Archive for July, 2010

Develop Your Brand: Promote Yourself as a Unique Individual or Job Candidate




By Carol Gee

Coca Cola, GE, Oprah. What do all of these have in common? Just the mention of these brands tells consumers who they are and what they are about. They tell consumers that they can depend upon their products, goods or services to always be of the highest caliber. Until recently, Toyota was the brand for affordable, good looking and dependable cars.

We hear a lot about branding these days. Branding is about building a name for yourself and highlighting what sets you apart from others. Establishing a brand is about developing an image – with results to match. Companies do this and in my humble opinion, so should individuals.

Much like the brands mentioned above and like so many others that we know and love, an individual’s personal brand is a combination of who he or she is and what he or she has to offer. It also encompasses the values they embody, and how all of those characteristics work together to form the unique individual they are. An individual’s brand highlights the added value he or she brings to a company or organization. Professionally speaking, brands aren’t just for products anymore.

Is a person’s brand essential to career advancement? The answer is a resounding yes, according to business experts. Establishing and promoting one’s personal brand is one of the most important marketing tools around these days. A job candidate’s brand determines why they should be sought out.

So, how does an individual go about establishing his or her personal brand? Awareness, visibility and connection— these three little words pack a powerful punch when it comes to establishing one’s brand. Today’s, social media sites are useful for increasing the three exponentially. LinkedIn for example, allows registered users to maintain a list of contacts or individuals they know and trust in business and professions. Whereas Facebook allows individuals to establish groups that cross companies and geographical locations.

Making a list of what strengths individuals possess and then narrowing it down to three powerful phrases to describe themselves professionally is the next step. This list should include their professional experience and select accomplishments. For example, are they known as organized, detailed and personable? Are they problem-solvers? The final step should be to prepare a short speech much like an elevator speech to describe them.

What is an elevator speech? An elevator speech is an overview of who individuals are and what they can do, or can offer. The term comes from the idea that it can be delivered during a typical elevator ride. Simply stated, an elevator speech or “pitch” is a summary that describes yourself or your business or your services/products in a few words. The goal is to make a speech that is short, simple, and effective. Say an individual is introduced to someone at a company party for the very first time. He or she should be able to tell that person something about themselves, and in a way that will pique the other person’s interest. One way to do this is to start with a catchy statement; also called a “hook.” In other words, try to attract the person’s attention with a few statements that are memorable. An individual’s hook is almost certain to make others interested in what he or she has to say.

So, what is the brand known as Carol Gee? If individuals are asking about Gee the educator and editor, I respond that I write custom business cases that are taught in the BBA, MBA and Executive classes at Emory’s Goizueta Business School. I also add that I copyedit business manuscripts ear-marked for books and journals. I frequently add that I’m also a freelance writer. Adding that I’m an ‘old’ soldier (airman), thus detailed-oriented and known for giving 110 percent to all tasks (those who know me will attest to that) also piques others’ interest.

Carol Gee the author writes books that humorously chronicle a day-in-the-life of the modern woman. A former mental health counselor, I liken my books as therapy, without the couch. By developing my brand and through showcasing that I’m the unique individual that I know myself to be has frequently positioned me as the best candidate for whatever position I’ve sought.

About the Author
Carol Gee, M.A. has worked in education for 28 years in positions ranging from teaching to administration. Currently she is an editor and business writer at Goizueta Business School at Emory University. She is also the author of books, The Venus Chronicles and Diary of a ‘Flygirl’ Wannabe (Life Lessons of a Cool Girl in Training)
www.venuschronicles.net

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The seven habits of highly motivated re-inventers




By Maureen Futtner

Encore career, transition, reinvention. Do the corporate to nonprofit career switch!

One of the results of the financial industry’s excesses that led to the Great Recession was a sour taste for corporate employment among a number of people. It only makes sense that many who lost their jobs are looking to the nonprofit sector for purpose work.

After learning about the upcoming Nonprofit Career Conference in Oakland on June 29, I was reminded of someone who pitched me a blog idea on a group of job-seekers who recently left the corporate world and were seeking work in the 501(c)(3) sector.

I first met Celia Carrasco when she took my Marketing and Communications class for nonprofits at SFSU’s College of Extended Learning. Celia was pursuing the certificate in nonprofit management because she was committed to working for social good, after many years having worked for a large Bay Area corporation. Celia later followed up with me to let me know about an affinity group she was part of, as a result of her job search.

While receiving job transition coaching from San Francisco’s Lee Hecht Harrison firm, Celia and several other corporate “refugees” began meeting monthly to share leads, offer feedback and generally support one another through not only a difficult economy, but the challenging work and life change they were pursuing.

While the group’s members have a variety of work backgrounds and skill sets, they share a desire to put their knowledge-base and many years of experience to work for social causes. The group was kind enough to let me sit in on a recent session, where the members flexed their elevator pitch muscles and digested the wisdom of their year-long career transition and employment search.

Following are some highlights of their discussion. I’ll call these these the 7 habits of highly motivated re-inventers.

1. Form a group - otherwise you’ll feel like an outlier; you’re not. There are millions of job-seekers just like you who have done their time in the corporate sector and now are ready to devote their livelihood to improving their communities. Inquire with a local career coach to see if their company could help put a group together.

2. Join a nonprofit board - if you’ve never worked in the nonprofit sector, board service is a great way to cut your teeth and learn about the priorities of mission-driven work. And nonprofits need board members who have for-profit know-how and networks.

3. Join a committee - perhaps board service is too demanding on your time right now. You could simply join a committee. Maybe it’s a fundraising committee or an event committee. This work is a fabulous channel for networking and also demonstrates your work style, skills and commitment. Seeing a project through to the end will engender great respect and trust from the organization. Who knows? Might even lead to a job offer!

4. Include your nonprofit/volunteer/board/committee experience on your resume - don’t fear this; if you made a substantial contribution of time and energy to an organization, then you can absolutely count that among your experience - right up there with your job as project manager at X Corporation.

5. Acknowledge your awareness of nonprofit salaries - If you’re not getting offers because you believe nonprofits think you wouldn’t be satisfied with non-corporate salaries, don’t be afraid to stress your willingness to work within nonprofit compensation levels in order to contribute to the greater good.

6. Utilize Linked In - a recurring theme, all members of this group were working their LinkedIn profiles. One member connected with the founder of Kiva through LI. Anytime you apply for a position, you should be mining your LI connections to see if anyone has any connection whatsoever to your target organization.

7. Learn all you can about the nonprofit sector - whether it’s training in nonprofit management, attending workshops at the Foundation Center or subscribing to this blog, you should be sure to keep up on trends in the sector so you know what’s happening where, who’s making change, how this is impacting that and why!

Source: SF Examiner

New website helps people remain in work





A new website has been launched today by a group of charities, employment organisations, healthcare professionals and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to help people with long-term fluctuating health conditions remain in work.

‘Work Life’ (www.yourworkhealth.com) has been supported by the DWP and developed by the MS Society and other partner organisations. It brings together examples of best practice, guidance for employers, employees and healthcare professionals, research and case studies from across the employment sector and from around the internet into one dedicated, free to access portal.

Minister for Welfare Reform, Lord Freud has given the website his backing, stating: “We know that work is good for people and we want those with long-term fluctuating health conditions to have the support they need to stay in their job. When people fall out of employment onto benefits it becomes even harder to get back to work and the “Work Life” website will be an important resource for those managing health conditions in the workplace”.

‘Work Life’ is the first of its kind; several other resources, like the websites workingforhealth.gov.uk and direct.gov.uk, already provide information on managing short-term health problems or stable conditions in the workplace, but for those with long-term fluctuating conditions, like arthritis and Parkinson’s, remaining in work can be difficult and information, until now, has been disjointed.

‘Work Life’ is aimed at three key audiences – employers, employees and health care professionals – and information is focused on helping people to stay in work, and lead an independent lifestyle.

Leonie Martin was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2000 while working as an office manager at a large school. In 2003 she was forced to take early retirement on the grounds of ill health.

She said: “After being diagnosed I wasn’t given any advice regarding how or when to tell my employer and colleagues, or what my rights were. Consequently, I tried to play down my difficulties and ended up becoming more and more anxious. If I had known that many of the problems I was experiencing at work, like fatigue and concentration, were due to my MS I wouldn’t have ended up on a downward spiral that culminated in my having to finish work. It has taken me several years to rebuild my self esteem and learn to look at what I can still do well, rather than what I can no longer do.”

Information for employers outlines the benefits of employing and retaining staff members with long-term health conditions and suggests reasonable adjustments that can be made in the workplace. Examples of cost effective and short interventions, like vocational rehab, also help to demonstrate best practice. Toolkits and information on offering advice to patients and clients provides support to health and work professionals.

The website can be viewed at www.yourworkhealth.com

The Best Nonprofit Marketing Plans Ignore the General Public





By Kivi Leroux Miller

When I teach nonprofit marketing workshops in person, I often make participants chant this with me in unison so they remember it: There is no such thing as the general public! There is no such thing as the general public!

The general public includes everyone, from newborns to elders, rich and poor, incarcerated and homeless. No matter how much you try, you will not reach everyone. In fact, if that’s what you try to do, odds are good that you will, in fact, reach no one. Instead, you need to focus on specific groups of people and work toward communicating with them in ways that connect with their particular needs and values.

When nonprofit marketing programs fail, organizations too frequently blame the tactics. “We tried an email newsletter, but no one read it.” “We sent out a direct mail fundraising letter, but it didn’t raise much money.” Closer examination of those tactics often reveals that the audience was poorly defined and the message was too generic. If the hammer doesn’t hit the nail on the head, take a look at the skills of the carpenter, not the hammer.

If you want to build something sturdy, you need a plan, whether you are building a house or a marketing program for your organization. Start with what you want people to do. Don’t speak in generalities like “We want them to support our cause” or “We want them to care about these people.”

Instead, visualize what someone is physically doing when they are supporting your cause or caring about people. Are they sitting at a computer with their credit card in hand, donating to your cause through your website? Are they volunteering in your office twice a week? Are they talking to their teenagers about your issue?

As you see this person in your mind’s eye, taking this specific action, who are you seeing? What does that person look like? What do they care about? How do they spend their time and money? What do they love and what do they hate?

Call them your target audiences, target populations, supporters, participants, clients, newsletter readers, website visitors, whatever you like. These are the people who matter most to your success. Your challenge is to define what ties the people in this group together, to learn about and understand what they value, and to figure out how to connect those values to your cause.

That’s how you create a message that will motivate them to follow through on your call to action. That’s also what you use to decide on your communications tactics, offline or online, email or social media, postcard or personal visit.

Define your audience. Create a powerful message that inspires them. Deliver that message to them. It’s the quick and dirty approach to nonprofit marketing, but it’s the heart of every good nonprofit marketing plan, no matter how long it is.

About the book
A nonprofit’s real-world survival guide and nitty-gritty how-to handbook.

This down-to-earth book shows how to hack through the bewildering jungle of marketing options and miles-long to-do lists to clear a marketing path that’s right for your organization, no matter how understaffed or underfunded. You’ll see how to shape a marketing program that starts from where you are now and grows with your organization, using smart and savvy communications techniques, both offline and online. Combining big-picture management and strategic decision-making with reader-friendly tips for implementing a marketing program day in and day out, this book provides a simple yet powerful framework for building support for your organization’s mission and programs.

Includes cost-effective strategies and proven tactics for nonprofits An ideal resource for thriving during challenging times Fast, friendly, and realistic advice to help you navigate the day-by-day demands of any nonprofit

Kivi’s book* was #1 on the Amazon Nonprofit books list, #2 on the Marketing books list (second only to the legendary The Tipping Point), and #1 on the Movers & Shakers list * on day of book launch

As Featured on the About.com Nonprofit Summer Reading List
“This book is so incredibly useful, from building a basic marketing plan to how to use social media effectively on a small budget, that I wish I could simply reprint it all here.” Joanne Fritz, About.com Guide to Nonprofits


Faculty Bio
Kivi Leroux Miller is president of Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com and EcoScribe Communications, and the author of “The Nonprofit Marketing Guide: High-Impact, Low-Cost Ways to Build Support for Your Good Cause” (available May 2010, Jossey-Bass).

Through training, coaching and consulting, she helps small nonprofits and communications departments of one make a big impression with smart, savvy marketing and communications. She teaches a weekly webinar series and writes a leading blog on nonprofit communications at Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com. She also presents highly rated in-person workshops on a variety of nonprofit marketing topics around the country and through Duke University’s certificate program in nonprofit management. More than 2,000 nonprofits in 50 states, across Canada, and in more than two dozen countries have participated in Kivi’s webinars.

Kivi enjoys writing, hiking, volunteering, vegetarian cooking, and teaching her kids how to bake. After many years in the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, D.C., she now lives in rural North Carolina with her husband, two young daughters, three cats, a dog and countless backyard wildlife.


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Your Nonprofit Summer Reading List





Does anyone really slow down in the summer any more? Well, I hope you get that chance and, just in case, here are some great books that you might want to tackle. They’re not novels, but they might help you get ahead with your marketing and fundraising, come fall.

The Nonprofit Marketing Guide: High-Impact, Low-Cost Ways to Build Support for Your Good Cause, Kivi Leroux Miller.

Miller’s experience with hundreds of small nonprofits with one-person-marketing shops led her to write this instructive basic guide to marketing for people who have to do it all. This book is so incredibly useful, from building a basic marketing plan to how to use social media effectively on a small budget, that I wish I could simply reprint it all here.

Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications, Sarah Durham.

This book is the clearest blueprint I’ve seen lately to rationally building your brand and implementing it. It is “branding in a box.” If you do one thing about your organization’s brand this year, make it reading this book. Once you do that, you’ll be so excited to have a step-by-step plan that you’re bound to start creating a better brand.

The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting With Social Media to Drive Change, Beth Kanter and Allison Fine.

I haven’t written my own review of this book, but OnPhilanthropy said, “The Networked Nonprofit covers all the important structural bases - Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, wikis, blogs, contests, map, widgets etc - but it’s not social networks for philanthropic dummies. What makes the book sing are stories and the voices: many terrific examples of how nonprofit organizations - big and small - have used these tools, and the ideas of the people who make it all go.”

The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World’s Toughest Problems, Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, Monique Sternin.

I found this book to be extraordinary. The positive deviancy idea is a fresh solution for the aid community and maybe even for business. I found the case studies in the book riveting, from the Vietnam experience to alleviating the terrible infant mortality rate in Pakistan to changing the belief systems that allow female circumcision in Egypt.


Source: About.com

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