Mistakes happen

Should we be the one making the error, the best strategy is to quickly apologize to get past the embarrassment and heal the wound. The next step is to then ask for forgiveness. In the case where you recognize ahead of time you will be late, let the other party know and ask if their time still allows for you to meet. And should fault lie with the other party, the best thing you can do is relax, smile knowing everyone makes errors, and be forgiving.

Becoming stressed out or angry serves no one and most likely will deter future business. But by being open and flexible, the other party receives the message you are easy to work with. This enhances your chances for securing the business down the road.

The more important factor hidden in all of this is the process helps you to qualify whether this is someone with whom you wish to continue a dialogue. Should the other party be inflexible or unforgiving, you may face a very difficult time working together. On the other hand, when flexibility is demonstrated, you are likely to feel a better connection and find increased enjoyment doing business.

Flexibility is a win-win

Flexibility is also another type of negotiation. In sales terms, it is best to work for a win-win conclusion. By either apologizing or being forgiving, you negotiate your way through a misstep leading to an improved outcome.

Another area where flexibility holds importance is when an out of the ordinary request is made. Accommodating the wishes of others, within reason, will put you in the favorable spotlight. But once again the request needs to be reasonable and if possible benefit all parties.

My own example is that of being invited to a gathering of long time business acquaintances that required a drive time of almost two hours each way. I was willing to do so, but politely asked if I could arrive an hour early, even help set up, so that I could leave in time to avoid rush hour. I was teaching a class that evening and could not be late. Unfortunately, my perspective was never taken into consideration. In fact, no response was ever received. The other party simply got angry and refused to reply.

The lack of flexibility baffled me because over the years, I have accommodated many in the same manner. Qualifying the situation in retrospect, I recognized that it’s obviously not a good match. Saving four hours of driving allowed me to focus my time where greater possibility existed.

On the other side of the table, the next time someone makes an out of the ordinary request of you, stop to analyze why it was made. Rather than letting the request get the best of you, determine if it is reasonable. Working from the other party’s perspective first for understanding and clarity will lead you most often to a more favorable conclusion.

When you are flexible and accommodating, others recognize it and appreciate it. Your personal brand incorporates the sought after identity of “easy to work with.” Relationships improve dramatically and business becomes a Smooth Sale!

Author:

Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC, (800) 704-1499, was honored by Open View Labs with inclusion in their international list of “Top 25 Sales Influencers for 2012.” Elinor authored the International Best-Selling book, “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship Building That Gets Results”, Sourcebooks and the best selling career book, “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself On Interviews”, Career Press. She provides team sales training, private coaching and highly acclaimed inspirational keynotes for conferences. Elinor is available for consultation.

A reversal to the common approach of building brand awareness by seeking out opportunities to be featured as a guest blogger for other sites within your area of expertise may be one to reflect on. Guest blogging has been proven to build brand awareness as it enhances your credibility and increases your exposure. But, remember that personal branding is a 24/7 job. Keep your audience on their toes by acquiring the role of host rather than guest for a proven boost in online traffic.

Managing a strong online presence through your blogs, social networks, and other online content is the most tangible way to build (or damage) your personal brand. Although it is important to stay consistent, times are always changing and sticking to the “same-old, same-old” strategies may be the reason you fell behind. Therefore, it is important to continue utilizing new and effective ways to reach your audiences to avoid experiencing any lags in online viewership.

You may be wondering, “Why would I be the host to my very own competition?” Initially, yes it seems as though you are setting up a silver platter for your most elite competitors to swing on by your online platform, gain some exposure, and maybe even take a few of your followers along with them. But, consider the following advantages of inviting others to be your guest:

Spice things up

If you are posting several blog posts a day (or even week) related to your field, coming up with new ideas can sometimes be a challenge. In fact, this consistency of your same routine may be the exact reason why you are experiencing a dry spell in your viewership. Just like adding some color to your plain green salad for a more aesthetic dish, hosting a guest blogger can freshen up your content and help you to explore new perspectives you haven’t considered before.

An endorsement to call your own

Your online personal brand is measured by your influence, plain and simple. True influencers online are those who are engaging and reputable. Hosting some of the true influencers in your specialized area is comparable to investing in a celebrity endorsement, minus the millions of dollars. Putting a recognizable name in the industry on your site will undoubtedly drive traffic as it boosts your own credibility simultaneously.

Sharing a common goal

While you are looking to build your own personal brand, keep in mind that your potential guest blogger has the very same goal in mind. As you share with your audience your new feature, you better believe that your guest will be sharing the post with his or her own following as well.

​Inviting a guest blogger is mutually beneficial to both parties and an excellent way to build your personal brand and online presence. This isn’t the first role reversal we’ve seen in this day and age. Try it!

What benefits do you see in hosting guest bloggers? Share your stories. 

Author:

Heather R. Huhman is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder & president of Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for organizations with products that target job seekers and/or employers. She is also the author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships (2011), #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for numerous outlets.

Fear is often hard to recognize, because you think fear should feel like quaking in your boots – like how most people feel about public speaking. People who fear speaking to groups, feel this hair-raising, gut wrenching, dry mouth, heart pounding set of symptoms that are undeniable.  By the way, I earn a great portion of my living by public speaking, so if it helps: public speaking is fun and empowering once you get over yourself.

What fear feels like

But most of your fears aren’t the cartoon version – your knees probably aren’t shaking. It’s not heart pounding most of the time.

Sometimes fear is what makes you sleep in and be late to work. Sometimes, it’s the reason you read a blog but don’t “have the time” to leave a comment.

Fear feels like doubt. Uncertainty. Worry. Concern. Second thoughts. Being tired. Laziness. Disinterest.

Fear looks like a lack of good opportunities to be your best, or show off exactly how you can help someone solve their business problems with your solutions.  Like, geez – how come nobody takes or returns my phone calls? If you listened to your message, you’d probably know right away.  Fear often makes you sound indifferent. We sense you lack belief in – or excitement about – what you have to offer.

Fear will hold you back

So, if you are missing an outpouring of opportunity to be your best self, it’s probably fear that has prevented you from showing up at networking events, or speaking up in a company meeting, or raising your hand in class.

Fear kills your career because it makes you stay home or stay quiet or otherwise stay within your comfort zone. Even though logically you know: if you keep doing only what you are comfortable doing, you’ll never have more than you have now. And what don’t you have now? More money. More influence. More joy. More success.

What has fear stopped you from doing – and enjoying?

You can find out more about yourself and this deadly emotion, by tuning into Michael Luckman – the author of Overpowering Fear: Defeating the #1 Challenge in Sales and Life. He is offering a premium subscription to his weekly tele-seminars for a full year. The price is S1,151.  But – he has 60 spots open for a full year FREE. No strings. Just learning to recognize and overpower fear with the other Platinum members of Michael’s Inner Circle.

Don’t sign up on his website: that will cost you $1,151. Just email him at Michael@OverPoweringFear.com. Subject line: Nance Recommends Me.

All you have to lose is fear. Whew. Wouldn’t that change everything?

Author:

Nance Rosen is the author of Speak Up! & Succeed. She speaks to business audiences around the world and is a resource for press, including print, broadcast and online journalists and bloggers covering social media and careers. Read more at NanceRosenBlog. Twitter name: nancerosen

A feat that we achieved with flying colors.

My company has built recognition in the franchise restaurant world because my team and I hustled extremely hard at each conference.  We didn’t let the business come to us; instead, we went out there and took it for ourselves.

This post highlights in detail the techniques and methods I use to close client deals from a conference or trade-show.

The real networking happens at the event, not the exhibition floor

I quickly learned that only fools stand by their booth all day at a conference.

I’ll let you in on a secret that I learned while at conferences: the people that approach your trade-show booth are NOT decision makers; the real decisions makers (the professionals you are looking to meet) avoid the exhibition floor at all costs and can be found at the speaker panels and keynotes events.

Go to the actual event and network with everyone.  Be knowledgeable, be helpful, and invite professionals to come check you out at your booth later when the exhibition floor opens.

If you spent the majority if your time at your conference booth, then you’ve just wasted your investment.

Host a breakout session and bring printed materials

Quite often, conferences have breakout sessions where conference sponsors can lead discussions about a particular topic.  To lead a breakout session, speak with the conference coordinator and organize accordingly.

The mistake that I see most sponsors make is that they go into the breakout session completely blind and unprepared because they feel they’re already an expert on the topic that they’re moderating.  It’s the mistake of overconfidence.

Prepare + bring handout materials: Everyone in your breakout session will be surprised to find that you not only have a 5-7 minute presentation about the topic, but that you brought handout materials as well.  Make sure these handout materials are helpful guides or industry reports about your topic – don’t just hand out marketing materials.

Also, make sure to get everyone in your discussion group involved.  People will leave and get bored if you monopolize the conversation.

3 weeks prior/3 weeks post method

As a conference sponsor, you get a list of attendees for the event.  I’ve noticed that the majority of sponsors don’t take advantage of the list to build hype and generate leads prior to the conference or after the conference.

The email method that works: For 3 weeks before the conference, my team and I send out a weekly email with helpful tips and strategies about the industry and how it’s related to my company.  The goal is to be helpful and informative, and let the attendees know that we’re experts in our field.

For 3 weeks after the conference, my team and I will send a weekly email with lessons and how to’s learned from the conference.  This is particularly helpful to professionals who attended the conference because they have to report back to their team about what they learned.

Use the three methods described above to stand out from the crowd and make sure you get a solid ROI from your conference or trade-show investment.

Author:

Jun Loayza is the Co-Founder of RewardMe, a customer loyalty program for restaurants and retailers. In his entrepreneurial experience, Jun has sold 2 internet companies and lead social media technology campaigns for Sephora, Whole Foods Market, Levi’s, LG, and Activision. Jun currently lives in Mountain View, CA with his girlfriend and startup team. 

To be a strong and successful personal brand, one of the most important things you need to have is a network of contacts. And it’s essential that you manage your relationship with those contacts well, to ensure that you have a smooth and hassle-free working relationship.

As your brand or small business continues to grow, you may have difficulty with relationship management. People get muddled up in your mind and you may become confused as to which tasks need to be done by which people. You may forget names, as well as the faces associated with those names. So how do you manage?

Keeping the important – important

Depending on the person you’re talking to or interacting with, it can range from being funny to being offensive if you mix up their name or their work title. So it’s really important that you keep track of who’s who so you don’t end up angering anyone.

For this purpose, you need a relationship management tool that’s intuitive, easy to use, and something that can really help you manage your contact list so you don’t get confused. One of the latest and most promising tools available today is KarmaCRM.

KarmaCRM makes managing and maintaining a huge contact database incredibly simple. The site offers advanced filtering and tagging features so you can easily search and find the contact you’re looking for in your list. You also have the convenience of importing contacts from third party integrations such as Freshbooks and HighRise. Add the information you need for each contact, so you always know who you’re talking and connecting with.

Another excellent feature that KarmaCRM offers is email integration with your contacts. Each email account will be given a unique KarmaCRM dropbox, and all you need to do is CC, BCC or email this address whenever you correspond with a client, colleague or customer, and Karma will automatically attach the email with the contact’s file. This makes it easy for you to remember previous conversations with a specific contact. KarmaCRM will even create a new file if there’s no record of that person.

Involved in sales?

KarmaCRM also offers a great feature for personal bands that are involved in sales. Within the site, you can organize your contacts according to the sales status you associate them with. Whether you’re in the contact, proposal or follow-up stage, KarmaCRM helps you easily identify what part of the sales process you’re currently in. You can even get updates on deadlines associated with different contacts. With this tool, you’ll never miss a proposal or deal deadline again.

Yes, there are other tools out there yet they can be cumbersome or even overwhelming when you’re talking about just managing your personal circle of influence’s information. If you have a sales team, this can help you and if you don’t if can help you and not overwhelm you with too many gadgets to get in your way or bog you down with a large daunting learning curve just to figure out how to access your information.

And let’s not forget the easy-to-read reports that Karma provides. Any good CRM tool should offer reporting that’s easy to create and easy to export. KarmaCRM offers you a custom report builder that’s intuitive and easy to use.

The tools you use are an extension of you

KarmaCRM also integrates with different third party applications such as Freshbooks, Highrise, MailChimp, and Google Calendar. And it is continually working to integrate with other third party applications so that people can have a better experience using Karma.

Perhaps one of the BEST things about KarmaCRM is the fact that it’s entirely cloud based, so you don’t have to download any special software or application to be able to access the tool. Anytime, anywhere, you can easily check your contacts, see any deadlines looming, and monitor progress and reports.

As a personal brand, it’s important for you to build trust with your clients and customers, so make sure you use a customer relationship management tool that helps you manage and monitor your contacts.

Author:

Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog, CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm.   She helps create connection, credibility, community and cha-ching through mobile marketing and social commerce around your brand. She is co-founder of #brandchat - a weekly Twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding.

The things that got you promoted this time will never get you promoted again.

This is right on the money. Its also completely wrong, but we’ll get to that later.

The genius behind this idea is that you: your career, your personal brand needs to continuously evolve. You need to grow and increase your skill and knowledge bases. And, most importantly, you need to show that you have the skills that it takes to succeed in the next level.

It’s also genius because of one of the hidden rules of moving up the career ladder: Excel at the type of work that you want to do next.

By excelling at the work that you want to do next, it will ensure that you are developing the skills that will get you promoted, rather than getting stuck, unfairly, at your current level.

I know a woman who really wanted to move into a leadership role in her organization. She had proven herself an invaluable “#2″ — her boss felt comfortable handing over all the details and knew that she would execute effectively and quickly.

Unfortunately, even though this woman was a leader in her community and knew she was a leader inside, she didn’t practice that skills for the job that she wanted to do. When she approached her boss about extending her responsibilities, he wasn’t as receptive as she hoped because he didn’t have confidence in her ability to lead strategy.

By excelling at her current responsibilities without stretching to the skills required for the next level, she killed her chances at being promoted.

Moral of the story: find ways to step up and demonstrate your ability to do the work that you want to do in the future.

Climbing the ladder

This can feel impossible, as, generally one doesn’t get opportunities handed to them to do their bosses work. And, often, we are completely overwhelmed with the task of  getting our own job, let alone taking on additional responsibility!

I’m not going to lie and say that it will be easy or quick, but it is possible to create opportunities that will prove your ability to move up the ladder.

1. Step One: Make a List: Take 30 minutes to really think about the work that you want to be doing and exactly what skills and characteristics it would take to be successful at that endeavor. Make a list of the 8 items you think are most important.
2. Step Two: Do Your Homework: Occasionally, you may already have all of the skills or knowledge to excel at the skill already, but 9 times out of 10, you’ll have to do your homework. Go on informational interviews, take an online course and borrow books from the library. Get your learning on!
3. Step Three: Brainstorm Some Opportunities: Now it gets interesting! One that primarily comes up for those early in their career is managing other people. Perhaps you could hire and manage an intern or two over the summer? Perhaps you could own a small project and manage the team for it? Perhaps you could move into a management role in your volunteering? You get the point.
4. Step Four: Put It Into Action: Pick one of the ideas from above. Think about it from your boss’s perspective and figure out how it benefits them. Then pitch it to them from the perspective of how it benefits them. Make sure to highlight the homework you’ve done too!

By taking these steps, you not only start showing the skills for the job that you want to have, but you show that you are ambitious, driven and self-motivated (in other words, exactly the kind of person that companies promote!).

So what are you waiting for? Schedule a 30 minute meeting with yourself this week and get to work.

And I almost forgot!! At the start I said that while this idea was genius, it is also totally wrong. That’s right.

What got you here won’t get you promoted again is completely correct when it comes to skills, actions and generally relationships.

What WILL get you promoted again is your personality, characteristics and integrity. So, keep working on self-awareness, understanding and improvement!

Author:

Rebecca Rapple has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Keith Ferrazzi’s My Greenlight and more. You can learn more about the fundamentals of a remarkable job search on her site, The Resume Revolution.

In the movie 300, there is a scene where the doomed leader of the Spartans finds out that that they are vastly outnumbered by the invading Persians. The Persian archers are so many – he is told – that when they fire their volley, the Persian arrows will blot out the sun.  Hearing that, the Spartan warrior doesn’t quail or advise the army to flee.  Instead he throws back his shoulders and says “Good.  Then we shall fight in the shade.“

I remember reading that sentence in the original Greek in Herodotus’ Histories and thinking “Wow. That is audacity.”  To look at overwhelming odds and then to throw your shoulders back and take them on -  that’s audacity.

Today, the word audacity has negative connotations in English.  It’s most often used when we’re upset with someone and can’t believe they did something. “He had the audacity to suggest it was all my fault.”  The Merrim Websiter dictionary defines it as “intrepid boldness” and being “bold or arrogant disregard of normal restraints”.

How did audacity become a bad thing?  It didn’t used to be.  In fact, audacity came from the Latin verb “audere”, which means “to dare”.  The ancient world celebrated boldness, from the doomed Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae, to Cleopatra, to the Viking explorers to Hua Mulan.  Daring people took on odds that were against them, and while they didn’t always succeed, they did make an impact.

But today, sticking your neck out is frowned upon in many ways.  “Wait to get noticed”, people say.  “Pay your dues.”  “Don’t take on too much.”  “Don’t rock the boat.”  The cautions are everywhere.

And in an uncertain economy, being cautious seems like a good plan.  This is the time to do exactly what you’re supposed to do to get a good job, right?  It’s not the time to be taking risks.

Except that doesn’t work anymore.

The time for audacity

The US economy is struggling. 50% of Gen Y college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. The whole “study hard, go to college and you’ll get a good job” employment paradigm is broken.  Job openings regularly receive 50+ applicants, and many applicant report having to go to 5+ interviews with the same company just to be considered.

This is a time when doing what you’re supposed to do isn’t going to work.  Employers aren’t looking for the good, interchangeable employees, they’re looking for the people who stand out.

In other words, your competition for jobs has blotted out the sun.  Now you must fight for your future in the shade.

This is the time to have audacity.  It’s the time to go after big goals – to actively chase your dream job instead of competing with tons of others for that basic entry level job.  It’s the time to start your own business.  It’s the time to stop being shy about promoting yourself, and to go out there to create your personal brand.

When Virgil wrote of Aeneas founding Rome, he wrote “Audentes fortuna iuvat” (Fortune favors the bold.)  Today’s job market also demands that you have audacity.  Where’s yours?

Author:

Katie Konrath blogs about creativity, innovation and “ideas so fresh… they should be slapped” at www.getfreshminds.com.  She works for leading innovation company, Ideas To Go.

What do I mean? Seeing them as team members. Not just interns.

If you’re not willing to view them as close to team members as possible, both parties won’t get as much out of the experience as they should.

That’s right. View them as someone who just came on board officially right out of school. What can you give them? Business cards? Do it. A desk alongside other employees who have been there for years rather than a little cubby hole? Do it. That may seem a little scary. But I’m not talking about having them present to your biggest client on their first day. That’s stupid. I’m talking about giving them better quality assignments that treat them with the respect they deserve.

A team member

At some companies, the people at the top don’t know the interns — especially not what they do on a daily basis. Let me tell you a little something about the interns I’ve had. They don’t fetch coffee. They don’t run errands. They barely do “grunt” work.

What do they do? For one thing, they don’t coast on natural talent. They’ve got talent but they also have passion, which can’t be underrated. They stay until the work is done superbly. They are their own toughest critic. They aim to constantly learn about our business. This is not the mark of an intern. This is a team member.

Having someone to do your dirty work is your prerogative but I don’t think you’ll really get much out of it and the intern certainly won’t. On the other hand, if you take it upon yourself to give back to this person’s experience, mentor them, help them reach 1-3 goals in the time that they’re with you and treat them with the respect of a full team member, both parties can benefit tremendously.

I can hear excuses from people who say they don’t have enough time to be such a mentor. That’s too bad because it’s a missed opportunity for your business’ profile as much as the intern. Because if they truly have a wonderful experience, who do you think they’re going to talk to? Other good potential candidates for you. Friends. Relatives. Neighbors. Anyone and everyone…including the kind of people who could become great clients for you.

Hmm. Good word-of-mouth about how great your culture is or how great you are as a mentor or how great the experience overall is? There could be worse things said about you, don’t you think?

Finding a team member

Some tips for finding the very best intern — er, team member — and making the experience better for you and them:

1) Get over yourself.
They shouldn’t just be happy to be in the door of your place. They have choices. Don’t take advantage of a young person’s time. Either give them constant opportunities to be useful and contribute to your business or forget it. Yes, you should be incredibly selective. Yes, they should feel lucky to work for you — if you hold up your end of the bargain and don’t treat them like 2nd class citizens.

2) Start relationships with local colleges.
I’ve done that and it’s been a beautiful thing. Offer to speak on your specialty for no charge if you need a way in. Actually, I do just that all the time simply because I enjoy it so much. Schools thirst for experienced people from the real world to come into their environment and speak to students.

3) If it’s non-paid, still offer something of value.
Like gas money, for instance.

4) Set clear goals about your expectations but make sure you meet theirs too.
Again, you need to make it your mission to make their experience a worthwhile one too. This is where so many people miss the boat. When I sit down with an intern on the very first day, I map out goals based on what they strive to reach during the internship.

For example, one common goal is for an intern in our field is to have at least one portfolio piece that is also worth submitting to an award show (with that intern’s name on the submission, of course!). We achieved that goal. Others want to learn graphic design programs that they aren’t being taught in school – a sad statement in itself considering the money they’re paying. We achieved that goal.

What we often say to an intern is that what you put into the experience is what you get out of it. And considering how ambitious our last one was, I believe she got a whole lot of it, maybe even more than what she ever imagined.

The same phrase holds true for you on this subject, though: What you put into the experience is what you’ll get out of it. If you put in more rather than less, I’ll bet you’ll have more than your typical “intern” but a real contributor to your team.

Author:

Dan Gershenson is a Chicago-based consultant focused on brand strategy and content marketing. Dan has guided a variety of CEOs and Marketing Directors at small to medium-sized companies, providing hundreds of strategic plans to help businesses identify their best niches and areas of opportunity. Dan blogs on Chicago Brander, mentors advertising students and cheers relentlessly for the Chicago Bears. Dan graduated from Drake University with a degree in Advertising.

I received an email from David — who is not a hit man — but is a religious professional and a businessman, and he wants to brand two versions of the same man.

 (1) I am a [religious professional] who promotes and provides adult religious education. (2) I am a successful entrepreneur having retired at age 42, which is when I went back to school to become a [religious professional].  Now I’m 52, doing the [religious professional] stuff and starting a new business at the same time. (3) I am just lil’ ole me, a friendly guy with friends, contacts and relatives all over the place.  How do I separate them?  I need a LinkedIn page for [my day job] who teaches and would like to start doing a series of online [religion] ed videos and blogging about free or low cost quality religious educational opportunities, but I also need a LinkedIn business page — and neither one has anything to do with the other and could even, potentially, negatively impact the other. Same thing with Facebook and Twitter, but there I may need a third identity for my personal stuff. How do I set this up and enable people to find the me they need or want?

David says he already has LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter identities tied to a previous business website and blog, which no longer exists, but the accounts are just sitting there.

Two separate personal brands

Here is what I would do if I were in a similar situation, trying to develop two separate personal brands.

1. Rescue the Existing Accounts

First, salvage the existing accounts and save them for the business side of life. Clean out and update the bios, put up new avatars, and dust off the connection lists. These are already established as business accounts, so the connections who are already there will understand that my business life changed, and that I’m doing something new.

2. Tie the Personal Account to the “Religious Professional Stuff.”

Good idea or not, we tend to identify ourselves as our job. That’s how other people see us too. So go with that. Tie the personal account to the day job identity. After all, being a religious professional is a 24/7 job. When I go home, I’m not a blogger. I get to fill the roles of neighbor and friend, as well as family man. When I’m talking to my neighbors, they’re not chanting over and over in their head, “he’s a blogger, he’s a blogger, he’s a blogger.”

But they do for rabbis, ministers, pastors, priests, and even shamans. While I know most religious professionals don’t want to be defined only by their jobs, don’t bother fighting it. You definitely don’t want a third identity just for personal stuff (i.e. not your day job, and not your sideline). It’s going to be hard enough to keep these two balanced..

Of course, if you don’t want to do the day job thing on social media and want to keep it personal, just don’t list your profession. Be yourself and let people find out by accident when they swear in front of you and then ask what you do for a living.

3. Just Know That People Will Find Out

People are going to find out, for whatever reason, that there is a flip side to my personal coin. They’re work colleagues, or they’re friends who are also business contacts. But they’ll be following one account and one day see the other, and they’ll make the connection.

For that reason, I need to make sure that what I do on one account won’t turn off people on the other account. While this doesn’t apply to David — most religious pros I know won’t put themselves in an embarrassing situation — it does apply to businesspeople who think their LinkedIn and Facebook accounts are completely separate. They’re not, so avoid embarrassing situations

But what David does need to be aware of is that you can’t do things that one side of your life will find to be completely incompatible with the other side, like being a hit man and a politicians.

(All your hit man friends will be all judgmental and go, “Ewwwwww!! Ga-ROSS!”)

It’s possible to keep two sides of your life separate from each other, but don’t expect that they will stay that way forever. The streams will be crossed. Your friends and connections will find you have a second side to your life, and you’ll be seen as a more complete person. Of course, if that’s a problem for you, then do what you can to keep those two sides separate, but make sure you don’t have anything embarrassing or upsetting to people from the other side.

Author:

Erik Deckers is the owner of Professional Blog Service, and the co-author of Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself. His new book, No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing, which he wrote with Jason Falls, is in bookstores and on Amazon now.

The knowledge we receive from criticism

With knowledge of personal, performance, or subject critiques, one is given a power of sorts.  Three things can happen – You are able to change the persons mind, given a platform to reaffirm your actions or beliefs, or learn something new to better yourself.

I’m talking about

 Companies that go on review sites to respond to with good reviews and help right the wrongs of the bad.

Or

The athlete that quotes a negative comment and then replies something positive back to the fan.

Or

The controversial author that welcomes public discussions on his/her book, and offers compelling arguments to support his/her point.

The critical dialogue

 Companies have picked up on the benefits of engaging in critical dialogue. With so much visible feedback today online, one of the best things companies can do, once it is out there, is to acknowledge and answer. Zappos, known for their attention to their audience, responds to reviews on different review sites. Smaller corporations, such as the Viceroy Palm Springs, also see the benefits by responding to positive and negative customer feedback on yelp.com. Doing so increases the percentage of customer interaction and retention, and we all know it is easier to retain a customer/fan than it is to find new ones.

For people, it is all about engaging with your audience and showcasing respect and attention their opinions. Remember…when people review, it means they are reading, participating or listening.  This in turn causes others to read, review or participate themselves. It’s a domino effect in your favor because it means more eyes on your brand, with you at the center controlling the outcome.

So open yourself up for critique. Look at where you can involve your audience to help you improve, or open the door for debate on your topic.  It could be as simple as a comment section on your blog posts, a feedback session at the end of a speaking engagement, or requesting overall thoughts within the social media world.

As a start to the process, I would love for you to share your stories with me about where opening yourself for critique or reviews have improved your personal brand!

Author:

Katie Marston is President and Executive Director of DYME Branding , a personal brand development company focusing on professional athletes, celebrities, and executives. Follow her on Twitter at @ktmarston