By Karen Post, on April 30, 2012

When I was in Newport, RI last week visiting the Tennis Hall of Fame, I had the pleasure of meeting a new friend named Lauren. Lauren coaches tennis and helped me decide on a couple of new tennis outfits.  She also mentioned she was coming to Tampa next week and asked me if I’d be up for a match of tennis. Absolutely!

So we played Thursday and had a blast. We played 11 games before our court time expired. I was down 5,6. Lauren brought Linda, a friend of her mom’s, with her too. After tennis we watched the beautiful sunset in Tampa Bay and all had a drink at Jackson’s, a local restaurant.

I asked Lauren where her mom was? She explained her mom, her grandmother and 111 people were killed in the United Flight #232 plane crash 23 years ago. I had never met anyone who lost friends or family in a commercial plane crash, so I was curious and inquired more. Lauren, where were you? She replied, “I was there too. I was one of the survivors. I was thrown from the plane and ended up in a corn field”.

Lauren was 6 at the time. After being in a coma for nearly a month she was given a second chance to live. Wow, I thought, she was so lucky; dodged the death bullet and I was so fortunate to have crossed paths with her. Today Lauren is a 29 year old beautiful person with a bright future.

Throughout life you meet people in very random ways and they imprint something on your soul. My time with Lauren was really special, even though she was about to kick my butt in the tennis match, her glow and spirit for life was contagious. This won’t be the last time I see Lauren.

I’ve been thinking about Lauren’s brush with death and how we all never know when our number is up and when our journey on earth will end.

Most of us will only get one chance. The dress rehearsals are over. Don’t take things for granted, not even tomorrow.

So if you’ve been parked in some ho-hum job, dreaming about your next career, maybe as a happy entrepreneur or doing something you are truly passionate about. Or maybe it’s not a career thing at all, but you are miserable in a bad relationship that is holding you hostage to a less than fulfilling life—what are you waiting for? The horn from the big bus around the corner, before it runs you over?

Why not live like today is your last one. Make your move!

Don’t forget to check out Signs of the times – 5 tips to make them meaningful.

By Karen Post, on April 23, 2012

Confidence is a condition you manifest when you do things with competence. Self-esteem is a belief level you buy into about yourself, when you’re not doing anything at all. To enjoy a great life and a rich business or career, they are both needed to be mastered.

I consider myself an emotionally healthy person. I also know that I can always improve myself. I’m interested in learning things that can make me more effective with my business, my personal relationships and things that provide me with a more fulfilled life.

Back in January Alan Weiss, a coach and mentor of mine for the past decade, offered a one-day workshop on self-esteem. Alan is known as the million dollar consultant. He’s authored over 40 books, works all over the world and has guided me on many business projects. His Self-Esteem Workshop was $2,500 and limited to 6 people in every workshop, it was sold out until April.

There’s no debate here, lower than peak self-esteem is bad for business. If you are a start-up, it can make the difference in you raising needed funds. If you are a growing business it can cost you new clients. If you are employed it can stump your advancement. In all cases, low self-esteem enables price, valuation, compensation discounting and costly over-giving of goods and services too.

I attended Alan’s workshop this past week in Warwick, RI to help take my business to a higher level. It was an excellent investment in time and money.

Consistent with Alan’s tough-love style of coaching, the workshop wasn’t hoo-rah-rah at all. There was no flood of compliments or achievement praised. There were a lot of open and candid discussions about where human doubt and questionable self-worth comes from and how to dump the debris that brings down anyone’s esteem level.

Before the workshop, I knew the root of many of my green monster issues, but after spending the day with Alan and a great group of other highly-accomplished consultants, I better understood how to re-frame the past, dump the garage and power forward with a stronger direction and intent. I also learned a lot about how to sustain high self-worth in the most challenging of situations.

The three biggest take-a-ways for me were:
1) The perfect self-esteem cocktail is 1-part listen to others (that you request, unsolicited feedback is useless) and 3-parts listen to yourself.
This means accept feedback from qualified givers, not others who have some axe to grind or bigger issues than yourself.

2) Having an accurate feedback grading system is key.
Many of the most damaging and negative beliefs that imprint adult self-doubt comes from our parents because as children, they were our primary authoritative figures. This dominating influence can apply to professional settings too. This does not make either of them right. Use realistic measures to evaluate criticism.

3) Positive reinforcing environments and relationships are critical, not optional.
Birds of a feather flock together. A scrappy nest is not where you want to be. Hang with other highly-esteemed people and make sure your work space is empowering and inspirational. If it’s not, change it.

Alan Weiss is not for everyone. He’s not inexpensive, his content is not sappy and sugar-coated. If you are serious about taking your business to the next level, I’d look at some of his offerings. If nothing else, sign up for his weekly newsletter, it’s free and one of the best things I read and enjoy every week.

In closing, here’s another good article on the subject on of self-worth. It’s written by one of my favorite tweeters @yourpocketguru, follow him and me @brandingdiva on Twitter for some short gems of insight on a all kinds of topics.

By Karen Post, on March 18, 2012

Have you called yourself recently? On all of your phones? If not, it’s a fast find and fix to improving your brand impression.

How do I know this? Because I was grossly guilty of phone message neglect.

Fortunately, I have good friends who tell me the truth.  Here’s a recent call I received.

“Hey Karen, Ms. Branding Diva your phone message stinks. It’s too long, you sound like you are in a tunnel under ground and teetering on having a bad day.”

She was right. This was a big disconnect from who I am and what my brand stands for. Here’s the really sad part, it’s been like that for a year, YIKES!

Five simple tips to a better telephone branded signal.
1) Be clear – Always state your full name.
2) Be brief – In our fast paced and busy world, short and to the point are best.
2) Have tone – Include some branded attitude, for me it’s energy and confidence.
3) Be current and relevant – Keep things fresh, consider changing your message with the seasons, the months or for no reason at all.
4) Provide a clear call to action – What do you want the caller to do? Leave their name and what they need? Or even better their American Express number?
5) Manage expectations – If you can’t check messages for along period of time, provide a timely route to you, request a text message or email from the caller.

Don’t ever, ever use the default, computer message. That clearly communicates nothing except you are unprofessional or so unorganized you can’t find the time to set up.

Bottom line, your phone message is often the first impression a new contact has with you. Make it a great one. And it does not hurt to make sure your visible phone and accessories are on board with your brand too. It’s all part of the personal branding package.

Still don’t have a smart phone? It’s 2012. Plus, being a tech dinosaur is no marketing edge.

And if bold styling is part of your image, consider a retro hand set (like pictured above) to plug into your iPad, iPhone or other smart phones and a cool, matching phone protector. I’ve usually sport the Branding Diva® red set —phone case, handset and fire engine hot lipstick.  It’s an excellent conversation starter at coffee shops and airport lounges, after all that’s where new business often starts.

Got to go catch a call! Talk soon! Brand on!

By Karen Post, on December 6, 2011

In the past few years, personal branding has become a hot business topic. News anchors and journalists refer to individual brands when they cover business leadership superstars and business losers too. Executive recruiters consider a candidate’s brand when they are on a search for the best professional for a position and most entrepreneurs’ success depends on their strong, personal brand to attract employees, get funding and be an ambassador of their company.

Last month Daytime, a nationally broadcasted TV show that airs in over 35 markets, invited me to help out with a special segment called “Getting back to work”. The goal was to take two professionals who had lost their jobs and with an improved personal branding program, help them find the ideal career or opportunity.

Even though the segment focused on getting people back to work as employees, these lessons can apply to entrepreneurs as well.

Here’s the first segment that aired before Thanksgiving and a special shout out to Kendra York who owns Kendra & Company in Tampa for providing the hair, make up and style updates for our two makeover participants.

From here the plan was for me to give one-on-one coaching along with some branding tools provided by Staples that includes printing of business cards from their print and copy centers, Schtickers that provided a branded laptop skin and my design team that updated their brand identity.

These are some highlights from the coaching sessions.
Personal branding is no different than product or business branding which we all experience everyday. When a company has a strong brand, we as buyers have positive opinions about them, which in turn prompts us to select that brand over another choice. Product brands are competing to be the brand of choice.

The same concept applies for people and their personal brand.

A personal brand is what people think, feel and expect from you as an individual.

A personal brand is derived from the sum of what a person does, how they act, how they look and how they keep their promises.

In branding we call these brand opportunities, touch points.

Consistent brand touch points help a person manage their brand and peoples opinions of them.

A personal brand is one’s image, reputation and the impression they leave when they show up for a job interview, a business networking event or even after a phone call.

We all have brands even without thinking about them or consciously working on them, because people, our friends, colleagues, clients and employers are judging us and these opinions are stored in their heads, which become our brands.

The key to successful personal branding is making sure everything you do is lined up with your goals and that you consistently send out the accurate message that reflects the true you.

So when people find themselves in a down state, like being without a job or career they love, it’s time for action.

They need to follow these three brand-building steps to make sure they are projecting the right image that gets them closer to their goals.

1) Assessment and goal setting
2) Create an action plan
3) Work on it, with consistency and passion

I call the process, personal brain tattooing.  Like a regular tattoo, a brand sticks to the minds of the market and it’s put there by choice.

Getting hired is often about risk and if your brand ensures the employer or client you are not a risk, but a good investment that can add value to their organization, that’s the ticket.

Step 1 – Assessment of what is.
What skills, persuasive assets and traits does the person have to build on and leverage?

When I’m working with an individual on their personal brand, I ask these questions.

• Can you tell me about yourself in a 60 second window? Please do.
• Why are you jobless?
• What do you enjoy doing?
• Describe your ideal job or next career?
• What are your 2-3 most important life goals?
• Have you experienced rejection and “No’s” in your job hunting?
• Did they give you reasons? What were they?
• Why do you think you were passed up?
• What tangible branding tools do you have? And what do you need to work on?

I also ask people to do a Google search on their name and see what comes up.

If it’s bad stuff that can tarnish your reputation, see what you can do to change it. Many times you can.

If it’s bad stuff that’s out of your control, like a criminal record, it’s good to know about it and sometimes you need to share this with a potential employer or client.

Next, I ask “What tangible branding tools do you have that reflect your desired personal brand?”

They can include:

• Your resume
• A strong cover letter of introduction
• A personal business card, laptop skin, brochures
• The appropriate wardrobe for interviews and meetings
• An appropriate web presence and social media footprint

I always recommend people buy their name URL, if it’s just a landing page with your contact information of social media links. If your name is not available, get something close, like with your middle initial in it.

As an example: I own www.Karenpost.com

Step 2- Next, one must develop a personal brand action plan to help get them from where they are “unemployed” to where they want to be, “in a great job or opportunity they love”.
A personal brand plan addresses:

• Goals
• Brand essence
• Target audience
• Strategies (behavioral changes)
• Tactics (specific things to do)

I always start with the end in mind. What are your goals?

Strong personal brands are visible, memorable, distinct and relevant.

To “brand up” you, one needs to have:

Your personal essence defined.
A personal brand essence is the foundation around whom you are authentically.

Purpose - Why are you here? What do you do? How can you contribute to a company’s success?

Points of distinction- What is unique about you?
Your name
Your background
How you look
Your skill set
Who you have worked with

Personality – What are 3-4 adjectives that best describe you?
When building a personal brand, one’s personality attributes should be aligned with your desired job, career. Like in my case, being creative, having a sense of humor and being confident. Work well with my career choice being a consultant and speaker.

Promise – one’s promise is what they commit to delivering on.
For example – if you are in sales, you’ve got to be able to successfully sell. If you are in Healthcare administration, your attention to detail and problem solving must be mastered etc.  One must be able to deliver on commitments and promises. Walk the talk.

After your brand essence is complete, then you must weave this platform into all of your touch points.

Who are your target audiences?
Who are the key company decision makers? Who are the other influential people in your network, who can make  recommendations and introductions? Friends, former employers, people you do business with etc.

Touch points fall into three categories and need to be aligned with one’s goals.

These are:
1) One’s visual package
Research shows that visual elements are the #1 influencer in impressions people draw from others. This means your wardrobe, hairstyle and grooming all matter. Depending on the job and position you are seeking will determine the best look for a person.

Additionally, your tools like resume, business cards and thank you cards also impact the judgment you may earn.

2) One’s communication skills and style.
Next to the visual items, people are judged by their communication skills and style.

Communication style has three equally important areas.

Verbal
How do you sound? Is your choice of words the best they can be and aligned to your goals? And the confidence and attitude you exude, is it consistent with your goals and does it lower the risk of the potential employer?

Written
How do you write? From your resume, to a thank you note and your social media footprint, do these items communicate an impression that aligns with your goals?

Body language
What is your body language communicating? This includes your posture, handshake and eye contact. Are you poised and confident or unsure and down and out?

3) One’s substance and behavior.
The objective in personal branding is to be authentic, but based on your job goals; one must consciously increase the volume and clarity of their brand, offering potential contributions to a company’s success.

And finally, one must have substance and behave in a way that validates their position and image and supports all other touch points.

You must demonstrate evidence that you walk the talk, and are what your packaging communicates?

This means be really good at your craft and your job. The most skilled and competent people get the jobs first. And that’s where you want to be.

This may mean taking classes, accepting an unpaid internship or doing volunteer work with another job just to pay the bills.

And you must work the plan with passion and consistency everyday.
Think before you move. Stay in tune to the ideal brand you want people to have in their heads about you.

As a wrap up, here are five small things that have big instant impact on your personal brand.

1) Have a strategic online footprint that depicts you as you want your buyers to view you
This means have a LinkedIn account, a Twitter account and if you have business appropriate videos then a YouTube account too.

A landing page about you is a good idea, one that is hosted with your name.com. And if you’ve got something to say, a blog is extra icing on your brand cake.

2) Keep your promises
This means do what you say, say what you mean and walk your brand talk everyday.

3) Associate with people that are consistent with your brand
This means birds of a feather flock together. Don’t be hanging with bunch of crows if you are an elegant, sophisticated swan.

4) Look your brand
This means put the costume on when you are in public. Whatever your image is, support it with the right wardrobe, car and office.

5) Be consistent
This means frequency of a message, makes the message stick. Look at all your touch points, web, business communications, email, phone message, thank you notes, resume etc.

Need a little help with your personal brand? Check out some of my ebooks that can help you brand up your image and reputation.

Below is the second half of the Daytime segment that aired on 12/15/11

By Karen Post, on October 27, 2011

Live.Foxnews.com the national news outlet invited me to share my thoughts on CEO’s reputation and behavior and their brands. They wanted to know if leadership behavior impacted consumer buying and what are some tips for leaders of brands who may encounter these bumps. The interview ran on Tuesday live. Below are my thoughts. See the video to watch the segment.

After a business misstep is made, follow these 8 steps to recovery:

• Take inventory of the facts and views of stakeholders.
• If the CEO can, conduct brand opinion research after the situation to gauge damage and monitor online chatter.
• Have a recovery plan ready projecting worse case scenarios, including building the story the brand wants the public to remember.
• In most cases, the CEO should be the brand voice and spokesperson but sometimes this is not the case. In this event, careful selection of the spokesperson is key, they should be authoritative and knowledgeable of all the facts.
• If the CEO is the spokesperson around the issue, the CEO should take full responsibility, be prepped on messaging and media management focusing on the solution, not the past or blaming others is essential.
• Leverage real-time social media action and take an offensive approach if the situation crosses the tipping point of high visibility. If the negative situation is contained, sometimes it’s best to remain low profile.
• Disseminate enough positive volume, optimize information to counter negative stories on web via search.
• Again depending on the situation, sometimes 3rd party credible voices like trade associations, other leaders and loyal customers should be part of the voice platforms.

Want more? Pre-order my new book:
Brand Turnaround: How Brands Gone Bad Returned to Glory… and the 7 Game Changers that Made the Difference.

By Karen Post, on October 24, 2011

Being a successful entrepreneur is no candy-coated, sweet-cake walk.  It’s often more like a grueling marathon. If it were an easy ride the unemployment rate would be less, fewer people would be upset about capitalism and they wouldn’t occupy streets in America being the 99% frustrated over the economy. Instead they’d be focused on finding 99 solutions to grow their business. Nothing against the protest, that’s a great American freedom, it just seems like no mission, no message, no plan.

We all make choices and if you’ve made the choice to be a successful entrepreneur and love life with all its ups and downs, do read on.

Entrepreneurship is a highly challenging game. To win you’ve got to be fit and possess a sustainable, sharp, entrepreneurial competitive edge to thrive.

Here are 5 tips that have made a difference in my journey.

1) Confidence and positive attitude are 95% of the drill.
Anyone who says you are too confident or too positive is either jealous, fearful of you beating them out or fearful of you succeeding and then leaving them behind. If I look back at my life and greatest achievements, these attributes were game changers.

I’m sure you’ve read this tip in many entrepreneur blogs and magazines, so to make sure you get hard meaningful value from this post, I’m sharing a real world example of how this works for me.

(Actual event) Recently, a client asked me for my fee to re-brand their company. With extreme confidence, I proposed double my historic fee, absolutely believing I would exceed his company’s expectations and deliver solid value to their event. The client agreed to the fee and I did hit a home run.

2) Go out on a limb, stick your neck out and take risks.
It is a heck of a lot riskier to do nothing or consistently play it safe. Often the key here is to re-frame a situation. Change your story from scary and dangerous to intentional, certain and positive outcome.

(Actual event) I often invest in business expenses, like: research, expert insight, staff and coaches before my compensation comes in from the project. By doing so, this extra expense actually adds pressure on me to perform at a higher level and 90% of the time,  I do. On my last book deal, I had over $2500 in hard costs and over $5,000 in my time just on my proposal creation, way before I was insured a contract and an advance.

3) Network and play up.
This means don’t be hanging out with peers that are your equals all the time, but you must put yourself in situations where there are people much smarter and more successful than you. The trick here is in order to pull this off, you must master tip #1. This move may take some sacrifice (skipping another expense) because to play in this league, many times it costs a lot more. That’s why you often won’t see your medium competitors at these  (more expensive) situations and events.

(Actual event) When I travel I never stay at medium hotels. Why? Because if I did the chances of me meeting a new quality business prospect are statistically beyond low.  Same goes for buying tickets to seminars, like when I went to see Tony Robins, if they have premium seats, that’s where you will find me, not within the section of  “wannabes”.

For more on how to become an entrepreneur, view:
The ageless entrepreneur.

By Karen Post, on October 10, 2011

Internet photo police are a real thing. I learned this lesson the expensive way last year. I received a formal letter from Getty Images citing that an image on my blog from 2007 was copyrighted and the image company had no record I paid for use of the photo. Apparently, big photo houses now have teams of professionals watching the web and also use special image tracking software to find illegal photo usage.

I immediately looked into their claim and found that the blog article and photo in question was posted by an intern who had worked for me. I was not aware that there was a violation as I trusted that the intern knew the rules of copyright protected images and usage.

The Getty representative explained that ultimately the company that is using the photo is responsible for fees on any copyrighted image. While the representative believed that I was not aware of the violation and that one of my employees posted the image, the fee of $800.00 was due regardless.

So I paid the bill and removed the image.

If you are using images in your blog, make sure they are copyright free or in fact you have paid the source to use them.

The Wall Street Journal ran a good story called “A Guide to Happy (and Legal) Tumblr-ing” about blogging, images and content usage. It’s worth reading as they share some excellent places to source all.

Here are two sources I use often.
iStock.com -Low cost, quality images (most images for low res and blog usage are under $10.00).
Picasa.com – Owned by Google offers many images for free usage in blogs (this is good source but takes more time to find good quality and free images).

Plus, don’t forget to tap your own creative work and shoot original photos when you can, there’s no cost, other than the camera. And if you shoot a killer image, just give yourself a bonus!

For more information on photo copyrights and to get free stock photography, view:
Stock.Xchge – Free stock photography

By Karen Post, on October 3, 2011

For many years I was the youngest in many business situations. I was younger than all my employees, having started my ad agency when I was 22. I was also the youngest to sit on important boards and I was considered by many to be a very young entrepreneur running two companies.

Then one day that changed. I’m not really sure exactly when this happened, but suddenly—while I still felt young, liked loud, new rock bands, trendy fashions —I turned 50! YIKES!!

My amazing life has raced through three decades and now I’m not the youngest any more, except when I go to an event at my mom’s senior living community and thank God, I am the youngest there.

What I am still is very young-minded, contemporary and a hip aging entrepreneur. I’m not sure I love the way that sounds, but until I can find that back-in-time retro aging potion at Walgreens, what is, is, and I’ve got to embrace my new place in life.

Why not? Vintage wine gets better with years. So I’m going to turn my modern maturity, earned wisdom and even my new challenges into super-charged fuel that takes me to even higher places in business and in life.

So stay tuned for upcoming blogs addressing–

When your mind says Go! And your body says No!
Forever young—keeping your competitive edge sharp
It’s never too late to start a business, start over or start a party

By Karen Post, on September 17, 2011

Every Saturday I salute someone or a group that deserves a little extra attention for his or her good deeds, achievements, creative solutions, witty comments or meaningful acts of customer love.

This week my hat goes off to the fall graduating class at American Intercontinental University and their families. American Intercontinental University is a global learning institution with campuses across the United States, in London England and an award-winning* Virtual Campus called AIU Online.

I was the commencement speaker today addressing over 200 grads, 1300 + university professors, staff and friends and family at the graduation celebration in Chicago.

Held at the Pier, surrounded by Lake Michigan, it was a picture perfect day to celebrate such a meaningful and huge milestone for the grads and their families.

Many of the students have held full time jobs and run businesses while getting their degrees. The class was diverse, it was made up of all ages and all ethnic groups with a common goal of bettering themselves with a solid education. They traveled from around the US and world to celebrate their newly earned degrees.

They all inspired me! (The grads, the professors, the staff, the alumni and the families)
To see and feel such love for life, learning and the dedication to catch dreams was a wonderful occasion.

As promised, here are the words I shared. A taped version of this commencement address will post on AIU’s  Youtube channel soon. I will share the link once I get it. Until then, here is my notes. Pardon any typos, I’m running out the door

At 22 I started my first company. I made lots of money. I had fun. This went on for nearly 20 years. I was unstoppable.

At 39 I led a company that failed. I lost lots of money and my confidence. I was devastated.

At 42 I found my first gray hair in my head. I was freaked out.

At 43 I discovered hair color. And I was happy again.

Life is colorful, crazy, and challenging.
Life is wonderful and a rewarding journey.

We will all face windy & scary paths, with unexpected potholes.
We will experience great joy too!

Like today, as we celebrate your graduation, your passage onto a new and exciting road—full of dreams and opportunities.

So as you step into this new journey,
Who will you be?
And what will your brand stand for?

Will you be a courageous leader of a big company?
Will you express yourself and be a rule-breaking artist or a passionate writer?
Or will you be an entrepreneur and start your own business?

Whoever you want to be, you can be. IT’S YOUR TIME TO SHINE.
Look at Lady GaGa, Oprah Winfrey or Steve Jobs. They are all successful. They are all super brands.
And they all know success is more than an education and even talent.
Success requires a mindset that personal BRANDS matter.

Your personal brand is the sum of all you do.
It is your reputation, your identity and your image—that is captured in the minds of your market, your peers, your clients, your employers, people you know, people you don’t.

Your brand is: what the market thinks about you, feels about you and expects from you.
You are a brand – just like a product on a self that wants to get selected over another.
You are a brand- just like a company that buyers are attracted too.

The marketplace is competitive. You must stand out and stand for something.
I know first hand personal branding works. It can be the difference in getting something you want or being passed up.

I told you about a dip in my career 11 years ago. When I had to shut down a company, and lay people off.
My identity was shattered. I felt like I was in a dark hole with no way out.

In June of 2000, I committed to developing my personal brand. I started with a plan and clear goals.

I said to myself, Karen Post, “I will be an international branding authority. I will travel the world, speak, consult and write books. My nickname will be The Branding Diva. I will be high-energy and bold. My signature colors will be red and black and I will be a non-conventional thought-leader”.

My brand has helped me live my dream.
This past year, I even made history. I was the first woman ever to be invited to address the Saudi Arabian Airline in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. After my presentation I asked the meeting planner, “Why did you select me over all of the other branding speakers in the world?”

He replied, “It was your bold brand. We wanted someone who’d rattled our thinking and was high-energy. When we visited your website and saw the name The Branding Diva, we knew you were the one.”

While the formula sounds simple, building a brand takes work, discipline and understanding these key points:

The dress rehearsal is over.
We are all on stage everyday competing with others for the same job, the same promotion, that same piece of business, often we get only one chance to win.

We are judged.
From how we look, to how we speak, to how we shake hands, to how we perform. Everything we do matters, like what we put on our Facebook pages to who we associate with.

Failure and rejection are both Just temporary events.
The road to success is paved with failures and rejection. Successful people take the hit and then shake it off, and get back to stuff they can control.

To build a personal brand
1) You must believe in YOU, exude confidence, stand tall–be an authority in your chosen field. IT’S YOUR TIME TO SHINE

2) You must know your target market and package yourself consistently, so you are relevant and appropriate. IT’S YOUR TIME TO SHINE.

3) You must know your competition and position yourself so you stand out. IT’S YOUR TIME TO SHINE.

4) You must show up and ask for what you want. IT’S YOUR TIME TO SHINE.

and finally, when you earn your fruit, give back, mentor someone, contribute to a scholarship fund, keep dreams alive, so you can tell a new student, IT’S YOUR TIME TO SHINE.

There are no limits to your success. Your personal brand counts. Go enjoy your new journey.

IT’S YOUR TIME TO SHINE! Congratulations to all!

In closing, a special shout out to just some of my new friends: Sergeant Angela Mitchell, Erica J. Reese, Dr. Phylis Gooden, Jennifer and Grover Iverson, Syerita Lockes-Turner, Carol Garner, Omari Martin, Tricia Sigler, Todd Frugia and team, President Tober and a sincere thank you to Amy Crocker with Five Star Speakers Bureau. And what a small world, I even ran into a friend from Tampa, Renauld, Erica’s Uncle!

By Karen Post, on March 29, 2011

I hate to break this news to you, but I’m breaking a promise. A few months back I told you I would blog every day in at least one of my three blogs, marketing/branding, entrepreneur or free biz finds. I’ve given it my best and believe I’ve pumped out some good and useful content since then. It’s not easy to write every day, but then again when you follow the tips I’ve learned to make blogging easier, it can be done with joy and without much pain.

Then came being an entrepreneur, running a small business and life, and my noble commitment became a big challenge for me. One that was causing a high degree of stress and maybe this over demand place I signed up for was even jeopardizing my health.

This past month has been monumental. I traveled to Saudi and made history, spent a week in New York City, got inspired, did my thing for the local economy, was featured in the New York Times and then went to Nigeria where I was a guest lecturer to an audience of 500 marketing and leadership professionals. All while blogging daily, servicing my consulting clients, managing my team of support personnel, writing a new book for McGraw-Hill called Brand Turnaround and playing 15 matches of tennis.

Then, just as I got unpacked, I signed up for a week-long comedy school that included a five minute bit, complete with memorized new and hopefully funny material. The class was in Tampa, produced by Jeff Lawrence of the Laughing Buddha Comedy School, who preforms around the country and is based in NYC.

I attended the first class on Tues., it was fun, saw many of buddies Frank Robertson, (a broadcast and media consultant) and Scott Farrell, (a proud stay at home dad) and met some great new friends too, Susan Guidi, another entrepreneur who runs Advanced Ultrasound Services in Tampa.  All in all, it was everything I wanted it to be. I’ve done comedy school before, so I knew the basics going in. And I knew there would be homework.

That night, I couldn’t sleep, I tossed and turned about all my commitments and now this one with a short deadline. Then I experienced a major anxiety attack, where you feel like you are going to have a heart attack and really die!!! YIKES!@#%!!!!

After about an hour of this agony, I got up, rubbed my big, happy, crystal Buddha’s belly on my dresser and had an important epiphany.

This is freakin, self-inflicted stress and pain and you, Karen Post, can stop it. I pulled out my writing pad and made a list of my: “had to do, must do” responsibilities. Comedy class was not on the list.

What was on my list: finish my book, take care of my clients that I am under contract with, and take care of me. The rest will have to wait and I know it will take care of itself.

My brain has a certain amount of brand-width, there are so many hours in day and I do not want to do anything that is not my best work. PERIOD.

The moral to this story and the 3 entrepreneurial essentials.
Know your band-width and respect it.
1) Don’t kill yourself, know your limits, and say no to things that are not in the top priority zone, especially if they can impact your true goals and dreams.

Exercise your rights as an entrepreneur.
2) As an entrepreneur, you get to control a lot, so don’t fail to use this privilege and power.

Change your mind  and alter your plan, if you need to. And don’t beat yourself up for it.
3) It’s OK to opt-out and change your mind and that’s what I’m doing. This is different than dropping someone in the grease with no back up options. This was not my case, no one was going to be disappointed if I didn’t take the comedy class at that time. I called my comedy instructor and told him my situation, my plate is over-floweth, I have to deliver my best stuff, my book, my clients, my team and right now just can’t do the class. He understood.

My game plan forward.
I’m taking an official break from daily blogging. For the next 4 weeks, my head is immersed in client service and completing my book and taking care of me (tennis, massages and a trip to Aruba to write and recharge).

You may see some random blog posts during my hiatus, but not making any commitments, as I’m islanding it in Aruba island for a week, I’m speaking at the Southeast Entrepreneurial Conference in Tampa on April 1 and I’m addressing Pizza Hut’s Annual Franchise Convention in San Antonio.

In my absence, my fabulous assistant, Lauren, will be spot writing on Internet marketing. Lauren has been with me for almost 7 months now and I believe she is the 8th wonder of the world. She’s an Internet and social media whiz and teaches me a lot everyday. I know she will bring some great articles and tips to the blog. Jocelyn one of the co-founders of Oddpodz may kick in a post too. She’s in Savannah, building her consulting, research and branding practice and helping other entrepreneurs succeed too.

So until next time . . .