own publisher. Today, Askthebuilder.com attracts 30,000 unique visitors a day.

So what advice does Carter offer for people who want to create a successful web business?

Make the website personal. “I use the first person and have my photo on every page,” says Carter. “It shows that you’re not afraid to put yourself out there. It establishes immediate trust.”

Tell stories. “Don’t lecture but try to teach people through stories,” Carter says.

Solve problems. “The magic is having good high quality content about real problems people are interested in,” Carter says.

It’s a marathon. “If you want instant riches, forget about it,” cautions Carter. “It takes diligence, determination and hard work.”

08:21 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments

Personal Branding With Service

What does it take for a brand to get it?

I’ve written before about how brands shoot themselves in the foot by neglecting customer service. The fact is that many companies are all too willing to step on the little guy. I’m learning, however, that we have weapons at our disposal.

I’ve written before about how Apple’s customer service reps and even mid-level managers ignored my iTunes problem. Fed up, I decided to take it to the top. I emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs and shared with him my blog rant about the company. Now, I don’t flatter myself that Jobs personally read my post. But someone in the company did, and in a seeming nano second, that person was in touch with me and solved my problem. Nice.

American Online is my backup Internet provider; if all else fails I will use its dial up service. Yesterday, there was an outage in my area and I called AOL to increase my service level just for the day. I was told that my $6.95 service plan that I’ve had for several years no longer exists (a philosopher could have fun with the fact that I have what no longer exists) and I would have to be permanently upgraded to a $9.95 plan. Out came my customer service weapons. I told them nicely that I would be blogging about them and would write a letter to the chairman. Next thing I know my rep is checking with someone else and tells me I can have my $6.95 plan back, and because I’m such a good, loyal customer I’m getting a $15 credit. Nice.

At least these companies finally got it. But it’s a shame that it takes almost a personal act of war for them to respond the way they should have the first time around.

I know if I behaved the way they did with my customers I’d be out of business. Of course I don’t exactly have the same volume of customers they do.

What can we as personal branders learn from behemoth brands and customer service?

• Be flexible. If a customer or coworker has a problem, don’t be afraid to go the extra mile to help.
• Make service part of your brand. Be known as someone who gets it right or fixes it if it isn’t. Delivering quality service is becoming a rarity. Use it to brand yourself.

08:41 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

The Brand Called Sree

The best personal branders it seems live more than one life.

Take Sree Sreenivasan who at age 37 has accomplished enough for 12 lives and in the process become an Internet phenom and the brand, "Sree."

Dean of students and new media professor at Columbia University's Journalism School, WNBC-TV's tech reporter, co-founder of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), weekly columnist for Poynter.org, blogger…You get the idea. It's an endless list.

Besides being a marvel of personal achievement, Sree, by dint of hard work, personal generosity, savvy and smarts has distinguished himself in a field, academia, known more for its blahs than its wows.

Recognizing that "the days are gone when you can rely on your work to speak for itself," Sree has branded himself by becoming a "go to guy" when it comes to journalists dealing with South Asia, minority news and technology.

"I didn't set off to become known in these areas," he says. "Instead I set off to help people in these areas."

Like all great personal branders, Sree understands that the currency of branding is connectivity. Serving as a sort of a personal Google for the uninitiated, Sree is artful at providing information, no strings attached, and at connecting disparate people. As he puts it, "The key is giving information when it doesn't benefit you. That's what people remember and what wins you their trust."

Of course, being Sree, he doesn't simply share information with a few good friends. Over the last dozen years, he has helped demystify technology for more than 20,000-plus students, journalists and other professionals through workshops in eight countries. His workshops, custom-tailored to the group at hand, include topics such as "Smarter Surfing: Better Use of Your Web Time," "Figuring Out Blogs and Whatever's Next" and "10 Tech Things To Try Today."

Even if you can't get to one of his workshops, not to worry. You can find Sree's tips at
http://www.sree.net

http://www.sreetips.com

http://wnbc/technology

http://www.poynter.org/sree

among other sites.

While Sree is a force of nature, there are some things we everyday mortals can learn from him.

Become a source of information without expecting anything back.

Give information away freely. Sree posts everything he does online including links mentioned in paid speeches. He believes you will get more new business that way.

Be accessible. Sree posts his calendar online making it simple for someone to request an appointment.

Be where the conversation is taking place whether online or off.

Join services liked LinkedIn.com- - Sree says it's "MySpace for professionals." and is very useful. "I used to call it 'MySpace for adults,' but that sounded like something else," says Sree.

Blog. It's a great way for someone to see how you think, to size you up and to become intrigued enough to follow up.

What do you think about Sree's ideas? What are your favorite ways to get the word out about yourself?

08:52 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Google and You

It was all over the Internet recently. Google, the brand you can’t taste, feel, smell or hold, had climbed to top of the heap, surpassing Microsoft as the number one brand in the world. So blared the headline from a study by Millard Brown that identifies the most powerful brands in the world.

So what can a phenomenon like Google mean for personal branders like us who are stuck in the day-to-day, not the stratosphere?

Joann Seddon, global CEO of Millard Brown Optimor, the firm’s finance and ROI arm, said of the brand study, “Success stories from this year's BRANDZ™ Top 100 demonstrate that winning brands leverage major market trends effectively to create business value. Strong brands are capable of extending into areas of opportunity to access new revenue streams and to help businesses respond to market changes."

It bears repeating. Success comes to those who leverage market trends to create business value.

Like many great innovators, Google in blazing a new path has changed the game for everyone.

Greg Miller, president of Marketcom PR, recently wrote in BullDog Reporter:

"Google has upset the PR paradigm. It's much harder to control information. It's much harder to get out ahead of bad news. And every piece of public information about your company—the good, the bad, the ugly—lives on the Web more or less forever."

Like most things that have a downside, there’s also an upside. It’s easier in some respects to get the good news out as the electronic grape vine whizzes it around the world where before it may have languished in a local paper.

What are you doing to get the word out about yourself and your business? How are you leveraging the new market trends to create business value? I’d love to hear from you.

Wendy Marx • Public Relations/Marketing Communications • President, Marx Communications, Inc. • wendy@marxcommunications.com •

08:11 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments

The Master Connector

To know Bill Sobel is to be part of an interconnected world of endless opportunity.

Sobel, a master connector, knows practically everyone who matters in the media and entertainment space. Recognizing that his “skill set is who I know,” Sobel since the early 1990s has helped technology companies get into the media and entertainment space by tapping into his vast network.

To acknowledge that, however, doesn’t give justice to Sobel whose capacity for networking is seemingly boundless.

Up everyday at 4 am or 5 am to keep his eyes and ears open to what’s happening in media and entertainment, Sobel scours the Internet for new developments he can share with some of his 3,000 “business best friends.” Every week, 400 FOBS (friends of Bill Sobel) receive his “Bill Sobel’s “Rants & Raves,” a digest of news items and upcoming events, including information on monthly NYC networking events he hosts. In between, when he’s not at a networking event or at lunch with an FOBS or friend of an FOBS, he’s likely to be found in front of a classroom -- or rather multiple classrooms. He guest lectures at NYU, at the New York Institute of Technology, and is a visiting adjunct professor at the State University of New York at Albany and is on the faculty of Brooklyn’s Polytech University. Not bad for a guy who doesn’t have his master’s degree.

A connector of the super nova as well as the lesser stars, Sobel has had Bob Pittman, the founder of MTV and former president and CEO of AOL and Julie Roehm, the celebrated and infamous ex-Wal-Mart marketing executive attend one of his breakfasts. Bill Rasmussen, the founder of ESPN, got wind of one of Sobel’s breakfasts featuring the president of Sports Illustrated and other sports luminaries and asked Sobel if he could attend. Not only did he show up, he introduced the panel.

"My network of friends seems to grow exponentially," says Sobel, who friends say “knows everyone.”

For Sobel, personal branding is all about making yourself as marketable as possible. “Don’t be fooled if you’re working for someone else,” he says. "You’re always working for yourself and need to keep yourself on the edge of everything.”

He also advises never to pass up a potential opportunity. “I go to a lot of functions and people will say, ‘Why go to that?’”

Sobel’s answer: “You never know.”

Wendy Marx • Public Relations/Marketing Communications • President, Marx Communications, Inc. • wendy@marxcommunications.com •
www. marxcommunications.com

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Are you Linking In?

As a “one toe in the water” user of Linkedin., the online professional networking site, I recently read a great post on using it to build your personal brand from career coach Wendy Terwelp. If you haven’t checked it out, I’ve urged you to do so.

Just created my public profile custom address on LinkedIn.
Very cool: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wendyterwelp. You can use LinkedIn in many ways for personal branding:
1. Invite your clients, business partners, affiliates, professional organization members, etc. to join.
2. Write a thorough profile so members get an idea of who you are, what you do, your interests, and your brand.
3. Add a picture.
4. My personal fave, ask for recommendations. People are fantastic and want to help you. And you can use the recommendations in many ways for your business - including popping them onto your website.
5. If you’re in job search mode, the recommendations can be linked into your resume. This creates instant access to references.
Links: http://www.knocks.com/News.html

Wendy Marx • Public Relations/Marketing Communications • President, Marx Communications, Inc. • wendy@marxcommunications.com •
www. marxcommunications.com

07:41 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Imus and Customer Service Redux

There’s an excellent interview with PR guru Robert L. Dilenschneider on what Don Imus could have done differently.

Here’s Dilenschneider's take: “From the get-go, Imus should have and could have been out there in-person - at Rutgers, in the Afro-American community, etc.
In addition, he could have dug down deep inside himself where true contrition resides. I didn't see that and neither did those whose opinion counted. From that deep inside would have come an authentic plea for mercy.”

Being out there in person is something a lot of companies and individuals should be doing as well. Companies spend millions of dollars to promote themselves and establish a personal brand. And then when a customer has the nerve to contact them, they too often vanish.

Previously, I wrote about the deafness of telephone retailer Hello Direct – which hasn’t a clue how to handle customer problems. Now, I am adding another company to the “Personal Branding Hall of Shame.” Welcome Apple. That beloved brand must have a worm crawling around inside it when it comes to customer service.

Here’s my Apple customer horror story.

I received a $50 iTunes music card as a promotion. When I entered the scratch-off code online to redeem my card, I was told that the number I entered was invalid. No big deal I thought. How wrong that turned out to be.

First, I called Apple’s customer service only to be told to send an email to customer service. You heard that right. You call to get help and are told to email..
I wrote customer service. Not just once but twice. And all I got for my troubles was an automated response saying someone would get back to me within a few days. And then heard nothing.

As a PR professional, I thought I could get some help from Apple’s PR department. Wrong again. I emailed the PR person listed on Apple’s website as responsible for iTune’s PR about my problem thinking he would jump to respond. Did I get a response? You know the answer to that one. Not one to give up easily, I next sent a cordial note to the head of PR for all of Apple figuring that person would at least have the courtesy to respond. Did I get a response? You know the answer.

Back to square one. Two days ago I called Apple’s customer service again and got someone who truly wanted to help. She got me to customer service for iTunes. The gentleman there said he would get back to me within 24 hours. Have I heard back? You know the answer.

Shame on Apple. Shame on Apple. Will the worm turn? Stay tuned.

Wendy Marx • Public Relations/Marketing Communications • President, Marx Communications, Inc. • wendy@marxcommunications.com