PRACTICE MARKETING blog

So why bother with blogs? 1) Reading blogs help stay up with the trends in your world. 2) Commenting on blogs help you practice articulating your point of view. 3) Commenting on blogs also helps grow in-links to your website or blog. 4) Commenting on blogs also furthers your Personal Brand positioning. 5) Hosting your own blog gives you a soapbox platform. Make it worthwhile.

Doing all 5 can take a lot of time. Well, blogs aren’t the problem. It’s your time management with them… become more productive with easy technology. #5 is time well spent… after all, personal brand marketing attracts the right prospects!

How can we make better use of our time with #1 - 4?

Subscribe to your favorite blogs!! Have their posts come to you. You can even create Google Alerts to have new websites, news, and blog posts e-mailed to you … Thousands of professionals are on my e-mail list.

And I have a over a thousand on my RSS feed subscription… they know the value of a RSS reader. They want to be on top of the blogosphere … but know that their time is too valuable to go a-hunting. RSS feeds force the news & blog posts come to you.

See the word SUBSCRIBE on the right-hand side? Or the orange icon next to the world RSS in the upper right-hand corner? And all those tiny icons on the right hand side of my blog? They all do one thing… it’s going to be the newspaper of the future! get hip to it… Wonder what that RSS stuff is all about?

Common Craft created a great video about RSS:

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I’m often asked what’s the difference between a Reputation… and a Personal Brand?

NOTHING… potentially.  Most personal brands are just reputations.  And they miss out on the real long-lasting fruits of their labor.  But reputations that enjoy 3 powers are able to leverage Personal Brands.

The attached podcast goes into detail about these 3 powers (or differences between a reputation and a personal brand).  It also asks you quick questions to help you measure the power of your personal brand.  If you just have a reputation, you can learn 3 new marketing tips every week to automatically transform into a Personal Brand.

Does your reputation enjoy these 3 powers?

1. PURPOSE power
2. COMMUNITY power
3. ENDORSEMENT power.

Again, my podcast goes into detail about what I mean.  I also give examples of personal brands who leverage each of these 3 powers.

Ultimately, ENDORSEMENT is the greatest power of your Personal Brand:

Your clients may recommend your services to their friends because of your great reputation.  As your reputation precedes you, prospects are attracted to you, and it’s simpler to close the deal.  Because they trust your insight or experience, they may even ask you for advice or recommendations – on topics unrelated to your expertise.

But a reputation only strokes your ego.  While it feels good, it can trap you.  If your clients recommend you, but add… “Oh, ask for … he’s the one you want to work with… don’t bother with the others.”  Then your reputation surely expresses your great competency, character, and charisma… but it erodes your Endorsement Power.

With the power to endorse, you need not do all the work yourself.  You can become sought after, yet still enjoy free time.  More than with a reputation, your “Full-Spectrum” Personal Brand will enable you to delegate, recommend and co-brand products, services, and other professionals.  How can you further develop the Endorsement capability of your reputation, or personal brand?  Find out by listening one of my most detailed podcasts below!

In her book about the personal brand Emeril!, Marcia Layton Turner explains, “In order to sustain itself beyond the end of the individual on which the reputation has been built, a brand must be active in multiple media.” 

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcasts [18:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (726)

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Who Inspires You? Who all compels you to grow your personal brand of excellence?

Russell Simmons is a pioneer of the most influential social movement of our generation. Last week I was able to attend a talk he gave. And not being shy, I asked him about his Role Models.

Russell Simmons has a new book called Do You! He admits that it features success principles easily found in all scriptures and other self-help books. But he appeals to a community (the hiphop generation) that many “self-help gurus” and preachers cannot reach.

His Full-Spectrum personal brand of excellence fulfills all 4 quadrants of my Role Model Collage:

1) Personal Qualities

2) Professional Qualities

3) Professional Quantities

4) Professional Quantities.

In the attached 10 minute audio, I walk you step-by-step on how to envision your own Role Model Collage. It’s easy to create. It’s fun to do. And a wonderful group and team building exercise.

More importantly, it helps you re-mind yourself and align your habits on a day-to-day basis. It also helps bring others into your wavelength. You can build deep rapport with others through your public Role Model Collage.

We should have as many role models as the number of roles we play everyday. We should have as many role models as the different kinds of success we enjoy. We become how we see ourselves. We can see ourselves as a collage of those we admire, want to emulate, and enjoy equal success!

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcasts [10:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (537)

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For all its appeal, if all you’re doing is building your personal brand then you’re half-assed.

It’s funny:  I came to the world of personal branding originally against the notion.  My consulting firm helps small-business owners develop strategies to create leverage:  That is, to create a business that simply is not co-dependent on the owner’s personal time.  From the looks of it, Personal Branding positions people to want YOU — and not anybody else. If your business or income streams would come to a screeching halt when you’re not actively working (on vacation, in the hospital, distracted by other projects), then well, that really sucks!  (That’s why personal branding for career advancement is half-assed.)

Bottom-line, if all we have is our personal brands … then while your ego can inflate indefinitely… our time-based income is extremely limited.  The point is to develop a reputation so powerful that we can then endorse other products & people, upon our personal brand platform.  That is, we should Leverage our Personal Brand!

We need to develop a Full-Spectrum Personal Brand™:  One that begins with our own reputation.  But then brands other products, platforms, and ultimately, other people.  Our legacy is through the other people we uplift.

The first step is to yes, focus on your personal brand marketing.  As you maximize your time…

Then develop intellectual property (audio, videos, etc.) that create income based on your personal brand.

Once you develop a business model that can expand with other people.  We can use the Personal Brand Marketing Formula ™ to help you grow your practice beyond your time.   In fact, the beauty of creating a franchise or license is that you’re able to leverage OPM in addition to OPPB (other people’s personal brands).  But that will come in time:  First things first… let’s get back to our personal brand marketing

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In the new tradition of community-collaboration using the Internet (aka, Web 2.0), the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office is cooperating with a revolutionary new website: PeertoPatent.org (developed by New York Law). I quote from their new site… Peer-to-Patent opens the patent examination process to public participation for the first time.

Become part of this historic pilot program. Help the USPTO find the information relevant to assessing the claims of pending patent applications.

Become a community reviewer and improve the quality of patents.