I was walking around Lake Daylesford with my rescued greyhound Issy. Lorne was doing the same with his rescued greyhound Evie. Peas in a pod in appearance, night and day in temperament. Both beautiful, gentle animals, they facilitated a chat that resulted in a meeting with Lorne’s partner Juanita. Lorne and Juanita are two of the nicest people in the world and both incredibly clever at what they do.

However, it’s Juanita’s skill I want to highlight in this post.

Lorne mentioned that his partner liked to photograph women. And by God is she good at it.

But Juanita is not just a good photographer, she is brilliant. She brings out the essence of the person that she is shooting. Their strength, their vulnerability, the different ways that they want to be seen in the world.

Recently I was surprised and flattered to be asked if I would like a shoot. YES!

Then came concerns and fears that I am oh so familiar with… I can’t do this I’m too old too fat too unattractive. I don’t have anything nice to wear… I don’t think that I can do this…

I am not surprised that a whole lot of unhealthy emotions arose, but I didn’t really expect them either. When I think about my ‘personal brand’ I can’t help but ask myself “how did I end up in public relations?”

It was an odd career choice for someone who grew up with a mother who freely admits that she doesn’t like people. Therefore, our family had little to do with people. Few visits and fewer visitors and less than brilliant social skills.

My choice of career became clearer to me when a friend asked “How come you’re not in the media? Isn’t that your job? “I explained that it wasn’t about me, it was about helping my clients to get stories in the media (or stay out of the media). I loved the strategy, the liaison, the facilitating others into the media, while I stayed clear of the public eye.

So now, my personal brand was starting to take on a much more public hue.

Key Learnings

• Feel the fear and jump at opportunities anyway.
• Your values and attitude are what matter
• Even though you do the job every day don’t forget to reflect

Post 4 in the series is what I learned from my photo shoot experience

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The post My Personal Brand Experience – the next level – Part 3 in a series appeared first on Agility Communications.

This was new for everyone and there was no-one else in my community working with social media the way I was. It was becoming something that I was known for. However, once again, that was happening without any conscious intent from me. Having only recently learnt my lesson, I spent some time trying to decide if this was something that I wanted to do or if it was just a distraction.

I worked in media and media was changing at an incredible rate. My journalist contacts were losing their jobs and becoming PR consultants themselves. Writing for business was still required but more and more, this was writing for digital mediums and online audiences.

I had just decided that this was the direction that I wanted to go in when I was asked to become a social media facilitator and mentor for Federation University. A new 3 year federally funded program, Digibiz wanted small to medium business to be using the Internet for business when the NBN came to their neighbourhood.

I went on to deliver many workshops on social media in my community, but also to another four local government areas in the region. I mentored many small businesses in strategy, practical uses and application of social media and met many of the local businesses that I had not until now known.

I was in front of businesses, I was becoming known, I was successful and I decided that yes, social media was on the ascendancy and so important to the goals my clients had, that I would continue to do this work that I loved, was good at and could become part of my personal brand.

Not the only thing I did, not the only thing that I wanted to do, but something that I was passionate about and that I enjoyed.

Key learnings

• Jump at opportunities to do what you love, stay up to date so that you can go on teaching in an ever-changing medium
• Don’t worry about what people think – mostly they think that you are great! The occasional person may not, but let it go
• Stick to your values and be transparent about them

Thank you to Helen Thompson and Gerrie Carr-Macfie for the opportunity to work with CERDI.

This is part two in a four part series on developing my personal brand.Part three will be available shortly.

The post Finding my Brand – Part 2 in a series appeared first on Agility Communications.

The view from my house – who wants to commute to Melbourne?

Personal brand is something that has excited my thinking for a few years now. I have worked with entrepreneurs, artists and business people on their personal brand and I love that it is one of the services that I offer.

But it wasn’t always thus.

Seventeen years ago I moved from Melbourne to a small farm just outside a busy tourist town 100 or so km’s away. For a few years, I commuted to my job as PR Manager for a national organisation creating and implementing strategies along with my team of five.

After a while, I realised that although I had moved to paradise, I spent very little time there and knew few people, because the bulk of my time was travelling to or from my Melbourne job. So, I took a plunge, left a well-paid job to start up on my own. Something that I had never considered doing before.

Ascend Public Relations and Communications was the result and for a while my previous employer kept giving me work that I could do from home so I was in a good position while I started the planning and marketing process.

My business moved forward very slowly. So slowly, sometimes it felt like I was going backwards. I was unknown in an industry where word of mouth is very important and where, at least in the immediate area, most businesses were small and on tight budgets.

My major concern was income. I had a mortgage, 20 acres, cows, and horses – and they are expensive!

This was the background to my first BIG mistake in personal branding. I was encouraged to tender for some community consultation work for the local Shire. It was work that I was skilled at from a long and varied career, I jumped at the opportunity – a chance to meet the community, a chance to earn some income. I loved the project and soon after tendered to do the same thing in another town in the Shire.

What had not occurred to me was that this was the work the public were seeing. This is what they thought that I did. They had no way of knowing that this was a stopgap for me. Good honest work, but not what I did.

The next mistake was that while looking for work, I offered my services for little or no cost to community organisations.  I still do this, it is very much a part of my ‘brand’ but I am more discriminating about where my effort will have the greatest impact and how much I can do without compromising my paid work or undervaluing the work that I do.

None of these things occurred to me when I was thinking of my brand.

I was to go on and create a second business, same services, different audience about 5 years later, potentially very confusing to my audience. But I had learned from these experiences and mitigated the confusion wherever possible. And, I built a much stronger personal brand in the process.

My Key Learnings:

• Do what you love, love what you do, but try not to get sidetracked – even for money!
• Network, Network, Network. I was feeling lethargic from a perceived business failure when I know that when I leave the office to network, business comes to me
• Provide assistance where you think that you can add the most value, but do it in a way that it does not undervalue the work that you do

This is the first of the series in my own personal brand process you can see the next three posts here

Meet Juanita at Broderick Photography

https://www.facebook.com/broderickphotography.com.au/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/juanita-broderick-9aa856100/

https://www.instagram.com/broderickphotography/?hl=en

The post My experience of Personal Branding -The first in a series appeared first on Agility Communications.