The Valuable YOU – Your Branding & Your Bio.

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Katie: Hi! Katie Snapp from Skirt Strategies.

Carol: And Carol Wight.

Katie: This is your monthly video training for women in leadership. And this month at Skirt Strategies – we’re talking about what, Carol?

Carol: “The Valuable You.”

Katie: The valuable you, branding and your bios.

Carol: Yes.

Katie: It sounds like I’m interrogating you, but I think I am this month. Why would you say that’s important?

Carol: You know what’s interesting is – you and I have done some branding work. I think it’s really important for women to start talking in a very positive way about themselves. We are very apt not to tell people who we really are because we don’t want to sound like we’re bragging.

So knowing your value and being able to articulate that is extremely important in this day and age.

Katie: In your bio and in your brain.

Carol: Yeah.

Katie: Just the exercise of having to describe it to somebody else or describing it to your Aunt Mary who asked – “Well, what is it exactly that you do?” And you’d have to put it into so many words that’s understandable to somebody like Aunt Mary.

It’s amazing how you can stumble over… “Oh, I’m not sure what my values.”

You’ve got to be able to pinpoint it very nicely. Because if you can’t – are your customers or the people that you influence going to? No.

Carol: Katie and I just recently did a really fun workshop and it’s about rewriting your bio. And you know, we get in there and we list everything and I think we’ve said this before.

But we had just a great time with about five other women, but they were so hesitant to say really great things about themselves and we had to pull it out of them. And a lot of their accomplishments didn’t come out until the very end of the session.

Katie: Same thing happened with us too when we were doing the exercise. “Here’s what I did. Blah and blah and blah. And in 1999 – I did blah.”

Whether you’ve had a long career or not – you look back at some point and start to realize, there’s a few things I did either last year or 25 years ago that wow! I didn’t realize at the time, but they started to add up and it becomes impressive and it becomes – maybe not impressive to yourself, but when you put it down and you share it with others, it’s impressive. You want to be able to leverage that. Optimize it.

Carol: Exactly. Well, and that is part of what you have to do. You have to know what’s impressive and what’s not. A lot of our lives are very impressive.

We even did this program with a young woman who was still in college. And she said, “Oh, I don’t have anything.” It turns out she did. She had a lot in her past that really was impressive to all of the women in the group.

Katie: And it’s exciting in a completely different way.

Carol: True. So don’t ever think that you are not impressive. You are – and your accomplishments are impressive.

Katie: So some tips about branding. Because branding and bio – your bio and your branding, your resume – however you want to say it – kind of go hand and hand.

You’ll notice on our website – if you want to take a look at our bios at about us, they’re written in a little bit different way. It’s not a CV – as they say in the educational world.

Carol: It’s not a list of our accomplishments.

Katie: It really is more of a story, right?

Carol: Right.

Katie: So a couple of things about galvanizing your brand. Here’s an idea – registeryourname.com.

Carol: carolwight.com. I think somebody already has that. There’s a real estate agent in Southern California.

Katie: Really spelled the same way?

Carol: Yeah. Weird, huh?

Katie: Yeah. Well, you have to put your middle initial on there.

Carol: I will.

Katie: Consider making a 30 second personal commercial. Everyone has a video camera now – almost everyone. On your iPhone or your Smart Phone or on your computer, you can real simply do a 30 second video. You don’t have to share it with anyone. But I’d be curious as to what would you say.

Carol: Well, and scripted to a certain extent and then let it go for a little bit. But isn’t it interesting to think what we would say about ourselves if we were trying to sell ourselves?

And you don’t necessarily want to list all your skills. “I can type. I can type at a hundred words.” You want to maybe list some of your transferrable skills. “I’m good with people. I’ve managed 150 people before. I’ve done certain things that…”

Katie: That are irrefutable – I think.

Carol: That are irrefutable that people can look at and say, “Oh, I need somebody with those kind of skills.”

Katie: Yeah.

Carol: And that’s part of it.

Katie: Here’s another tip. Tell me what you think of this. “Do everything with a creative flare and have a good time doing it.”

Carol: Well, that’s what attracted me to you. And becoming your partner in the first place was – you are a fun person. And I don’t want to work with somebody who’s not fun.

Katie: Work should be always fun.

Carol: So that is a part of our brand though. And we want that known to people.

You look on Skirt Strategies – it’s not totally serious. Our message is serious. We believe in women. We believe they’re leaders. But we do this in a fun way.

So that’s part of our branding. Its taunt us in a little bit of trouble with the serious people.

Katie: Yes, that’s right.

Carol: Corporate HR programs are a little hesitant to use Skirt Strategies as their leadership training. But we’re not going to do it – unless we’re going to have fun. And we want you to go.

Katie: Yeah. It could’ve been non-negotiable with us.

Carol: Yeah, it really is.

Katie: We can’t bring it to you – unless it’s going to have a little bit of frivolity with it.

So all month, we’re going to have some tips around creating the valuable you, emphasizing that, articulating and how you put it back into the world. Did you have anything else to add?

Carol: Well, I did wanted to tell a story because I think it’s really appropriate for this.

I was with some folks that I worked for recently – and I mentioned something about my job being very easy. “Well, I can do this all day long. It’s not very difficult.”

Katie: And they cut your salary?

Carol: You know what’s interesting? My husband is like, “Don’t ever say that. Tell them you’re not even about years of skill behind you and that’s why you make it look easy.” Which is true – I’ve been doing it for 10 years so it does…

Katie: You’ve mastered it.

Carol: I’ve mastered it and I make it look very easy. But he’s like, “Don’t tell them that.”

So watch what you say and don’t waffle. Know your value and know how to articulate that to other people. And then people will be more inclined to give you those raises and other things that you do deserve.

Katie: Its part of the exercise that our subscribed members know that they will see this month – is to take you through some questions along – What do you do well? What seems like you’ve mastered? How do you want to leverage that in your branding or your bios?

We’re kind of pushing back on it just a little bit. Even if you have what you think might be enough today – bio, we’re going to test it just a little bit.

If you’re not a subscribed member, it’s only $27 a month – easy to do, you can always jump up to that and you get lots of other benefits as well.

So at the website – if you want to go to the membership tab and see more about it, we’d love to have you at any quick time. Weekly training – if you’re into that, then we’re here for you.

Carol: Yeah. We are.

Katie: So that’s about it for this month. All this month – we’re talking about it. Remember, you’re a valuable you.

Carol: You are valuable.

Katie: We’ll see you next time.

Carol: Thanks so much. Bye, bye.

Katie: Bye.

 

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