Stimulate Yourself – The Government Takes Too Long

Make Sure Your Brand is “Shovel Ready” for Opportunities That Come Your Way

Economic stimulus is all over the news these days, with CEOs of major corporations coming to Washington to beg Congress for money to get their corporations back on the right track. Well you are the CEO of your brand, which is your very own individual corporation. And the federal government may not be likely to stimulate your brand (unless you’ve managed to lose billions of dollars in the last year or so), but nobody’s stopping you from stimulating it yourself.

Let’s assume you don’t have a pile of cash waiting to be infused into your brand-building efforts. What can you do to provide your brand some much-needed stimulus? Your options are almost limitless. Take a class to learn a new skill in your field, or even earn a degree to enhance your knowledge and mastery of your profession. Join a professional networking group, or take an active leadership role in a group to which you already belong. Attend a professional networking event and have at least five meaningful conversations with potential contacts. Volunteer to take on that orphaned project nobody wants to claim at your job and then produce a stunning success. Show up a little earlier in the morning and go home a little later in the afternoon. Call an old friend or colleague you’ve lost touch with and see if you can help each other build your personal brands. Smile at everyone you meet, you never know who is a potential client or customer.

When you stimulate your brand, you make it shovel-ready so that when an opportunity for career advancement comes along, you are ready to take advantage of it. It’s one thing to possess experience and knowledge, but it’s another thing to possess the right experience and knowledge. And even if you possess the right experience and knowledge, unless your brand clearly conveys that fact, you will probably get passed over in favor of somebody who did a better job stimulating their brand and is therefore more shovel ready for the opportunity.

The old saying goes “Opportunity knocks once.” But I’ll fill you in on a little secret: opportunity doesn’t knock. It silently passes to those who have positioned themselves to grab it the second it becomes available. By the time an opportunity is widely known, it is already long gone. Stimulate your brand today, and be shovel ready for that next big break tomorrow.

www.themichaeldbrown.com

Don’t Let a Tough Job Market Distract Your Focus on Your Ambition

There is always room for a Good BRAND!

As hard as it to believe, this year’s crop of college seniors will soon be matriculating and hitting the workforce. Usually, graduation is a time of happiness and excitement, but for many grads in the class of ’09, that joy may be tempered with a little nervousness. For the first time in several years, the workforce is hitting back!

According to a new study conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), employers expect to hire 22 percent fewer new grads from the college Class of 2009 than they actually hired from the Class of 2008. More than two-thirds of employers said the economic situation forced them to reevaluate their college hiring plans, and nearly all of those said they have decreased their planned number of hires. NACE figures indicate 2009 will be the worst job market for new college grads since 2002.

If you were a “branded” college student vs. a “generic” college student you would have likely done the following: You were a campus leader both in and out of the classroom. You excelled academically, held leading roles in clubs and organizations, and actively sought out internships and co-ops with prospective future employers. Through all these activities, you built a network of peers, professors, co-workers and bosses who can all vouch for the effectiveness your personal brand. Guess what – now is when all the hard work pays off!

As someone who built a brand in college, you have already identified your ambition and built the foundations of both a personal brand and a network of friends and colleagues that will help you reach that ambition. Your quest and journey to be a branded student vs. a generic student has served you well the last few years on campus, why abandon it now as you enter the “real world,” when it can help you the most?

Tap into your network to discover the most rewarding job leads, the ones that usually never make the newspaper or the Internet. See if someone you impressed at an internship can help you find a great first job, either with that company or somewhere else.

And if you didn’t become a clear and compelling brand during your college years, – it’s never too late to start! Former classmates, professors, employers and coworkers can still prove a valuable resource in helping you find meaningful work and obtain (or perhaps discover) your ambition. Volunteer for a worthy cause and show how much you’re truly capable of doing. Join a professional organization in a field that interests you and make new contacts.

Whatever you do, don’t sit around moaning about your misfortune to be graduating college this year. That type of behavior is for generic graduates, and branded graduates are winners and not whiners!

Michael is the creator of a very popular process called Fresh Passion- Get a Brand or Die a Generic®. This process is credited with helping to prevent thousands of students from graduating into poverty.

http://www.themichaeldbrown.com