Once you have started to figure out your brand and what makes you different you need to bring it to life, In this episode, we will look at how to start building your personal brand ecosystem by understanding the secrets to bringing it to life in your resume, business cards, social media, and more.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-7-your-career-bringing-your-personal-brand-to-life/
FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
Once you have started to figure out your brand and what makes you different you need to bring it to life, In this episode, we will look at how to start building your personal brand ecosystem by understanding the secrets to bringing it to life in your resume, business cards, social media, and more.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-7-your-career-bringing-your-personal-brand-to-life/
FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
Hello there, my fellow crazy ones. And welcome to the seventh episode of The Crazy One podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity. We talk about leadership, we talk about design and a whole host of other things. And it is a horrible night in New York City. The rain is absolutely pounding on the roof of my studio. And so not much else to do, and definitely not wanting to go outside. I thought, you know what, let's try to get another show in for this week. So we're gonna keep talking about career development. In the last show, we talked about how do you start to build your personal brand? How do you start to figure that out? How do you start to tell your story and really talk about how you're different and how you're unique from everybody else. And the one thing I'll say is if you haven't listened to that show, it's the sixth episode. You really are going to need to go back and listen to that show and to do the work that was involved in that to honestly get anything out of this one. Everything that we're going to talk about here is about how to bring your brand to life, how to really start to take it from a story or a bunch of ideas, and actually start to take it out into the world and start to be able to communicate it to people. Because any brand is an idea. It's a combination of rational and irrational thoughts. It's a set of beliefs that you need to communicate to people. And so often, whenever you build that brand, you go through the exercise of defining what you're really about, or you define your archetype, you define your story. Well, then what you need to do is you need vehicles to tell that story. So I think that's what we're going to start is let's start to talk about the ecosystem, the different ways that you're going to be able to tell your story and take it out to the world. And I think it's important that we start here because I think that you need to understand and take the time to figure out how and where are you going to tell your story because different mediums Tell different parts of the story in different ways. And let's just talk about some of the basic ones. The natural starting place, I think would be in the most basic thing of the world would be something like a business card. And in this day and age, I think you could certainly argue that business cards are dead, that you don't need them, that there are sites like LinkedIn. And there's a whole bunch of other things that you could use instead. Well, a few episodes back, a listener wrote in and asked if platform ification if these types of sites were killing design? And my answer was that I didn't think it was that it was just changing it. But one of the things that it does do whenever you looked at a LinkedIn or Glassdoor or any of these other sites, is that they make everybody the same. They have the same information. And aside from that little avatar photo with a little headshot of yourself and whatever the background images that you want to use, there's not much design there. And also for the fact that like with so much of social media, there's nothing A whole lot that's really personal there. It's somebody going in looking at a profile and deciding if they want to connect. I found over the course of my career that some of the most powerful interactions, some of the most powerful meetings that I've ever had had been in person. And I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. And I think whenever you do meet somebody in person, you want to introduce your story, you want to start to introduce your brand. And I think a business card is a fantastic way to do that. And then a few minutes, we'll talk a bit more about kind of my thoughts about how to make effective and impactful business cards. But we're just going to start their business cards in introduction to your story. It's, it's the first Hello, your resume is the next step. It tells your story, it tells your history, it tells where you've worked. It's sort of just a documentation of where it is that you've been in what it is that you've done. If you're a creative and you have a portfolio, your portfolio should shows that story. And it shows that your skills are real. Because we all know that people can talk a great game, people can put together a really interesting sounding story. your portfolio is where the rubber meets the road. The work is the truth, the work will really show. What are your skills and how good are they. And then social media. There are a million different channels inside of social media, a million different things that you could do. You could be on Facebook, you can be on Twitter, you can be on Instagram, you can be on Snapchat, you could be on again, you can keep going until the cows come home. But what you need to think about is it social media no matter what the channel is. That's the running dialogue that supports your story and your skills. It's where you can build credibility. It's where you can build a following, but that's the ongoing dialogue. And I think this has been one of the biggest changes in modern branding, because it used to be that you would just have these little Things that would have their moment, your resume would have its moment your portfolio would have its moment. Even for a big brand, they would have their moments in a TV commercial or in some sort of promotion. Well, that moment would end and they would stop talking. Well, that's all different now because of social media. People expect brands to have an ongoing conversation with them, they expect that they can talk to them anytime that they want that that sort of promotional mindset, that advertising mindset. We're going to run in, say something around a message and then run away and stop. Well, that's an old school way of thinking of things. That's not the way things are done anymore. People want brands to act just like their friends, they want to have an ongoing dialogue with them. So your social media channels support and tell your story and support your skills on an ongoing basis. And I think that the thing is, is that you have to understand how to use all these touch points across this ecosystem to tell your story. A business card is meant to be an introduction. It's been meant to get somebody interest. A resume is meant to tell your story to say where you've been to establish credibility. your portfolio is where the rubber meets the road where you really have to show it off. And your social media is an ongoing conversation. Well, the way that you tell the story, and each one of those is going to be slightly different. The way that I'm going to tell the story through something like social media, is to demonstrate my own opinions is to highlight articles that I find interesting is to try to share knowledge to try to do the things that would align with my brand. And that's the way that I'm going to try to bring that to life. But the thing that I'm going to tell you, and I think that the thing that a lot of people get wrong is that if you want to do this, and you want to do it well and you want to do it, right. If you want to build a following if you want to build credibility, if you want to build a brand. If you want to do more than just get that next job, then the reality is is that you have to invest in this ecosystem, almost like it's another job because I think that I set aside time Every week to work on my blog. So about once every month or so I go in and work on my portfolio site, I do touch ups, I do crazy things and decide that apparently I do have a little bit of free time. And I couldn't start a podcast or any number of these other things, but I treat it like it's a real living brand, and that I invest in it accordingly. And so I think that one of the things you need to do is also just be honest with yourself, about what do you want your brand to do for you? Do you want it to build a reputation to build a following? Or is it something that you just want to have enough of these assets in place so that you can get a better job or whenever an opportunity comes along? You can take advantage of it. And there's a whole spectrum of things in between that. But I think that this is where you have to be clear about not only what your story is, but who do you want to tell it to? And how do you want to tell it? because that'll really influence how many of these things you need to do, how much do you need to work on these things to bring it to life and so Let's take a little bit of time and go through just these basic parts of the ecosystem. And we're just going to touch on some of the basics. Obviously, if I was going to touch on every part of branding, this show would be three days long. And so I don't think anybody wants that. And I don't think my servers can handle that. So we're just going to touch on the basics. And like I said before, the first thing that I always turn towards is a business card. Because I do think that a business card does infuse design, it infuses personality, it can say something about you, especially if you're a creative person, because everybody has a business card. So many of them are so incredibly boring, that whenever you come across a great one, whenever you come across a really good one, those are the ones that really draw you in, they can even become a centerpiece of a really great story. The favorite business card that I have that is actually sitting right next to my laptop here on my desk in my studio came from Steve Wozniak, the co founder of Apple And Steve has a it's a business card that's about the regular size that you would expect. But it's made out of laser cut aluminum. And that alone would probably be enough to get your attention. But whenever I met Steve, and we talked for a little while, he just just had this kind of funny, quirky look on his face. And he said, Do you like puzzles? And I said, Well, yeah, no, I guess I do. Sure. And so he gets out this business card holder, and he pulls out this business card. And I can tell you, as somebody that's done this for a while, these business cards probably run anywhere from about 15 to $30 apiece, because they are not cheap to make. But then again, I think if you're one of the two original co founders of Apple, you probably couldn't get the scratch together to put one of these things out there. But he said you like puzzles? And I said, Sure. And so what the card does is he said, Well, there are these multiple rows of numbers that were there from one to nine, and certain numbers had actually been punched out so that it only look like if you ever go back and think about like the super early days of computing, like a punch card or something like that, it almost looks like that. And what Steve said was, well, what this is, is it's a puzzle. And if you can figure out the puzzle, then you'll figure out my phone number, and you can call me. And I thought this was genius in a couple of different ways. I think one is just after having met him and see how kind of funny and quirky and exuberant he is, it just fit him perfectly. If you're following on social media, you'll see that whenever he travels around, he remembers his hotel rooms through mathematical equations. I think this guy probably forgets more today than I'll ever remember. But it was also just a really interesting thing that it's almost like when you're a little kid, you had to be a certain height to ride a ride at an amusement park. Well, if you want to call Steve Wozniak, you have to be of a certain IQ level to be able to solve the puzzle to be able to call him and so this is a card that I hold on to it's a story that I tell I posted about it on my blog. But that's the power of what a card could do is it was this moment that you could tell that he used to make a connection with people, he used it to kind of be funny and quirky to demonstrate what his brand was. That is this fun mix of technology and science and just a really funny sense of humor. So I think that's the aspirational part of what a what a business card can do. It can show off your brand, it can show off your values, as opposed to if we just would have connected on LinkedIn. Well, yes, I will admit that having Steve Wozniak on LinkedIn would be cool, which I don't but the card was so much cooler, the story was so much better. It's something that was so much more memorable and so much more interesting than just connecting on the site. And so I think that networks like LinkedIn do have incredible power. And we'll talk about that more in a little bit. But I think a business card still has tremendous value in this world. I think what you need to do is you need to think about what Steve thought about, about how can you make your card different? How can you get it to stand out? How can it make an impression, so that whenever you hand it to somebody, it's not just simply conveying information. Because if it does that, then save your money, don't print a business card, don't do it. Just don't waste your time, just do LinkedIn. But I think if you're willing to take the time to think about how to make it different, how to make it engaging, then I think it can be really powerful. One of the things that is on my personal business cards, is that and I've talked about this, whenever I did the shows on leadership, I have 15 beliefs. These are the things that govern my work that govern my leadership style. But these are basically the 15 things that I advertise that I'm all about, which is a double edged sword, I'll admit, because some people will buy into it and they really like that transparency. Some people on the other hand, find a very off putting because they don't agree with why I stand for, and that's fine, I tend to think it's a nice way being able to filter out the the people that are good and and the people that I naturally gonna connect with versus the ones that you know what I'm just not going to have that much in common with, but I have these 15 set of beliefs. And so on the back of my card is one of these beliefs. So they're basically 15 different business cards. And so whenever I go around and pull them out in hand with somebody, you get one of 15 of these beliefs. And it's always a conversation starter, because the one side has has all the usual stuff, it has my name and phone number, email address, all that, you know, it's what the business cards there for, right? But the other side, whenever they see it, because it's numbered, and it'll say, you know, whether it's number eight or 12, or 15, or whatever it is, it always starts a conversation because people will flip it over, take a second and read it, and then either get a puzzled look, or they'll just ask me out what it is and it starts a conversation. It starts a conversation about my brand, about what it is that I I believe about what does that particular statement mean? And I have always gotten my cards done@mu.com they don't pay me any money. I'm not paid to plug them or anything like that. So this is not, you know, paid advertisement. But I think they just do a great job. They even do something that's very near and dear to my heart. From my upbringing. They do even do letterpress business cards. But it's a great quality, it's a great stock, it's the color is really good. And you can put a ton of different backs on it super easy. So that's why I do it is because for me, that business card is a conversation starter. It's a statement about my brand, it helps me stand out. And it shows that honesty, the experience and the leadership qualities that I want to bring forward in my brand. So it's like I said, it's I think if you're willing to put that level of thought into it, if you're willing to kind of differentiate your brand that way, then I think a business card is a fantastic tool to make a connection that you normally wouldn't be able to make in another way but Like I said, if all you want to do is slap your name on a card with your cell phone and your email address, you can probably save the money because I think LinkedIn will probably be a better substitute for you. But as with most things, and as with most things that I talked about, if you're willing to do the work, I think it'll really pay off. So the next thing is your resume. And this is the part where I see so many people, so many personal brands fall down, because they don't have a story. It's just simply a conveyance of a couple generic sentences and a list of the places they worked. maybe one or two awards or some skills or it's just this simple conveyance of information, nothing more, nothing less. And I always think it's such an incredible betrayal of people's talents, because I see so many incredible people so many incredibly talented people who have such horrible resumes that just suck out loud because they haven't taken the time to figure out They're different. And the reality is, is that your resume is your first impression. We've talked about this in the past because you see a job that you like, what do you do? You submit your resume. Your resume, on its own, is that first impression it stands is the document that sums you up, that all the work all the sacrifice, all the education, the school loans, the sacrifices your parents made, and everything in between is summed up in these few pieces of paper. And so I'm so often so amazed by how many people don't recognize the power of that first impression, or just simply disrespect it by putting so little effort into it. So I think that your resume for your brand is incredibly important because it is quite literally your resume, it is the thing that should sum you up. I've always approached mine a little bit less like a historical document and probably a bit more like a piece of advertising. And I think that it's one of these things where if it's branding, if this is a part of my brand, well, then it is advertising. And it's more than just the list of places that I've worked. It's a piece of communication. So if I'm designing a piece of communication, how would I do that? Well, you just have to look to any other piece of advertising to start to get the basics. There's usually a headline, there's some sort of an introduction, there's some sort of proof points about the brand or the product. There's some sort of content and then there's usually a call to action. That's the basic structure, the advertising 101 structure of how you do a piece of marketing couldn't be any simpler than that. And I think that this is one of those things where, you know, you also can realize that the content that you can create there can also get used in a lot of different places and a lot of different ways. So it's more than just a resume. It's a piece of advertising and it's the starter kit to a lot of other pieces of communication that you can do. So the first thing that I'll try to figure out is just again, like whenever I design an ad or design any experience, how can I make it scannable? How is it something that whenever somebody comes to it, and they read through it for the first time, they can take away what I want them to take away with, quickly, easily. That if I get 30 seconds, 60 seconds, two minutes to tell my story, and that my story is sitting in an inbox alongside 10 2040 6080 other stories. How am I going to make sure that mine stands out? Because I think that's the mindset that you have to have going into it is to understand that this is not something that's standing on its own. It's not something that people are going to be able to sit down and really digest every word on the first pass because you have to make the first cut before they're going to do that. So I think that the first thing you do is you make the first page the first page of the first step. impression, as strong as it can be, put the actionable things right at the top, put your phone number, put your email address, put where you live. Because again, just because I'm applying for a job, I don't necessarily know that I live in the place where the job is. Maybe the jobs in New York and I'm in California, I need to know that up front, because maybe I don't want to relocate somebody, maybe I don't care, but it's a kind of a critical thing to be able to put up front. But then for me, it's a headline. And it's a big headline. And it's a clear headline, and it's something that tells you who I am. And it's something that draws you in. And I think that for me, you can use it in various forms. So if you go to my website, and you'll download my resume, you can see that it there's kind of the long form version there. Then I use shorter versions of it in Twitter or an Instagram or on my website, or things like that, so that there's a long and a short of it, that it blends together the personal with the professional You know, the long form version of the one that I use really tries to sum up who I am as a person and who I am as a professional because for me, my brand is about the fact that there really isn't a line. There's not a time when I stopped being creative. I don't get done for the day, head out of work, get in the elevator, and flip a switch and stop being creative. I don't stop thinking about ideas. I don't stop getting inspiration from the people I see on the street, the subway ride home, the conversation behind me in the train, the TV show that I watch at night. That's not the way my life works. It all blends together and it all feeds off each other. So my line often reads, global creative director, designer, brand builder, speaker, gastronomical street art Hunter, and full time crazy one. It's dense, it's a lot of stuff. Like I said, that's the long version. And it does mix in personal and professional, but it's like I said, I can also shorten that to just creative director. designer speaker, I can just do it that short. If I need to do a bio for an event, I'll just narrow it down to those three things. But I think that it's one of those things where, you know, I've thought through how to do this. The the initial phrases are the ones that really want to set up who I am professionally, global creative director, which is the fact that I know how to run global design teams. designer, because I never want to stop designing. And I think it's important that people understand that I'm a hands on designer, brand builder, because that is a skill that I have. And then it goes on into lesser things. But those first initial three or four phrases really are the most important because that sets the stage. I also purposely use interesting or non conventional wording to be able to draw you in a word like astronaut, which is really the mixture of the word astronomy for food and astronaut, partially just because I think the word foodie has gotten so cliched and so overused, that I think probably like any other hip phrase you try to move on to a new one and gastro nought was something that a friend of mine had called me once, and it just kind of stuck and I liked it. And I think also just for the the crazy one part of this is very much a part of my brand. It's the name of my podcast, it's tattooed on my arm. It's the way that a lot of people refer to me. So I think having something like full time crazy one in there also sets the stage, it tells the story, it invites questions and invites you in to try to understand what this means. It doesn't do it in an obtuse way. It doesn't do it in an arrogant way. But I think that it just simply tries to do something that draws you in a little bit more. So from there, I think you then need to get into doing an introduction. And this is usually one paragraph maybe two at the most. That really tells your story, your experience your unique skills, in as few words as possible. I think that this is something that I constantly refine. If for whatever reason, you're insanely bored. You start taking screenshots of my website, one of the things you would see is that this intro paragraph changes a lot. I'm constantly wordsmithing it, I'm constantly working on it. I'm constantly trying to shorten it, sharpen it, clean it up, make it harder hitting make it better than what it is. Because I think this is the thing. I've hooked them with a headline, how do I draw them in? How do I tell my story? How do I sell my brand? And here again, there's a long and a short version of this, the long version I'll use for my website, or I'll use it on my resume. The short version honestly becomes my bio. I speak at an event. I you know, write an article, I do something like that. The short version then is what gets shown there. But I think that it's just trying to figure out how do you come up with the tangible proof points that support your brand, like I said, in as few words as possible. From there. Again, if I'm treating this like a piece of advertising, I do a set of call outs and what these are basically for inset blocks of coffee that talk about what are the four things? So if you just read the headline, you read the intro, you said, You know what, this is interesting enough, what were the four things if you had to remember me as a brand, whenever you walked away from, I'd want you to remember, when instead of thinking that people will draw that instinctively, out of that intro paragraph, I actually put it into these call outs and therefore simple call outs, simple iconography, there are about a sentence sentence and a half long each, and they highlight what are my differentiators? What are the things that I feel like, are the things that I do better, because I want people to easily be able to see them to call them out, and to be able to kind of walk away from that. And I think that it's this combination of the headline, the intro, and these call outs that really make for a strong first page, because so many other first pages are those few generic sentences all in the same type size, and then just where people work, but the ability to do a big strong headline in a in a large typeface, followed by an intro followed by these call outs visually Make something different, but it also just constructs a story that people can walk away with. And then from there, then I think you can get into your experience. And I think this is meant to show where you've worked, what your responsibilities were, and any kind of major accomplishments. But I think that the thing that you need to think about is here, again, make it easy to scan, make the formatting consistent. Just stick to the big important details. Because again, this is one of those things where you just want to tell the top line of the story, small details, like the fine little, you know, the bigger part of your story, leave that for the interview, or leave it for your portfolio. But understand, again, if I'm going to read this and understand the impact that you made, the difference that you made. That's what needs to go in there. And then once you have your experience, then it just goes on to everything else. And I think that everything else can be a lot of different things. But these are the things that really reinforce your personal brand. It can be your education, it could be your awards, press, you receive public speaking All these different things, but make sure they support your brand. We talked about this. And whenever we trap whenever we are creating the personal branding exercise, this is not the place for the dog grooming certificate, this is not the place for the tough mudder metal. This is not the place for all those skills that you think count, like the ability to dial a phone, send a fax, or in one case and I swear this is true use a stapler that does not belong here. And so I think that those are the sort of things that you can do to flesh out the story. But it's understanding this order of operations, it's understanding to put the most important things first, because I need to hook people and draw them in so they can get to the ladder things. And I think that ordering can also be incredibly interesting. And it can be a bit of a trap. Because one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is that the first thing that they put on their resume is their education. And when you've looked at as many resumes as I have, you realize This is actually a very interesting thing. Because if you have your resume, if you have your education listed first on your resume, that's fine. If you're just an intern, or if you're somebody who just got out of school, because that's the biggest accomplishment that you've had, if you're at any stage in your career past that, it becomes a bit of a red flag, or at least a bit of an interesting road marker. Because whenever I see that, more times than not whenever I talk to the person on the phone, I have them created for an interview. The thing that I quickly discover is that this is somebody who feels like they really haven't done anything in their career that they think is better, or more significant, or more important than what they did in school. And because of that, that's why they put their education first. And so this is one of those things where it's a little bit like if you peaked in high school. I'm one of those people who's never been back to a high school reunion never been back to College reunion. Because the people I want to talk to I talk to, I see them on Facebook, I don't feel the need to go back and impress a bunch of people I haven't wanted to talk to in 20 years. But the other part of it is that it's part of my past. I've moved past it. I've accomplished a lot since then. That's why it's not first. But it's something to think about that if you have your resume in front of you right now. And education is first. I think you need to think about why is that? Is it because your career isn't headed in the direction you wish it was? Is it because you haven't accomplished what you wish you would have? And if that's the case that I think you need to spend some time to think about why and what's the change you need to make to change that? Because your education shouldn't be the most impressive thing about you. Your education is a foundation. It's a starting point. Some of the most talented people I know there's a woman who I work with right now, who is so so smart. Who went to Wharton Business School for her master's. And I don't think I even heard about that until probably the second or maybe the third month we work together. Because she's moved past it. What she's accomplished in her career is more important is bigger than where she went to school. And so this is just something that I would just say to think about. Because it really is one of those things where I look at this, and I put the weight on it, and I want to talk about it. Because the other thing for me is, I don't ever want to hire somebody who's destined to stay at the same position that I'm hiring them for. It was a tip and insight that I got from hearing Karl Lagerfeld, who's the designer of Chanel and Fendi. Talk about about whenever he hires an assistant, whenever he hires a designer, he doesn't ever want to hire somebody that's going to stay at that level. He wants to hire somebody who has career aspirations, who wants to grow, who wants to continue to go on to do great things. And these are the little things the little ways that sometimes your brand can be a bit more of a crystal ball, then you realize that it'll show if you're driven, if you're hungry if you're willing to do whatever it takes to do the great work, or is there something that's a bit off track that's keeping the past as the most kind of significant thing that you've done. But I think that, you know, as we go from there, the other thing that you have to realize is that just like with any branded communication, and especially on your resume, design matters. And I think that, you know, obviously, I come from a creative background, I'm a designer, but your design says something about you. And if what it's saying is that I've just taken my resume and thrown it into Microsoft Word, or, God forbid, I hit my head lost all sensibility and typeset it in Comic Sans, these are all things that say something. And the one thing that I'll say is that you don't have to be a designer to have a great looking brother. May, you don't even honestly have to go out and hire a designer, if you don't want to, all you need to do is go to Google, go to Yahoo, go to Pinterest, and type in the words resume template. And what you're quickly going to find is that there are a ton of templates out there that have been designed that you can get very cheaply. That will help tell your story that will help you stand out from the crowd that will help reinforce your brand that will subliminally say that you give a damn about your image, that it's not just what was the easiest thing you had available to you what was the least amount of effort, but it's something where you actually can put a good looking brand image forward. But I think that there is something else you need to think about. So for those of you who aren't designers, some of the things you need to start to think about is to make sure that that template looks good not only in color, but in black and white. Because in this day and age, and I can't believe that I'm gonna say it. Some recruiters still fax me resumes. They send me black and white resumes. Sometimes whenever people come in for the interview, it's been printed out on a black and white printer. And that if it's a very elaborate color layout with some very subtle color differences, it prints is a big black block. And so that's not what you want. So this is one of those things of just make sure that you do the simple test because this is what a designer would do. Make sure that it works in color in black and white, and also to make sure that it's readable. This is one of those things where I often will use sans serif typefaces. And if you don't know what that is, there are two types of typefaces. There's saref and sans serif. And basically all that it is is Sarah faces are whenever you see a typeface and it looks like the letters have little feet on them or little fliers at the edges. Those are called Sarah's san serif, so obviously then don't have that. So you know, common typefaces like Arial or Helvetica that are just a very simple clean, that's a sans Sarah face. So what you want to do is you want to try to use those sand Sara faces, the ones without the little feet and the little flares because the reason why Because they're going to hold up better, they're going to be more readable. And one of the interesting tests that I'll do to check to make sure that that readability holds up is I'll take my resume, and I'll either Xerox it three or four times or fax it three or four times. So what I'll do is I'll take the original and put it in a Xerox machine, Xerox it, take the Xerox that comes out, replace the original one with the Xerox, do it again. Same process, take the one that comes out, replace it with the one that uses just Xerox do this three or four times because the Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox will start to break down the legibility the ink will start to bleed the letters will start to get fuzzy. And the only reason why I'm doing this one is because I'm completely obsessive about all things design. But also because that way, I'm sure that it's going to look good, it's going to read well and it's going to come out and it's going to really hold up. But so once you do all this, once you have all this written once you have this content we talked before about the fact that it then is the starter kit and what you can do is you can use this starter kit to have your resume available in different formats. Because as you go through the job hunt, the other thing you're going to find out is that HR is probably one of the most technically deficient departments of every single company, that most of the time you wish they would take a PDF. It's formatted nicely, it has your design, it has your type faces, it looks exactly the way that you want it to. But so often I find that they want a Microsoft Word document, they want a LinkedIn profile, or there's just a large text entry field where they expect you to copy and paste your entire resume unformatted into this one field, which so often will then take out the returns kind of meshing it into one big blob of text that I don't know what somebody on the other end sits there isn't deciphers But anyway, you have to take this and just have it have your story have your resume available in these different forms. Because if I have it in a PDF, the design is going to be better the formatting the structure is going to be better, but if it is just in a text file, If it's in a Word document, I have to order it differently. So just go through and do this so that you can think about and just work through these different ways of being able to kind of have your content and make sure that the story still comes through. Because what you don't want to do is you don't want the deficiencies in their structure the deficiencies in their technic technology, to define and inhibit your odds of getting that job. So this is why I think again, it's worth the time to be able to go through and do this. So those are the two starting points, right? business cards and resume what could be more basic, these have been around since job started probably. But then we move on to the newer things, we move on to social media, we move on to building your network. And I think that networks, as we've talked about before, are incredibly important. Because networks bring you opportunities networks can save your ass quite frankly, whenever you suddenly are laid off when you didn't see it coming whenever all of a sudden you're not happy in your job. And the problem is is if you wait to start building your network and to start building Your connections, and you only start whenever you need it, you're dead in the water, it's too late, it's not going to be you're not going to get it done in time to have it be effective. And that's the way it's going to come across as opposed to somebody who has just been investing in this as they've gone along. And so the thing you need to understand as you build your network as you go out into social media is that not all of these sites, not all these networks are created equally. And I think you have to understand what each one is good at. And you have to understand how are you going to use them? I'll give you an example. So for me, my professional networks are mainly Twitter and Instagram. Twitter, I use just because it's easy to build a fan base. It's easy to be able to demonstrate insights, humor share knowledge to do things like that, but it's also a place where I can then use it to get professional information from my Instagram is also a bit of a mix of personal and professional But a lot of it's from my travels, it talks about street art, it talks about design, which still really supports my brand. Facebook for me is purely personal. I go and speak in an event, I go and, you know, meet somebody in an interview. The reality is none of those people and I are going to be friends on Facebook, because I need a personal space, I need a place. For me, that's not about my brand. It's just about me. But I've been very clear with myself about which one of these sides of the fence Am I going to pick? Or in the case of Instagram or something like that? Or even sometimes in Twitter, what am I going to blend those two? And the reality is that blending them, I'm sure cost me followers because I'm kind of a mess. Sometimes I'm talking about design, sometimes I'm talking about a vacation, sometimes it's my dog, sometimes it's street art, sometimes it's food, and it's kind of all over the place. And if you're only interested in one of those subjects, well, then I tend to only occasionally be interesting, as opposed to if I was really laser focused, but it's one of those Things were, you know what I just I love taking photography and I'm fine with it that if you like the diversity, follow me. If you don't, I'm fine that you don't, because I have much more focused channels, I have my website, I have my blog, I have my podcast that is purely focused just on my professional life. But I think that this is the thing is that in all of these, it's building my authentic brand, because it's an ongoing conversation. And the authenticity comes through. So So clearly, that if you aren't clear on your story, if you aren't clear on your content, if you aren't clear on how to tell your story, people are gonna see because if all of a sudden, you know your brand is about honesty, or leadership or design, and again, you're posting these really badly designed memes, you're posting, you know, ugly photography, you're, you're posting all these things that really betray and undermine your credibility as a brand. People are going to see that and they don't buy into the brand the brand reads is false. So these are why I think you have to really be crisp and clear and to be authentic about the way that you do it. Because if your story is clear, if your brand is strong, if you have decided what is personal, and what is professional, what network you choose to use, that will work. It could be Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter fuse like I could, I can name a whole bunch of other fringe networks and keep going like that. But the reality but the reality is it doesn't matter. Because your brand is clear, and it's straight on what it is that it needs to do. And so that's why the personal brand is so important is because in so many cases, it almost becomes technology proof because whatever the new network is, whatever the new fad is, whatever the new technology communication platform is your brand to work, because you can still figure out how to communicate on it. And I think that's the most important part of it, and it's why I'm not really going to get into one network over the other, the only one that I will Comment on is to say that I am amazed how many people I do think vastly underestimate the power of LinkedIn. I've gotten jobs through there, I made some amazing connections through there. I've gotten some amazing opportunities through there. Because so many people do use it as this professional marketplace. It is the go to for that. And I think that that is the one probably first that I think's worth investing in. And I also think, because it's a great way to use the anonymity of the internet, that this isn't like being at a conference where you have to walk up like this is some sort of an awkward first date and introduce yourself to somebody that you've always admired. All you need to do is you go into LinkedIn, you search for them, and you hit Connect. And that's it. That is both the power and the Achilles heel of a network like that. The power in that it makes that connection so easy, the Achilles heel and the fact that it is a digital and often artificial connection. That isn't the same like I said, as walking up with a business card and being able to start that story to make that personal connection. But it still doesn't negate the fact that it can be an incredibly good and powerful starting point. And it's one that I think too few people really take advantage of. So these are just the basics. These are just some of the ways to start to think about how to bring your brand to life. And there are tons of others you can think of, again, tons of other ways to put your brand out there to think about how do you do it? How do you tell your story, but just like the business card, or the resume or social media or anything else like that, you need to take the time to think through where does it fit into your story? What's the story that you want to tell? What are the things that you want to communicate with it? Because that's the thing is that if you can do that, like I said before, all these platforms are going to be incredibly powerful and are really going to help you get out there in a way you never have before. But it also takes courage because I think one of the things for whatever reason I'm kind of wired with is my ability to just start to start a podcast, to start a blog to start on Twitter, to think that for whatever reason, people care about what I have to say. And in the beginning, it's terrifying. In the beginning, it often feels like I'm kidding myself, and that this is me trying to build some pointless temple to my ego, to try to make me feel like I'm making some difference to overcome some deficiency I have in my personality or something else like that. But it is just starting and risking something, and putting yourself out there and doing it in a way that you're comfortable with doing it in a way that you will support and you'll stay with. And you'll try because I think that the, the way that I built myself into a brand was one day I decided I was going to be that I had a voice and that I had something that I wanted to say. And then I was going to keep saying it in the hopes that somebody was going to care. And over the years, I've been able to To refine the brand I've been able to refine my message I've been able to connect with people and and understand that that voice was something more than just some, you know, false temple to my ego in my head, that it filled the need, that it was helping people that it was helping their careers and that it was having a real impact. And that that is so much better, so much more powerful, so much more. It's such a bigger connection for me and such a bigger accomplishment, something I'm so much prouder of than any piece of work that will ever appear in my portfolio. But it takes the courage to start. And I think that that's the other part of this is to just be willing to risk it be willing to put something out there and to start to build your brand. And if you need to change it if you need to evolve it, do that. But start. This isn't one of those things where I want you to sit here and listen to this podcast at the end of it say, You know what? Yeah, I'm gonna go do that. In three months. You are flipping through your podcasts and see and go Yeah, I still need to do that in six months. Yeah, I should do that. And a year later kind of going well, I guess it's too late to start doing that. You have to start, you have to do it one step at a time, you have to look at the brick, not the wall. And I think that's the important thing where I see so many people get hung up. And so as we talked about putting yourself out there, as we talk about going out there and risking something, we're going to move on from here. And in the next episode, we're going to talk about what I really think is honestly, probably the last art of how to give a really good job interview of whenever it comes to life. Whenever your brand really is on the line. When it comes to your livelihood, your career. What what's it going to be? How is it going to come to life? What are the most common mistakes that people make? And we're going to talk about that in the next episode. But before we get there, I will ask that if you like the show, if you feel like what I'm saying has some value. You've gotten some content out of it. There's something that I said that resonated or or helped you in some way. I'd ask that you pay it back just a little bit. And just take a minute or two, go over to iTunes, go over to Google Play, go over to soundcloud and leave me a review. Because as I try to build this show up, that's really the currency that it banks on is it gets more people to listen, it adds the authenticity. And you never want to be that guy on Yelp who has a great restaurant but is just stuck with the the angry reviews of people who feel like it's the worst taco they've ever eaten in their life. So please don't let this become the Yelp of podcasting. And anyway if you want to get more information if you want to find out more about what I've been talking about you want to look at the show notes or anything like that as always, you can head over to podcast dot Stephen Gates calm Stephen is spelled s t p h e n gates like Bill Gates, calm the boys down illegal always want me to remind you that the views and everything I talked about here are my own. They don't represent any of my current or former employers. These are just my own thoughts. As always, I say it every time because I mean it every time. Thank you for your time. Time is the only true luxury that we have. And I'm always incredibly appreciative that you give me some of yours. So, until we talk next time, and we explore the vast and interesting topic of the job interview, as always, stay crazy