Fast Company – Croixstone

Personal Branding

41 Day Challenge: Refresh Your Personal Brand

“It’s a new brand world.”

So began an article published in Fast Company magazine in August 1997 whereby the concept of personal branding was introduced by business author, management guru, and speaker Tom Peters. Tom’s compelling premise was that all of us are CEOs of our companies: Me Inc. He promoted that to be in business in today’s world, our most important job is to be the head marketer for the brand called You.

Fast Company published this article during the time when resumes dominated the world of personal branding, and LinkedIn’s launch in May of 2003 was still almost 6 years away. As every astute business professional understands, managing your personal brand is an essential responsibility in managing your career.

As we approach the 24th anniversary of Tom Peters’ article, the Croixstone team is launching a 41 Day Challenge to encourage all of our #FreshStart readers to take the time between now and August 31 to refresh your personal brand. Follow the below action plan to get started.

Action Plan to Refresh Your Personal Brand

Step 1: Read Fast Company’s newly-published article on personal branding.

Step 2: Write down 3 qualities that you aspire to in order to differentiate your personal brand.

Step 3: Ask 5 people you know well and another 5 people you know less well to write down 3 adjectives about you.

Step 4: Analyze the similarities and differences between the lists to understand where your personal brand is strong…and where there are disconnects to focus.

Personal Brand Factoids

Everyone has a personal brand. You don’t have a say in the matter. Accept this as a fact and manage it well.

Your personal brand is not permanent. You have to work hard to build a powerful personal brand, and you have to keep working to maintain its power and grow it.

Your personal brand is not what you say about yourself. Your personal brand is what others say about you when you are not in the room. It is an assessment the marketplace makes about who you are and what you bring to the table.

Your personal brand is not an extension of your employer’s brand.

Your personal brand is not your social media presence. Rather, social media amplifies your personal brand.

Dunbar’s Number and Conscious Networking

According to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, there are well-defined limits to the number of friends and acquaintances the average person can retain. The anthropologist has a theory known as “Dunbar’s Number” whereby she believes that we can only really maintain about 150 connections at once.

Dunbar further believes that other numbers are nested with the social brain hypothesis. She believes our tightest social circle has only five people (loved ones), following by successive layers of 15 (good friends), 50 (friends), 150 (meaningful contacts) and 1,500 (people you can recognize).

With Dunbar’s number as a backdrop, we read with interest this morning an online Fast Company article published by Brendan Keegan, the CEO of Merchants Fleet. Brendan suggests there is power in the concept of “conscious networking” whereby you consciously choose and go all-in with a deliberately selected circle of connections that count.

Keegan advocates that investing in the right relationships can have amazing payoffs for both your professional and personal lives. He suggests that the number of connections might represent a smaller circle than what you may initially believe is needed, but that the circle is going to prove incredibly solid and beneficial to your life.

Read the article here.

Improve Your LinkedIn InMail Game

Tips to Optimize LinkedIn InMail

Fast Company magazine recently published an informative article with tips on how to drive outcomes with InMail (LinkedIn’s messaging platform). The article shared insights based on an analysis LinkedIn completed of tens of millions of InMails sent by recruiters globally between April 2020 and February 2021. Interestingly, the study revealed which InMails were likely to get a fast response.

Here’s a recap of the key findings:

Shorter is better. Those that delivered their InMail messages between 201-400 characters got a 16% higher than average response rate and 41% better than InMails with more than 1,400 characters.

Monday is the best day. Monday gets a 2% higher response rate while Saturday accounts for 13% fewer responses.

Personalization matters. Personalized InMails perform 20% better.

Learn more here.

Links to Navigate the NOW Normal.

In last week’s blog post, we provided a list of links to help consultants, job seekers, and others navigate the “now” normal. In this week’s post, we provide additional links with a focus on networking.

8 smart ways to keep networking while you’re stuck at home.
The wisest among us are not letting the quarantine stop mission-critical networking. Fast Company magazine shares 8 tips from a networking guru.
C lick here.

How to network in the age of Coronavirus.
A marketing & branding consultant shares her advice with Ladders.
Click here.

The dawn of the virtual happy hour.
Happy hours haven’t gone away. They are still going strong, and they definitely fuel networking. Learn more via Forbes.
Click here.

Virtual happy hours are boosting morale at work.
Chief Executive magazine provides additional perspective on the virtual happy hour trend.
Click here.

10 tips to secure your Zoom video calls and meetings.
Stay safe with these helpful tips from cybersecurity advisory Joseph Steinberg.
Click here.

Slack = Collaboration + Communication

Recently Croixstone Consulting joined Industrious Charlotte and our fellow coworking companies on a newly launched Slack Channel. We are enjoying the opportunity to build community through the enhanced communication the channel provides. Launched in 2014, Slack is the fastest growing business application in history, and the company boasts 9 million weekly active users and 50,000+ paying companies including 43 companies from the Fortune 100 list. Slack, a cloud-powered team collaboration and communication tool, is capable of bringing together team communication and giving everyone a shared workspace where conversations, decisions and work are organized and accessible. Additionally, Slack’s App Directory allows users to find apps and integrations including Dropbox, Google Docs, and Salesforce to name a few. You can even order Domino’s Pizza through Slack and book your next hotel room with an emoji on Slack.

Learn why Fast Company thinks Slack is one of the most innovative companies of 2017 here.

Find out why you should Slack it up for workplace collaboration and communication here.

Built on a game foundation, read more about why Slack can’t slow down here.

Freelancing in America

Did you know that 36% of the U.S. workforce are freelance workers? This equates to 57.3 million workers earning an estimated $1.4 trillion annually. By 2027, the majority of the U.S. workforce will freelance, according to findings in the “Freelancing in America Study: 2017” released in mid-October. The study conducted by Upwork and Freelancers Union defined freelancers as “individuals who have engaged in supplemental, temporary, project- or contract-based work.”

To learn more about freelancing in America, check out the following:

Click here for a complete guide from entrepreneur.com to the highest-paying jobs, companies, freelance jobs and more.

Prepare for the future as a freelancer by following these 3 tips here.

Want to quit your job to go freelance? Here is a list of 10 skills that are in hot demand now.

Are we all fated to become “solopreneurs”? Read here about the four key criteria needed to stay competitive and successful as freelancers.