I have a special treat for you this post -- an excerpt from the highly recommended book, Career Intensity. This excerpt is from Chapter Seven and deals with your perception as a worker (and what you need to do to manage it accordingly). Here's the piece, courtesy of author David Lorenzo:
Master Perception
If you’re a Workplace Warrior – you put in your time on the job, but you don’t feel passionate about your work – you’re probably perceived by your coworkers, supervisor, and customers as dependable but unremarkable. If you’re a Management Maverick – you implement solutions without the support of your coworkers, supervisor, and customers – you’re likely perceived as a rogue. Each of these perceptions damages your career and prevents you from fulfilling your potential.
Highly successful Intrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs use others’ perceptions to their advantage. By creating their own personal brand and marketing themselves – much in the same way companies position themselves and their products in the marketplace – people with Career Intensity increase the perception of their value in the minds of those they serve.
When you use personal branding to define yourself in the marketplace – either within your company or as the head of your own company – you differentiate yourself from your competition by creating value for those who use your services. Through value creation and demonstration, you will create a demand for your services, which ultimately will attract success.
The Importance of Perception
A brand is the perception of a product or service in the mind of the consumer. Each of us has our own personal brand. Each of our target audiences has a perception of us. Sometimes this perception is exactly what we want it to be and it serves us well; other times, this perception is dramatically different from how we wish to be seen and works to our detriment.
Companies take great care and spend millions upon millions of dollars to influence the perception of their target audiences. They conduct sophisticated research studies and test and retest all forms of marketing communications. They craft exactly the right message and precisely select the correct medium to reach a specific audience in the appropriate way.
Does all of this care and dedication make a difference? Absolutely! We often subscribe to the point of view the marketing professionals want us to believe. In many cases we have no choice, since we are bombarded by a variety of marketing communications about a product or service. Television commercials, billboards, direct mail brochures, radio ads, magazine ads, newspaper ads, product placement, celebrity endorsements, and sports sponsorships constantly assault us. Aggressive public relations professionals are pitching stories right now that will shape tomorrow’s news. Buzz marketing companies are working over your friends and relatives to get them to recommend their products and services to you. It’s no wonder that most kids can name 20 different types of candy but they can’t name five Presidents of the United States. The candy gets more media attention.
So what does all of this have to do with you and your mission to develop career intensity? Everything! You need to start managing yourself and your career as a brand. You need to consider the perception of your target audience before you craft a message. You need to make certain that your target audience sees you exactly the way you want them to.
Personal branding is not designed to help you create a false perception. It can’t cover up the reality of who you are. The first rule of branding is to start with a quality product. In creating a personal brand, you are the product and you must be able to deliver. Let’s say that you are identified within your company as the person who always gets things done on time. That is your personal brand promise. Your customers are other employees. You must deliver on that promise in each and every interaction with your customers. If you fail to get a task accomplished on time for a colleague, you have broken your brand promise. You have chipped away at your customer’s perception of your value. You can’t be late. Not even once. Your personal brand is unforgiving. That’s why your brand must be developed based upon reality.
While you can reflect upon the essence of who you are and see the positive qualities that make you a good person, most people are not fortunate enough to see your inner beauty and greatness. Instead, they make decisions based upon what they see, hear, and feel when they interact with you. As such, you deserve to be positioned in the best light. If you are happy with yourself, then you should use personal branding to present your best qualities to the world. Every point of contact should be designed to help you make a positive impression on your customers.
An owner of a brand controls its reputation by managing all the points where the audience comes in contact with the brand. The starting point for managing these contact points is the brand’s strategy – knowing what kind of reputation he wants the brand to have in the minds of its audience. What reputation do you want to hold in the hearts and minds of your audience? What reputation will give you the greatest advantage over your competition?
Businesses employ entire teams of marketing professionals to help position them. What resources do you have? How can you take on the competition without a wealth of resources? The good news is that you can be as effective as the big guys with the resources that you currently have. You can develop a very effective personal brand, develop a personal communications strategy, and conceive and execute creative tactics that will effectively position you exactly as your customers should see you.
In part 2 of this excerpt (which I'll post tomorrow), we'll review what David calls "Your Personal Branding Challenge" and discuss what it means to you and your career.
Remember, your career is your most important financial asset -- and managing it actively can make a big difference in your earning power over your lifetime. This is one reason I recommend Career Intensity so highly -- it helps you make the most of this precious asset.
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