Jennifer McClure`

Empowering Organizations and People Leaders to thrive in the ever-evolving world of work

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Personal Branding For Career Growth & Success [Presentation]

Last week, I once again had the privilege of speaking to a group of over 50 women who have been selected for the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber’s WE Lead Program. This was the 3rd year in a row that I’ve had the opportunity to share with the participants in this 10 month leadership development program about the importance of Personal Branding in today’s competitive employment environment.

It’s always a pleasure to spend time with highly talented women with such high potential and I really enjoy the conversation and feedback that happens as a result!

In my “Personal Branding for Career Success” session, the participants are initially asked to write a few words or statements describing what they believe their Personal Brand is today, as well as what they’d like for it to be (assuming that is different). Then, we work as a group to get that message into a a succinct Personal Brand Statement for each individual that they can utilize as a base for building a strong online presence, focusing their career activities and even prioritizing and identifying ways to get noticed within and outside of work.

I’ve included the presentation deck from last week’s presentation below.

Personal Branding for Career Growth – Feb 2012
Personally, I’m a bit over the term “personal branding”, but I do still see tremendous value in the concepts of understanding who you are and being able to communicate your value, as well as to articulate what differentiates you from others in your field. Clearly, many of the participants did as well, as evidenced by some of their comments:
“This was a fascinating topic. Hadn’t thought a lot about doing personal branding, but see how it fits with career and work. She was very organized with presentation, handouts, small group activity and content was great.”
“Excellent, but I left feeling somewhat inadequate. Time to get to work!”
“Helped to spend some time reworking my personal brand statement. She knows her stuff.”
“So helpful! Lots of steps to take to claim my brand.”
“People do have a perception of me. I need to take control of that.”
“Branding session impressed on me the importance of keeping social media tools updated.”
“Thanks so much for sharing your expertise with our WE Lead class yesterday! Your presentation is always one of the best-received of the entire program and that was true again this year. Clearly the information you share resonates with the group and it motivates them to take action. Please know how much we appreciate your contribution to WE Lead and hope you take pride in the lasting impact you are making for these women. – Diana Long, Program Manager Women Excel
What’s your take on the topic of Personal Branding? Love it? Hate it? Think it’s more important than ever to have one?

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Can Your Awesomeness Be Contained To 7 Words?

Recently, I came across a discussion in a LinkedIn Group that I manage, where a member posted an interesting Discussion topic that sparked over 175 comments. It was a simple request:

Can Your Awesomeness Be Contained To 7 Words?

Describe what you do in exactly 7 words.

It was interesting to see all of the responses to the question over a few weeks, and through them I learned about/became interested in several people that I wasn’t familiar with who conveyed their personal or business brand in a concise and meaningful way.

Others paid no attention to the 7-word limit, and rambled on as they likely would in person (rule-breakers). A few used less that 7 words (show-offs/also rule-breakers), and at least one person answered the question several times with a different 7-word response each time (confused).

Whether you’re a seasoned professional, a business owner, a person in career transition, or a recent college grad, it’s important to have a descriptive and succinct response to the inevitable question you’ll encounter when meeting someone for the first time – “What do you do?”.

And while it’s not typically required to limit yourself to 7 words, I think this is a good exercise, and worth your time to figure out a concise way to describe who you are, and what you do

Can you describe your awesomeness in exactly 7 words?

Give it a shot in the comments!

And if you’re wondering what the perfect 7 word description is for myself…

World’s only human who doesn’t drink coffee.

Okay, I got to get to work on that. 🙂


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