I recently wrote a series of short blogs on creating my personal brand. The stimulus for that was a magnificent photo shoot with Juanita Broderick. The links to each post are below, along with an infographic that I created on the process.

Post One My Experience of Personal Branding – the first in a series

Post Two Finding My Personal Brand – part 2 in a series

Post Three My Personal Brand – The Next Level – part three in a series

Post Four Upping the Public part of the Personal Brand – Part 4 in a series

The post What I have learned about Personal Branding – a personal experience appeared first on Agility Communications.

My decision to be photographed by Juanita required me to think about my physicality – how I appeared and how I was seen and assessed.

Not something I hadn’t thought about, but not something that I had seriously considered doing anything about. Authentic is very important both to me and to my clients. With me, what you see is what you get. Outdoors woman madly in love with animals, any animals, but particularly my pigs, horses, cows and of course Issy.

But all the same on a stinking hot day I arrived at Juanita’s studio, suitcases and business props such as my banner in tow.

First part of the transformation was hair and makeup. I loved every moment of this experience and wished that it was a skill I possessed, although even if it was, it is more likely that I would be found mucking out the pig’s yards than adjusting my makeup.

Several changes of clothes and we are off.

Given some of the anxiety that I felt, I think that it is worthwhile to mention some of the things that helped me on this journey and on this day:

Trust – I was putting myself in the hands of an expert, actually two experts, a hair and makeup expert and a stunning photographer, they were going to do their best with me and if it all went pear shaped I didn’t have to use the photos. But I trusted that they would be great and they were much better than great.

Trust that Juanita wasn’t worrying about how she could possibly get a good shot.

Prepare – Juanita suggested that I bring some business props – no brainer, but I would not have thought of it. I brought my banner, an easel that I sometimes use in workshops and pens, laptop etc. I am so glad that I did. Fantastic, immediately useable shots.

Plan – I spent time thinking about what I brought to my work and therefore to the work of my clients and what I wanted the photos to portray:

I have a wealth of experience and learned wisdom

My communications’ background helps me to plan and deliver engaging strategies

I have empathy for older business owners – many have a fear of this changing world of technology, I can help them to come to grips with it painlessly

Quick to come up with solutions

Transparent values and ethics

Sense of humour

Clothes – I brought every piece of clothing that I liked, I didn’t expect to use them all and I did not, but as the artistic director, Juanita chose with my input and she made great decisions.

If you would like to refresh your personal brand and want some new photos, you cannot go wrong. The photos, I hope, speak for themselves. Contact us for help with your strategy

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 next post will be about important strategies in developing your personal brand.

Juanita Broderick brought out the cheeky, the zany and the professionals in this photo shoot of Noelene Gration

The post Upping the Public part of the Personal Brand – Part 4 in a series appeared first on Agility Communications.

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.

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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.

Who do we (and our customers) look to when making decisions about products and services? Well, the strongest influences are these:

·      88% of buyers consider online reviews “very influential” when making a purchase decision.

·      90% of consumers trust peer recommendations. Only 33% trust ads.

(grouphigh.com/social-media-influencers/)

That’s why many good marketing strategies steer us to what are called ‘social influencers’ – people who others trust to recommend products and services. Celebrities, well-known bloggers, people with recognised expertise – they can help bring in clients and sell products.

Using social media influencers comes with some requirements for truth and transparency, and it’s good to be aware of these.

Consumer law requires advertisers to prevent misleading communication, deceptive conduct and misrepresentation, including in testimonials.

Certainly testimonials need to be true. If a writer says he’s visited your facility and found it a terrific place, that visit needs to have happened. But what about when you provide some reward or benefit to those who speak in favour of your work or brand? When do these rewards need to be disclosed?

So far, there is no definitive answer to that (it’s likely to come later via court cases), but there are a few guidelines. One is to look at what impression is created by the posts from an influencer. Is it fairly obvious that this would be a reward-based post? This person might be known to be your brand ‘ambassador’, for example. Or so famous you can’t imagine he wouldn’t expect reward for his services – like Usain Bolt.

But if the posts give the impression of an independent, unscripted, genuine recommendation of your brand – and yet, you’ve paid or rewarded the speaker, this could be a bit murky and could be perceived as misleading or deceptive. One of the ways around this is to include some tags that fairly subtly identify paid advertising – like #spon, #ad, or #ambassador.

Despite these new rules and the challenges of making sure your social media and ad work stay within the law, the positive impact of using thought leaders and social influencers is so strong (88% and 90% are big numbers…) that it’s worth doing, and worth doing right.

If you’d like a hand with a strategy for boosting your brand via social influencers, Agility can help – just give us a call.

(If you want to know more, a good resource explaining this topic comes from lawyer Stephen von Muenster)

The post New influencer transparency rules – what do they mean for you? appeared first on Agility Communications.

I have gathered the information, written, edited and/or prepared, or many reports.

Although the resultant product has always been a sense of pride for me, my experience in its preparation has ranged between challenging, enjoyable and horrendous.

I am pretty sure that I am not Robinson Crusoe in this experience. The planning stage of an annual report is critical to its success and given that it will soon be time to start thinking about your 2015/2016 report, I have put some notes together to keep in mind this year. It is never too early to start planning.

Planning the report

Take time to ensure that all relevant directors and senior executives are clear on how they want the report to portray the organisation. Don’t be afraid to bring in some examples of your own. Keep track of reports that inspire you and bring them to meetings where layout and presentation is discussed.

Presentation: Will the report be printed, sent out as a PDF or online?

An early decision on how the report will be presented will make a big difference to your planning

Theme: Having a theme that all directors agreed on early will also make a big difference

A theme helps you to keep the report cohesive and makes it easier to find the stories that will make it pop. Also keep in mind – Who is going to write it? Will there be a single cohesive voice or a range of voices from across the organisation. It will be more coherent if written by one person, or written by section leaders and edited by one person for consistency.

Timeline: Make sure that you have a timeline and that everyone knows what it is and sticks to it.

If everyone knows when they have to write/submit/report back on information, you have a hope of getting it ready by the planned date without a nervous breakdown, send out reminders and make sure that the timeline is reasonable

Quality of photos: Start going through photos; make a list of the types of photos that you still need

You want photos that engage emotions and they need to be the right quality for the platform that you have decided to use to present the report.

Availability of stories: Don’t wait until ‘Annual Report time’ to start asking for stories

Remind teams regularly that you need stories for the report and that they should be keeping track of them all year. If they are not used in the report, there are likely many other uses for them.

Understanding regulatory requirements on Annual Reports –

Governments require certain things from government departments and funded organisations. Make sure that you know what is required of you, but don’t let it get in the way of an engaging report.

Acknowledge sponsors/donors/VIP – Thank everyone who helped your organisation grow One of the many things that can go wrong in an Annual Report is that at the last minute you start scrambling for your lists of people, organisations and government departments to thank. Or that you

Now for the content

Your accomplishments are more engaging than your activities. Paint a picture – what were your results? What difference did they make? How do they line up with your mission and vision? How did they inspire your staff/clients/customers? How can they inspire those looking at your annual report?

Audience

Your annual report audience is likely to be broad. Brainstorm all the people who will be interested in your report and keep them in mind while writing it. This could include board members, staff members, volunteers, shareholders, members of parliament, advocacy groups, regulators, competitors, financial specialists, lenders, creditors and journalists.

Photos

Images are essential, if you want your report to be understood and appreciated. Many people will not read the report right through, so make sure that your images are remarkable and have captions that tell your story of how the photo relates to your mission or an accomplishment you made.

Do you have something in place to make sure that someone is responsible for taking photos at your events and celebrations? This is a great way to get a variety of images. Better yet, if there are no/ few proficient photographers in your communications team, invest in photography training so that staff have a few tips that will make a big difference.

Is there also something in place to ensure that every photo at your disposal has written consent for use? That is essential and that the consent forms area easily identified with the person in the photo and easy to call up at any time.

The financials

I know that if I am going to have trouble reading any of the report, it will be reading the financial statements and interpreting the tables. This is often exacerbated by a tiny font. Consider a narrative written in plain English as well as the financial statements and tables so that all readers and viewers can get a clearer picture of your financial situation.

Regulation

Parliaments require specific information included in reports written by government departments and some other organisations. Make sure that you comply, but don’t let it stifle your creativity.

Acknowledgments

Don’t forget to acknowledge All your donors, supporters, funders

Contact us for help with your Annual Report

We love annual reports and we can – advise, write, edit – anything but design… We should have included – get a professional designer!

The post The early bird gets the …. Time to start thinking about planning your Annual Report appeared first on Agility Communications.

‘Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.’

This beautiful quote from Carl Jung reminds us that if you present all of your information in the same way, regardless of the audience, you are presenting information that is of no use to at least some of your audiences.

One way that we can show respect for our clients and customers is to make sure that our messages will resonate with them. To do that we may need to find a number of ways to connect.

Every client, potential client and past client is important to us. We will always strive to make our messages meaningful to the very different people that we work with.

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Just a couple of small issues. There is no sound on my computer, and each of us lived more than 100 kms from each of the other of us. Found the technology, (twice). It didn’t work either time. So while I go back to the drawing board for the rest of the year, I will present my topic and two guest speakers as an interview.

Our interview was all about the colour green. To be precise, Pantone’s 2017 colour of the year – Greenery.

Pantone describes Greenery “as a life-affirming shade, emblematic of the pursuit of personal passions and vitality”. Illustrative of flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors, the fortifying attributes of Greenery signals consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.

Our first guest, graphic designer and interior designer, Alana Ryan starts off by telling us a bit about green from a design point of view.

Alana is currently working as an interior designer for a wholesale textile company. Alana’s passion for all things design, led her to further her skills by studying graphic design.

She works full time in the interior design industry, whilst completing small to large graphic projects under her own business name AR.C Design Studio.

Alana has done some graphic design projects for some of my clients and I can highly recommend her.

Welcome Alana

I am interested in your thoughts as a designer on using a colour of the year, whether it be in graphic design or in the new office – is there a risk that the colour defines itself as 2017 into the future?

The Colour of the year is selected as a trend forecast as the colour that is expected to been seen throughout fashion, design and culture coming forward.

Trends are trends, they do usually have an expiry date. However, working in design, I have seen the interest in the colour green increase in the past 1-2 years, although previously they were richer colours such as Emerald Green.

With the current trend and society pushing towards the importance of health and wellbeing, sustainability, and the current trends in Interior Design (in regards to indoor plants etc), this colour makes sense on a global scale.

It is great to see such a fresh and vibrant green like Greenery forecasted for this year.

Do you think being a colour of the year influences decisions about colour in graphic design?

Yes, to a certain extent. Design is always about being on trend or the next best thing. As Greenery becomes popular and known through use, the colour may influence the way of colour schemes, the overall feel and font colour choices.

However, in terms of web design and marketing design I think the colour of the year has less of an impact.

Generally the selection of colour for web design/marketing is selected to reflect the brand, and although it is important to keep up with current trends it is also important to create a difference whilst also reflecting the brand.

This colour will most likely be used throughout web and marketing purposes for business/websites/for marketing collateral day spas, wellbeing etc. due to green being related to peace, nature and relaxation.

Would businesses would use the colour because it is the colour of the year, or is it the colour of the year because people are using it?

In terms of interior design, I think we will start to see this colour throughout homes in coming months, through paint and decor accessories, but also in fabrics such as velvets and linens for upholstery and cushions.

I think the colour will be used in different ways – paired with warm colours such as reds and yellows for a tropical scheme or with blues for a cooler look and feel, or even with neutrals to make the colour of the year stand out.

Interior design is very much about what is on trend and how it can be used in relation to what the client already has or their needs. Whereas I find graphic design, particularly in relation to business, is more about the brand and what it reflects.

What does green mean to you as a designer?

To me, green is the colour of Relaxation, Calmness, Balance, Growth and Sustainability. It reflects our environment, our nature, our landscape. It’s part of our everyday life, Pantone describe it as ‘our nature’s neutral’ and I absolutely agree!

I would now like to introduce our second guest Dari Rees (of Dari Rees Colours).

Dari has been working with colour professionally for over 30 years. She originally qualified with Beauty for all Seasons USA which complemented her background in fashion and soft furnishings.

Dari’s focuses on how we can use colour to enhance our lives and see ourselves as unique with our own style expression, regardless of fads and fashion, regardless of income or status.

She has worked extensively with women in transition and is an Aura-Soma® Practitioner. Dari describes herself as a Colour Tarotist, an Intuitive Colour Catalyst, Soul Stylist and Wardrobe Warrior.

Welcome Dari, I wonder if you can talk to us about the colour greenery in an esoteric sense?

What does that mean for 2017?

Green in general will allow the space we need to do the things that need to be done. Thus, if we tune into green we will feel that we have more time and space.

Pantone’s colour of the year Greenery, has quite a lot of yellow in it and I feel that working with this colour may lead to more cooperation as opposed to competition. Bringing more feminine leadership. More like minded people joining together. This colour is a unifier, a lively colour which brings about the opportunity for regeneration and healing.

Everyone needs green in some form as it helps us with direction, making decisions, generosity, freedom and openness. An absolute breath of fresh air!

Some of the Pantone choices come and go but I feel that Greenery is of benefit to all.

Do you think that businesses are influenced by a colour of the year?

Businesses will always be curious about latest trends and will be influenced in some way. Even if it is coffee cups and cushions!

I feel that this is a great colour for business this year, as it lightens things up giving more hope and possibility. To be more consciously aware of this colour in business should bring results.

The post Green is the new black, but can a colour really influence your business? appeared first on Agility Communications.

Email is a gift and a gaffe-in-waiting. The gift is its ability to let us communicate without catching the person at the right time on the phone; its record of things that need to be referred to later; its knack in scheduling a meeting or passing on a resource without having to catch all the parties involved.

The gaffe possibilities are endless – who hasn’t pressed Send and regretted it? However, concerns heighten beyond the ordinary oops, highlighted significantly by the current difficulties that have arisen in the US presidential campaign – notably the hacking and Wiki-leaks release of Democratic campaign email correspondence.

In an article in the NY Times (19 October 2016) titled ‘Whoever Wins the White House, This Year’s Big Loser Is Email,’ Farhad Manjoo puts it plainly:

Why were all these people discussing so much over email in the first place? Haven’t they heard of phone calls? Face-to-face meetings in dimly lit Washington parking garage? Anyplace else where their conversations weren’t constantly being recorded, archived and rendered searchable for decades to come?

This is not to encourage deception, but to question where to hold conversations that should remain private. (Not to say that phone calls can’t be tapped, of course…though if you are within the law, it’s fairly unlikely.)

However, it’s not just the matter of privacy. Manjoo points out some truly cogent questions for our review in regard to email use:

The deeper problem with email is that it has never quite settled on a social mode. An email can be as formal as a legal letter or as tossed off as drive-by insult. This invites confusion.

The tone and nature of emails need to be agreed on in an organisation’s culture and policies. And should emails on the intranet in an organisation be different from emails going out into the Internet?

Then we should consider time, as Manjoo explains (in relation to the Democratic campaign issue):

Finally, it’s worth noting how much time and how many emails — more than a dozen — it took the group to arrive at its decisions. Email sometimes tricks us into feeling efficient, but it rarely is. Because it’s asynchronous, and because there are no limits on space and time, it often leads to endless, pointless ruminations. If they had ditched email and just held a 15-minute meeting, members of the campaign could have hashed out the foreign-agent decision more quickly in private.

His conclusion?

In other words, limits often help. Get on the phone, make a decision, ditch your inbox. The world will be better off for it.

Our thoughts? Your organisation’s first concerns should be about how best to demonstrate your core values and meet your mission and objectives. Good public relations – inside and outside the organization – are crucial to success. Think about how your email practices contribute to or detract from each of these – core values, mission and objectives, public relations. If current correspondence via email isn’t quite up to the high standard you want, or presents risks you’d like to minimise, it’s time to make a change. If you’d like a hand with that, call us – all aspects of public relations are our core business.

PS: As Manjoo points out, there are alternatives to standard email, programs like Slack or HipChat (which allow for archiving after a few days or longer, taking the conversation off the system), or more elaborate apps like Signal, which encrypt the communications. You might want to explore some of these for your workplace.

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