Standing Out In Style

Location: George St, Sydney, Australia

Time: 12:50pm Thursday afternoon

View: a sea of executives, office workers and shoppers rushing to and from lunch and meetings, work and shopping.

Attire: a sea of dark suits, grey and blue tones, white shirts, pinstripes, some tailored, some not, mostly uniform.

The Stand Out: A man in his mid to late fifties in a highly tailored and textured suit with a slightly heavier weight than those around him. The suit's grey, but it looks a little more expensive than others. It's set off with a smooth duck egg blue and dark brown Italian silk tie. He has an understated, slim gold tie pin.

He wears brown and white brogues in mint condition. They're not fashionable, nor are they overly ostentatious. They are, however, highly distinctive. So is his chocolate leather portfolio.

I saw this man for no more than ten seconds.

I remembered him.

In detail.

What could you be doing to intrigue and attract more of the people you want to be doing business with from that very first moment you meet?

michael@mcme.com.au

If Your Personal Brand Were an Event

Yesterday I gave a presentation to event professionals on building and leveraging your personal brand at RSVP Event (for the events industry) in Sydney.

Seeing your personal brand as an event is a simple, effective way to look at how you create a profile that helps you stand out, whether you're the face of your own business or looking for greater opportunities in your career.

The presentation begins with the creation of a brand within a brand we created for the Just For Laughs Festival (which came to us because the event team thought Sony would like my own online presence).

You're then given tips and tools to expand your own personal brand online and face to face, from the brand values you stand by to the invitations you send to your market, through to the company you keep to help accelerate your career.

Your true brand it's personal from MCME Pty Ltd

See more about the conversation with the twitter hashtag we created for the event #brandstand 

Hope this helps with elevating your personal brand. Your thoughts?

give your brand experience

How Personal Is Your Brand?

Brand Stand Welcome to the fortnightly newsletter dedicated to making you, your brand and your event a success. In this edition we ask 'is your brand all about you?', invite you to a free webinar and a branding breakfast, and introduce you to two exciting and established speakers. Your Brand Personal brands have been a growing trend that will continue to become even more popular as we have greater work flexibility, career options, and business opportunities. In the midst of all these rapid, increasing changes, brand you is one thing you can control...if you manage yourself well.  As with many aspects of branding and marketing, your brand is not all about you. This is a mistake many people make, and yes, I confess, I’ve made it too. Coming from an acting background, where for many years I went for umpteen auditions each week, stood in front of a camera, and was asked  by casting agents, ‘Tell us what about yourself. What have you been up to?’ I became a little too good at talking myself up. Great for a casting director wanting to know if they like you, but when it came to promoting the business, it’s the last thing people wanted to know, even if they asked the very same question, ‘Tell us about yourself.’ Ten minutes later their eyes were glazed over as they searched for a networking exit strategy.   We don’t want to just know about you. We want to know what you can do for us. That’s simply human nature. And for many reasons it’s amplified in business environments. Most of us know this. But many of us still spend a lot of business time focused on us, not on the service we provide or value we bring to our peers or clients. Value is in the eye of the beholder.  To help your brand become even more personal (and valuable to the people you want to influence): 1. Get to know what you can do to truly add value to your peers or clients personal and business lives? 2. Over deliver. But find out what they want. Not what you think they do. 3. What do they want right now? 4. If you don’t know the answer to that question, ask them. Call them up, survey them, ask them in meetings, over coffee, use social media as a research tool and ask questions there too. 5. Get to know your market by getting to know them as people. What drives them? Equally importantly, what drives them to do business with you? Then authentically amplify that experience of  doing business with you. People might be impressed with what you know and who you are. But they’ll pay you well for what you can do for them, and how you make them feel in the process. Your People For more tips (and great networking opportunities in the events industry) I’m giving a talk at the ISES Breakfast at RSVP Event next Thursday August 16 . (No, this RSVP is not the singles site, this is serious event business). For the presentation, Make Your Mark, I’m joined by vintage brand expert Pia Anderson, who’s built a substantial personal brand of her own. Find out about Make Your Mark on the blog. presentability is another way to build your personal brand with stand out presentation and communication skills. Over the next two weeks Phil Preston and I are giving two free webinars on ‘Creating Content to Captivate Your Audience.’ They’re both on at midday this Thursday, August 9, and next Wednesday, August 15. To find out more about the free webinar click here. Your Event We’re undergoing some rebranding and have more speakers, performers, and MCs coming on board each week. Part of this evolution is new brand SpeakerCentral, which will be the speaking community arm of MCME.    Today, it’s my pleasure to introduce: Margot Halbert CSP Margot works with business leaders to ignite their courage and confidence to step up and step out in the way they engage people and communicate their leadership style. She is in high demand with directors, corporate executives and senior managers for her expert counsel and guidance to create face-to-face communications that are engaging and delivered with confidence and  passion to key stakeholders. Margot has achieved the qualification CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) the highest international accreditation from the National Speakers Association, and is the winner of the 2009 WA Speaker of the Year. Margot is the current president of the National Speakers Association of Australia and holds two board positions. Margot is also an Accredited Executive Coach, holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from UWA and was a CPA before becoming a MUM, a CSP and a fan of NLP! Find out more about Margot Halbert here Timothy Hyde Mentalist and MC Timothy Hyde is Australia's Magician of the Mind. He’s a Corporate MC, Entertainer & Creative Thinking Expert. As a Corporate MC / Master of Ceremony, he injects Serious Fun and Total Focus into Corporate Events worldwide. As a Corporate Entertainer he will delight and intrigue you with his astounding interactive Mind Magic / Mentalist Show. As a Creative Thinking Speaker and Workshop Facilitator he teaches tools and techniques that will allow you to unleash a torrent of ideas in your business and will motivate you to put them into practice. Find out more about Timothy Hyde here Next newsletter you’ll be meeting one of our music industry’s finest performers and get up close and personal with our own singing PM. Until next time keep giving your brand experience Manage Subscription A: Suite 47, 50 Roslyn Gardens, Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011 E: info@mcme.com.au P: +61 2 9331 8135

Getting Personal On Brand

For some time now I've been drafting an outline for the next book, this one being on personal brand. Being asked to give a presentation for ISES has spurred me on to complete the book, and a blog is an ideal way for anyone writing one to make sure the content is of value to their audience. 

So, what makes your personal brand stick with the people you want to influence?

Short answer: you. 

Longer answer: you with greater awareness, more skill, wider networks, and a trusted coterie of like minded professionals who challenge and support you to stretch yourself. Having your own style doesn't hurt either, both in your appearance, and the way you communicate with others. Neither does a well defined web presence that's congruent with who you are face to face, even if who you are is inconsistent at times. I don't mean that you set out to deceive or be duplicitous. Far from it. I'm inviting you to show your humanness. That might mean saying sorry if you've made a mistake. At a National Speakers meet recently one of the best things a major IT provider's representative said was 'we have a culture of saying sorry.'  I'm sure they don't like it all the time, but it beats a culture of being too afraid to. 

Still be consistent in your response times if you're a consultant. Still be resolute in your commitment to greater leadership if you're an emerging or established leader. Keep your integrity intact and maintain your reputation no matter what your position or business. Following through with your actions goes further than lip service, as does promoting others as much as, if not more, than you do yourself. 

I recommend building your personal brand for many reasons. It gives you greater gravitational pull and more opportunities in your career or business. You have more options. You become one of the seen and heard, rather than one of the herd (credit to Paul Mitchell for that last line).   

So if you want to build your personal brand a good principle to keep in mind is this: the word 'personal' comes before 'brand' for a reason.