Personal Branding

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.

I recommend Me 2.0 to anyone who wants to know and buildup their personal branding. I especially encourage students to pick a copy of the book, it will surely be valuable tool for your future.

Interview:

Satish: Tell our readers about the idea of “Personal Branding”, and why one should care?

Dan: Personal branding is about uncovering what makes you special and then letting the world know about it. You should care because there is no job security anymore and because if you’re aren’t know for anything, then you won’t receive the same opportunities as others.

Satish: People helping us( evangelists ) brand ourselves start expecting the same help from us, while they don’t live upto the trust of their audience. How to deal with such situations?

Dan: You shouldn’t listen to people who aren’t proven experts in their field. Do some research on them first before asking for their help or trusting their content. There is an unlimited amount of people in the world, but only a select few that are trustworthy.

Satish: Some College students prefer to keep low profile, so that they do not get embraced when things go wrong. Your tips for students to fight their weakness?

Dan: You should always capitalize on your strengths and neutralize your weaknesses. The internet is now the global talent pool. If you aren’t active on it, then you have a lot of challenges in moving up in your career.

Satish: Your tips for students and employees to fight stage fear. Because we have observed that many people don’t get the confidence to face people and confidently tell about themselves. What would you suggest them?

Dan: I would recommend that students and employees really understand their subject matter before speaking in front of an audience. You can gain a lot of confidence when you’re an expert that will make you less nervous when in front of people. You should also get consensus among your audience before you speak, so that they are on the same page before you present. This makes it easier to get your message across.

Satish: How much important do you think the role of “Branding” in the success of a business/blog/service.

Branding is important for differentiating yourself from the competition, for recruiting new employees, for supporting your promotional program, and to charge a premium price.

Satish: With all the efforts to earn the Trust(for the sake of trust), when our blog readers/customers give bad personal
comments, how does it feel about the trust that we have built? And how to deal with such situations?

Dan: Trust takes years to build and you can’t force people to trust you. The higher quality of content you produce will attract more people and cause them to trust you.

Satish: Your effective tips for building personal branding.

Dan: You should understand how you want to be branded, then reserve your domain name and your vanity URL on the top social networks, and then invest time each day to connect with new people in your industry. You need your own personal mission statement, core values, and a unique design.

Satish: What have you learnt with the release of your book “Me 2.0”

Dan: I learned that if you promote other others and their books before yours come’s out, many will support the launch of your book. The lesson learned is that by helping others first, they will reciprocate.

Satish: What do you think are – some of the signs of Entrepreneurship.

Dan: If you are a control freak, have creative ideas and are very ambitious, then you’re an entrepreneur. Typically, if one of your family members is an entrepreneur, you have the gene!

Satish: Your Advice for job seekers(students who have just finished their college life and are applying for a job).

Dan: They should be networking every single day, both online and offline. They should also be specific with the type of career they want so they can target certain companies and positions. Use your current network too, including your family and friends, to make introductions to people that are employed.

Satish: Your advice to college students to fight the stress of studies, assignments, exams, seminars, projects and their little voice of “entrepreneurship”

Dan: You have to work hard no matter what the task is. If you’re an entrepreneur, then start a business in college. Don’t purposely flunk out!

Satish: If you have anything else to tell your fans/followers/readers, you can tell them.

Dan: I just launched my 3D corporate website for Millennial Branding, LLC. I also have a new blog called Student Branding Blog if you want to check that out.

We appreciate Dan for taking time to participate in the interview. Hope you all enjoyed it. You may also like to read my review of the book Me 2.0

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

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.

Tag: Personal Branding

Interview with Dan Schawbel, The Master of Personal Branding