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Personal Branding: The Lighthouse Branding Model

More and more people are talking about the importance of personal branding, both in career searching and in career development. Effective personal branding not only makes you stand out from the crowd to employers and recruiters, it can also increase your job security by communicating your value as a leader and team player to your organization.

What is personal branding?

Personal branding is the process of identifying the unique and differentiating value that you bring to an organization, team and/or project and communicating it in a professionally memorable and consistent manner in all of your actions, both online and offline, to all current and prospective stakeholders in your career.

The Lighthouse Personal Branding Model

The lighthouse is a great model for breaking down the branding process into four key steps: the foundation, the beacon, the tower and the beam.

Foundation:

Your foundation is your unarguable strengths and experience in your chosen area. To identify your own foundation, write down the strengths that differentiate you from the rest and ask your friends, family and colleagues/managers to do the same for you. Identify the top three to five overlapping strengths that support the career direction you want to pursue.

Beacon:

Your beacon is the memorable and consistent communication of your strengths and experience. Now that you have identified your foundation, it’s time to create your beacon by finding a word or phrase that represents these strengths and can become your brand. Develop a short pitch that can follow your brand, describing your strengths in more detail. Ensure that your word or phrase is versatile and can change with your direction.

Tower:

Simply put, your tower is your visibility, reach and presentation, both online and offline, which support the beacon. This is really everything you do to proactively build your personal brand. The higher you build your tower with your efforts, the more visible you will be to potential career stakeholders. Here are some ways to proactively build your brand and credibility in front of your target audience:

Create a LinkedIn profile and follow the suggested steps to complete your profile 100 percent, making sure you include your personal brand and pitch in your subtitle and summary sections.

Create a Google account and profile for improved search engine optimization.

Include your personal brand on your resume, cover letter, business cards, email signature, voicemail message and across your other social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Consider creating a personal website/blog site where you can house all of your information, including experience, education, skills, honors, entrepreneurial efforts and more.

Start your own blog with a unique point of view on your industry/area of interest.

Contribute value in your book or product reviews, your tweets, your comments on other blog posts, your own blog articles or articles for print publications, your discussions in LinkedIn Groups and your advice via LinkedIn Answers or other forums.

Start a company full-time or on the side with relevant and valuable products/services/resources for the industry.

Publish and offer print and/or electronic publications.

Get quoted in the media by joining HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and contributing advice, experiences and insights to writers and journalists seeking expert sources.
Beam:

Your beam is your career direction and more active personal branding and career search strategy. It involves you gaining and projecting a strong understanding of where you want to go, what you want to pursue and how you will pursue it. First, you need to determine what functional area, geography and industries/companies you want to target. Then, you need to actively network your brand with potential career stakeholders. Here are some ways to start:

Join associations or networking groups within your industry and attend events to meet new contacts and build your target network. Be sure to share your personal brand with those new contacts.

Conduct informational interviews with target network contacts (whether or not you’re seeking a job) and share your personal brand with them in your introductions.

Find ways to bring fellow industry thought leaders together on a project or at an event.

Find ways to contribute to the projects or events of fellow industry experts.

Get recommended on LinkedIn and display testimonials from customers, clients and partners
Personal Application

I used this model to help develop my own personal brand during my MBA career search. Having identified my foundation to be my endless energy, out-of-the-box creativity, relationship building and problem solving, I looked for a word that could pull all of those strengths together into one memorable brand message. The beacon I chose was “generator” as I generate energy, creativity, relationships and solutions to problems. I was pursuing a career in marketing and brand management, and therefore, I became a brand and marketing generator. I proactively built my tower by incorporating my brand directly into my online profiles, my resumes and my entrepreneurial efforts. I then took a more active approach, targeting the “beam” by incorporating my personal brand in my interview responses, networking introductions and informational interview outreach. It was this process that helped me successfully secure my current employment, and this model continues to help guide all of my professional and entrepreneurial ventures.

Should You Hire a Property Manager Or Not?

Using a property manager has both pros and cons. There are no hard and fast rules regarding whether you should hire one or not. You have to evaluate the answer based on your own situation. The following are some considerations to take into account before you jump to a conclusion.Time CommitmentA lot of real estate investors have a full time job so they do not have enough time or energy to manage properties. Especially if the house is situated remotely, many investors might feel they cannot manage on their own or do not want to travel. If fact, you can manage on your own.Cost BenefitIf you have several properties or an apartment complex in one area, using a property manager to manage all the property may be economic. The manager will be able to combine expenses and costs. For example, they can purchase maintenance materials in bulk for all the rental units. If you don’t have several rental units in one area, but together with your friends’ or families’ rental units you do. Then you can afford to hire a professional dedicated property manager.The Nature of the Rental Market Where your Property is LocatedIf your rental property is located in an area where renters mostly check out the rentals through the local property management companies, then you have no other choice but to hire the company. This may happen in small towns where there is only a handful of management companies.Tenant’s CharacteristicsSome tenants are not easy to deal with. You may find some tenants that are constantly paying late, asking for a lot of unnecessary repairs, complaining about everything, or having difficulty keeping up the premises. A property manager may handle the situation better than you as you might be emotionally attached to your property and less likely to handle many issues impartially. What’s more, the tenant might try to take advantage of you. They may take it more seriously if they are dealing with a professional property management company instead of an individual.Does your Property Need Frequent Repairs or Maintenance?If your property needs frequent repairs due to its age or other reasons, having a property manager may help you if repairs are a burden. Usually the property management company either has its own in-house repair service or contracts with outside vendors. In any case, you should ask about it before hiring them and understand how much they charge.What Kind of Service do you need from a Property Manager?Do you need a full service property management, which includes placing tenants and ongoing management service? If the condition of your property is good or new and not much repair is anticipated, you may save your money on the ongoing management service part. If you already have a tenant but you are moving out of that area you can use a local property manager to collect the rent and do the maintenance work.Lack of Interest in ManagingSome rental property owners just do not want to get involved in managing the property at all. They rather have someone look after their rental properties so they can enjoy their life doing other things. That is absolutely ok. Enjoying life is also very important.The purpose of hiring a property manager is to free up your time and make your rental investment successful. Nevertheless, hiring a poor one is worse than hiring no one. You can end up spending more time and money to rescue your property.If you hire one, keep in mind it does not mean you have to be a completely hand-offs owner. You should keep in regular communication with your property manager so he understands you do not treat your real estate business lightly. How to hire a good property manager belongs to another blog we will write about.

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Ways to Grow Your Business With Videos

Videos have become a must for businesses of all sizes. As the cost of video production decreases and the popularity of this form of advertising increases, even the smallest companies are using videos to reach out to current customers and target potential customers, both online and in-store. A well-made video by one of the growing number of corporate video production companies will more than pay for itself in new business. Let’s take a look at some of the ways that videos can be used to grow your company.

Marketing Videos

A 2011 Nielsen study found that videos are fifty times more likely to appear on the first page of search engine results than other types of content. Many potential customers would prefer to watch a short video to learn about a business’s products and services than read through pages of text on a website or in a brochure. A video is a good way to introduce yourself and your employees as well as allow people to see the faces behind the business.

You can show numerous examples of your work in a short, entertaining format that is more viewer-friendly rather than asking a customer to scroll through numerous pictures. Remember that online videos should be short – no more than two or three minutes. Most people will not watch much longer than that. It is better to have several short, engaging videos than one long one. Leave them wanting more – not less.

Instructional Videos

Online videos are an excellent way to demonstrate how to use your products. Step-by-step written instructions can be overwhelming, and many people find it easier to follow visual instructions. If someone feels confident that they can assemble and/or use a product easily, they are more likely to purchase it and then to keep it and recommend it to others. Even if you do not sell something that requires instructions, you can demonstrate the variety of ways to use your product and get the most out of it. Good video editing is key to keeping the piece at an optimum length and easy to follow. A video production company with experience in this type of piece can help you make a how-to video that will inspire customers to purchase and use a product.

In-store/Lobby Videos

Never miss an opportunity to market to current customers – even if they are already in your place of business. While they are waiting, give them something to look at besides their iPhone. As people’s attention spans grow ever shorter, more businesses are finding ways to entertain and inform customers, whether they are in a check-out line at the grocery store, or pumping gas at a gas station. You can use an in-store piece to promote special offers and new products that your customers may not know about or to tell them about something that your business is doing to help the community.

Customer Testimonial Videos

What better way to present customer testimonials about your business than on film? When a potential customer sees a person extolling the virtues of your business, the impact is more powerful than if they read a written testimonial. They are the next best thing to a face-to-face recommendation from a friend or family member. A few short customer testimonials from different types of people that cover a variety of products or services and how they met the customers’ needs can be an effective marketing tool.

Optimizing Video Viewership

Keywords: If your video is online, it is critical to capture people’s attention with a catchy title that also lets people know what your business does. Keywords are crucial in helping anyone searching the Internet for a service or product to find your business. Place keywords in the title and description box. Be sure to include your website at the very beginning of the description.

SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) is an entire industry unto itself. Many corporate video production companies have professionals who know all the SEO tricks to get videos in front of the right people.

Social Media: Put your videos on all of your social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+) in addition to your website. Use a service like TubeMogul to share them across multiple video platforms. If you have a YouTube channel, include a link to it on your website, and include it on your business cards and printed marketing materials. Don’t forget to send them to the people on your e-mail contact list as well.

Branding: Every video is an opportunity to get your brand out there. Your company name and logo should be clearly visible in every one.

Video is truly becoming a necessity for building a business. Don’t be intimidated by the idea. No one is expecting Spielberg-directed films. However, they should look professional in order to give potential customers confidence in you and your business. An experienced video production company can ensure that your business is presented in the best light, and that it gets in front of the maximum number of people interested in what you have to offer.

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