What is personal branding and why might it be important if not essential to you and your success?
Our panel: Amber Osbourne a.k.a. @missdestructo, Olivier Blanchard a.k.a. @thebrandbuilder and Mitch Neff @mitchneff will be discussing building personal brands in Social Media next Wednesday on my Brandapalooza Blog Talk Radio show. All three of these individuals have built strong online personal brands. The discussion will bring to bear a tremendous amount of knowledge about building your personal brand in Social Media.
Is there anything you’d like me to ask the panel? Leave your questions in the comment section below or via Twitter.
Image: Stefano Principato
My business is a start up. My history is NOT advertising. I have a Finance Degree and many years of direct B2B sales selling parts that go into machines. I have had clients in every industry except mining. This was a mid-career change.
Initially I was with a startup (doing sales/bizdev) that failed and I decided to do this on my own. Part of my efforts were education, I seriously get about 50 Industry Trade Emails a day and read a bunch of blogs and listen to a few podcasts. But aside from me calling directly on potential customers I wanted to get my name known in the industry in the circles I prefer (outside the big agency world since I prefer being a subversive shaking things up, though I do stalk the big brands in hopes of peeling off some business one day). But starting from scratch at 41 when most people have already built relationships over many years of working in the industry has been a huge challenge.
To get my name and business out there/known:
I started commenting on AdWeek, AdAge, MediaPost articles as well as similar trade news sources and I am not afraid to speak my mind. I think I have scarred some Mashable journalists by taking them to task more than a few times. And I don’t use my name. Its Howie at Sky Pulse Media so they see my business name as much as me (I do this on Disqus and thus HowieSPM for Livefyre)
Certain Podcasts like Quick and Dirty by Aaron Strout and Jennifer Leggio or Joseph Jaffe v Mitch Joel I would listen to live and they would take my questions or like your Podcast with Danny Brown on Blogger Ethics.
I have become friends with the Adverve duo of Angela Natividad and Bill Green who I have been mentioned many times as was helping with their new letter.
And participating on the blogs of the people I align with who are whipsmart and do great work.
This led to a guest post on SpinSucks and now will be a monthly post for @Shonali on Waxing Unlyrical.
Lastly Twitter. My goal has been to be very selective with whom I connect with to ensure they fit certain requirements. And via Twitter built a lot of really incredible industry and potential client relationships.
My own blog is not even secondary. It comes after all this. But I am growing in readership which is nice.
Looking forward to the podcast Joe!
@HowieSPM @Shonali Holy cow that is brilliant Howie. You are a go getter there is no stopping you, you WILL succeed. I am going to call you “The Man with a Plan” from now on. Thanks for the very thorough explanation of your plans. I can learn a lot from your sharp focus. That is my biggest challenge actually!
Please don’t hesitate to call in tonight and ask a question live! 🙂
@hackmanj Heh! @HowieSPM isn’t just “the man with a plan,” he’s the Man with a BIG plan”…!
@Shonali @hackmanj HAHA! Hey I luckily in a place with no mortgage, kids, wives or exs so I can be poor for awhile as I undertake things. You asked Joe! Now to gain more clients and I can be like the pig in the back seat of the Geico commercial!
@HowieSPM @Shonali My son loves that commercial 🙂 Weeeee! Weeeeeeeeeee!
I liked all the information from here…..
Thanks to all the commentors for sharing their relevant knowledge.
http://www.financegenie.net/personal-financial-planning-process.html