How to Be a Master Networker

Ever wonder who has the most connections on professional networking sites like LinkedIn? Meet Ron Bates, a “super-connector” who at last count had 33,789 contacts. Find out how – and why – he does it.

How big is your online Rolodex?

Executives are increasingly using such networking sites as Facebookand LinkedInto establish business contacts and recruit clients, blurring the lines between social and corporate networking.

Some might have dozens or hundreds of people in their networks on these sites. Then there are the super-connectors, who have thousands and thousands of people in their networks.

Andrew Filipowski, the chief executive of SilkRoad Technology, is one such super-connector; in his words, he’s an "acceptance slut" when it comes to LinkedIn invitations. He is the second-most connected person in the LinkedIn universe, with 24,657 contacts. He is also a Facebook member.Yet networking was not Filipowski’s primary motive for joining LinkedIn in 2003.

“I wanted to learn all I could about social networking—its nuances, its pluses and minuses,” says Filipowski, whose Winston-Salem, North Carolina, company creates human-resources and employee software. “I thought that way I would be better able to adapt and incorporate ideas for my own products. I see LinkedIn—and now Facebook—as a watercooler experience on steroids.”

The king of the super-connectors is Ron Bates, a California-based recruiter who has a staggering 33,789 connections on LinkedIn. He plays down his top-of-the-charts status and says only that his motivation for accumulating so many contacts is to “establish goodwill” by leveraging his vast database to help others make connections.

As a recruiter in Silicon Valley, Bates spends about 75 percent of his day networking offline, finding and placing executives, mostly in the technology sector. He devotes about an hour a day to LinkedIn. Bates says he has little time for outside professional groups and doesn’t see LinkedIn as a site where social and business networking meet.

LinkedIn, which has 12 million users, says it discourages people from becoming super-connectors because the practice dilutes the site’s mission of creating connections between “trusted colleagues.”

One reason for this attitude might be that being super-connected doesn’t necessarily translate into being more successful. Bates, for one, says that while being No. 1 may have raised his online profile and that of his company, Executive Advantage, he gets very few clients from the service.

“To have a goal of accumulating the most contacts is kind of ludicrous,” he says. “Some people can benefit with fewer contacts; my goal is that more is better. It’s not a contest. My life will go on whether LinkedIn goes on or not.”Indeed, the vast size of the networks that the top super-connectors have put together seem to defeat the purpose of building them in the first place.

“The problem with super-connecting or promiscuous connecting is that you make contacts that you don’t know very well,” says David Teten, co-author of The Virtual Handshake. “People may be uncomfortable referring someone because they’re not a meaningful connection. Some see it as a chance to be more visible—like being most popular.”

And yet sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook, which says it has more than 31 million members, offer some real advantages to executives looking to make professional connections.

Take Steve Bergin, a New York-based recruiter in the broadcasting and media industries. Bergin was having a tough time tracking down a digital-business executive who had recently changed jobs and relocated from the West Coast. A colleague recommended that Bergin try reaching him on Facebook.

Sure enough, Bergin found the executive on Facebook, and he was surprised to find that his message was promptly returned the next morning. It didn’t translate into a job placement, but he was able to resume a potentially beneficial business relationship.Bergin, with 109 connections on LinkedIn, is not a super-connector. But Marc Freedman, a chief executive in Dallas in who has 12,827 LinkedIn connections (No. 21 on the site), definitely is, and he says that these online connections have made a difference in the way he does business.

Freedman’s company, DallasBlue Business Network, is a networking outfit that organizes seminars, meetings, and happy hours in the Dallas area, so extending his brand to the online world was a natural transition. He finds LinkedIn a more intimate way of networking than briefly exchanging business cards with a stranger at a convention.

“If I meet someone at a business meeting, I may get a few minutes to talk to them,” he says. “But it’s an isolated communication and quickly forgotten. With LinkedIn, I get rich background from their profile, plus I see our mutual connections.”

“It takes place in a deep and personal way,” he adds. Freedman has even created a website, MyLink500.com, that tracks the ups and downs of LinkedIn’s super-connectors.

For executives like Filipowski, who have other social and charitable commitments, nothing compares to their “real-world” contacts. A gregarious man, Filipowski is a frequent public speaker on entrepreneurship, a board member and trustee at the University of North Carolina, and chairman of the board at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicines. He is also a co-owner of the Winston-Salem Warthogs baseball team, a Class A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox.

Nearly 80 percent of his LinkedIn contacts have come from other people’s invitations, he estimates. Yet he also acknowledges that he has met people through LinkedIn that he would not have otherwise.One such meeting was with a Canadian man with bipolar disorder who was having difficulty getting a job and supporting his family. Filipowski says he was able to assist the man in finding employment and the connection has evolved into an online friendship.

“I’ve considered LinkedIn a fortunate waste of time,” Filipowski says. “I didn’t start out to network, but I accidentally met some folks along the way.”

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By David Koeppel

Companywide Marketing Efforts

With all that’s involved in marketing, you need a strong team to help you out. Here’s how to make use of the people already on your payroll.

You already know this, but let me say it anyway: There aren’t enough hours in the day for you to effectively do all the things that need to be done in your entrepreneurial business. Your many hats include accounting, operations, technology, IT, HR, sales and, of course, marketing. And marketing is one area where building a team, using internal and external resources and delegating tasks, can really pay off.

Even though you may not have a marketing person on staff, you may have employees whose skills you can tap. In fact, most of your employees can probably do something to help out. But before involving your whole team in your marketing efforts, you need to figure out what exactly can be done in-house and what should be left to the professionals.

When deciding what can be done in house vs. what should be outsourced to a marketing professional or agency, the three most important factors are workload and experience/expertise. Entrepreneurial staffs tend to run lean, so you must first evaluate your employees’ workload to see if they can handle additional responsibilities. You don’t want an employee working on a direct-mail campaign in lieu of getting the billing statements out on time.

Second, look at your current employees' past experience. If you have an employee who’s handled media relations or had a job in journalism, for instance, you might want to have this person start building relationships with the media. Then, as you identify more target markets and niches, you may want to hire a professional with more expertise to launch more wide-ranging targeting efforts.

It's important to point out that if you plan right and concentrate on delegating just a few marketing tasks each day, much of your marketing can be done in-house. Because marketing's made up of many elements, all working together, spreading your marketing tasks throughout the company is a smart way to get the job done.

If you'd like to get started using your available resources, take a look at these suggestions for some easy ways to include different staff members in your marketing efforts:

Receptionist

Often, customers’ first contact with your business is your receptionist, so you should pay close attention to the way your customers are greeted. Do you have guidelines for answering the phone, and are they marketing oriented? I guarantee the more successful companies do more than say hello and identify the company name before transferring a call. Here are some ways your receptionist can help you stand out:

· Create a new, nonstandard phone answering script featuring the product of the month.
· Hand out product information, catalogs or order information to all guests.
· Use idle time to handwrite thank-you notes from the company to key customers and prospects.

Accounting Department Employees

You may not look at your accounting department as a member of your marketing team, but personalized customer invoices can make a big impact on your company’s image. Here are a few other ways your accounting staff can get involved with marketing:
· Stuff fliers into outgoing invoices.
· Handwrite a note on billing statements.
· Offer an accounting hotline to customers.
· Join in on customer tours and in sales rallies.

Creative Staff

Some companies anticipate--and eliminate--any loss in translation that might come through a salesperson or customer-service person by having functional staff people talk directly to customers. For instance, I know of a printing company that has their graphic designers speak directly with customers about artwork and graphics. These designers are proud to be part of the marketing process, especially when they’re so effective at improving the customer experience.

Production or Service Delivery Personnel

Don’t discount the people that do the physical production or delivery of your product—they know it well and can help you reach customers directly. Some ways they can make an impact on your image:
· Enclose a reminder to reorder in your packaging.
· Have them participate in brainstorming meetings about packaging and bundling ideas.
· Show the production department on customer tours.
· Feature their employee profiles in your company newsletter.
· Include a notice in all packaging that states, “Produced and Packed with Pride,” with the employee’s signature.

Tips for All Employees
· Have employees research the competition or research and compile customer databases. This works especially well with employees who are heavily involved with computers and like to surf the internet.

· Tap into employees that have computer graphics skills that might not be used on the job when you need a logo or creative concepts developed for marketing and advertising. You might be surprised at how passionate an employee will be about a project of this type.
· Issue press releases about other activities employees are involved in, such as their volunteer efforts in the community.
· Include employees in brainstorming sessions regarding marketing creative, special-offer planning, customer communication planning, event planning and so on. It doesn’t take a marketing pro to come up with a great idea.
· Have employees deliver things to customers during idle times. This can include actual product delivery, quote delivery, a thank-you gesture of a box of bagels or lunch brought in and so on.

The marketing efforts you can have all your staff do are only limited by your imagination. The bottom line is, getting everyone to participate in your marketing will go a long way within your organization and with your customers to improve your business image and bottom line--and successes will be shared by all involved.

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By Al Lautenslager

Al Lautenslager is the "Guerrilla Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.comand is an award-winning marketing and PR consultant and direct-mail promotion specialist. He's also the principle of Market For Profits, a Chicago-based marketing consulting firm. His two latest books, Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days and The Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing are available at www.entrepreneurpress.com.

Be a Selling Superstar

How can you make sure you shine in your customers' eyes? Adopt the top 5 traits clients say their favorite salespeople share.

Over the past 15 years, I've gained a lot of insight from interviewing my customers' customers. After talking to the heads of sales organizations, I ordinarily ask them to provide me with the names of three of their top salespeople. I interview these top reps to learn more about their industry, and then I ask them for some of their own customers to interview. What makes these customers so qualified to describe the attributes of a top performer is that they've been sold to by the best in the industry. Based on those interviews, here are the top five traits found in the best salespeople.

1. Focusing on the customer: Here's what one customer told me: "A good rep approaches the sale from what you need to get your business going. They'll often help you by showing you examples of what other people have done to be successful. They're not after the quick sale; they want a long-term relationship. They help you come up with ideas that are outside their product or service. Unfortunately, with most reps, you get the feeling they're more self-serving than customer-serving."

2. Following through: You wouldn't believe how many customers mentioned salespeople who never called back! The best salespeople get back to customers right away, even if it's just to tell them they're working on the answer and will contact them later. Here's how one customer explained it: "Some reps, when they're trying to get your business, call you all the time and answer your calls right away. But after the sale, they disappear. Suddenly they're never in the office, and you have to leave three or four messages before they call you back. As far as I'm concerned, that's the best way to lose me as a customer."

3. Having the right knowledge: As one of my interviewees said, "Sales reps have to know what they're talking about. And it has to be the right kind of knowledge--like how many people I reach and who my key customers are. Sometimes reps come on very strong and expound on things like they know it all. That's not knowledge; that's just showing off."

4. Understanding customers' problems: The best reps know how to fulfill customers' needs, solve their problems and help them achieve their goals. One customer put it like this: "A good sales rep has my best interest at heart. [The rep] should ask questions so she can understand my objectives. She might even help me define those objectives, and then make a presentation about how my objectives can be met with her product or service."

5. Going above and beyond: The most successful sales-people go out of their way to lend a helping hand. As one customer told me, "We're not a company that looks solely for price. What's more important to us is the extra effort and degree of service we get from the rep and from the company. There's one sales rep who is outstanding in both effort and service. If we have an unexpected workload that exceeds our supply, she's willing to [do whatever it takes] to get us through the crunch period. We had a case where she even drove the product from Greensboro, [North Carolina], to Charlotte [for us]. Because of her, we would not change vendors for a difference in price."

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By Barry Farber

Barry Farber, author of The 12 Clichés of Selling, has taught thousands of individuals and corporations how to break through barriers to achieve their sales, management and personal goals.

21 Ways to Bring in the Business

Despite your desperate hopes and prayers, business isn't just going to wander into your business. You need to get out there and hustle, and we've got the tips to help you do it.

We've found the perfect marketing solution for you. First, close your eyes. Now hug your computer monitor. Using top-secret technology developed at the Entrepreneur.com laboratories, we'll instantly transmit lists of bottomless-pocketed customers to your brain and your homebased business.

Well, OK, maybe not. But it's not because we don't have the technology (only one more logarithm to go, we swear)-really, we want to help you help yourself. So we've brought you something even better: 21 chunks of marketing know-how that will help you find the customers you need to fill your business's coffers. Print this out, post it up and integrate it into your marketing plan-and get ready for tons of sales.

The Basics

1. Create quality marketing tools. This doesn't mean you need to allot 75 percent of your budget to printing costs, presentation slides and a Web site. But it does mean you need to put deep thought into the cohesive image you want to present. "Sit down and make a list of everything you're going to need each time you make contact with a prospective customer or client, including a stationery package, brochures and presentation tools," advises marketing expert Kim T. Gordon, president of National Marketing Federation Inc.and an Entrepreneur.com columnist. "Then, if you can't [afford] to print it all at once, at least work with a designer and a copywriter to create the materials so you have them on disk."

If even this sends shivers down your bank account's spine, find creative ways to deal with it: Hire an art or marketing student from the local university, or barter your services with other homebased entrepreneurs.

2. Greet clients with style. Voice mail may not seem like a component of your marketing plan, but if a potential client calls and your kid answers, that client will be gone before you can even technically call him a client. So get yourself a professional voice-mail system (even the phone company offers options) with several boxes, advises Gordon, so callers can press "1" to hear more about your services, "2" for your web and e-mail addresses, etc.

3. Focus as narrowly as possible. Instead of trying to reach all the people some of the time, narrow your target audience to highly qualified prospects. Instead of going to seven networking groups once every two months, go to the two groups with the best prospects every week. "Instead of marketing to 5,000 companies, [find] several dozen highly qualified companies and make regular contact with them," says Gordon. Call them, mail your marketing materials, and then ask to meet. It'll save you money and time.

4. Make the most of trade shows. Here's a hodgepodge of tips, courtesy of Rick Crandall, a speaker, consultant and author of marketing books:

· If you don't get a booth beforehand, try to find someone who might want to share their space with you. You help them run the booth, and they get a local who can show them the town.

· If you decide not to get a booth, go anyway. You can always do business with the exhibitors--just be sure to respect their time with "real" customers before you approach them as a peer looking for some B2B action.

· After the seminar, be absolutely, positively sure that you follow up on your leads. What's the point of attending if your leads end up in the trash? The Center for Exhibition Industry Researchsays 88 percent of exhibition attendees weren't called by salespeople in 2000. Try to improve that stat.

5. Conduct competitive intelligence online. When Joyce L. Bosc started Boscobel Marketing Communications Inc.in 1978 in her Silver Spring, Maryland, home, she had no clue what the competition was doing. Today, she points out, homebased entrepreneurs have it a lot easier. "As a homebased business [in 1978], how would you even find out what your competition was doing, what they were charging or what kind of clients they had?" says Bosc, whose company now has 18 employees and is no longer homebased. "Today, that information is completely at your fingertips." So find your competitors' sites and get clicking.

Getting Friendly

6. Offer your help. Want to be known as a good businessperson--and just as an all-around good person? Help others out. One of Ellen Cagnassola's biggest business-getters for her Fanwood, New Jersey, handcrafted soap business, MaryEllen's Sweet Soaps, is word-of-mouth that's generated by not only her good work, but also her good deeds. "I am the first to help another, and I offer ideas freely," says Cagnassola. "I think this and my enthusiasm for my business make people want to be a part of my success." Where does she offer help? A New Jersey Women's Business Center and her hometown's Downtown Revitalization Committee are just a few places she lends her expertise.

Another way to help out your community and your business is to align yourself with a nonprofit organization. Patrick Bishop, author of Money-Tree Marketing, offers this idea: "Set up a fund-raising program that benefits a school, like a discount card. At the same time the kids [are selling them, they are] promoting your business."

7. Offer work samples. Crandall suggests that if, for example, you're a web designer, you surf the internet, find a potential client and send them a few tips they can use to improve their site. Or you can do as Anne Collins did: "In the beginning, I was willing to just go out and beg for the business," says Collins, whose homebased Laurel, Maryland, graphic design firm, Collins Creative Services Inc., now boasts the U.S. Army as one of its clients. "Sometimes I would offer a small job for free just to show the potential client the quality of my work and to get them used to working with me."

8. Network. If this piece of marketing advice sounds like something you've heard before, there's a good reason: It works. Join your local chamber, leads groups like LeTip International Inc.or Leads Club, your industry association, or Rotary Club. When you go, ask the people you meet what leads they're looking for--and really listen to what they have to say. They'll repay you in kind.

9. Cross-promote with other businesses. Whom do you share customers with? Find them and figure out how you can promote one another. If you're a PR person, hook up with a copywriter or graphic designer for client referrals. Or you could take note of the collective that Crandall knows: The Wedding Mafia, a group of several wedding professionals (a caterer, DJ, dressmaker, photographer, etc.) who work together through referrals. Another option is to add a brief note at the bottom of invoices referring your accounting clients to "an excellent computer consultant," and have that consultant do the same for you.

Getting Online

10. Chat online. Find newsgroups that cater to your audience, and join the fray. "I didn't start [participating in online discussion groups] to generate business, but as a way to find information for myself on various subjects," says Shel Horowitz, owner of Northampton, Massachusetts-based Accurate Writing & More and author of several marketing books, including Grassroots Marketing. "But it turned out to be the single best marketing tool I use. It costs only my time. [One] list alone has gotten me around 60 clients in the past five years."

11. Offer an e-newsletter. Again, this establishes you as an expert, but it also provides another very important marketing tool: e-mail addresses of potential clients. You've opened up the gates to creating a relationship with these folks by offering free information. Now they may approach you to do business, or you can use these "opt-in" addresses to offer your services.

12. Don't wait for customers to find you online. Rather than purchasing an e-mail list for mass, impersonal advertising, spend some time trolling the Web, looking for businesses that have some sort of connection to your own business. Then write them a personalized e-mail telling them why you think they should build a business relationship with you. "Those letters have a high tendency to get answered because they are personal," says Crandall. "And if there is something we could do business about, I've opened the door. I've done thousands of dollars of business once that door was opened with people who were total strangers [before I e-mailed them]."

Spreading the Word

13. Go where your best prospects are. This is called play-space marketing. If you have a pet-sitting business, ask your local vet office and groomer if you can display brochures. Are you a landscape artist? Offer to do a display for the local nursery. Do you throw children's birthday parties? Buy a slide at the local movie theater to be shown before their family films. "Just be sure the environment is appropriate," cautions Gordon. "If you're a business consultant, you're not going to run ads on the movie screen. [Advertise somewhere] where people are [likely] to be thinking about what you're selling."

14. Become an expert. Cagnassola has developed her business know-how into a marketing tool by writing online articles. "Write articles to show your talents and give them as filler to any Web site owner that you feel is fitting," says Cagnassola. "Not only does it bring you more traffic and potential customers, but it provides you with an international business portfolio to demonstrate your business sense [and your] product or service."

Other ways to establish yourself as an expert: Answer questions in online forums; get yourself listed in a directory like Experts.com, Profnet.comor The Yearbook of Experts; send tip sheets to local media outlets; write a book or pamphlet; or do the next tip on our list.

15. Host a seminar. It's cheap. It's easy. And it's a darn good way to get over your public-speaking fear. Crandall offers the story of a business broker who conducts free weekly seminars. People selling businesses don't want to attend, as they aren't new to the business brokering process, but they do notice his ad and call for his services. Business buyers attend, and the broker now has "pre-qualified" prospects. "You're getting free publicity, you're getting prospects to call you, and you're building your level of expertise," says Crandall, who hosts his own seminars on marketing.

16. Get local news coverage. Play up your locale as much as possible with personalized news releases. Because which sounds better to your local press: A successful homebased caterer with a national contract, or a caterer from Hometown, Ohio, with a national contract? Heck, even if you used to live someplace, write them a letter. Crandall recently promoted his mother's children's book by sending letters to the newspapers both where she currently lives and where she previously lived, and both picked up the story.

17. Get ready for your close-up. Does TV sound out-of-reach for a homebased business owner on a budget? Not so. Get yourself a cable access show. "You can't blatantly advertise a product or service, but it's a good way to become better-known," says Bishop. "For example, if you sell crafts, you might start an [instructional] craft show. You could give away something for free or have a contest. When people call or write in, you can start a mailing list and then contact them about your business." Some other boons: It adds to your expertise and gives you a great hook for your publicity efforts.

Customer Service

18. Gracias, merci, thank you. Shower the top 20 percent of your clients who yield you the most sales (either in volume or dollars) with thank-yous, whether it's gifts, personalized notes or lunch. "It doesn't cost a lot of money," says Gordon, "but it's a great way to let your best customers know they're special."

19. Offer a guarantee. More people will be willing to try out your business and recommend your business if you offer "satisfaction guaranteed." End of story.

20. Get them talking about you. Word-of-mouth marketing is just about the cheapest thing you can do to boost your business. The main way to attract referrals is to just do a great job: Impress your clients, and they'll tell everyone they know. But there are more aggressive tactics you can use as well. Ask everyone you know to evangelize your business. Hand out several business cards to people rather than just one so they're more likely to pass them on. Even go through your favorite client's Rolodex (with his or her permission, of course) to find potential leads.

Spreading the Word

21. When in doubt, pick up the phone. Instead of lamenting your lack of business, drumming your fingers on your desk and forming new worry lines on your face, call a customer. Touch base, see how they're doing, visit their office when you're running an errand, see if there's anything you can do for them, even if it's not a paid piece of work. It'll improve your relationship, and you may jar their memory. After all, you'll never hear "I've been meaning to call you!" if you don't pick up the phone.

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By Laura Tiffany

This article was originally published on Entrepreneur.com in 2001. It was updated with new information in 2006.

Communicate Your Benefits

Here's how to figure out what your benefits are and how to best relate them to your prospects.

I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. Your prospects don't care about you. I know that comes as a shock to many people. Some of you are saying, "Of course they do. We have the largest equipment in the industry," or "We have the smartest people around." But your prospects don't care about that.

What do they care about? They care about themselves. Every time a prospect looks at your marketing, all they are thinking is, "What's in it for me?" This means you need to be communicating benefits not just features. Yes, there is a difference.

I have found these listed in marketing communication material as benefits:
· One-click buying
· 200-CD jukebox
· Self-cleaning oven
· In business since 1910
· State-of-the-art technology
· Live operator on duty 24/7
· We have the biggest widget maker
· Award winning

In business since 1910. Who cares? Your prospects don't, yet you see many businesses communicating how long they've been in business. These are not benefits. These are all features. None of them tell a prospect what's in it for them.

Here are some examples of benefits:
· Time savings
· Convenience
· Hassle free
· Lower cost
· Feel better
· No pain
· Organization
· Easy access
· Immediate
· Less resources required
· Reliability

Anytime you can help a prospect feel better, be smarter, avoid pain, or save time or money, then you are truly providing a benefit. These all answer, "What's in it for me?"

By the way, the corresponding benefit to being in business since 1910 is reliability. If a prospect knows you've been around that long, there is a good chance you'll be around when they need you.

Another way to think about the benefits you offer your prospects and customers is to think about what you are really selling. Printers don't just sell ink on paper; they sell communication. Eye doctors don't sell frames and glass; they sell vision. Home Depot doesn't sell drill bits; it sells holes.

Make a list of the benefits you offer your customers and prospects. Then list the benefits your competition offers. If the two lists are the same, neither company has a competitive advantage to offer prospects.

A competitive advantage is defined as the benefit you offer that your competition doesn't. If you have just one more benefit to offer than your competition, you have a competitive advantage. Be careful because the opposite is also true. If your competition has one more benefit than you, they have the competitive advantage.

Sometimes you have to dig deep to find the right benefit to offer your prospects. Sometimes they aren't as obvious as those stated above.

My co-author of Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days, Jay Levinson, used to drive 25 miles to his favorite bookstore. Between his home and the bookstore, there were probably a dozen other bookstores that he could visit. Why did he visit the one far away? Because it had the best carrot cake in its café. When the bookstore put together its list of benefits, I guarantee carrot cake didn't make the initial list. But as more and more people walked in the door and said, "You have the best carrot cake of any bookstore," it became a competitive advantage. No other bookstore had the best carrot cake.

What is the carrot cake in your business?

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By Al Lautenslager

Al Lautenslager is the "Guerrilla Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and is an award-winning marketing and PR consultant and direct-mail promotion specialist. He's also the principal of Market For Profits, a Chicago-based marketing consulting firm. His two latest books,Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days and The Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing are available at www.entrepreneurpress.com.

Know--and Brand--Thyself

The ancient Greek adage is more than just a pithy saying. Creating a personal brand will show your strengths throughout life.

It's a brand new work world. And I do mean "brand."

It used to be that only large businesses worried about branding. To thrive, they had to distinguish their company from the competition. This meant carving out a niche based on competitive advantages and specific corporate attributes. They crafted and maintained a strategic brand--a unique, useful promise to current and prospective customers--to gain brand equity and loyalty. This was business, after all.

But things have changed. The 21st century is the age of free agents and custom ringtones. Nike doesn't just sponsor Tiger Woods; Tiger Woods sponsors Tiger Woods (check out the personal logo on his cap). Today, branding occurs at the individual level. This is especially noticeable in service industries, but increasingly in others as well. Everything about you, from the type of cell phone you carry and the vocabulary you use, to the brand of coffee you drink, says something about who you are and what you can do for the rest of us.

In business today, your most important job is to promote yourself. You probably won't work the same job from graduation until retirement. More likely, your future depends on leveraging your strengths along a winding career path ripe with possibilities. To take advantage of these opportunities, you need to stand out in a crowd. You must become your own brand.

Essentially, this means distinguishing yourself based on your "competitive advantages," including unique professional skills, life experiences, character strengths and personality traits. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

1. Ask the No. 1 question in branding: What makes you different than others, particularly others in your field? What qualities, experiences and skills make you special? Generate a list of personal brand attributes, and then prioritize them.

Your brand is a promise of the value you'll deliver to your customer. It's important to consider how you add value. For every feature, there's a corresponding benefit. Are you always on time? This translates to reliable service. Do you tend to think out of the box? You're a problem-solver. The more unique your brand is in your field, the better. If you add value like everyone else in your industry, it's not considered a competitive advantage. Look for ways--even small ways--that make you different and thus more valuable and irreplaceable to customers.

Ironically, it's really not about you. Like business branding, you must consider the needs and desires of your prospective customers. What are they looking for? This is a critical but often-overlooked component of personal branding. For example, if your competitive advantage is dogged reliability in a field defined by fast-paced innovation, you need to rethink either your brand or your field.

2. Write a mission statement that includes three or four of your top brand attributes. Include ones you already possess and those you're still working on. Keep in mind you're not defined by a company or a title. The only organization you belong to for life is yours. Create a mission statement that promotes who you are and who you are becoming.

3. Create a personal logo, like Tiger Woods did. People remember pictures and color (a logo) before they remember text (a name). Adding a logo to your personal business cards makes you stand out in a crowd. The symbol in your logo can serve in other capacities, including an embellishment to personal stationery or as a favicon for your website. (Try creating your own logo for free at LogoYes.com)

4. Broadcast your brand. Use personal business cards, create a personal website and network with colleagues to promote your attributes. Everything you say and do--from how you greet others and answer the phone to how you dress and carry yourself--sends a message about your brand. Strive for consistency.

5. Establish credibility. Join professional and community organizations, take or teach a class, give a lecture, start a blog or contribute to an e-newsletter. Constantly search for ways to get your name out there. Equally as importantly, hone your skills whenever possible.

6. Be your own brand manager. Don't be afraid to tweak your brand based on feedback from these forays. The success of any branding campaign depends on what the market thinks. Equally as important, preserve your brand with pit-bull determination.

The opportunities to brand yourself are endless. Seize the day, You, Inc.

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By John Williams

John Williams is president and founder of LogoYes.com, the world's first and largest DIY logo website. In his 25 years in advertising, he has created brand standards for Fortune 100 companies like Mitsubishi and won numerous international awards for his design work.

Living Your Brand

Take a look at who you are and how you want to represent your brand--and live it every day--to make yourself your #1 asset.

A great deal of time and energy are expended to create memorable brands that add value to company marketing strategies and--in the case of public companies--pique the interest of the investment community. While company brand equity is certainly important, the significance of making yourself an integral part of your company’s brand shouldn’t be overlooked as a key to success.

Here’s a simplistic example that underscores the importance of personal branding. Let’s say you own a franchise of a well-known quick printing company. Your logo’s recognizable, and the attributes of your parent organization are well-documented through a dynamic national marketing campaign. While you may gain first-time business based on name recognition alone, if customers don’t like you—if you’re unable to positively establish your personal brand--you may never see them again.

As would be expected, personal branding is most important in service businesses, because customers demand a high level of personal attention. Your ability to establish and maintain rapport with your customers will result in long-term relationships as well as coveted referral business. And when customers know and like you, they’re more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if anything goes awry.

The Defining ProcessThe most important step to creating your personal brand is defining yourself. This includes taking stock of your strengths, values, goals and personality to determine the personal messages you want customers to take away from their encounters with you.

When you consistently present yourself based on the messages you’ve identified, you’ll have created an effective personal brand. Those who interact with you will have a strong sense of who you are and what you stand for, and that can be any number of things, both inside and outside of the business realm.

The beauty of personal branding is its uniqueness. While some of your personal brand attributes may overlap with others’, your overall messages should be one-of-a-kind--that’s what’ll differentiate you and make your personal brand stand out.

Components to consider for your personal brand include: your leadership abilities; your special strengths, talents or achievements; your personality traits; and your distinctive qualities. Think outside the box, and be as specific as possible so your brand doesn’t mirror anyone else’s.

Getting the Message OutOnce you’ve determined your personal brand messages, you need a strategy for broadcasting them to your target audience. Visibility and persistence are key to ensuring that your personal brand is communicated to your customers. That means you must live your personal brand at all times; if that’s challenging, then you probably weren’t honest during the defining process and need to think a little harder about who you are and what you stand for.

While there are endless options for getting your personal brand message out in the world, the most powerful is face-to-face communication. Personal interactions provide the greatest opportunities to make memorable impressions. If your customer base is too large or too spread out for that to happen, you can use other communications vehicles—including e-mail, direct mail and personalized letters—to get your messages across. Remember that all the choices you make, from your language to your font, can enhance or detract from your personal brand, so choose wisely.

In the best circumstances, when you’re able to successfully project the image you’ve defined for yourself, you’ll become the most important part of your company’s brand. And that’s critically important for entrepreneurs who wish to differentiate themselves from their competition.

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By John Williams

John Williams is Entrepreneur.com's "Image & Branding" columnistand the founder and president of LogoYes.com, the world's first do-it-yourself logo design website. During John's 25 years in advertising, he's created brand standards for Fortune 100 companies like Mitsubishi and won numerous awards for his design work.

Use SWOT to Kick-start Your Planning

Getting key players involved and brainstorming could be what your company needs to get to the next level.

Regardless of whether you develop a full-blown "business plan," you certainly want to plan your business. Planning isn't just about creating a formalized document; it's about figuring out how you'll achieve your goals and tracking progress. A planning process--setting objectives, prioritizing, allocating resources and establishing milestones--will help you better manage your business.

What's important is to get going. Don't let the planning hold you back, but do let the planning hold you steady and help you manage. There are several good ways to do that, including a SWOT analysis, evaluating your market, developing your organizational identity or simply forecasting sales. The best way to start depends on you: who you are, who you're working with and what your objectives are, among other factors. Some people work better with numbers first, while others prefer dealing with concepts.

With that in mind, I want to focus on the SWOT analysis--evaluating strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats--as one good way to start thinking strategically. It's a natural brainstorming tool that everyone understands and works well for groups. I've used it with my company since the beginning when it was just me and still use it now that my company has 35 employees.

Here's a good visual example of a SWOT analysis taken from a computer reseller's plan. The company conducted the analysis in a medium-sized university town a few years ago as major office stores came into the market pushing computers as lower-priced boxed goods that didn't need service or support.

As you perform a SWOT analysis, try to involve other people; it improves the brainstorming value. Even if you're running a one-person business, invite your spouse or significant other, a trusted friend who knows your business, and--if you can afford the hourly fees--your accountant or attorney. If you're in a small business with a team, invite the team.

Brainstorming means generating a lot of ideas, not just good ideas, and then editing them down to a concentrated strategic list. Include plenty of bullet points. Make sure that during the brainstorming period you aren't negative about or critical of any ideas.

To clarify, strengths and weaknesses are about you and your company, its nature, history, and what it does and doesn't do well. You can change them over time, but it isn't easy. Threats and opportunities are external-- factors outside of your business. Your strategy should play on your strengths and away from weaknesses to take advantage of opportunities and avoid threats.

One of the great advantages of SWOT is how easily it brings people into the process. Companies differ, but in general, your planning will work better if the people who are supposed to implement the plan are involved in its development. SWOT involves people in the plan, helping them see the strategy and making them feel like part of it.

SWOT in a small business also offers a safe forum for generating new ideas and breaking through standing assumptions. For example, it was in a SWOT meeting that the product development director of my company, who was in his late twenties at the time, suggested that one of my company's weaknesses was my messing with the software code instead of just being the president. He pointed out that we had professional software developers to do that. It might have been awkward for him to say that to the president and founder, but it was easier during the SWOT meeting. And in this case, it had a good outcome: He's been promoted several times since then, and I stay out of the software programming.

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By Tim Berry

For more information on the SWOT process, check out these helpful links: Wikipedia, bplans.com and MindTools.