Guest post by Kim Dority – part 1 of a 2-part series on Professional Brands [Editor’s Note: Though this article focuses on your brand for traditional employment/career success, it can be applied to your online/blogging career.]

What’s a professional brand? In the marketing world, a brand is the collective characteristics that the market attributes to a given product or service.

Think about these companies and products: Target, Estée Lauder, and Haägen Daz. You probably associate very specific ideas with each of those brands. For Target, you might think “inexpensive but good quality, family-friendly, a shopping experience that’s fun and upbeat.” For Estée Lauder, perhaps beauty, glamour, a high-quality and expensive luxury. And for Haägen Daz, you may be thinking chocolate, indulgence, high quality, an affordable luxury… okay, and also a gazillion calories, but who cares??!!

Professional Brands… for People

Okay, so those are brands for products. Now think of these people: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, actress and singer Jennifer Lopez, anti-apartheid activist and former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela, songwriter and singer Lady Gaga, and media entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey.

Each of these people has a very specific brand. That is, they are known to the world for very specific values, passions, skills, and professional competencies. When you thought of them, you probably also had a set of expectations regarding how they might (or do) behave in their various roles and circumstances.

So it is with your own professional brand. A professional brand isn’t about creating a phony “persona” or pretending to be someone you’re not. Instead, it’s about showcasing the best of who you are and the value you provide. Your professional brand highlights the strengths that you want to be known for, and takes the initiative to shape others’ assumptions about your ability to contribute.

What Are the Key Characteristics of a Brand?

There are many different definitions of what constitutes a professional brand, but one way to think about brand characteristics is laid out by authors David McNally and Karl D. Speak in Be Your Own Brand (Berrett-Koehler, 2002). They identified the big three characteristics as competencies, standards, and style.

• Competencies. Not only what you’re good at, but what you want to be known for being good at. What work are you passionate about doing? (If you’re a decent manager, but you hate managing people, you don’t want to build your brand around management competencies.)
• Standards. How do you perform your competencies? Are you known for always beating deadlines, bringing creative thinking to a project, paying attention to all the details, or ensuring the smooth running of team projects? Are you a perfectionist? What level of performance should others expect of you?
• Style. How do you communicate and interact with others? Think about your relations with classmates, co-workers, bosses, customers, etc. Are you generally more casual in your interactions or more formal? A high-visibility contributor or a more reflective, quiet participant? Do you gravitate toward leadership roles, or prefer to be more of a team player? Are you someone who uses humor (when appropriate) to lighten the mood? These are the attributes you would showcase as part of your professional brand.

How Do You Demonstrate Your Professional Brand?

There are a number of ways you demonstrate your value to the world (and potential employers); most important among these are:

• Your language – is it hesitant or confident, cold or friendly, arrogant or supportive, careless or professional?
• Your clothes – do they reinforce the way you want a potential employer, co-worker, customer, or client to think of you? Or do they tell them not to take you seriously as a professional?
• Your contributions – what projects or volunteer work have you done that demonstrate the professional characteristics you want to be known for? (These characteristics could be a commitment to community service, innovative thinking, leadership, artistic ability, etc.)
• Your public communications – on the job or in class, in print, and online.
• Your attitude – are you a positive person? Easy to work with? Comfortable working as part of a team?

What About Building Your Brand Online?

You have all sorts tof ways to boost – or bury – your professional brand online. The social networking sites – for example, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter – are a great way to promote your interests and expertise, or discuss what you’re learning about in school. Or consider writing a blog on a professional topic that interests you or creating a website that provides resources on a topic for which you’d like to be known.

Just keep in mind that you should assume all of your online communications will be visible to – and checked out by – a potential employer. You don’t have to be boring, just try not to do any major damage to your professional reputation!

Why Your Professional Brand is Really Important to Your Career

Having a strong professional brand can help you build the career you want in a number of ways.

• It provides stability in the midst of workplace and economic chaos.  You know the drill: pink slips are flying left and right, companies are changing direction (and staffing needs), entire industries are contracting (and job opportunities along with them.) You may have made a decision that your current job (or employer) is a dead-end deal, and that it’s time to head in a new direction. Having a strong professional brand lays the groundwork for you to land on your feet with a new employer if needed, because you’ve already built a reputation (which they can see online and/or hear about from others) that lets them know how valuable you are.
• It helps shape how people are willing to let you contribute.  If you’re new on the job, and no one really knows you, they won’t know what to expect of you. Should they trust your judgment? Should they give you the important assignments or new opportunities? If you’ve built a track record – a brand – that lets them know you’re smart, capable, and have high professional standards, you’ve gone a long way toward answering those questions for them.
• It positions you in the path of opportunity.  If you’ve done a good job of building a reputation as a strong contributor, you’re more likely to be mentioned by others when new opportunities arise. It’s impossible to tell where a new project may be developing, when a company may be taking a new direction that would be a perfect fit for your skills, or how a start-up is going to need your expertise to take advantage of an expanding market segment. But if you’ve got a great brand that’s visible to a lot of people, it’s a lot likelier that your name will cross paths with those opportunities through people who can connect the dots for you.

Have you thought about your personal brand?

“Working fathers are struggling to juggle the competing demands of family and career, according to a report that shows that they are just as uneasy with their work-life balance as mothers.“

No surprise there. But, perhaps this isn’t obvious to everyone else.

The above quote is from the UK-based article titled Working fathers want more time with their children too. The article outlines some key points from the Fathers, Family and Work report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). A few interesting points in the article:

• 42% of fathers felt they were not able to spend enough time with their children
• About two in five men fear that asking for flexible working arrangements would result in their commitment to their job being questioned.
• “…employers think of women as a potential burden because they worry they will want flexible conditions. It will be helpful for women…once men are also seen as likely to demand flexible working.”

I guess it’s good for formal research to be completed and a report published on what I feel is something most men and women probably already knew. I know that my husband struggles with being a working dad just as much as I do with being a working mom. Of course he wants to spend more time with baby girl. And of course he has a hard time with balancing it all. He often works with me on planning our evening schedules and household calendar to try to manage all aspects of our daily lives.

Is this news to you or does this just confirm what you already knew? Let me know in the comments what you think of the article, the report, or just working dads in general.

This past Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending the Florida Conference for Women. I have to say a big THANK YOU to Anne Hebert who approached me with the offer to attend the conference on their dime and provided an extra ticket for one of my readers.

So how was the conference? How did the day go? Here’s the breakdown of the day.

The Nonexistent Tweetup

Since many conference attendees were on twitter, a few of us asked if there might be a central place at the conference where we could meet each other and have an informal tweetup. The conference organizers agreed and spread word about an informal tweetup to be had first thing in the morning in the exhibit hall.

Now, when I got there, there were no other twitterers to be found. The conference volunteers had no clue what I was talking about. They gave me the whole “twitter what?” look. So, I tweeted about how I was looking for the noexistent tweetup. A bit after that, @ElizabethB showed up with phone in hand looking around. And so finally the (very small) tweetup formed as @peglegpug, @elsaodette, and @eggmarketing joined us.

Opening Keynote

Tory Johnson (@toryjohnson) – http://womenforhire.com

When I heard Tory speak, I immediately thought “I have to meet her.” She is the author of the book Will Work From Home: Earn Cash Without the Commute, which sounds like a book I need to read seeing as how I’m working towards my goal of working from home. One of the quotes that stood out for me from her speech was, “You’re only an official contributor when you’re paid for it.” In other words, don’t work for free. Something else Tory said is something I truly need to work on, especially with BlogHer ’09 coming soon. And that is to introduce yourself to people and talk to them about what you do. Sometimes it might turn into nothing, but other times it might turn out to be a great connection.

Tory was the only speaker from the sessions I attended that mentioned twitter. So of course, our twitter-filled table smiled and even tweeted about her shout out. Later Tory replied about the lack of twitter talk at the conference. Taking on Tory’s own advice about introducing yourself to people to build a network, Kelly and I later introduced ourselves and exchanged cards with Tory.

Ariane de Bonvoisin – www.first30days.com

Ariane was a great speaker. So great that apparently I didn’t really take any notes from her speech and only wrote down her link and that she had a book. I was paying attention to all the great stuff she had to say that I forgot to write it down! Basically, though, she’s all about change. Loving change. Embracing change. And dealing with change. Her book is The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Making any Change Easier.

I later attended her break-out session and I know I took more notes during that presentation, so keep reading.

Session I: Reinvent Yourself! – Strategies for Having the Career You Want

Pamela Mitchell – http://www.reinvention-institute.com

I went to this session hoping to get some insight on how to make a switch from the standard 9-5 job to working from home. After all, that *is* reinventing yourself – at least for me. The speaker provided lots of of good information and key questions to get you thinking about how to get started with reinventing yourself. A few key points I liked from her presentation:

• Ask yourself, “What do people come to me for?” The answers are talents you can get paid for.
• Think of your favorite excuse for not reinventing yourself and come up with three possible ways to overcome it.
• Ask how instead of can it be done. If you ask yourself how, your brain starts to think differently and attempts to solve the problem.
• For your resume: List your titles first instead of the companies you worked for. Be sure to also use a “Summary of Qualifications” in order to present your skills from the get-go.
• And finally, you must tell people what you want to do. Otherwise, how will anyone know?

Session II: The Tools of Change

Ariane de Bonvoisin – www.first30days.com

Since Ariane had done a great job during the keynote, I wanted to hear more of what she had to say. Overall, the information she gave is probably things we all already know. HOWEVER, it’s stuff we need to hear…again and again. Plus, she categorized it all into nice little bullets.

9 Principles of Change

People who successfully navigate change…

1. have positive beliefs.
2. know that something good will come from that change.
3. know they’re stronger.
4. don’t get stuck in an emotional pattern.
5. accept change.
6. know what they can and can’t control.
7. know that there’s something bigger going on.
8. are not alone.
9. take action!

These same principles of change are posted on her site in a nicer format and with more information.

Keynote Luncheon

Julie Stav – http://www.juliestav.com

I’ll be honest. Scheduling Julie Stav to speak during the lunch was probably the smartest thing the conference coordinators could have done. She was so entertaining, lively, and funny that she definitely woke up the room and snapped all of us out of that all-too-familiar afternoon rut.

Julie mostly talked about investing in the stock market, but also talked about empowerment and general inspiration of interest to women. As a Latina, she also focused on how Hispanic/Latina women need to take control instead of waiting for things to happen. I definitely need to get in contact with her and see if she’ll be willing to do an interview.

Kelly Corrigan – http://kellycorrigan.com

Kelly is the author of the book The Middle Place. She’s a mom and breast cancer survivor. Several conference attendees were spotted tearing up or full out crying as Kelly read some passages from her book. I’m thinking I need to pick it up myself.

Session III: What Happy Working Mothers Know

Panel: Renee Trudeau (http://www.reneetrudeau.com), Jayne Rager Garcia de Valseca, Lisa Hein (http://www.lisarhein.com)
Moderator: Cathy Greenberg – http://www.cathygreenberg.typepad.com

I went to this session thinking I’d get some great information on being a working mom or even some tips for how to balance it all. I guess I thought that’s what a working mother would want to know in order to be happy. Instead, I got three very different stories on how each panelist found their own happiness. In their own special ways.

Renee found happiness through balancing her life and connecting with other moms. Jayne found her happiness through forgiveness (and believe me, she had major forgiveness to do). Lisa found happiness through learning to let go of her son and taking a step back as a parent.

Jayne’s story of cancer, then having her husband kidnapped, then cancer again, was very inspirational and surreal. After hearing that I felt this small for complaining about everyday things.

Key quotes from this session:

• Be a parent, not a friend. – Lisa Hein
• Happiness is a science and a choice. – Cathy Greenberg
• Forgiveness is for you. – Jayne Rager Garcia de Valseca
• Ask your children, “What kind of day do you want to have?” – Renee Trudeau
• Start your day with stillness. – Renee Trudeau

Wrapping Up

After the last session, there was a career fair, along with some door prizes. I didn’t stick around for long, but did find Tory Johnson and introduced myself.

Overall it was a good conference. Some great stories, good motivation and inspiration, and lots of women to network with. Thanks again Florida Conference for Women! You can also follow the twitter conversation on the conference for more highlights.

Did you attend the conference? Which session(s) did you enjoy the most?