More or Less?
What is one positive value you are known for?
Have you looked at it lately?
We improve and grow in the places we look the most.
Why not make our strengths stronger?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
That Which We Watch Grows
How Many Truly Unique Blogs Can We Find?
Only One — The Rest Are Imitators
You are the only you. No one can be you better. Once you get you to your best form, no one can knock you off. They can only be a bad facsimile. What folks say is not approval — it’s only opinion.
Each of us is a unique and wonderful individual. That is the key to our personal branding.
I’m Looking for Unique Blogs
I’m looking for truly unique and wonderful blogs. The blogs I am thinking of are one-of-a kind, stand-out, nothing-like-it, wow-will-you-look-at-that. only-one, wish-I-had-that-idea blogs. Every blog in the bunch will be outstanding in its own way. Some might be
- outstanding in content.
- outstanding in thought leadership.
- outstanding in concept and execution.
- outstanding in design and production.
- outstanding in style.
- outstanding for a blog in their category.
You get the idea.
When you see a outstanding blog, you’ll know it because you want to tell other people about it. You really like the idea of going back with them to show them around. It’s a category of one.
My goal is to find 200 of them.
So Many Possible Responses
I have so many questions that could bring so many possible responses, I’ve made a numbered list for you to use in the comments If you use the number and the bold keyword that will help everyone reading along.
- If you know a blog like that — here’s your chance to show it off. Leave its link and yours in the comment box below this post. Let us know why you choose it.
- What you think my chances are of finding 200 of what I have described right here. If you hold no hope for me, tell me why you think I won’t succeed at this challenge.
- What qualities should I be looking for? What is a unique and outstanding blog? What does it take for a blog to be a category of one?
- What if I offered resources to work with you to turn your blog into a unique and outstanding blog? Do you think we could make one happen?
Your turn.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
5 Reasons People Don’t Get Hired and the Only 3 Questions that Count
The Best People
It happened to me more often than I liked.
When I was an Executive Editor, it was another Executive Editor.
When I was a Director, it was another Director.
When I was a Vice President, it was another Vice President.
Not that I think there was a pattern. Here’s the scenario.
I’m in my office, finishing up a meeting. One of the people described above calls and asks whether I have time to talk about something.
I say, “Sure, come on down (or up or over wherever my office happened to be.)”
The person arrives; sits across from me; and explains why he or she wants to hire one of the people on my team.
We discuss the opportunity that is on offer. It’s always a great one for the employee. I support it.
At the end of the discussion, I hear some version of this sentence, “You hire the best people.”
As the person leaves, I think, Yeah, I know. Boy, do I know. I get out the most current job listing for the soon-to-be-vacated position and start editing.
I would hire and train.
They would wait and hire from me.
It happened with freelance and vendor help too.
5 Reasons People Don’t Get Hired
An interview or a client presentation is a test. It’s like an oral exam in which the subject is you. When I put it that way, it seems like folks should do better than some folks seem to do, doesn’t it? What it that gets in the way?
Here are 5 Reasons People Don’t Get Hired for that Job or that Contract
- Candidates feel self-conscious about putting forward their skills and talents.
- Candidates don’t take the job acquisition process seriously.
- Candidates miscalculate their value. This could be monetary, ability to fill the skills required, or how common or rare their skill set might be.
- Candidates don’t show knowledge or interest in the specifics of the business hiring.
- Candidates are arrogant, rude to the receptionist, have no energy, or are just not likeable.
You might know even more than these.
The Only 3 Questions that Count
In any meeting in which a person is deciding whether to offer work to another, only three questions matter. Though the questions never get stated aloud, all conversation really is about the three quesions. It’s best if both parties know what those three questions are.
The Only Three Questions
- Can this person do the job? This question is about the job or project description — expertise, skill set, and industry experience — salary is included here.
- Will this person do the job? This question is about motivation, energy, and work ethic.
- How will this person fit with the team? This question is about interpersonal skills, stress management, and communication.
Prove you are the correct answer to all three and the offer is yours. It’s great branding. It’s great business practice. It’s a service to yourself and your employer/client to know what you’re really talking about when you’re talking.
It stops being a test when you have the answers.
Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Two Important Ideas in a Brand Identity and Why We Have to Live Our Brand
Two Important Ideas
A brand identity defines our unique value — what we bring that no one else can — by naming the one thing we do far better than anyone else. Uniqueness and specificity are the two messages in one Big IDEA.
If we name the one thing that we want to be known for, and we live it 24/7, customers notice that. By choosing only one thing our message is clean, clear, and focused. Choosing one thing doesn’t limit. As Seth would say, “Small is the new big.” Highlighting only one thing gives focus. Folks extrapolate from that.
That’s the key to successful branding, unique value, specificity, and living it 24/7. Of course, the last part can be a problem.
Honey, Don’t Make Me Live My Brand
When I tell a story, I like to elaborate. It’s a writer’s thing, at least I think it is. My husband prefers to deal in basics. It’s an engineer’s thing, at least he says it is. So when I begin to relate an event, it doesn’t surprise me when I hear, “Honey, don’t make me live it.”
That request works for my husband and my stories — not for a brand.
Much as we’d like to, we don’t get to pick what we’re known for. We only get to suggest our finer traits. But if we live what we’re suggesting other folks are more likely to agree with us. Other folks and brands can’t be separated. The minute we leave other folks out of the picture, we stop living our brand.
People have a way of letting us know we forgot to consider them. They do that by redefining what they think of us and telling each other the new definition. Here are some ways I have forgotten to live my brand in the past.
- I fell in love with the details. I thought every detail of what I did was important to everybody. That breaks the “one thing well rule.”
- I thought my history was important. Most folks weren’t alive for my history. Folks care about what I deliver now. My “unique value” is based in current time not history.
- I tried to be something I’m not. No unique value there. That’s just a bad facsimile.
- I tried to be all things to all readers. No specificity there. That’s a sitcom done badly.
- I didn’t define what the one thing is that I do well. I was confused and so were my readers. Moving targets only stay interesting for a short while. Then our eyes get tired.
- I thought that my brand was obvious. If I don’t say what I’m about why should anyone know?
- I made all of my decisions to serve ME.
I can count the holes in my foot the times I’ve shot myself there.
Customers decide our brands, we don’t.
If we choose a brand that fully expresses who we are, living it 24/7 is nothing more than being ourselves and sharing that one unique, outstanding quality that defines us. People will notice. People will talk about it.
That’s the cool thing about being you. You have a corner on how to do it better than anyone else.
What one thing do you feature as the one thing that you do well? Come on out with it. Write it down for everyone to see.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
To have Liz help get your brand just right, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
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