Common Sense Ideas for Becoming the Career Star You Are Meant to Be

Today is Tuesday, so this post is on positive personal impact.

As you recall, a strong personal brand -- along with impeccable appearance and knowing and using the basics of business etiquette – is important to creating positive personal impact.

William Arruda is a friend of mine.  He also is a personal branding expert.  He helped me a lot when I was first developing my Common Sense Guy brand.  William, along with Kirsten Dixson, has written a great book on personal branding called Career Distinction: Standing Out by Building Your Brand.

Career Distinction is based on William’s 1 – 2 – 3 Success! Personal Branding Process: Extract, Express, Exude.  Extract is Step 1.  In this phase you unearth your unique promise of value.  Express is Step 2.  In this phase you communicate your brand to your target audience.  Exude is Step 3.  In this phase you manage your brand environment.

William and Kirsten do an excellent job of explaining each of these phases in detail.  They explain the underlying principles, and provide examples of the points they are making.  In addition, they provide a link to their Career Distinction Workbook that allows the reader to apply the ideas in the book as they are reading them.

The extract, express, exude model works.  As I mentioned above, I used an earlier version of this book to help me think through the creation of my Common Sense Guy brand.  If you follow the ideas in the book and take the time to put in the work, you will be able to develop your unique personal brand – whether you work for yourself, a large corporation – or anything in between.

Chapters 10 (Assess Your Online Identity) and 11 (Build Your Brand in Bits and Bytes) provide some very interesting and useful information on using the internet to build your brand.  I read them both several times.  I have already put some of the ideas I found there to use.

William and Kirsten do a great job in summing up their message in their Summary: Evolve and Resolve.

1. Know yourself.  You can’t stand out is you don’t know who you are and want from life.  People who stand out are self aware.
2. Flaunt your quirks.  Standing out is about differentiating yourself.  Don’t hid what makes you different.  Accentuate it.
3. Maximize your strengths.  People who sand out are those are ‘best’ at something.  Standing out is all about superlatives.
4. Google yourself regularly.  Ego-surf frequently.  Others are googling you.  You need to know and manage your on line reputation.  Remember, to you some people you are your Google results.
5. Ask for feedback.  Realize that your reputation counts.  Proactively seek feedback to understand how others perceive you.
6. Be a connector.  Make sure people see you as the nucleus in every organization you’re helping to grow.
7. Think big.  Have big dreams, and be willing to take the steps needed to turn those dreams into reality.
8. Keep refining.  Never be happy with how things are today.  Be a lifelong learner, ambitious, and focused on your personal and professional growth.
9. Define your crowd.  Know as much as you can bout your competitors so you can use your uniqueness to stand out.
10. Give to your network.  Help members of your professional networks make new contacts, find valuable information and identify new opportunities.  The more you give to your network, the more you’ll get.
11. Mark everything you do.  Put a piece of who you are into everything you do – every phone call, e mail, meeting and personal interaction.
12. Be a confident communicator – Demonstrate your conviction, passion and confidence in all your communications.  People will not only notice you – they’ll remember you long after you’ve delivered your message.

I really like Career Distinction.  I think it is a must for anyone who wants to become a star in their life and career. 

William and Kirsten want to have an Amazon.com bestseller.  They have created a special offer for anyone who buys Career Distinction from Amazon.com today.  Because William is a friend, but more importantly, because I really like the book, I’ve included details of their offer below.

GIFTS FOR BUYING THE BOOK TODAY (June 12, 2007) FROM AMAZON.COM

Will you help us make Career Distinction an Amazon.com bestseller today? Purchase our book today, and email your receipt to offer@careerdistinction.com. As a thank you, we'll send you our interactive, on-demand presentation on how to build your brand online.  Or, we’ll give you an annual Reach Branding Club Membership for just $48.50--that's half off the regular membership fee. The online branding module is included with membership, so it's your choice.

With virtual coaching on every aspect of our comprehensive process to define, express and manage your personal brand, tracks for careerists or entrepreneurs, networking opportunities, access to teleseminar recordings, and much more, the Reach Branding Club is an incredible value.

But, that's not all. You'll also get access to one of two scheduled one-hour group Q&A sessions where we will answer any question you want to ask us about your own branding efforts.

If you've already purchased Career Distinction for yourself, consider buying one for a friend or colleague.  It's good Career Karma!

Purchase Career Distinction from Amazon.com now:
http://tinyurl.com/2vvnzv

That’s it for today.  Thanks for reading.  Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense.  Check out my other blog: www.CommonSenseGuy.com for common sense advice on leading people and running a small business.

I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.

Bud

PS: Speaking of Alex’s Lemonade Stand – my fundraising page is still open.  Please go to www.FirstGiving.com/TheCommonSenseGuy to read Alex’s inspiring story and to donate if you can.