Month: January 2010

Me 2.0 Build A Powerful Brand To Achieve Career Success – by Dan Schawbel.

Dan Schawbel is a leading voice in the area of personal branding, and he is the author of Me 2.0 as well as the publisher of both the award winning Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine.

So he knows what he talks about in his book Me 2.0 so is a goto person/authority in Personal Branding niche.

In his own words and voice – about Me 2.0

Table of Contents
The book is very well structured, logically divided into parts and chapters for easy understanding.

Introduction
Part I: The Rise of Personal Branding
Chapter 1: The Brand Called YOU!
Chapter 2: Millennials Enter the Workforce
Chapter 3: Introducing Commander YOU!
Chapter 4: The Many Aspects of Personal Branding

Part II: Command Your Career in Four Steps
Chapter 5: Step 1 – Discover Your Brand
Chapter 6: Step 2 – Create Your Brand
Chapter 7: Step 3 – Communicate Your Brand
Chapter 8: Step 4 – Maintain Your Brand

Part III: Now You Have Command
Chapter 9: Your Entrepreneurial Conquest
Chapter 10: Life-Changing Results
Acknowledgments
About the Author

As you heard from Dan Schawbel himself in the above video – Me 2.0 includes a precious, proven four step process for discovering, creating, communicating and maintaining your personal brand.

The main take away message from this book is – “Every individual can create a brand for himself similar to that of a big corporate, using Internet(social media, social networking, blogging etc).”
Dan also teaches how we can make use of YouTube and other social media sites to endorse ourselves to the world at least cost, if not for free.

We all know how people have started searching for their own name in search engines – commonly called as Ego Searching! or Ego Surfing! Its been evident that more and more people are using this method to know more about what others are talking about them and their company – in 2007, 47% searched for information about themselves online, compared to 22% in 2002 and the numbers are only growing.
Dan shows ways to control the results and to use it to our advantage – in professional as well as personal life.

Me 2.0 stress on being authentic and transparent, and a word of caution for those who try to create a false image, to fit others expectation. As it would cause more damage later, than the short term success.

And the Passion
It advices to take up the niche in which we are passionate about, so that the work becomes more enjoyable and we become more productive, because people find their greatest enjoyment, not when they’re passively mindless, but when they’re absorbed in a mindful challenge – in which they are really passionate.

To help beginners, Dan also gives some blueprints and some self assessment methods to find out our passion and to stick to it and find a job which suits our passion.

It also outlines most of the methods using which we can promote our brand and also cautions not to over do it, as it may annoy the person we are pitching or the audience we are targeting.
It contains valuable information about the marketing strategies, proper timing and the target audience – which may help any business to promote itself strategically.

It also gives many real life stories as examples/case study to prove Dan’s point. All the stories come with some important lessons to learn, which are outlined for us – for effective understanding. It also contains quotes from successful people which inspires us and keeps the attention going to read more.

Recession and bad times – Graduation, Competition, Job, promotion, entrepreneurship
With the recession and bad times going on for job seekers, Dan gives effective plan to stand out from the crowd. He emphasizes the importance of Internet to create the personal brand to achieve career success and business success.
In his own words:

I’ve seen many individuals embrace their own passion, in the workplace and socially, through the power of personal branding. They are excited to wake up each day with the confidence to live the life they always wanted to live – and that is exactly how I want you to feel.

Some of the things which caught my attention – in the book:

• It’s not what you know, it’s whom you know. With personal branding, this phrase changes to “Its not whom you know, its who knows you.”
• Entrepreneurship is more tied to imagination than age or education.
• Don’t live your life in the passenger’s seat. Take command of your life – be the commander YOU!
• Dan Schawbel: Before, I would wake up every morning and say to myself, “I want to make the largest impact in the least amount of time.” Now I say, “I want to help others avoid the mistakes I made and find real success and happiness in their lives.”

The Book covers, some other effective and important topics like:
Personal Branding ToolKit.
Personal Press Kit.
Pitching the main stream media and ways to make main stream media search for you.
Maintaining the Relationship.
Reputation Management.
Importance of Networking.
Tips for effective networking.
Developing Confidence in ourselves.
Tips for making our resume stand out from the crowd and compel the recruiter not to ignore your resume.
How online life can be a positive or even a negative thing for our recruitment and in achieving our dreams.
Identity theft and its consequences.
and many more..

Conflict with the Dot Com Mogul Lifestyle
While reading some chapters about how to dress and behave – if you are a easy going blogger who follow Dot Com Mogul Lifestyle, then you may feel the suit and dress sense things as lot of work! But hey, to be practical, it all still matters in corporate world. Ofcourse, things may change in the future(as Dan himself points out in the book, to catch up with the latest trends in your industry and not to lag behind), and may be allowed to wear jeans and t-shirt at workplace(as Google Inc and some other companies allow.)

Personal Favorite
Your Entrepreneurial Conquest and the Life-Changing Results are my favorite chapters, as it inspires to apply what we have learnt from the book and helps boost the confidence.

Its one of the most complete book ever written about Personal Branding – which explains everything from finding our passion to the entrepreneurial conquest, and the ways to fight back when things go wrong.

I recommend this book to everyone, and I think its a must have for students and employees, and even for recruiters.

At $11.53 available at Amazon, its a bargain to such a valuable resource available out there. You must simply grab a copy yourself or present one for your teenage child or a coworker, and they will thank you for the book.