How do you describe you? What's remarkable about you? Are you famous for something (even among your friends)? What makes you interesting? What do you do well? If you were a company, how would you advertise your product (you)? Would you have a social media strategy and what would it be? Would you be on Facebook and LinkedIn? Twitter? Yes, yes and yes–of course you would! And, you would carefully construct your ad and promotional package to reflect the characteristics, attributes and benefits of your product. You would clearly communicate what's unique about it and why people should buy it, right? Most importantly, if you don't raise the value, you have to cut the price. Price should be interpreted as an opportunity, salary or any number of other potentially compelling personal benefits. YOU are the value.

1. Tom McCollum is a personal visibility & branding thought leader and highly regarded auto industry innovator and CEO.
Tom recently co-founded SCORESTRONG™, a new First Impression Resource™ and Personal Brand platform.
Do You Run Toward The Fire?
Published by Tom McCollum 2013
I will help you jumpstart momentum...
I don't care who gets credit; I just want to win...
I catalyze businesses poised for growth...
I run toward the fire...
These attempts at describing personal attributes have each appeared in an actual
online profile or what is now known as a social resume or in what's rapidly
becoming an old-school reference: your online CV. Good or bad, maybe even
over-the-top, they were an effort at not appearing average. When it comes to
personal branding, you can't afford to be timid. Figure out what's special or
extraordinary about you and tell the world with every tool available–just be
authentic! Choose your words carefully and avoid those overused buzzwords that
seem to appear on almost every social and hard copy resume. Words like those
that were identified as the Top 10 most overused buzzwords on LinkedIn in
2012: Creative, Organizational, Effective, Motivated, Extensive Experience,
Track Record, Innovative, Responsible, Analytical and Problem Solver.
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2. Tom McCollum is a personal visibility & branding thought leader and highly regarded auto industry innovator and CEO.
Tom recently co-founded SCORESTRONG™, a new First Impression Resource™ and Personal Brand platform.
How do you describe you? What's remarkable about you? Are you famous for
something (even among your friends)? What makes you interesting? What do you
do well? If you were a company, how would you advertise your product (you)?
Would you have a social media strategy and what would it be? Would you be on
Facebook and LinkedIn? Twitter? Yes, yes and yes–of course you would! And,
you would carefully construct your ad and promotional package to reflect the
characteristics, attributes and benefits of your product. You would clearly
communicate what's unique about it and why people should buy it, right? Most
importantly, if you don't raise the value, you have to cut the price. Price should be
interpreted as an opportunity, salary or any number of other potentially
compelling personal benefits. YOU are the value.
Just remember this: Whatever you do, avoid the vast sea of sameness––you want
to stand out, not blend in. You want to stand out not only for who you are but for
what you do. It's one thing for your name to appear at the top of a Google query
or at least on the first page of results when someone types in your name, but its
something all together different (and quite impressive) for your name to appear
on the first page of results based on a Google inquiry of a particular profession or
position. Imagine if someone googled "CEO", "attorney", "administrative
assistant" or "screenwriter" and your name appeared on or at the top of the first
page! That would be the pinnacle of personal branding! We wouldn't want to set
our sights any lower than that, right?
[Technical Point] As you think about and develop a list of words and phrases that
best describe you, it's important to contemplate certain keywords that will likely
match the search criteria that others may be entering into one of the search
engines to find you. It's important that these keywords are woven into the fabric
of your profile––headline, body and summary. There was a time when those
more sophisticated than others, related to enhancing search results would use all
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3. Tom McCollum is a personal visibility & branding thought leader and highly regarded auto industry innovator and CEO.
Tom recently co-founded SCORESTRONG™, a new First Impression Resource™ and Personal Brand platform.
of the obvious keywords in the associated meta-tags but meta-tags have become
so polluted that the major search engines now virtually ignore them and look for
keyword matches throughout the actual document. OK, enough of that. While
you don't have a crystal ball, you should give serious thought to your key words
and phrases––they make a significant difference in your search relevance.
Remember, editing is work-in-progress, on going and never ends. The good news
is the fact that YOU are your only product and hopefully a high priority. And,
working on something this important is always easier to get into and stay excited
about. You deserve you're full attention.
So, give serious thought to the words and phrases used in your branding efforts.
Don't be humble or timid when developing your brand but do avoid being
arrogant and that means choosing your words very carefully. Furthermore, your
brand is your value promise and you have to market the you-know-what out of it
to everyone, everywhere, everyday. That includes not only the people you work
with but your entire virtual network. If you take advantage of all the tools
available to you, they will work on your behalf around the clock––your full-time
agents in other words and who couldn't use that?
Be bold, not bashful. Personal branding is not an exercise in humility. Don't aim
to be average; you might just hit your target.
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