Month: June 2020

More posts on having a business, is that ok? like = agree

Thanks to http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/personalbrandingblog/~3/nTldiNt2DVI/

Building a personal brand is all about capturing attention. If you work in a “boring” industry, it can be tough to communicate the key benefits that differentiate you from competitors. Especially when you work in an industry that’s not usually the topic of conversation or trending on social media.

Take the VoIP industry, a very boring industry. It’s hard to make VOIP stand out or make it “sexy”. People don’t usually turn to VoIP companies for engaging content, actionable educational or entertainment. But with the right attitude and the ability to produce quality content, leaders even in the boring Cloud VoIP industry can gain recognition and build an audience. (I’ll show you a real life example in bullet #1 below).

In this article I’ll show you real examples of how to capture your target market’s attention, convert them into stark raving fans, and build your personal brand even when you’re in a boring industry.

Ready? Let’s roll!

1. Be Bold. Be Authentic. 

Wallflowers and shrinking violets don’t build brands. People who are bold and enthusiastic do. For executives looking to make their mark and build a brand, being a hands-on, in the trenches type of person translates into authentic experience.

You don’t want to be the kind of exec that takes all the credit and not know how anything works. If your team does the heavy lifting while you get the kudos but you can’t explain how your widget works, then people are not going to respect your opinion.

Someone who shows they know what they are doing and can express their “Why” is going to be more authentic.

Don’t be afraid to have an opinion and share it, even if it happens to touch on the politics of the day. If it is earnest, authentic and well-thought-out—not some emotionally charged overreaction—then boldly proclaim it and let the discourse begin. That is what builds engagement, followers, and brands. 

Those who take a position and confidently support their way of thinking are more likely to stand out 

People value leaders who are confident and don’t flip-flop on their beliefs just to appease the masses. Sure, some feathers may get ruffled, but how many low-key, wishy-washy executives can you name? Exactly. You can’t name many because they don’t stand out and nobody knows who they are.

2. Share Actionable Expertise

Just because your industry isn’t interesting doesn’t mean no one is interested. You can still share your knowledge and expertise to build your brand. Take Ryan Stewman, the sales and marketing expert who runs a sales training called The Hardcore Closer.

Ryan gained a loyal following talking about lead generation. He has built a multi-million dollar business by taking what has worked for him, sharing it, and monetizing it.

Ryan was on the cutting edge of using social media and videos to promote himself and connect with people when he started in sales. Because of his success, he started to teach other salespeople how to use social media to connect with people and use tools for lead generation. 

He built a lead generation software company called Phonesites that helps salespeople create their own sales funnels. He offered free training on Facebook live and produced free content in the form of articles and training videos.

Sharing his expertise helped grow his personal brand which has allowed him to scale into other successful business ventures. He’s doing it right.

Chris the founder of SalesMessage is another great example. He has been using SMS texting to communicate with anyone who contacts their business or even subscribes to their webinars, events, or blog. 

He shares actionable tips, tricks and information while trying to covert some of the leads who contact him and gets a whopping 70% response rate on SMS texts. He recently shared the complete set of sample text messages to send to customers on his blog. He engages his potential customers and build his following.

But, one of the biggest mistakes you can make in personal branding is to be and act like someone you are not. You will eventually be outed, caught, or exposed. 

When building a personal brand, don’t pretend to be someone you’re not or have expertise when you don’t.

Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of the once highly-touted blood-testing startup Theranos, was once the darling of Silicon Valley. She was seen as an influencer and visionary in the same vein as Steve Jobs.

Theranos WAS Elizabeth Holmes and her personal brand of being a healthcare wunderkind carried the firm. Unfortunately for many people, the whole company and the whole story was a massive fraud. She faked her expertise and knowledge, the company was exposed and now it is no more.

A personal brand built on lies and half-truths will come back to bite you.

3. Be the MVP of Value

If you want to really stand out, you must be useful and add maximum value at all times. Do this by offering free info, training, and content about your industry and share that info while speaking at events and on podcasts.

We’re talking about sharing real expertise, not just thoughts or opinions, but practical knowledge that comes from actually having done the work.

Jack Kosakowski kills it here. Jack has been providing actionable social selling advice and content for over 5 years. With his SkillsLab social selling site, he has been helping salespeople to increase their presence through social media and how to correctly connect with—and sell to—their target clients. 

Value comes from experience. Jack has churned out content on social media, his blog, publications like The Harvard Business Review, and on podcasts—continually sharing what has worked for him, and how it took him from a newbie salesperson to the CEO of the US division of a Global Digital Agency.

4. Stop Selling and Build Trust Instead

Look, you don’t need to be Billy Mays or the ShamWow guy, pitching and promoting all day while operators are standing by. Constantly pushing product is exhausting. But talking and engaging with people in your own voice—your true self—and showing them how to succeed with examples and actionable ideas will build trust.

When you let people see the real you, trust is built and your brand strengthens and attracts new prospects.

Trust isn’t built by speaking AT people. It’s built by engaging and speaking WITH with your audience.

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust. And that’s usually not the guy with the bullhorn shouting “Look at me! Look at me!” Differentiate yourself by sharing knowledge from real-world experience in an authentic, engaging way that creates value and trustworthiness. This will build your personal brand.

When someone needs to seek out info in your industry, you will be top-of-mind because you will be the rockstar of your “boring” industry. They will come to you for the value you provide because you’ve built trust due to engagement, value, and expertise. 

 

The post Personal Branding Tips For Executives In “Boring” Industries appeared first on Personal Branding Blog – Stand Out In Your Career.

Anything about this is so important. What do you think. Let us know in the comments below.

Thanks to https://www.allbusiness.com/keeping-your-employees-safe-these-workplace-policies-can-help-129714-1.html

Whether you have returned to your office or other physical location, permanently transformed to a virtual business, or created some hybrid solution, it’s essential you keep your employees safe—and I don’t mean from the coronavirus. Many small businesses don’t pay attention to HR and overlook creating company policies that are crucial to protecting their staff.

Creating company policies may seem like busywork, but if you don’t codify your expectations of certain behaviors, it could cost you a lot—even your business. Here are three workplace issues you should seriously consider creating official company policies around.

1. Sexual harassment

While sexual harassment is not a new issue, with the advent of the #MeToo movement, it should be top of mind for business of all sizes. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate based on sex. In the late 1980s the Supreme Court expanded the definition to include sexual harassment in the workplace.

As the business owner, you are responsible for doing everything in your power to discourage unacceptable sexual innuendos, unwelcome physical contact, and more. Currently, it’s a requirement in seven states for businesses to regularly provide mandatory sexual harassment training to all employees, and most other states require training for public employees.

Sexual harassment can manifest in a variety of forms, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), such as:

  • The victim, as well as the harasser, may be a woman or a man, and the victim does not need to be of the opposite sex from the harasser.
  • The harasser may be the victim’s supervisor, an agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, a coworker, or a nonemployee, such as a vendor or customer.
  • The victim does not have to be the person harassed but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.
  • Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury to or discharge of the victim.
  • Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature. It can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, says the EEOC, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general

Even if training is not required in your state, as an employer you are liable for harassment lawsuits brought by employees or vendors of your company.

What should you do if someone files a sexual harassment claim? Contact your attorney immediately. There are some tips here as well.

Other Articles From AllBusiness.com:

2. Cybercrime

This might surprise you but according to research by Ponemon Institute, 76% of SMBs in the United States experienced a cyberattack last year. And for a small business the cost of a data breach can be devastating. The average cyberattack costs smaller companies an average $3,533 per employee. It takes an average 206 days to identify a risk and another 73 days to contain it, making the life cycle of a data breach 279 days.

A key component to keeping your business safe from hackers is to create a cybersecurity program to educate employees what to look out for. Not sure where to start? Require employees to protect personal and company devices with passwords and antivirus software programs. Educate them about safe email practices, such as not opening suspicious attachments and clickbait subject lines. Passwords should be complex and changed at least every three months.

Remote workers need to especially follow cybersecurity policies and not share their devices with family members. Have your IT specialist inspect virtual employee systems and security measures to ensure sensitive information is safe from attack.

The FCC offers a free cyber planner wizard to create a custom guide for your business and offers expert advice to address your business’s concerns.

3. Remote working

More and more businesses are making the permanent switch to operating virtually. Whether you plan to go virtual full time, or offer it as a sometimes option, you need to establish consistent work-from-home policies.

First, make it clear whether the switch to operate virtually is permanent or temporary. Make sure you comply with any applicable state laws. And tell your staff what your expectations of them are, from work hours to mandatory meetings.

Ron Culler, Senior Director of Technology and Solutions at ADT Cybersecurity, offers some tips for making a work-from-home transition as seamless as possible:

  • Put smart home security systems to work. According to the FBI, a burglary happens every 22.6 seconds in the United States. And 88% of those burglaries occur in residential areas very often during the day. If your employees already have home security systems, they should treat their home security just as they would if working from the office. This includes arming the security system, leveraging smart home system devices like outdoor and doorbell cameras and motion detectors to see approaching visitors, and monitoring their surroundings so they can remain safe and focused on work.
  • Keep corporate equipment with employees. Working remotely might tempt employees to default to their personal devices instead of using corporate-owned computers. This poses a risk because personal laptops likely don’t have the same antivirus software and monitoring systems in place like work computers do to keep information secure. When at all possible, workers should use their work laptops for work and adhere to corporate-approved protocols, hardware and software—from firewalls to VPNs—to help avoid cyber headaches, especially if work-from-home policies last for extended periods of time.
  • Schedule more video conferences. Not only do virtual calls help maintain social interaction, they help keep communication flowing directly and in a controlled, private environment.
  • Keep data on corporate systems. Many businesses using cloud technology might not have this problem, but it’s important to remind employees that all files should remain on corporate-owned channels, whether that’s over email or on the cloud. The cyber protections that employees were used to having in place in the office might not carry over to an at-home work environment.

All these policies, and any others you create, should be codified in your employee handbook and on your company intranet (if you have one.) Make it clear any violations of the policy will have serious consequences, as a security breach resulting from employee noncompliance could lead to lawsuits or even the loss of your business.

RELATED: Could Your Company’s Social Media Policy Land You in Legal Hot Water?

The post Are You Keeping Your Employees Safe? These Workplace Policies Can Help appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Rieva Lesonsky. Copyright 2020 by AllBusiness.com. All rights reserved. The content and images contained in this RSS feed may only be used through an RSS reader and may not be reproduced on another website without the express written permission of the owner of AllBusiness.com.

Cool info, hope you find helpful! This is really good info on working from home… Click To see More About this.

Thanks to http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/personalbrandingblog/~3/nTldiNt2DVI/

Building a personal brand is all about capturing attention. If you work in a “boring” industry, it can be tough to communicate the key benefits that differentiate you from competitors. Especially when you work in an industry that’s not usually the topic of conversation or trending on social media.

Take the VoIP industry, a very boring industry. It’s hard to make VOIP stand out or make it “sexy”. People don’t usually turn to VoIP companies for engaging content, actionable educational or entertainment. But with the right attitude and the ability to produce quality content, leaders even in the boring Cloud VoIP industry can gain recognition and build an audience. (I’ll show you a real life example in bullet #1 below).

In this article I’ll show you real examples of how to capture your target market’s attention, convert them into stark raving fans, and build your personal brand even when you’re in a boring industry.

Ready? Let’s roll!

1. Be Bold. Be Authentic. 

Wallflowers and shrinking violets don’t build brands. People who are bold and enthusiastic do. For executives looking to make their mark and build a brand, being a hands-on, in the trenches type of person translates into authentic experience.

You don’t want to be the kind of exec that takes all the credit and not know how anything works. If your team does the heavy lifting while you get the kudos but you can’t explain how your widget works, then people are not going to respect your opinion.

Someone who shows they know what they are doing and can express their “Why” is going to be more authentic.

Don’t be afraid to have an opinion and share it, even if it happens to touch on the politics of the day. If it is earnest, authentic and well-thought-out—not some emotionally charged overreaction—then boldly proclaim it and let the discourse begin. That is what builds engagement, followers, and brands. 

Those who take a position and confidently support their way of thinking are more likely to stand out 

People value leaders who are confident and don’t flip-flop on their beliefs just to appease the masses. Sure, some feathers may get ruffled, but how many low-key, wishy-washy executives can you name? Exactly. You can’t name many because they don’t stand out and nobody knows who they are.

2. Share Actionable Expertise

Just because your industry isn’t interesting doesn’t mean no one is interested. You can still share your knowledge and expertise to build your brand. Take Ryan Stewman, the sales and marketing expert who runs a sales training called The Hardcore Closer.

Ryan gained a loyal following talking about lead generation. He has built a multi-million dollar business by taking what has worked for him, sharing it, and monetizing it.

Ryan was on the cutting edge of using social media and videos to promote himself and connect with people when he started in sales. Because of his success, he started to teach other salespeople how to use social media to connect with people and use tools for lead generation. 

He built a lead generation software company called Phonesites that helps salespeople create their own sales funnels. He offered free training on Facebook live and produced free content in the form of articles and training videos.

Sharing his expertise helped grow his personal brand which has allowed him to scale into other successful business ventures. He’s doing it right.

Chris the founder of SalesMessage is another great example. He has been using SMS texting to communicate with anyone who contacts their business or even subscribes to their webinars, events, or blog. 

He shares actionable tips, tricks and information while trying to covert some of the leads who contact him and gets a whopping 70% response rate on SMS texts. He recently shared the complete set of sample text messages to send to customers on his blog. He engages his potential customers and build his following.

But, one of the biggest mistakes you can make in personal branding is to be and act like someone you are not. You will eventually be outed, caught, or exposed. 

When building a personal brand, don’t pretend to be someone you’re not or have expertise when you don’t.

Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of the once highly-touted blood-testing startup Theranos, was once the darling of Silicon Valley. She was seen as an influencer and visionary in the same vein as Steve Jobs.

Theranos WAS Elizabeth Holmes and her personal brand of being a healthcare wunderkind carried the firm. Unfortunately for many people, the whole company and the whole story was a massive fraud. She faked her expertise and knowledge, the company was exposed and now it is no more.

A personal brand built on lies and half-truths will come back to bite you.

3. Be the MVP of Value

If you want to really stand out, you must be useful and add maximum value at all times. Do this by offering free info, training, and content about your industry and share that info while speaking at events and on podcasts.

We’re talking about sharing real expertise, not just thoughts or opinions, but practical knowledge that comes from actually having done the work.

Jack Kosakowski kills it here. Jack has been providing actionable social selling advice and content for over 5 years. With his SkillsLab social selling site, he has been helping salespeople to increase their presence through social media and how to correctly connect with—and sell to—their target clients. 

Value comes from experience. Jack has churned out content on social media, his blog, publications like The Harvard Business Review, and on podcasts—continually sharing what has worked for him, and how it took him from a newbie salesperson to the CEO of the US division of a Global Digital Agency.

4. Stop Selling and Build Trust Instead

Look, you don’t need to be Billy Mays or the ShamWow guy, pitching and promoting all day while operators are standing by. Constantly pushing product is exhausting. But talking and engaging with people in your own voice—your true self—and showing them how to succeed with examples and actionable ideas will build trust.

When you let people see the real you, trust is built and your brand strengthens and attracts new prospects.

Trust isn’t built by speaking AT people. It’s built by engaging and speaking WITH with your audience.

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust. And that’s usually not the guy with the bullhorn shouting “Look at me! Look at me!” Differentiate yourself by sharing knowledge from real-world experience in an authentic, engaging way that creates value and trustworthiness. This will build your personal brand.

When someone needs to seek out info in your industry, you will be top-of-mind because you will be the rockstar of your “boring” industry. They will come to you for the value you provide because you’ve built trust due to engagement, value, and expertise. 

 

The post Personal Branding Tips For Executives In “Boring” Industries appeared first on Personal Branding Blog – Stand Out In Your Career.