Blow Your Own Horn! E-Book

Rae A. Stonehouse

• Herausgeber: Live For Excellence Productions (LFEP)
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 384

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

There’s an old saying that goes “the squeaky wheel… gets the grease.”

The saying may have been true at one point in time but now…

The business world is a busy and crowded place. How can a business professional standout from the cacophony of others clambering for attention and recognition?

Some will tell you it is easy now-a-days to create an on-line reputation

The author believes creating your on-line persona is important however, it is but one step at a self-promotional and marketing strategy.

Blow Your Own Horn! Personal Branding for Business Professionals delivers strategies to build your on-line presence and gain recognition in your community.

Your goal may be to raise your prominence at work to apply for a job you have been eying. Perhaps, your goal is to run for political office, but it seems no one knows who you are.  

This book is for business professionals who want to raise their visibility in a crowded workplace or a personal interest venture.

Some will tell you blowing your own horn is bragging. The author argues against that belief. If we are to move forward and benefit from our accomplishments, we need to self-promote.

Blow Your Own Horn! Personal Branding for Business Professionals offers:

Strategies for personal branding and marketing.

Self-promotion utilizing Linkedin as a tool.

Effective networking techniques for self-promotion.

Self-promotion strategies related to job searching.

On-line reputation management and…

Additional social media venues that could be helpful to you in developing your personal brand.

Now is the time to let the world know what you have offer. It’s time to start blowing your own horn! This book shows you how.

Leseprobe

Blow Your Own Horn!

Personal Branding for Business Professionals

Rae A. Stonehouse

Copyright © 2020 by Rae A. Stonehouse

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

E-book - ISBN: 978-1-7771565-0-3

Print - ISBN: 978-1-7771565-1-0

Live For Excellence Productions

1221 Velrose Drive

Kelowna, B.C., Canada

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https://liveforexcellence.com

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Contents

Introduction

I. Personal Branding & Marketing

Personal Branding

Personal Marketing

Who Are You?

What Do You Stand For?

Are You Linkedin?

Linkedin Strategies for Personal Branding & Marketing

Reach Out and Link Somebody

Linkedin Professional Profile Assessment

Linkedin: But Wait... there's more!

Blow Your Own Horn On-line

II. Networking for Business Success

Networking for Business Success

Pre-Networking Phase

Creating your Elevator Pitch

Developing Your USP

How High Does Your Elevator Go?

It's All About You

Your Voice Mail Message

Live Face-to-Face Networking Phase

Business Card Care, Custody & Etiquette

Dress For Success

Whole Lotta Shaking Going On

Wear a Name Tag

Post Networking Phase

It's Coffee Time!

An Alternative to Attending Large Networking Events

Characteristics of Successful Networkers

Types of Introductions

Assessing Your Networking Effectiveness

On-line Networking: Social Media Overview

III. Self-Promotion When Job Searching

Self-Promotion When Job Searching

Creating Winning Resumes

Creating Cover Letters

Your Network Web

The Initial Interview Phone Call

Dress For Success Revisited

Organizing Your Presentation

The Follow-up Job Interview Phone Call

Basic Interviewer Personality Types

IV. On-line Strategies for Personal Branding & Marketing

On-line Reputation Management

Cyberbullying Prevention Strategies

Miscellaneous Self-Marketing & Promotion Tactics

How to Network on Social Media Like a Pro: Intro

Facebook

Search Engine Optimization for Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Pinterest

YouTube

Blogs vs Newsletters

Quora.com

Reddit

Webinars

Summary & Conclusion

V. Networking Resource Files

Strategies to Get the Most out of your Business Networking/Referral Group

Name Dropping for Fun & Profit

Close Encounters of the Networking Kind

For a Good Time Call

Johnny Appleseed Knew What He Was Doing

So What's Your Story?

Too Shy to Network?

You Get Back What You Give

Become a Thought Leader

Be the Red Car

Power Networking Secret Revealed!

When you read LinkedIn profiles what information pops out at you - good or bad?

How do you describe yourself to others at a networking events when you have several different active careers?

Top 15 Networking No-No’s: Power Networking Tips & Techniques

VI. Personal Development Resource Files

How Big is Your Sandbox?

Top Ten Personal Empowerment Tips

VII. Job Searching Resources

Should I be honest on LinkedIn about being jobless or should I hide it?

How can you write on LinkedIn that you were the creator of a company's department?

About the Author

Also by Rae A. Stonehouse

Introduction

There's an old saying that goes "the squeaky wheel... gets the grease."

The saying may have been true at one point in time but now...

The business world is a busy and crowded place. How can a business professional standout from the cacophony of others clambering for attention and recognition?

In this world of digital technology, a world where we are as close as 3° of separation to almost anybody in the world, many so-called technological gurus would have us believe we can easily create an on-line persona, a digital makeover if you will.

I would agree with the statement, to a certain extent. It seems daily we hear of fake restaurant or book reviews. We hear of identity theft where unscrupulous characters have stolen someone's ID for fraudulent purposes by creating false identities from what they are able to gather from public sources.

If it is so easy for someone to create these bogus on-line identities, how can we then trust any self-promotional material we view on-line?

I believe creating your on-line persona is important however, it is but one step at a self-promotional and marketing strategy.

This book offers a collection of strategies to build your on-line presence and gain recognition in your community.

Your goal may be to raise your prominence at work to apply for a job you have been eying. Perhaps, your goal is to run for political office, but it seems no one knows who you are. You may be like me, an authorpreneur wanting to promote my publications, myself as an author and my self-publishing business.

You can be brilliant in what you do. If you are a well kept secret, you are not helping yourself or your clients. As an author, you need to put your body of work out there. Articles, blogs and podcasts come into play. We talk about them later in the book.

By putting your ideas out there it does three things:

1) It really builds your credibility as a subject matter expert in that area.

2) It creates/reinforces your brand equity, your value in the marketplace.

3) It creates market gravity... some might call market pull.

If you aren't an author... well then perhaps you should be. We all have expertise that could be in demand by those who don't and are willing to pay you for your advice.

Self-promotion hasn't come easily to me.

As a shy introvert, I believed if I had done something praiseworthy the people in the position to deliver the praise would know and I shouldn't have to draw it to their attention.

As a registered nurse I recall working on a project with another nurse. I did most of the research and put the project report together. She did very little to participate however, upon completion, she took all the credit.

Back about 20 years or so ago I had an experience that awakened me to the value of self-promotion and the negative consequences of not doing so.

I was contemplating enrolling in a university program focused on leadership, training and organizational development. The program was designed for adult learners and was granting credit towards life and experiential lessons.

I had lots of experience to leverage and the skills to successfully complete the course. Where I fell short was in being able to provide testimonials as to my personal characteristics and my strengths and weaknesses.

I had my personal references lined up. That was easy, I had fellow workers and members of community organizations I was involved with, who provided me with testimonials.

The problem arose from not having a work-based manager or employer to provide a testimonial for me. As a worker, I tended to have as little as possible to do with my supervisors as I could. I did my job and did little over and above my duties. This meant I didn't have anybody to provide a supervisor–employee testimonial.

How could they?

They didn't know me. They didn't know what I was capable of, how could they possibly recommend me?

This was enlightening. It challenged my usual way of thinking. If I was to get ahead in the world, I needed to be able to learn how to leverage my relationships. When I say leverage, I don't necessarily mean to exploit them. I see value in developing mutually beneficial relationships which can lead to win–win results.

As I was contemplating this challenge of not having a supervisor's testimonial there was a change in our provincial government. I live in British Columbia, Canada. The new government significantly increased the cost of tuition for the program. It went from an affordable $8500 for a two-year program to over $22,000. This effectively closed the window of opportunity for me.

Fast forward a few years or so, actually more than a decade to be honest. I found myself as a director for a local society supporting entrepreneurs. At this point I had been a Toastmaster member for a decade or so and was used to organizing meetings and promoting Toastmaster's events. With my event organizing experience, I took on the role of VP Training & Development. My role was to organize our monthly town hall meetings where we showcased local entrepreneurial sage experts and allowed them to share their skills and experiences with fellow entrepreneurs.

In that capacity, I stretched the boundaries of what would normally be considered an event organizer. I developed the topics. I created the marketing promotion. I added the promotional copy to our website and then created and monitored the on-line event registration system.

If that wasn't enough, I recruited our panelists and worked with them to develop promotional material about themselves, which I added to our website for event promotion. I then developed the discussion questions that would be asked to the panelists as I was also the moderator for the panel discussion.

I organized some 30 of these town halls over a period of 2 years. At the same time I was developing websites which involved considerable promotional copywriting.

Writing promotional copy for these events and to promote the speakers for those events, raised my promotional skills significantly.

I learned it's far easier to promote someone else, that is their strengths, their skills, their experiences than it was to promote myself.

As I think back to my journey of self-promotion it may have started with delivering Toastmasters speeches. Part of delivering an effective speech is providing an introduction for your introducer to introduce you to your audience. Your introduction should grab your audience's attention, so they are eager to hear what you have to say.

Your introduction should also set up your credibility so it answers the question that most of the audience members are asking themselves "why should I listen to this speaker?"

In developing your introduction, you are providing the introducer the promotional copy you have crafted. Instead of 'blowing your own horn', which would've happened if it were you introducing yourself, it becomes more powerful if somebody else is saying these kind words about you. Sure, you wrote them in the first place, but having somebody else say the words makes it more effective in setting you up as somebody worth listening to.

Fast-forward a few more years and I created and operated an on-line community business events calendar. In that capacity, I researched and curated all local business events. I posted these business-related events to my on-line calendar and added promotional copy where needed. I had created some 2000 or more local on-line event listings.

In addition, I created and sent out a weekly newsletter letting people know about the upcoming local business events and promoting events I was interested in or involved with.

At the time of writing this chapter and book, I have written and self-published a dozen or so books in the self-help genre. As an authorpreneur it's necessary to self-promote my books, my self-publishing business and myself as an author. It gets easier the more I do it.

Blow Your Own Horn: Personal Branding for Business Professionals has been a side project for me while I have been working on creating and publishing my other self-help books. As I was writing those books it frequently occurred to me the content I was writing applied to not only the content of that particular book but also applied to the concept of self-promoting.

As we work our way through this book, I have utilized content from my other books to illustrate the point I want to make.

Many business professionals are quite comfortable at networking and self-promotion. Many of us aren't and may find it more painful than pleasurable. I've written this book from the perspective of having been a once shy introvert who has learned to become less shy and how to self-promote effectively on my journey through life.

If I can do it... you can do it too.

This book is for business professionals who want to raise their visibility in a crowded workplace or a personal interest venture.

Some will tell you blowing your own horn is bragging. I forward an argument against that belief in an upcoming chapter.

Others will tell you promoting yourself requires you to be phony or to be someone you really aren't.

If we are to move forward and benefit from our accomplishments, we need to self-promote.

Kurt Vonnegut, with his dry wit, knew better. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be," he wrote in Mother Night (1961).

Perhaps Vonnegut hit the proverbial nail in the head... "we are pretending..."

"Fake it until you make it" is an old saying that readily comes to mind. While you are faking it, you are developing skills that will eventually allow you to make it... without faking it.

If you want people to toot your horn, you have to provide them with the info you want them to promote. This is not a passive activity. You need to take the initiative to train your trumpeters so their message is favorable. Of equal importance, is tooting other people's horns. Fair is fair.

As in other books I have written I use what I call the "onion" method of writing. We'll take a close look at one layer at a time until we have a good understanding of our subject. Each content topic is stand-alone and it isn't necessary to complete the previous one before working on the steps of another.

I've divided this book up into parts to look at personal branding and marketing from different perspectives.

Firstly, we look at personal branding and marketing.

Secondly, we look at self-promotion utilizing Linkedin as a tool.

Then we look at effective networking techniques for self-promotion.

The Networking Section is followed by self-promotion strategies related to job searching.

After the Self-Promotion When Job Searching Section we look at on-line reputation management and additional social media venues that could be helpful to you in developing your personal brand.

We close our exploration of self-promotional strategies with Resource files to add to our understanding of the topic.

At the end of many of the chapters you will find a list of Action Items for you to complete that will help you move forward in developing your self-promotional skills.

Developing any new skill requires a change of your mindset.

Here is a poem I found years ago that I like to refer to often.

If you always think

The way you have always thought

You will always feel

The way you have always felt

And

If you always feel

The way you have always felt

You will always do

What you have always done

And

If you always do

What you have always done

You will always get

What you have always gotten

If there is no change

There is no change

Author Unknown

In our next chapter we explore the concept of personal branding, what it really means, why we should do it and what often prevents us from doing it.

Part I

Personal Branding & Marketing

Personal Branding

In this Chapter we explore the concept of personal branding, what it really means, why we should do it and what often prevents us from doing it.

If you Google your name, what comes up?

If the answer is "nothing", you probably haven't spent much time developing your personal brand.

So, what is personal branding?

According to Wikipedia, personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands.

It's probably a good idea to determine what a brand is before moving on.

Once again from Wikipedia...

A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes one seller's product from those of others.

Brands are used in business, marketing and advertising.

A brand is any name, design, style, words or symbols used singularly or in combination that distinguishes one product from another in the eyes of the customer.

Branding is a set of marketing and communication methods that help to distinguish a company from competitors and create a lasting impression in the minds of customers.

The key components that form a brand's toolbox include a brand's identity, brand communication (such as by logos and trademarks), brand awareness, brand loyalty and various brand management strategies.

We are all familiar with commercial branding and are likely bombarded with it every day. Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola and Nike readily come to mind.

These are well-established brands.

Now back to the idea of personalbranding...

While previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal-branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging.

The term is thought to have been first used and discussed in a 1997 article by Tom Peters.

Personal branding is essentially the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others about an individual, group, or organization.

Personal branding often involves the application of one's name to various products.

Athletes and celebrities come to mind.

If that is your situation, well good for you!

I would expect that you have staff to look after you.

For the rest of us mere mortals, let's drill down a little.

Developing a personal brand takes work, and it's not going to happen overnight. But once you do it, the benefits are endless.

In this next section we explore personal branding, what it really means, why we should do it and what often prevents us from doing it.

Why Should We Create a Personal Brand?

It Helps You Stand out from the Crowd:

A personal brand is a great way to demonstrate your skills and knowledge about a particular subject or field.

Building a brand is your chance to show your audience what you know and why you know it, and it will help set you apart from others who might be vying for the same opportunities but who haven't taken the time to build their own personal brand.

It Leads to Opportunities:

A strong personal brand can lead to a multitude of opportunities, including:

Job interviewsInternshipsSpeaking engagementsNetworking opportunitiesPromotionsPartnerships

A personal brand is the building blocks that will lead to success for your future. It can help you reach any number of goals, both personal and professional, and it can also lead to many opportunities for advancement in your career.

It Inspires Trust in Your Audience:

Many people, especially those of the millennial generation, don't trust larger businesses that utilize traditional advertising.

That's why there's such a big push nowadays to "shop small", and why influencer advertising is so successful.

People are much more likely to buy from, and listen to, someone who looks, talks, and acts like them as opposed to a large corporation.

So if you build your brand like a business, but still maintain a personal front, you're guaranteed to inspire trust amongst your audience.

Someone Is Always Going to Be Screening You On-line:

Whether you're applying for college, for an entry-level job, or for your future career, someone is going to be Googling your name.

Some employers will expect you to have an on-line presence, whereas others just want to ensure you don't have a poor reputation on-line.

Developing a personal brand is a great way to show potential employers that you've worked hard to build a positive reputation on-line.

Source: Search Engine Journal https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-is-personal-branding-why-important/327367/#close

So why don't we self-promote?

There are numerous reasons many of us don't like to talk about ourselves to others.

Perhaps we were taught at a young age from our mothers that it is wrong to promote yourself?

"It is bragging and nobody likes braggarts!"

That may be a generalization and it really isn't fair to pick on mothers, considering all the good they do for us.

However, while many people likely don't like braggarts, it doesn't necessarily follow that talking about yourself in a favorable light... is bragging.

Are you starting to wonder about the picture illustrated above? His name is Walt Whitman, and he was an American Cowboy poet, essayist and journalist, way back in the mid to later 1800s.

I'm fond of his quote about personal branding.

He probably didn't relate it any way to personal branding but here it goes...

"If you done it... it ain't bragging!"

I think Walt hit the proverbial nail on the head. If you have done something and you talk about it, then it isn't bragging.

That sounds like self-promotion to me.

Can you think of any other reasons we don't self-promote?

It could be a simple matter of we really don't know how to promote ourselves.

I'm hoping this book resolves the problem for you if you identify with that reason.

Another simple reason may be we don't have time to self-promote.

Throughout this book I provide strategies you will be able to follow and start self-promoting.

Like any other skill development, it takes time and practice to become good at it.

As your skill in self-promotion increases and your self-confidence as well, you should find it easier to self-promote.

Then there is a simple reason that most of us have likely experienced at one time or another.

It can be embarrassing at first when you create promotional copy, featuring yourself in a good light.

We will introduce on-line promotion and reputation management in a few chapters.

One of the features of social media platforms is a requirement to create a Bio or a Profile.

While these can be a great opportunity for self-promotion, the first few times can be challenging.

Do you write your promotional copy in the first person as "I did this, this and this..."?

Or do you write it in the 3rd person, "Rae Stonehouse, renowned best-selling author is known for..."?

Okay, so I'm not a best selling-author yet, but I have a head start on promoting it.

A few years back when I was researching content for my e-book Power Networking for Shy People: Tips & Techniques for Moving from Shy to Sly, I discovered a book by William Bridges... Creating You & Company: Learn to think like the CEO of your own company.

Bridges encourages you to market yourself as if you are the company.

He takes the corporate idea of branding and challenges us to apply it to ourselves.

I say "Blow your own horn!"

"If you don't, who will?"

Reading his book helped provide clarity and peace of mind for me.

Rather than feeling like a person with multiple personalities as I will describe later on in the book, it was more like having multiple personas. They are all me, each from a different perspective.

I have worked in mental health for many years and have met a few multiple personalities.

They are good people.

Bridge's book helped me to redefine myself in a new way. "Hello, I'm Rae Stonehouse. I am a nurse entrepreneur and a believer in the Law of Attraction!"

"I am open to the opportunities and abundance that the Universe has to offer me."

I'll leave it as that at for your understanding of who I am.

I have an elevator pitch for each of those personas mentioned above that I use in specific situations.

I will illustrate them in further depth later in this book.

Action Items:

Decide for yourself, why you want to self-promote? What is your purpose and what do you hope to achieve?Start to develop a personal brand. What do you want the public to know about you?Create a list of your notable accomplishments.

In our next Chapter, we explore personal marketing.

Keep asking yourself, "What kind of a company would my company be if everyone in it was just like me?" Brian Tracy

"A professional is a person who can do his best at a time when he doesn't particularly feel like it." Alistair Cooke

"Challenge everything you do. Expand your thinking. Refocus your efforts. Rededicate yourself to your future." Patricia Fripp

Personal Marketing

We've been talking about personal branding. Closely related to branding is marketing.

Marketing Overview:

Marketing, as defined by the American Marketing Association "is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large."

Hmmm. Another definition is: The management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. It includes the coordination of four elements called the 4 P's of marketing:

(1) identification, selection and development of a product,

(2) determination of its price,

(3) selection of a distribution channel to reach the customer's place, and

(4) development and implementation of a promotional strategy.

The content in this chapter is excerpted from a book I have under development entitled Content Marketing Strategies That Work: Book Three in the Successful Self-Publisher Series.

While it is directed towards authors and content creators, the same principles apply to marketing yourself or your product whatever it may be.

There's an old saying: "Advertising is what you pay for, publicity is what you pray for." It can be said that advertising is paid media, public relations is earned media. With advertising, you tell people how great you are. With publicity, others sing your praises.

Most authors don't have the operational budget to spend on paid advertising. Advertising is expensive. Publicity and public relations, while not necessarily totally free, can have a better return on investment than money spent on advertising. Many people confuse advertising and public relations. This table (below) compares the two.

Advertising vs Public Relations Comparison Chart

Table Source: Robert Wynne

"If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always gotten!"

Conventional marketing wisdom says you need to touch your customer 7 to 11 times before they make a purchasing decision.

When it comes to touching our customers, don't take that too literally as it will likely get you in trouble if you were to do so!

In a marketing context, a touch is every time your customer sees or hears a mention of your name or brand.

Touchpoint examples could be your website, a tweet from your Twitter account, a post to your Facebook page or someone else's, a blog post focusing on your topic, a Linkedin post, a poster on the wall of a public place etc. The list goes on and on.

An individual needs to see your name and/or your book title, over and over again before they make a decision to check it out. When they are thinking about your topic, whatever it may be, you want them to be thinking your name.

In our next Chapter, we explore the concept of identifying who we actually are.

Who Are You?

In this chapter we explore the concept of identifying who we actually are.

Knock knock! Who's there? Rae. Rae who? Exactly...

Rae who?

One of the challenges I find with people who are out there promoting themselves and networking to develop contacts and connections is that of deciding who they actually are.

That statement might not have made sense to you.

Having low self-esteem for many years I had challenges in defining, at least to myself, who I actually was.

Traditionally, men tend to introduce themselves in relation to what they do for a living.

"Hello, I'm Rae Stonehouse and I'm a Registered Nurse and I've worked in mental health for over 40 years."

Women, conversely, tend to introduce themselves in relation to their role in life. "I'm Diane and I'm the mother of energetic four-year-old twin boys, my husband is a doctor and... oh... I'm also a nurse."

As I took on more volunteer roles and developed entrepreneurial ventures, my identity became more complicated.

In addition to being a nurse I was also a former Boy Scout Leader; a Toastmasters member and a leader; Chairman of a local non-profit agency to support entrepreneurs; a business owner developing an event planning business; a master of ceremonies; a wedding reception emcee and an independent legal services broker.

Whew! I'm overwhelmed just saying it out loud.

Can you imagine what it would be like on the receiving end of my introductions?

It would take ten minutes or so for me to recite and describe all of them and it often did.

It didn't work for me. It often left my listener overwhelmed and confused. It appeared I lacked focus. And at times I certainly did.

While I may be at the far end of the continuum as to the depth of my identity, take the following as an example of someone on the other end of the identity continuum.

In my seminars I like to provide the example of a housewife returning to the workforce as an example of someone with an identity crisis.

Here's the scenario.

A young woman attends university and obtains an advanced degree in computer technology.

Upon graduation she works for five years and rises to the position of Supervisor in the technology department of a mid-sized company.

In the meantime, she marries and several years into her supervisory role she goes off on maternity leave.

Time passes. She decides to quit her job and stay at home to raise her family.

She has two more children.

More time passes and her youngest child has started in school full-time back in the Fall.

Now that all three of her children are in school throughout the day, she feels she is ready to go back to work.

But who is she now?

Is she still the Supervisor of the technology department she worked in?

Can she walk back into that position?

Have there been any changes in the computer technology world in the six years or so since she left the workforce?

If she's not that supervisory person anymore, then who is she?

Is she the person she wasbefore she took on the supervisory role?

Possibly, possibly not! She would likely need to undertake considerable upgrading to be competitive in her job search.

Or is her identity now that of a housewife?

If so, how can she leverage being a housewife into her job search?

This is an example of an identity crisis.

In the next section we explore some other identity challenges many people face.

You are much more than your job, your title or your role in your family.

So then... who are you?

You are an amalgamation of all your roles in life, your skills, your experiences... the good things and the bad things.

They are all you!

In order to promote yourself, you need to have a good understanding of who you are.

I didn't!

A mentor of mine suggested I perform an exercise to gain a better understanding of who I am.

I've included it as an Action Item for this lesson.

I'll talk you through it here.

It's simple at first but becomes more challenging as you delve into the exercise.

On a sheet of paper, create a large letter T. On the top of the left-hand column write the words My Strengths.

At the top of the right-hand column write the words My Perceived Weaknesses.

[Perceived means these are items you believe you are weak in, not what someone else has said about you.]

Start adding to each column. You may find it helpful to categorize your items into the different roles you have in life, or perhaps different activities you engage in.

As you get into the exercise, it becomes more difficult to identify items to write down. But just when you think you are stuck or finished, a new idea will pop up and off you go.

When I completed this exercise, I had more than a dozen pages of items. I am involved in a lot of different areas and endeavors.

Some I am skilled at.

Some not so much.

The final step is to read through your strengths and perceived weaknesses.

I would suspect you have a lot more strengths identified than weaknesses as they can be somewhat easier to accept.

So how is this exercise helpful to you?

Hopefully, it will provide some clarity for you as to the many roles you take on in life.

It should also illustrate you have a lot of strengths to capitalize on.

Many people fall into the trap of focusing on their short-comings or their perceived weaknesses.

Research shows if you want to become more self-confident in what you do, you would be better to focus on your strengths, making them even stronger.

Many are of the belief you should try to strengthen your weaknesses instead of your strengths.

Once again, the research says 'no.' It provides examples like Bill Gates.

Is he a computer whiz? Most certainly.

Is he an excellent public speaker or presenter? Not so well!

What he has done is to capitalize on his strengths, not focus on his weaknesses.

He can pay people to do whatever he isn't good at.

Many successful people do the same thing.

We may not be able to afford others to do what we aren't so good at, but we can certainly become even better at what we are good at.

While we are doing so, there is a high possibility we'll start to get better in areas we haven't been so good at.

Action Items:

Complete the Strengths/Perceived Weaknesses Exercise.Upon completion of the Strengths/Perceived Weaknesses Exercise assess your results.Celebrate your strengths!Answer the question... "Who am I?"

In our next chapter we take the information we just learned about ourselves and ask "What do we stand for?"

"It takes a lot of things to prove you are smart, but only one thing to prove you are ignorant." Don Herold

"Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself; but do not relinquish it simply because someone else is not sure of you." Stewart E. White

What Do You Stand For?

In this chapter we take the information we just learned about ourselves and ask "What do you stand for?"

What Do You Stand For?

If you were asked to describe yourself in one word or perhaps a few, what would they be? If I were to ask a colleague or friend of yours the same question, would they offer the same words as yours?

If I were asked that question 10 to 15 years back I would say I was a catalyst. As a nurse therapist I helped my patients and fellow staff to move forward with problems in their lives that were holding them back.

I also believe the words creative, systematic, organized, loyal and persistent come to mind.

What word would you use to describe yourself?

Quite recently, I learned of an acronym that resonates with me. H.O.P.E.

Helping Other People Evolve. As I have recently retired from my nursing job, I'm not serving as a catalyst for my patients anymore but I certainly am in the self-help books I write and publish with the systems and strategies I create. The words I used to describe myself ring true and serve me in helping others evolve.

So what words would you use to describe yourself? Do you walk your talk? Do others know what you stand for? Have you told them? Maybe you should. That's all part of the blowing your own horn concept.

People aren't mind readers. Sometimes you need to tell them what they should be thinking. That's called marketing. It would also likely be a good idea to ask the people in your life what they believe you stand for. That's called research. Their answers may surprise you.

I will likely remember for the rest of my days, one example of a person who did not walk their talk. He was the keynote motivational speaker at a conference I attended and was promoting healthy living, being everything that you could be and leading by example. I observed him later that evening in the hotel's bar, pounding back the liquor and smoking like a chimney.

I think the message here is when you are developing your professional image you need to have it turned on at all times. In small communities, people you network with in business situations will likely encounter you at social get-togethers or at the grocery store.

Action Items:

Create a list of words you would use to describe yourself.Answer the question... "What do I stand for?"Ask friends and colleagues in your existing network what words they would use to describe you.Ask your friends and colleagues if they believe that you "walk your talk."If they reply "No, you don't", what will you now do with this information?

In the next chapter we explore Linkedin as a powerful self-promotion and marketing tool.

"Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?" Mary Manin Morrissey

"Each one of us has a fire in our heart for something. It's our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit." ---Mary Lou Retton [American Olympic Gymnast]

Are You Linkedin?

In this chapter we explore Linkedin as a powerful self-promotion and marketing tool.

Are you Linkedin? Well, you should be!

Linkedin and the Internet in general are a boon to learning and practicing self-promotional skills. The on-line world is a great leveler when it comes to the shy and introverted vs. the extroverted.

When you are reading text on a website or elsewhere, the personality of the author doesn't usually show. I believe many of my fellow introverts have better computer and technological skills than our extroverted colleagues. I further believe our ability to focus on matters and our preference to work alone works in our favor.

You can research a person you want to connect to without ever having to leave the comfort of your home. Mobile apps on your smart phone also mean you can research somebody when you are out and about. You don't need to wait until you are in front of your desktop computer or laptop for that matter.

I used to describe Linkedin as being like your resume on steroids. The content I had uploaded to my profile was very much in the curriculum vitae style of a resume. It seemed to go on and on when you were reading it. I had added every notable achievement to my list of accomplishments. The fact I was involved with and had lots of experience from many organizations as well as my professional career as a Registered Nurse, made it confusing.

Action Items:

If you haven't already, sign up for a free Linkedin account.

In our next chapter we look at Linked in strategies to get the most out of your Linkedin membership.

"What is the most important thing that you should do right now? It's easy to figure out the answer... the most important thing is usually the item you least want to do. So jump on it. Get it out of the way. Then go on to the next thing you don't want to do and get rid of that item by completing it. You'll be amazed at how it frees your spirit not to have them hanging over you." Tom Hopkins

"There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it." Dale Carnegie

Linkedin Strategies for Personal Branding & Marketing

In thischapter we explore more strategies to leverage your Linkedin membership for personal branding, self-promotion and marketing.

There are several elements of Linkedin I want to focus on in this chapter that are helpful to a self-promoter.

It can be your personal marketing agency:

One of the first steps to take after opening your Linkedin account is to start developing your Profile. Your profile connects you with others in your Linkedin network. As a new connection is made, often the new contact will go to your profile to learn more about you.

Even people you have known for years will check you out. Imagine the number one thought going through someone's mind as they read your profile is... "Is there an opportunity for me to do business with this person?"

Parts of the Profile:

Your Name: You have the option of having your name displayed fully or with your first name and last initial. Example: Rae Stonehouse vs Rae S. If you are using Linkedin as a business growth strategy, it is suggested you use your full name.

Headline: Provide a descriptive headline statement. It doesn't need to be your current job title, although many people use this field in that way. Something that gives a glimpse into your uniqueness or personality can help you stand out from your competitors.

Here is a headline I used a while back when I was operating a Master of Ceremonies business.

I'll show you an updated version of my Linkedin profile in a few moments as well as some problems experienced with the above headline, specifically my photo.

In the Background heading you can add a Summaryof your experience and what you currently have to offer.

Under Experience you can add any experience you want featured. This is a good place to highlight your strengths and accomplishments. You can add bulleted points in this section, but it should not be all bullet points. Write your summary as if you are speaking conversationally to the person reading it.

It might be helpful to take a look at some other Linkedin user profiles to see how they have completed their profile. Every connection you gain won't necessarily be a business prospect for you. However, as you write your profile, you should do so with the intent a prospect will read it.

This is the place to blow your own horn! Make sure you highlight what you want the reader to see and to remember. Some people take a factual or chronological approach to creating their profile, others more of a promotional or marketing one. My original profile included references to my nursing career and was designed for the possibility of using it for job search purposes. As I am approaching the end of my nursing career and moving into other ventures, I have removed references to my profession in favor of my entrepreneurial ventures and my volunteer life.

Should You Write in the First Person or the Third Person?

This is a contentious question among so-called Linkedin profile creating experts. There doesn't seem to be a best-practices answer to the question and seems to be based on the individual's opinion, rather than hard facts.

Writing in first-person looks like this: "I did this, this and this... then I..."

Proponents of creating your Linkedin content in the first-person argue you should be having a one-to-one discussion with your Linkedin profile reader. Some believe that not writing in the 1st person is a missed opportunity to have a conversation with your reader. After all, they are reading your Linkedin profile for a reason.

From a self-promotional perspective and mine, I believe there is value in writing your copy in the third person. Sure, it may seem weird at first, but it does get easier in time.

Writing in the third person is more likely to seem less like bragging than when done in the first person to the person reading your Bio. Once again, my opinion.

Some believe the first person communication pronoun i.e. 'I' might be proper for:

a diary entrypersonal testimonialdating service postautobiography orcover letter on an employment application.

Even though you are writing your profile in the third person, everybody knows you wrote it. It can be a thin line between self-promotion and bragging. I'm with Walt Whitman, American Cowboy Poet who said "If you done it... it ain't bragging!"

Which ever format you choose, it is important to maintain it throughout your promotional copy. Equally important is to pay extra attention to the tense you are using.

Did you do something in the recent past, or the far past? Are you still do something in the present you want to draw attention to?

Here are some general tips to maximize your Linkedin profile:

Capitalize properly. "mary smith" is less professional than "Mary Smith."Proofread, proofread, proofread.Avoid industry jargon as much as possible.Avoid acronyms. If you must use them, explain the acronym in the first appearance of it in your profile. Example: ASAP (as soon as possible).Use a professional head-shot photo of yourself for your profile. More about that later.

An earlier version of my Linkedin profile (see below) was written tongue-in-cheek. It had the following opening sentences:

<<How many people can honestly say they spent part of their formative years in a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane?

Rae can! True, he was working as a staff in the Dietary Department and was able to go home every evening at the end of his shift but, that experience has had a lasting effect on him.

Over the past 30+ years Rae has been working as a Registered Nurse, predominantly in the field of mental health/psychiatric nursing.>>

In that version I had taken a promotional approach many would find uncomfortable using. It didn't seem to have held me back any for those who had wanted to connect with me.

Currently I am using a more formalized profile overview focusing on my book writing and publishing, yet still promotional in nature.

Rae A. Stonehouse is a Canadian born author & speaker.

His professional career as a Registered Nurse working predominantly in psychiatry/mental health, has spanned four decades.

Rae has embraced the principal of CANI (Constant and Never-ending Improvement) as promoted by thought leaders such as Tony Robbins and brings that philosophy to each of his publications and presentations.