The Business of You

A Guide to Finding, Managing, and Succeeding in Your Career

Lukas Krause

• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781626345041
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

The Business of You explores an important topic for young professionals, especially in today's economic climate: how to find and be successful in a career. This book gathers the practices and approaches that helped author Lukas Krause go from an entry-level job to the C-Suite of an industry leading company in less than 10 years—after he found success taking on a new position as a pitcher and reinventing himself to play professionally in the New York Mets organization. Full of practical advice for professionals at any stage of their career with topics like:
• building your personal brand
• identifying the skills you need to advance your career goals
• growing your communication skills
• optimizing your daily output ?The Business of You is like an MBA in book form. Let it guide you to and through the career you deserve.

SECTION FOUR

MANAGING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

If your managers and coworkers (your “customers”) love your brand, they are more likely to provide you with opportunities to grow and to work on higher-visibility projects—ultimately giving you the opportunity to advance in the company and beyond.

Brand management is the analysis, planning, and execution of how a brand engages with its customers and target market, and how they perceive the brand. Key elements of brand management are the product itself, its cost, its design, its packaging, its in-store presentation, and, ultimately, customer satisfaction. A strong relationship with its target market is essential for the success of any business. Successful organizations invest significant amounts of resources to maintain, improve, and uphold the brand in high esteem. Since customers are more likely to buy from a brand they love, proper and successful brand management results in higher sales.

Aspirational brands are those that a large percentage of the population would like to own but only a limited group can afford. This exclusivity, due to limited supply, enhances their desirability and demand.

The same is true for your career.

A secret to the success of your personal brand management is to make your brand into an aspirational one. Aspirational brands like Rolex, BMW, and Mercedes appeal to a broad audience. But only a limited portion of this audience can afford these brands, due to their limited availability and high price tags. These brands are powerful precisely because consumers crave them and will work to attain them.

As the Business of You, you should model yourself after these types of brands. Think in terms of making yourself into a rare talent and crave-worthy employee for your customer base, which is comprised of:

• Primary customer—your manager(s)
• Potential customers—other departmental managers, leaders of the organization, customers, vendor partners, and managers in competitive businesses
• Brand zealots singing your praise—coworkers, peers, customers, and vendor partners

While creating your brand, it is important to craft and promote yourself correctly. To manage your brand well, you will need to create professional polish, market your product through strong communication skills, and harvest strong relationships with your customers by mastering interpersonal business skills. If you do it right, your business can be one of the brands that employers will seek.

Developing Professional Polish: The Packaging Matters

Billions of dollars each year are spent on research and design elements for product packaging. While packaging may not be the sole reason customers decide to purchase an item, it is a powerful factor in the decision-making process. Ultimately, it can make or break the purchasing decision. Customers will factor in how the packaging looks and makes them feel. It can capture their attention and even generate an impulse buy. Additionally, post-purchase, the packaging can reinforce strong feelings about the product and company.

When evaluating the level of quality for packaging, you will notice several key attributes. Strong packaging stands out and captures attention, has a distinct brand mark that makes it easy to identify, and triggers an emotional response. These are the same attributes you should strive for when establishing your packaging or professional polish.

As highlighted earlier, Apple’s packaging for an iPhone or a MacBook is an intentional experience designed to make you feel special as you open your new device, and it reinforces the characteristic sleekness and elegance of the brand. Toys and food are other segments that spend healthy amounts in this area. Their focus is about capturing attention to get you to make a buying decision, while Apple’s focus is about reinforcing certain feelings about your purchase and the brand.

DEFINE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

Take a moment to think about what your work and professional packaging say about your brand today. What do your presence, presentation skills, attitude, and work product say to your customers? Are your best attributes in the forefront? You want your personal brand to convey your strongest characteristics, the ones most likely to advance your career.

Identify your strongest attributes

Think about your strongest attributes to demonstrate to those who can influence your career. These attributes should be true to your core identity. In general, leaders of organizations value certain traits.

COMMON ATTRIBUTES OF HIGHLY VALUED TEAM MEMBERS

•Reliability

The person will get the work done correctly and in a timely manner.

•Trustworthiness

The person will work hard and do the right things, even when no one is watching.

•Competence

The person possesses the technical skills to effectively manage responsibilities.

•Ownership

The person sees things through and owns the outcome of the project and task.

•Ability to be a team player

The person is willing to volunteer to do whatever is necessary for the greater good of the team and the organization.

•Resourcefulness

The person finds ways to learn or obtain the necessary information to accomplish the objective without previous experience or requiring much additional support.

The key to harnessing these attributes and any others you want to convey is to be consistent and embody them in everything you do in and around the office, so that your brand will become identifiable. As you work through the rest of this chapter, take note of your targeted characteristics, and find ways to weave them into your own package—your professional polish. As an example, if one of your key brand characteristics is creativity, find ways to highlight that attribute. Taking a different approach to presentations or layouts for projects can be a simple but effective way for you to emphasize your creative skills.

STAND OUT IN A POSITIVE WAY

Your personal packaging should stand out from others in a positive way. It should convey the message that you are a professional and competent with your own personal flair.

A cornerstone to career advancement and professional success is projecting a professional presence consistently. Every moment of your life you are being evaluated by the way you speak, the words you use, how you look, your nonverbal communication, your presence, and etiquette. In the workplace, these evaluations determine whether you get the big project, more responsibility, or even that next promotion. That is why it is essential that you manage all the elements under your control to project your best you. This section outlines the framework for cultivating your best professional presence through looking the part and acting the part.

Appearance—walk the walk

Professional appearance comes down to the basics of how you dress and groom yourself. Your company’s policy should provide solid guidance on what is appropriate for your workplace. Take note of what your manager wears to work as a guide to what is appropriate. In many cases, a manager will dress a notch or two above what the policy dictates. A safe practice is not to flirt with the lower limits of what is deemed acceptable in the office. “Dress for the position you want” is an adage that still rings true. Whenever there is a question, err on the side of overdressing rather than underdressing.

“DRESS FOR THE POSITION YOU WANT” IS AN ADAGE THAT STILL RINGS TRUE.

Even on casual Fridays, or if you work in a very casual environment, present yourself positively. Casual days and casual work environments are not an excuse to dress like a slob. Look put-together, because it will reflect positively on you. You can be casual but still look professional. And even in the most casual environments, there will be times where you will need to dress up for customers.

The grooming guidelines listed here may seem obvious, but it’s surprising how many people in the workplace don’t even follow these basics.

• Hair should be well maintained. Get it trimmed regularly. Facial hair should be treated the same way (beard, mustache, eyebrows, nose, ear).
• Nails should be trimmed and kept short. They should be clean.
• Brush your teeth, floss, and use mouthwash. Regularly visit the dentist. Bad breath can be a career killer.
• Good hygiene is expected of you. Bathe regularly and use deodorant. Don’t overdo it with the perfume or cologne.

Be mindful of how you carry yourself and how you will be perceived. If you use strong posture and positive body language cues consistently, you can help to reinforce the professional polish you are hoping to convey to your customers. Remember the basics of positive body language: Head up and shoulders back is confidence personified. Regularly monitor your body language to ensure you are developing a consistent habit of carrying yourself in a positive manner.

Talk the talk

The way you speak can be quite telling. Your elocution needs to be consistent with your professional brand. Your tone, pace, word selection, and how fluidly you verbalize your thoughts cause those around you to judge your intelligence, technical aptitude, character, and ethics. Step back and take a good look at all the elements of your speech patterns. Are you broadcasting the kind of signals to your customers that you want to? Let’s assess where some opportunities for improvement may reside.

Start by recording a few of your common conversations. These days, almost every phone has a recording device. Listen to those conversations and take note of your tendencies:

• Was there a common verbal pause (um, you know, frankly, right, so) you used?
• Were the pace and tone of your speech appropriate for the purpose of your conversation?
• Did you use slang or more casual terms (like, totes, dude) that would give off a less-than-professional tone?
• Ask yourself how you could have been more effective at communicating your message.

After conducting the recording-and-reviewing exercise a few times, you should be able to pick out a few speech tendencies that you can improve. Plan to focus on one item at a time. For example, try to catch yourself using an element of your verbal pauses (like the use of “um”) in every conversation you have for the next week, and stop using it. During this week you’ll become very aware of the words that come out of your mouth during conversation. It will take practice, but if you focus on it, you will start to notice every time you are about to use an “um,” and then stop saying it.

Pay close attention to these verbal pauses. When overused, you come across as less credible, and people will focus on how often you use your verbal pauses rather than your content. Removing them will help you sound more polished.

Once you have mastered this, move on to the next tendency you are working on. With a little practice, you can break yourself of these undermining habits.

Cursing and other offensive language is not appropriate in the workplace. It reflects poorly on you and your judgment. Same goes for offensive topics.

If you use slang, you will likely come across as immature—probably not what you want to have associated with your brand. Graduate from the slang to portray your professional self in the workplace.

Don’t try to use big words if you don’t fully grasp their definitions. Speak plainly. Be an effective communicator by delivering the message clearly and concisely. Your end goal is to convey information. The incorrect use of words can make it much more difficult to decipher the ultimate message.

Another common mistake is to be out of sync with the other person in your conversation, or your audience. This can happen when we let emotions dictate our delivery. As an example, a team member comes to you with a sensitive topic that makes you a little uncomfortable. The teammate is delivering the message in a slow and nervous manner. Instead of rushing through the dialogue because of your uneasiness, take the time to adjust your pace and deliver your responses in a calm and soothing manner.

Successful business-development professionals try to mirror the pace of others when they are conversing with them. In one-on-one communication, it can be powerful to mirror the pace and tone of those with whom you are engaging. It can help to put the audience at ease and is an impactful way to help you relate with them.

Finally, hedging phrases (kind of, likely, I believe so) are credibility-killers, and they ultimately undermine beliefs others may have of your thoughts and you. When you are definitive, speak with conviction. Don’t hedge.

Try your best to minimize these potential pitfalls and follow these basics to help to create a professional package that will positively reinforce your skills and talents for your customers. The key is to be consistent with the brand you are trying to convey. Make sure your words, presence, and appearance reinforce that brand.

Google is a good example. The brand is about efficiency and organizing the world’s data. Go to the homepage, which you’ll see is clean and free of clutter and unnecessary text and links. Google may use playful imagery to highlight some quirky elements of the brand, but the homepage is all business.

And the award goes to . . .

Have you ever wondered why businesses are quick to flaunt awards and recognitions on their packaging, marketing, and advertising materials? These recognitions or endorsements serve as a credibility badge. If you don’t know anything about a business, you are more likely to quickly assume that it is reputable when it trades on the value of the award and the organization that provided it. This third-party validation creates a halo effect that positively associates the brand with the other business. You should be using the same strategy when developing your personal brand. In your career, you can leverage a handful of credibility badges to enhance how you are viewed throughout your organization.

PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATIONS

One powerful credibility badge is professional certification. Research what personal certifications are available in your role or industry. These certifications are a tangible representation of knowledge and expertise in your role. As an example, if you are a project manager, the PMP (Project Management Professional) certification is one of the most important and prominent certifications for its industry. It is a tangible demonstration of skills and experience that can elevate how you are viewed. Additionally, these types of certifications help you command a higher salary than those without certifications could expect.

EDUCATION

Degrees are a great way to round out your knowledge base and develop new skills. Your degree and the institution where you received it are badges that can be marketed to the benefit of your brand. Why do you think you will see JD or MBA, for example, at the end of a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION Swing for the Fences—I Did!
• SECTION ONE Identifying the Most Compelling Path for the Business of You
• SECTION TWO Getting There: How to Find and Secure That Perfect Job
• SECTION THREE Establishing Your Competitive Advantage: How to Outperform the Competition
• SECTION FOUR Managing Your Personal Brand
• CONCLUSION Get Busy Now
• APPENDIX Resources
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR