On my recent trip to the Amazonian rain forest of Brazil, I was exposed to exotic plants, animals, and most importantly, to the people of that amazing land. For me the scenery on these trips is always spectacular, but the people and their lives are always the best part.  Making new friends is especially enjoyable as you’ll see in the photo of the Guarani Indian tribal chief and me.  Don’t worry I didn’t buy any poison to go with my new blow dart gun.

This photo was taken in one of the rural areas I visited, and afterwards, it struck me that even in this wild place, far from mainstream marketing and the forces of globalization, this guy intuitively understood the meaning of personal branding. Everything about his look communicates his stature within his tribe.

In this issue of the Beta newsletter, we talk about executive branding. As we approach the final quarter of ’06 and 2007 business plans are in the early stages of implementation, I encourage you to consider building a personal branding plan for yourself.

Hope you enjoy the issue!

Enjoy!

Peter

Personal Branding:
Make a Name for Yourself

Sure, you can recite your company’s elevator statement in your sleep, but have you considered writing your own personal elevator statement?  If you could put your name in lights and you only had two words that could fit on the marquis, what would they be? Are you a marketing warrior like Jeff Bezos? Perhaps you’re lucky enough to be known as a technological genius such as Bob Metcalfe? Or, a business outlaw similar to Steve Jobs?

If you’re like most of us, you’ve spent weeks, if not months, developing positioning and branding statements for your company and its products or services. With many strategy meetings and brainstorm sessions under your belt, you’ve helped define brands throughout your career. But have you considered doing the same for your own personal brand?  If cornered in a dark alley, could you quickly relay what words describe the value and promise of your personal brand?

» Personal branding is much like the branding of an organization itself – identifying what is unique and valuable about yourself, and communicating that brand consistently, authentically, and with clarity.

Personal Branding Campaigns: What’s It All About?

Building a campaign for your personal brand entails defining your brand and building a strategy for communicating your value, or expertise. Here are a few steps to get you started:

• THINK: What are you an expert on and how can you connect that expertise to your target audience?

Determine what subject matter you can expertly discuss with the audience you’re trying to influence. Then, consider what you want to be known for and build supporting topics around it. For example, if your goal is to position yourself as a small business expert, carve out areas of importance to small business owners and develop diverse areas of your expertise on these subjects, such as funding, hiring, creative sales incentives, bootstrap marketing campaigns, and technology solutions designed for small businesses.

• WRITE: Develop content.

Take the areas you identified as important to your audience and develop written materials discussing the topics with timely issues, trends and factors affecting the market. These materials can then be translated into white papers, articles, presentations or self-published online content. 

• NETWORK: Seek out and create opportunities to be heard.

Research and connect with subject matter experts like yourself. Take note of where they are presenting, being published, or what type of self-publishing avenues they take. Speak to colleagues in your company and industry peers about where they find their information and who they hear it from. Sources could be found from the local meetings of an industry association to a trade publication.

• BRAND: Let the world see and hear from you.    

With definition, content and a little networking, you should be ready to start branding. Include in your plan public appearances, published articles, speaking engagements, the creation or contributions to a blog, analyst presentations and media interviews, just to name a few.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Does Your Image Reflect Your Desired Brand?

Whether you are sending an email to clients, publishing an article in a trade magazine or addressing an auditorium filled with colleagues, your personal brand – through both verbal and non-verbal messages – is being communicated. Your written and spoken words, your appearance, your body language and even the way you sound are the building blocks of your brand.

First and foremost, creating the right ‘look’ for your personal brand has more to do about forming an overall image than striving to look like a model.  It’s not about good looks – it is about your image and whether or not it fits with your brand. Can you imagine if a new James Bond looked like Jed Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies? Your appearance should be in alignment with your brand. We’re not suggesting your force fit yourself into an unnatural image. However, it is worthwhile to consider ways to use image to reinforce your brand.

How Do You Sound? Talking, Listening and Non-Verbal Communication

While look is an important part of your personal image, the crucial counterparts to that are how you sound and how you communicate.  Consider factors such as your vocabulary, your tone, how you stand or gestures while you speak, and the non-verbal expressions on your face, as well as your body language.

“More than 90 percent of any given message’s meaning is non-verbal.  If every message has a verbal and an affective component, we as listeners pay more attention to the affective component,” says Melissa Wanzer, published journal author on communications and interpersonal relationships and associate professor in communications studies at Canisius College. “If you want to improve your image, you need to be aware of all the messages you’re sending and how small a part words play in the interpretation of that message.”

To improve your communication skills, whether it’s for the goal of interviewing with the media, briefing an analyst, or addressing a boardroom, it can be well worth your while to receive coaching on public speaking techniques and media training.

A Brand is a Promise. Are You Delivering?

If you are deeply committed to building your brand, it’s important to solidify your personal branding goals with a PR firm or executive coach to ensure your brand is aligned with the goal of the organization you represent. These professionals can help to market you and your brand. Their expertise will help you connect in a meaningful and positive way to the audience you’re trying to reach. 

Client Advice Column:
Three Reasons Why Sales Needs Fewer Leads

» In an article published in CRM Magazine, PointClear President Dan McDade explains why “too many leads can do an organization more harm than good.”

Yes, you read the title correctly. Marketing campaigns that produce an abundance of leads can actually do your organization more harm than good. Why, you wonder? For starters, high-volume lead generation is a lot like creating a haystack in which the sales rep is responsible for finding the proverbial needle. Bona fide candidates do exist, but they're often hidden among the onslaught of unqualified leads being pushed to sales. This is why many sales reps cast a jaded eye toward leads generated by marketing--it's too hard to find the leads that translate into real sales opportunities. By forgoing lead generation practices that deliver volumes of mostly low-value prospects, companies can begin to focus on identifying and targeting their most likely buyers.

Quality Over Quantity

Gartner Research has stated that "Often, improvements in lead generation are at the expense of better lead management, resulting in an overabundance of unqualified leads of differing quality that cannot be handled by current resources and sales capacity. These leads compete for the time and attention of customer-facing employees who have no way to prioritize them. Having fewer, but higher-quality, leads provides more value to sales employees and improves the visibility and accountability of marketing." Sounds simple, right? [Read more here.]

About the Author

Dan McDade is the founder and president of PointClear, the Business Prospect Outsourcing company. Before McDade founded PointClear, he served as Vice President of Marketing for the direct mail firm Jackson & Perkins and as President of UST: The Business Marketing Group. PointClear’s expert sales and marketing professionals deliver the sales opportunities clients need to grow revenue, correctly cover client markets and add predictability and surety to client forecasts.

» Do you have tips for our Client Advice column? If so, we’d love to hear them. Email Peter at pbaron@carabinerpr.com.

Carabiner Peaks: Noteworthy Achievements

PRSA Awards Carabiner Communications Two Certificates of Excellence in 2006 Phoenix Awards Competition

At an event ceremony held on November 9th at the Grand Hyatt in Buckhead, the Georgia Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America awarded Carabiner Communications with two Certificates of Excellence in the bylined article writing projects category of its annual Phoenix Awards Competition. Both articles were part of thought leadership and executive branding campaigns for Carabiner clients Encapsulon (now known as Wren Solutions) and FileVision.

• To help propel Encapsulon executive Joe Davis as an innovator within the mature loss prevention software market, Carabiner identified loss at self check-out kiosks as a timely topic to address in the campaign. One of the program results was the article “Preventing Loss at the Self-Checkout,” placed by Carabiner and co-written with Encapsulon, on how retailers can prevent loss at self-service kiosks. The article was published in online trade magazines Kiosk Marketplace and Self Service World.
  
  
• A key component of FileVision’s media relations campaign is to help the company differentiate itself from established document and content management enterprise solutions and raise awareness of the company’s affordable information management solution within the SMB market. One of the campaign results was the article “Connect the Dots – Integrate,” placed and ghostwritten by Carabiner, on how small businesses could increase productivity by integrating document imaging with information management solutions. The article was published in AIIM E-DOC Magazine.

Carabiner Communications Adds to Growing Client Roster, Expands Geographical Outreach  

Carabiner Communications recently announced the addition of three new clients to its roster. Texas-based GTESS, Georgia-based Jacket Micro Devices and Maryland-based Message Systems are the latest companies to select Carabiner Communications to lead their public relations initiatives.

Based in Richardson, Texas, GTESS is an innovative healthcare claim transaction technology company that delivers automated pre-adjudication claims processing on a pay-as-you-go basis to healthcare payers who need to decrease costs and enhance customer service.

Jacket Micro Devices (JMD), a supplier of integrated RF modules for high performance wireless products such as cell phones, laptops and gaming devices, was founded in 2002 by researchers from Georgia Tech who developed a groundbreaking new method to package RF components.

Based in Columbia, Maryland, Message Systems is a worldwide provider of email software solutions and services for email service providers (ESPs), Internet service providers (ISPs) and large enterprises who need to manage the delivery of large amounts of email.

Carabiner Lands Coverage for Digital Resolve in USA Today

Digital Resolve, the authority in transparent, risk-based authentication, was recently quoted in USA Today’s article “Good cybercitizens keep watch over ID-theft victims” by technology reporter Jon Swartz. Dennis Maicon, executive vice president of financial services solutions with Digital Resolve, commented on online fraud schemes and the latest iteration in an evolving cycle of phishing attempts that surface every few months.

Additionally, Digital Resolve garnered comprehensive news coverage as a result of the company’s licensing agreement with Microsoft. In addition to broad global online pick-up of the news, feature articles appeared in ComputerWorld, eWeek, InfoWorld, Network World, CIO and PC Magazine and PC World.

For the second consecutive year, Digital Resolve has made Bank Technology News’ annual list of the top 25 Innovators whose contributions to banking are changing the rules of the game. In the November 2006 edition of Bank Technology News, Digital Resolve is ranked No. 18, for its new anti-phishing solution, Trusted Server Technology™.

On the speaking front, Dennis Maicon, EVP, Financial Services Solutions, was selected to speak at the 2007 CU Conferences’ “Detecting Fraud and Managing Risks Conference” in Hawaii. Maicon will speak on the topic of online fraud prevention for credit unions.

Carabiner Client JMD Launches PR Campaign with $12 Million in VC Funding Announcement

One of Carabiner Communications’ newest clients, Jacket Micro Devices, suppliers of the smallest, highest performing RF modules available, launched its PR campaign with an announcement that it had raised $12 million in venture capital. A company feature, written by technology reporter Justin Rubner, appeared in The Atlanta Business Chronicle. Additionally, the funding news was covered by key venture and wireless trade outlets including TheDeal.com, Dow Jones VentureWire, Red Herring, Wireless Week, Semiconductor Online and InsideChips.com.

CRN Reports on matrix42’s Channel Partnerships

When matrix42 set up shop in North America in January of this year, IDC analyst Frederick Broussard said in a report, "Should matrix42 sign on two or more significantly large (channel) partners .... that would certainly be an indicator of the company's progress relative to competitors."

News of matrix42, an international leader providing enterprise management and automation software, signing agreements with two top channel players, RSpeed and The Normandy Group, is just what Computer Reseller News touted in an article featuring quotes from matrix42 COO Ron Harrison, Pete Perez, vice president of sales for RSpeed, and Chuck Burke, president and CEO of The Normandy Group.

Wren Video Surveillance Solution to be Showcased in Chain Store Age

A leading provider of video surveillance solutions for retail, education and government, Wren Solutions is scheduled to have a customer case study feature in a leading retail trade publication, Chain Store Age. Wren’s customer, Mattress Firm, will discuss its business challenges regarding operational losses, the technology evaluation process, and how the Wren solution worked to help the company extend video surveillance beyond security applications to increase operational efficiencies.

Hannon Hill’s Web-Standards & Accessibility Compliance Research Featured in eSchool News

Leveraging a study the company conducted internally to measure adoption of web standards by universities, Hannon Hill, makers of web content management solutions for mid-sized organizations, was able to secure a feature article in eSchool News. Assistant editor, Justin Appel, reported on the study and its findings in the education world. Study results were also reported by ZD Net, Forbes.com and ECM Connection. Additional coverage is expected in Campus Technology and the Section 504 Compliance Guide.

Another important achievement for Hannon Hill over the summer was the inclusion in a market research report. Hannon Hill’s web content management solution, Cascade Server, was highlighted as an “Industry Player” in an ECM research report by Capstone Partners, a middle-market investment firm in Boston.

President & CEO David Cummings was also quoted on the “10 Tips for Surviving a CMS Switch” in the October issue of University Business.

GTESS Honored as Fastest Growing Technology Companies in North Texas

GTESS, a healthcare claim transaction technology provider, was honored as a 2006 Tech Titan Fast 50 Company for high five-year growth among North Texas technology companies. Out of the Titan Fast 50 Top 40 winners for five-year growth, GTESS was ranked number 24. The MTBC Titan Fast 50 award recognizes the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth area based on percentage revenue growth over five years. GTESS has been named a Titan Fast 50 Company yearly since 2003.