RE:THINK

Sydney Morning Herald journalist - Caroline Marcus wrote the following article on Barack Obama, and his Personal Brand. Whilst charisma is largely bred not made, there are some very simple but powerful habits that anyone can adapt to have presence like the President of the United States

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s policies may have been credited for winning him the election but Sydney experts say that his appearance, wardrobe, voice and body language were just as important in giving him an edge.

Speech expert Monique Rissen-Harrisberg of The Voice Clinic says that successful communication consists of 55 per cent body language, image and dress, 38 per cent voice and just 7 per cent content of speech - a combination that Mr Obama has mastered.

“There is that intelligence [in his voice], but there is also a smoothness,” she said. “Specifically with his inauguration speech, the content was excellent. His vocabulary was very emotive; the language was very good.”

She said his voice was deep, resonant and powerful, qualities that would only strengthen with time in the role.

One Sydney writing and speech coach, Tony Spencer-Smith of the Editor Group, has even designed a Write Like Obama course to teach people how to emulate his vocal qualities and language.

He said Mr Obama’s tendency to use “simple, straightforward words” made his writing and speeches accessible to millions, and such clarity was within any student’s grasp.

The editor of Marie Claire magazine and judge of television’s Make Me A Supermodel, Jackie Frank, said Mr Obama’s good looks and dress sense would have helped win voters.

“He is extremely pleasing to the eye - he’s hot,” Ms Frank said. “Immediately that rallies people, and he has got a natural charisma that just infects. With his personal style, he does comfort without sacrificing authority. It has been strikingly simple with his slim-fitting black suits.

“He is the first president in a long time to actually have a great body. The slim silhouette is a much more modern silhouette and he certainly can carry the slim-fitting black suits.

“The Obamas really are the modern-day Kennedys.”

Body language expert Michael Kelly said that Mr Obama was “so measured” and took his time in speeches and debates, lending him an air of authority.

“That comes across as presidential,” Mr Kelly said.

“A lot of the time, people will blabber out something. [Obama] is such a counterpoint to [former US president George] Bush, who shoots from the hip and sees what happens.[Obama] has got a loping, easy gait, and people with authority do not rush. He will face [his audience] and then he will smile. He has got a great smile. It is just natural, very easy and not forced.”

The experts had less praise for our own leader, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who they agreed needed to take some tips from his American counterpart if he wanted to achieve a similar presence.

“I would love to work with him,” Ms Rissen-Harrisberg said. “There is so much work that needs to be done. He has this sing-song, choirboy way. He needs to be more of a man than a boy. One does not believe him.”

How to be like Barack;

HANDS - His gestures use the space around him well; he often moves his hands from side to side. People in authority are not stiff. His self-assuredness helps voters believe him.

HEIGHT - His tall, angular frame contributes to his good looks but also helps give him an air of authority. His posture is good and he always looks comfortable.

RELAXED POSE - He always looks comfortable, yet authoritative. The hands-in-the-pocket pose is a classic for portraits of leaders.

SMILE - His smile is natural and very easy. It never looks forced. Great white teeth.

SUIT - He favours slim-fitting black suits that are not only the height of fashion but show off his great build.

VOICE - His voice is deep, resonant and powerful. It is smooth and he pauses often, lending him gravitas.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Some Motivation for Innovators
• Steve Jobs As Metaphor
• How to Be a Successful Media Entrepreneur

I’ve received this article from a friend (Zac Angelowicz), a successful entrepreneur,with experience in Sales and Recruiting.

Are our institutions of Higher Learning Preparing graduates for the Real World? Not without teaching them to “Block and Tackle.”

Many of our colleges and universities are laced with coursework that follows a textbook. Students are asked to memorize and regurgitate information in exchange for grades. These students are being taught by “Theoritians” Teachers that have academic credentials, but have never “Applied” that knowledge in real world settings. A few lucky students are being taught by “Practitioners” Instructors that have stretched their “Comfort Zone”, are entrepreneurial by nature, willing to take risks and compete at the highest level while motivating students to do the same. How can a business professor teach marketing if he’s never had a door slammed in his face or lost his own money in a failed venture and moved forward?

Every person in any walk of life has “WIIFM” or What’s In It for Me, emblazoned in invisible ink in the middle of their forehead.  By being taught a “World Class Meet and Greet” a person can break down the barriers and overcome the fear of
“Face to Face” interactions. The Human Organism is born with only two fears, the fear of loud noises and the fear of falling. All other fears are learned and can be unlearned.

In the interview and hiring process of thousands of applicants wanting to learn to “Block and Tackle”, we use the Predictive Index (PI) as a guideline or measuring instrument. What the PI reveals is a graphic depiction and report of the underlying patterns of behavior that drive an individual.

By description an accomplished “Blocker and Tackler” is an engaging, stimulating communicator, poised and capable of projecting enthusiasm and warmth and of motivating other people. They have a strong sense of urgency, initiative and competitive drive to get things done, with emphasis on working with and through people in the process. They understand people well and use that understanding effectively in influencing and persuading others to Act. They are Actors not Reactors and they take personal responsibility in Daily Excellence.

“So, what’s in it for you”

After your initial training in “Blocking and Tackling” you might ask, “How is this going to further my career path?” Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel stated in a recent interview that “‘people’ are 90% of everyone’s business, but business only spends 10% of their time, finding and developing them.” Find a good senior manager of any major corporation that can’t recruit, train and motivate as well as communicate the company’s vision to his troops, in today’s competitive environment and he’s in trouble.

Many middle and senior managers of large corporations have forgotten how or never learned how to “Block and Tackle.
The have “lost touch” with what’s going on in the “front line.” That’s why corporation’s are hiring “outside experts” to help streamline, organize and facilitate increased results.

Time in the Trenches

There’s no substitute for Front Line experience. My career started selling Ford’s in a small town in upstate New York. I was a college basketball player and one of our backers was a Ford Dealer. I honed my blocking & tackling skills that I initially learned growing up in the streets of Brooklyn. I had a great mentor, EJ Connors. After a career at Eastman Kodak Co. in Upstate New York, he started selling automobiles. He sold on the average of 40 New Fords every month for 10 years. He taught me about meet and greet, sending thank you notes and birthday cards. With his help, I sold 250 Fords my first year.

In 1979our Family relocated to Scottsdale. We started up “Polyglycoat” a car care & window tint company, whose trade name we sold in 1997 to Quaker State Oil Co. We developed the trade name “Polyglycoat” to a 3 out of 4 household recognition factor before it was sold.

In the last 5 years, my career has been recruiting and head hunting sales people and managers for the automotive industry. That’s full Blocking & Tackling. I have to kiss a lot of frogs to find that prince.

Graduate to Free Safety

Now that you’ve taken the time to develop your meet & greet as well as “people skills” you evolve to “Free Safety.”

The Free Safety roams the playing fields of career development with an air of confidence he or she is an “impact” player that makes a difference to co-workers. He covers their back when they’re beaten, he helps them overcome obstacles. He moves to the action. He’s an actor NOT a reactor and exudes a quiet confidence. He stimulates and creates action, while being a mentor to new team members. A true leader,a department head or CEO in the making. He understands what ASU Sun Devil Baseball Coach Pat Murphy means when he says, “If you fail, make sure you fall on your face and not on your heels, then you are truly making progress.” A Free Safety has the drive and determination to pick himself up off the ground, dust himself OFF and MOVE FORWARD.

By knowing and instinctively following the basics of Blocking and Tackling you will get “lucky” in meeting and exceeding your goals and aspirations.

Branch Rickey, the First Commissioner of major league baseball had a definition of “luck” he said, “luck is the residue of planning, preparation & discipline!”

Whatever career path you choose, be it entrepreneurial, educational, sales related or corporate, enhanced people skills will make you “very lucky.”

ZAC’S ZINGERS

1)      Always continue to Block and Tackle- Remember your life in the trenches

2)      Follow the A³ Principle- Attitude, Approach, Action

3)      Don’t ever say, “It’s not my job” be part of the solution, not the problem.

4)      Understand the definition of “Insanity” doing things the same way and expecting different results. Be daring and Creative.

5)      Practice the 10 most important 2 letter words in the world on a daily basis

“If it is to be, it is up to me!”

By: Zac Angelowicz

I’m at Liberty!

In her recent film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Cristina (Johnasson’s character) was asked the question “so what do you do?”

And this is how she replies!

Josephine Tovey over at the Sydney Morning Herald wrote a great article on this very subject - and mused about how today’s careerists could do well to follow this advice; and just take time out to ‘find themselves’

She was worried by the fact that young people had spent their whole time over the summer holidays considering a ‘lifelong’ career, and that little time was being spent to really answer the question “So what do you do”

This is what Personal Branding is all about!

Discovering what it is you ‘do’

Remember, your job is not ‘what you do’ - what you do is what you do to help people.  I was reminded of this again when I met with a contact, who promotes herself as a coach.  I asked “so what do you do”..typically, the answer to this question would be “I coach”…meh.

This conversation is not going to last long!

“I’m at Liberty” is a much more interesting answer to this question!

What do you do?

Barack Obama got it…

Apple get it.

Branding as we know it is fast approaching its death!  Brands must connect, deliver, involve, listen and engage. PERIOD.

Branding 1.0 was all about pushing messages at your audience all day, every day, with little interest in truly engaging or involving the general audience in the messages, the story or the promises of the brand.  Branding 2.0 is all about the 2nd version, and how brands interactions now work in 2 directions….push and pull!

Ben Bradley and Robert Hamilton wrote another great article on this subject - “The Last Gasp of Branding as we Know it”

Key points from this article were;

• Corporate Brands matter - but for the small to medium operator, brands are foreign
• B2B customers are getting harder to connect with
• The one kind of brand still worthy of investment is the Personal Brand
• Action oriented branding is replacing ‘awareness branding’
• Brand has been redefined due to the transparency and the walk needing the match the talk
• Today, branding is all about the full relationship cycle
• Customers are now seeking a brand that is alive and connects with them
• True value is now in the individual who can tune the solution to meet a customers needs…

Read the full article here…

for the last 12 years or so (whenever the first Toy Story came to our screens), I’ve been fascinated by the whole genre of computer animated movies. The clever people writing the scripts, are using cliches that in a regular movie, will likely to sound like ones, however because the characters are animated, and the movie is targeting young children, these cliches are OK.

Funny, isn’t it? We are trying to convey this subliminal message to our kids, which we, as “adults” have long forgotten, or (unfortunately for us) don’t really live by. How sad!

In this short clip, Rodney is leaving his dead-end existence, in pursuit of his dream. Like in any “normal family”, the mother can’t let go….
The DAD, grabs the opportunity to teach his son the lesson from his own pitiful existence.

For most of us, it is not too late…
Lets learn from Rodney!

This is real, folks! this is how creative you have to be to get a job now. I’m sure if you have a job, in a secure and established company - you’ve got nothing to worry about. But if you’re a bit worried, keep reading!

This story came out yesterday on CNBC.com (7.1.09).  It is quite long, and you’re welcome to read the whole thing, I’ll just give you the gist:

Among the iconic images that summed up 2008 was that of Joshua Persky, the unemployed investment banker who slapped a sandwich board over his suit that said “Experienced MIT Grad for Hire” and hit the streets of New York to try to reclaim his place on Wall Street.

 

Cynthia J. Kohll Tip No. 1: Be Creative. A sandwich board over your suit to catch the eye of employers? That’s definitely creative. And effective!

Well, now he’s an iconic image of how to dig out of the mess that was 2008: After 12 long months of job hunting, having to give up his Upper East Side apartment and send his wife and kids to Nebraska to live with her parents, Persky has landed a job. He was hired by accounting firm Weiser LLP in December.

And, despite the fact that a lot of Wall Street jobs are drying up and may never come back, Persky managed to get a job doing the same thing as before, valuations.

So, how did he do it? Mr. Persky have 6 suggestions (and I’ll add the obvious, at the end) :

 

 

1) Be creative. You have to think outside the box to make others aware of what you need.

He had been going along, interviewing and networking for the first six months — even with executives from some of 2008’s casualties, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

 

The Perskys  made some sacrifices: wife and kids went to stay with the parents, while Mr. Persky continued his job search..

He  decided  had to do something different: after having drinks with his wife he came up with the crazy idea to put a sandwich board on and hit the sidewalk at lunchtime.

 

 

So, he figured if he had the sign on, people might approach him. “You have to try to stand out as much as possible,” Persky said. “That’s more important than ever, given this job market.”

2) Be open to change. It’s easy to wedge yourself into a tight spot, where you’re search is stuck on one field or one location. But given the jobs that have evaporated that may never come back, flexibility is the key.

“You have to be ready to change careers, locations and industry,” Persky said. “To reinvent yourself.”

 

 

“You really just have to expand your horizons,” he said. “Our dream was New York City but we were willing to go anywhere in the world there was an opportunity — internationally or nationally,” he said.

3) Get professional help. A lot of people poo poo professional help, declaring that they are capable to do it on their own.

That’s how Persky felt for the first six months of job search. But, he saw the light after Paloma Bowland, a career counselor who does business development for JibberJobber.com, contacted him and helped him revamp his resume — and his approach.

“Most people’s response to my resume is ‘Wow!’” Persky said. “Before, I wasn’t getting a job,” he said.

 

Bowland made him take the time to make changes, revamping his resume, working out a marketing strategy and helping to keep his spirits up.

 

4) Redo your resume. You may think your experience sells itself, particularly if you’ve been on Wall Street for a couple of decades.

Yeah? Wrong.

You’ve got to organize the information in a way that sells you for the position you want. And, as Persky found out, sometimes that means a nonchronological resume.

 

You have to figure out what your goal — what type of job, what industry, what city — and organize the information on your resume to fit that to a “T,” including everything about you and your experience that is applicable.

“You think about how you would like it to be,” he said. “Nothing is too small or too big to be in there.

5) Figure out your brand and sell it. A lot of people do marketing as part of their job, but when the job is gone, they don’t realize they have to apply those skills to marketing themselves to future employers.

Based on the publicity generated by his sandwich-board strategy, Bowland determined that Persky’s brand was integrity, creativity and bravery.

 

“I never thought I was creative or brave,” he said. “That’s the brand that came out.”

Sometimes, as was the case with Persky, it’s easier to have someone from the outside help you figure out what your brand is.

The next step was to unify his offerings on Facebook, Linked In and his blog.

Persky had already been doing a blog, www.oracleofny.com, to chronicle his unemployment. He admits, it was his kids who got him on Facebook. But it was Bowland who helped him unify his offerings to make sure that they seamlessly — and professionally — dispersed his marketing, his brand.

 

And, of course, it’s not just the marketing — you also have to sell it.

“Really successful salesmen don’t follow up once, they follow up 101 times until it’s impossible to do more,” Persky said. “Just because someone doesn’t answer an email or phone, doesn’t mean the answer is no or they don’t care it just means they haven’t gotten to it yet.”

6) Perseverance. Persky went through a lot of hardship in the 12 months he was unemployed, including having to pack his wife and kids up and ship them back to Omaha while he slept on a couch. But through it all, he never gave up.

“Don’t give up,” Persky said. “In the end, that’s what did it,” he said.

“It wasn’t because of the sign or the blog. I stuck it out and I didn’t give up.”

Indeed, when his networking and interviewing strategy wasn’t working in the first six months, he adapted with creativity, flexibility and some professional help and just stuck with it. His efforts drew the eye of a career advisor, who helped him take it to the next level — the level that landed him the job.

At the end of the day, an expert is not someone who knows a lot.  A real expert is someone who’s KNOWN for what he knows.

You gotta make yourself known, with creative PR and marketing strategies, and then you have to learn how to sell yourself. the competition is fierce. And you have to beat it! otherwise - you go hungry.

What are you gonna do?

 

Guy is, according to him: a founding partner at Garage and co-founder of Alltop as well as a husband, father, author, speaker, and hockey addict. He’s written 9 books, the latest one is Realty Check.

In this book, Guy  is explaining a few fundamental issues when starting a business. Guy is sharing his experience as a VC (Venture (some call them Vaulters) Capitalist, and trying to get rid of (or at least reduce) his Tinnitus, which is a rare illness, which causes constant ringing in his ear.

The book is written in humor, however I recommend taking the advice in the book pretty seriously.

From my understanding, the book stands for these things:

• The KISS principal (Keep it simple, stupid)
• keep learning and educating yourself - cause you don’t know what you don’t know
• don’t be too clever in your documents - have a clever product, and super clever team, which leads to the next point
• You shouldn’t operate on your own - surround yourself with the best people you could find.

I subscribe to the same: I always involve other people, good people in my ventures, (example: www.timetorethink.com). it is a lot easier than working alone, and you get the pleasure of having other people’s input and opinions.

Hopefully you’ll read this book, just before you start your business, and this book will steer you in the right direction.

Maybe it is “too late” and you already run a business. If you think you know it all, and there is nothing to be learned from other people, you wouldn’t be reading this blog in the first place.

I don’t think this is the case, hence you’re reading this blog. Reading The Art of The Start as a business owner, will shed some light on how things are working (and why other things don’t work).This book will also expose you to some brand new thinking patterns, teaching you “how to fish” as the old saying goes:

Give a man a fish - you’ll feed him for a day; Teach him how to fish - you’ll feed him for life!

Enjoy the book - I am!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Recommended Read: Reality Check (Guy Kawasaki)
• If you can’t meet Guy Kawasaki, read him!
• Web 2.0: Pitch Camp x.0 Impressions

Dorothy Tannahill Moran wrote a thought provoking guest post over at Tickled by Life asking this question?

Let me pause here to a make a comment.  People that are facing behavioral issues like procrastination or anxiety follow the same process as anyone making any kind of change.  I have noticed that people often time feel more resigned to these aspects in them, thinking that because it is something internal, they can’t be helped.  Let me tell you, it’s all internal.  It all requires work but the payoff can be worth the effort…read more

Dorothy makes some great points about;

• Change
• New behaviours
• Maintenance

All the things we talk about at RE:THINK!

Related articles by Zemanta

• 7 Ways to stop procrastination, I’ve been meaning to post this for days
• Productivity Resolutions for the New Year