How to be headhunted
Much has changed in the eight years since Barbara Edlmair and I wrote How To Be Headhunted. Here’s an update which should help you get your next job. LinkedIn has become essential. Some executive search firms now actively discourage people from sending in unsolicited CVs. Instead, they recommend you keep your LinkedIn profile up to date, so they can find out about you when they need to....
Read MoreBRAND YOU at London Business School
This is a short clip of a seminar that we ran at London Business School’s Alumni Reunion last month.
Read MoreIs 50 too old to rebrand?
The short answer is no. At the age of 50 you may well have 20 more years of work ahead of you. You also have an opportunity to build a stronger brand than ever before. The most powerful brands are authentic, i.e. based on who you are, what you love to do and what you do best. You have now accumulated a lot of experience and can answer these questions more clearly than ever before. (This article...
Read MoreYour three-second answer to the question “And what do you do?”
A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk at Scanners Night, an event for people with multiple interests run by John Williams, author of Screw Work, Let’s Play (also published by Pearson). What follows is an adaptation of a blog post he wrote beforehand on www.screwworkletsplay.com. Your three-second answer to the question “And what do you do?” By John Williams Most of the people I meet who...
Read MoreHow your personal brand and your business’s brand can work together
Self-employed people and entrepreneurs are usually quick to understand the importance of personal branding. In many cases, the founder is the business – at least at first. However, even when the company employs many other people, the founder’s and the business’s brands remain intertwined. There are ways of ensuring that your personal brand helps your business to grow, rather than...
Read MoreHow a personal website can help you
What happens if someone googles you? I google most people before I meet or interview them. The results are often patchy. In many cases there’s a LinkedIn page, often with other people of the same name. Maybe there’s a bio on a company website or something about a tennis club or planning application. If you want people to find you quickly, and get a clear impression of who you are and...
Read MoreWhat archetypes can do for your business
In our book Brand You* we use archetypes to help people build strong brand identities based on the talents they love to use in a particular way. If you aren’t familiar with the archetypes, you can download a short explanation when you join our mailing list. (See the right-hand column of this blog.) Archetypes are extremely useful in business. Here are some ways you can use them: * Once you find...
Read MoreComing soon: the second edition of Brand You
We are pleased to announce that Pearson Education will be publishing the second edition of Brand You in August 2012. The first edition is still available, but will soon be out of print. Between now and August, the eBook of the first edition will continue to be available. If you would like to be notified when the second edition is published, please join our mailing list via this website. We...
Read MoreTo understand your purpose, look at what you can’t stop doing
Your purpose is much more important than individual goals. It’s the direction that’s right for you. Your purpose arises from your talents and your values. It’s like the horizon. You’ll never get there. You can pursue your purpose for the rest of your life. Martha Beck calls it your North Star. The fact that your purpose is infinite makes it hard – if not impossible –...
Read MoreThe Sage of Cavendish Square
Last week I went to a talk by Terry Smith at his office in Cavendish Square. He was on good form, as ever. He’s unusual among UK chief executives in having built a strong personal brand, partly by being right about a lot of things, and partly by being outspoken.
Terry first came to prominence in the late 1980s by issuing a ‘sell’ note on Barclays while working for BZW, Barclays’ in-house investment bank. He later wrote a book called Accounting for Growth, which exposed legal but dubious accounting practices used by certain companies. They included clients of his employer, UBS, which duly fired him.
These days Terry is Chief Executive of Tullett Prebon, a FTSE Mid-250 company. He is also one of the five founding partners in Fundsmith, a new investment fund in which he has invested £25m of his own money. The fund is off to a good start, with a total return of 11.5% over the first six months, compared to 9.9% for the MSCI world index.
Terry makes regular appearances on TV and radio. One of his tips for radio interviews is always to be interviewed on your own, never with another guest. That way, if the host tries to bully or interrupt you, you can just fall silent. Then he or she is stuck and has to let you say what you want to say.
In terms of the archetypes we described in chapter eight of Brand You, Terry is an interesting mixture. I’d say his main archetype is the Sage. He studied history at university and is knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects. He certainly helps people to understand their world. One of his investment heroes is Warren Buffett, the Sage of Omaha.
Terry’s subsidiary archetypes are an unusual combination: the Ruler and the Jester. The Ruler because I always see him in a suit and tie. He makes it clear to people that their money is protected by strict financial controls. At the same time, he has remained prominent for years by evoking the Jester. If the emperor has no clothes, Terry will be among the first to point it out.
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