personal branding

Don’t wind up on the least-wanted list

December 5, 2011 by Mighty Casey 2 Comments

Yes, kids, it’s that time of year again.

ChristmaHanaKwanzaKah is once again in the hearts and on the minds of everyone from sea to shining sea – and beyond – so it’s time for a remedial lesson on How to Succeed in Business Without Really Lying.

Here are the Mighty Casey Media rules for surviving the holidays with your sanity – and your client list – intact:

Don’t be a grinch. If you’re not a big fan of the holidays, don’t trash those who are. You don’t have to go overboard and wear a pair of reindeer antlers all month, yet neither do you have to tell the office Christmas Elf that s/he is crazy for loving the holidays.
Be a gracious guest. If you’re invited to a holiday celebration by a client or a colleague, accept with thanks. Attend with intent to find the cheer. Bring a friend along who could be a good prospect for the business. Holiday gifts can come in the form of customers. Take it from one who knows.
Be a thoughtful host. If you host a holiday gathering, make sure to keep the conversation and connection flowing. Configure your party so there’s plenty of opportunity to interact, and make the rounds continually to ensure that everyone is enjoying themselves. And have a defined end-time for the party, which saves having to shovel folks out the door.
If you can’t deal, deal yourself out. If the holidays drive you nuts, that seems like a great excuse to take off on a vacation, a retreat, or a sabbatical. Deal yourself out of the holiday merry-go-round, and return to the game refreshed after Santa’s blown town.

Merry ChristmaHanaKwanzaKah to all, and to all a way to make the end-of-year insanity work for you!

#1 thing NOT to do on LinkedIn

August 29, 2011 by Mighty Casey Leave a Comment

The #1-with-a-bullet rule of social media, no matter what platform, is: be authentic. This does not mean that you should be an authentic idiot, however.

I had a troubling conversation on LinkedIn a few days ago, with someone who sent me a connection request. I’m a pretty open networker – my only rules are

Have a profile picture of your face, not a logo

Be a human, with a name, not a brand or a handle

Be able to answer the “how did I wind up on your LinkedIn radar?” question effectively

All three of those guarantee acceptance. Any one of them missing, “ignore”.

So when a woman in my geographic zone sent me an invitation to connect, and had cleared the first 2 of the above rules, I pinged her with a “how” – and that’s where things got interesting. She told me that she was looking for a job, and a recruiter told her that she wouldn’t even get a look if she didn’t have at least 150 LinkedIn connections.

In other words, the recruiter was basically telling her that she needed to gather up connections quickly. Which is, in my estimation, really rotten advice. I’m not against the idea of a dedicated campaign to make meaningful professional connection on LinkedIn, or any other social media network. I do, however, question a recruiter instructing a potential client to essentially spam her address book. That’s likely to get you the LinkedIn bitch-slap, which can be as painful as being kicked off LinkedIn, and at a minimum highly circumscribed on the invitation-to-connect front.

Authentic connection takes time. I’ve been on LinkedIn since 2004, and my connection count of 1,000+ is a testament to my approach of authenticity. I don’t meet all my connections face-to-face – wish I could, since some of them are in Asia and Africa, meaning that meetings would satisfy my travel jones as well as my deepen-the-connection mantra. But I manage to keep tabs on the people I’m linked to, and have picked up both great business intel and actual booked business using my “authenticity” rules.

If you’re a recruiter, or work in HR in any way, be aware of the rules you require those you work with to live by. Focus less on number of connections, and more on how meaningful a candidate’s connections are.

Ragan.com, a must-read site for anyone interested in business storytelling, had a terrific post last week by Jure Klepic, 12 LinkedIn gaffes to avoid at all costs. It’s both funny and informative. Give it a read.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …

Want to add humor to your message? Hire a comedy writer. Really.

August 1, 2011 by Mighty Casey 8 Comments

It’s fascinating to watch something take hold in the zeitgeist (look it up). Particularly when it’s something that has been solidly planted in one’s own personal zeitgeist for … ever.

The hot topic in business social media right now is humor. As in “bring the funny to get attention and customers” – which is true, but is also a dangerous recommendation.

Riddle me this: if laughter is the best medicine, why aren’t more doctors telling great jokes? Other than Ken Jeong, and he’s not actually seeing patients any more.

Recommending that marketing teams use humor is like tossing your 16 year old the car keys and saying, “you’re old enough, go drive!” It might be true, but it’s very dangerous, and it’s likely to end in tears and big legal bills. Just ask Aflac – their recent experience with business humor via their loose cannon of a spokes-duck pitchman, Gilbert Gottfried, did exactly that.

Here’s what you have to do to put humor to work for your corporate messaging strategy: hire a comedy writer. One who understands both comedy AND business. Who can work with you to identify what makes your target customer(s) laugh, who can help you build some organic and authentic comedy that will make your message penetrate and motivate your audience.

Full disclosure: I’m a writer. I’ve done stand-up for years. I haven’t pushed the comedy thing much in the business arena over the last couple of years because whenever I did, it was to the sound of … well, not silence exactly. It was more like speaking Urdu to a room full of Inuit: blank stares.

The key here is that combination of humor and business sense. You have to understand strategic brand messaging in order to stand it on its ear.

Using humor in social media requires a clear view of your audience, an understanding of what that audience reacts to, and some special-sauce experimentation – one of which sauce’s key ingredients is the willingness to look/act funny – to create funny-with-intent content.

Willing to take a small risk that could pay off large? Hire a comedy writer, let that writer work with your marketing team, your sales team, your ad agency, your PR firm. Shake well, stir frequently, keep the heat level and even. Then, when the sauce is blended just-so, pour it on. And don’t forget to measure the results – we are, after all, talking about your business. And you cannot improve anything that you do not measure.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …

Why Your LinkedIn Profile Sucks & What To Do About It

March 22, 2011 by Mighty Casey Leave a Comment

You can spend a lot of worthwhile time on LinkedIn – it’s a great place to study industry trends, listen to meaningful conversations, and keep an eye on your competitors.

What does your LinkedIn profile say about YOU?

Sure, it’s got a chronological list of all the great companies you’ve worked for, and the degree(s) you’ve earned. It’s got some information on your interests, and a listing of the groups you’re part of.

But what does it say about you…really?

Does your Summary list a blizzard of buzz-words, or an assortment of acronyms? What does it say, in real words, about the value you deliver to your customers? Is your Experience list just a straight list of companies, job titles, and years there?

Even if you’re on a corporate payroll, you’ve got customers. Customer #1 is your boss, and Customer #2 thru infinity are your boss’s and your company’s customers. Every single one of them.

When a potential customer Googles your company, LinkedIn results appear. Which means your profile could be on view. What does it say about you, your company, and your value?

If your LinkedIn profile reads like an old-school job application – and that’s so 20th century – here’s how to turn it into a 21st century value statement:

Clearly state who you are – what you bring to the table, what your talents are, and what kind of terrific value you’ve delivered over your career.
Clearly state why you matter – why do you do what you do? What fires your enthusiasm? How do you inspire others?
Make it clear who should care – obviously, your boss is someone who should care that you show up. Who else might be on that list? What do THEY do – what job titles make that list? How would you make a difference to those folks?

Interview colleagues, co-workers, former bosses, your professors. Find out what kind of impact you’ve had on them. Work on putting that into a compelling narrative statement about who you are, why you matter, and how you make a difference. Tell that story in your Summary, and in every section of your Experience.

Everybody’s got a list of jobs on their resumes, and their LinkedIn profiles. What they really need is a great story.

If you need help putting together that great story, let me know.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

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