The Chinese Rush

Did you know that there’s a whole industry dedicated to trend watching? In other words, some people spend their days trying to figure out what the future has in play. They don’t just do it for the sake of being first to know but companies pay substantial cash to figure out where the world is going in the hopes of not behind left behind.

Trend watching should also play a key role in your career development. Trends mean change and this change can make you or brake you.

Twenty years ago, if you told people that it would be possible to make a living on something called the information superhighway aka the Internet, they would have called you a lunatic.

Today for example, more than 750 000 people are said to be making a full-time or part-time living off eBay!

One hot trend that people are hyped up about is the economic rise of the People’s Republic of China.

Companies are excited about the endless possibilities: “Wow, this is huge goldmine! A target market of one billion people!” Of course, these same companies have a hard time increasing or keeping their market share in their own countries but they see greener pastures but that’s another story…

(Their utopia is partly founded: Seth Godin posted on his blog a few months ago an astounding statistic: 55,000,000 (Fifty-five million) children play the piano in China! You can now imagine how excited Yamaha, Steinway & Sons, Bösendorfer and other piano makers are.)

As the rush to China increases, smart people should try to benefit from the trend. If you are a job seeker, you can make yourself noticed if your CV (résumé) shows that you have expertise that can benefit companies trying to do business in China.

What type of expertise?

- Ability to speak Chinese or any language spoken in the People’s Republic
- Ability to understand the subtleties of doing business in China or with Chinese people

The above are just two straightforward examples that can differentiate you from other job seekers that don’t even know a great deal about globalization.

If you are able to write and effectively communicate in Chinese and you’re still without a job or can’t get your career to move forward, you are asleep on the wheel!

If you have knowledge that pertains to doing business in China, you could even start a blog about it and/or contact print or online business publications and offer to share your expertise in form of articles or featured contributor. Sooner or later, companies impressed with your expertise will come knocking at your door.

You’ll see this kind of phenomenon during a crisis… something that makes big news happens in a little-know country and on all the TV channels, radio show and newspapers columns, you are exposed to (usually) the same experts on the kind of crisis that’s happening or in the area affected.

Such experts usually go on to become hired as employees, freelances or consultants because the mere fact of appearing on TV, radio or print media is a powerful credential that separates them from other people who might be looking for the same job or contract.

For now, just know that China could be your key to your visibility. We’ll discuss more trends that you should pay serious attention to, as they might be a boost to your career.

Lessons From A Dead Body Guy

Chuck Lamb, a budding actor from Columbus, Ohio is becoming famous thanks to a very unique idea. He’s the topic of today’s case study and a true example of how done right, personal branding can get your career to a whole new level.

It’s no secret that making it big in the Hollywood film industry is probably harder than holding your breath for ten minutes (OK, I am exaggerating but it’s to stress the fierce nature of that competitive industry).

Mr. Lamb aka the The Dead Body Guy is on his way to becoming a famous and well paid movie star. And all this has happened in less than three months of starting his personal branding strategy!

The Dead Body Guy did everything right:

1) He came up with a very unique idea: playing the role of a dead person. You may say that there have been countless movies and shows with dead people in them. But Mr. Lamb is the first to make a big deal out of it.

2) He set-up a website. He does not talk about his programming job, his 6 children or anything else unrelated to him wanting to play a corpse.

3) He promoted the idea. Not himself but the fact that he’d like to make it big as an actor of death scenes. That unusual idea spread like wildfire in the blogosphere, which eventually caught the attention of the mainstream traditional media and now, The Dead Body Guy is everywhere!

His promotional efforts are paying off. He seems to be landing some roles as dead person. Not bad after only three months of coming up with the marketing strategy!

You could say that Mr. Lamb has it made. But sooner or later, his story is going to become boring and the attention he’s currently getting will wear off.

He was lucky. Now he needs to come up with more ideas on how to keep the media interested. He’s in a strange situation to be honest: his fame will allow him to charge high fees to appear in movies. How many movie producers will accept to pay a fortune for a guy who’s playing dead? Not many!

Chuck Lamb has gotten his foot into the movie biz. Getting there is one thing. Staying there will be another. I have a few ideas that he could use to strengthen his personal brand but they will be for another post.

For now, just know that personal branding is not rocket science. If one guy can become a celebrity just with his dream of playing a dead guy, don’t you think you too have a chance to building a strong personal career brand?

My Beef With Most Gurus & Experts

Wow, I was just on Amazon.com checking out some of the books written about personal branding. Thanks to the feature that allows the shopper to view books’ tables of content, I was able to more or less have an idea of what the authors have to say.

Most of them tend to tell you what to do but seem to forget to mention how to do it. That’s the problem with most “gurus” or “experts” in my opinion. They’re quick to tell you about the problem and then proceed to tell you that you need to fix it but never seem to have the solution.

I like to believe that I am different. Whenever, I share an idea or a concept, I not only show you what to do but also how to do it. And I don’t give some complex solutions that no average career person will get. I like to keep my plans of action simple and very effective. Stick around, browse around and see for yourself.

Sad But True

This is funny… I introduced this brand new blog to a friend of mine and he was like: “I did not know that you knew all this stuff? Where did you learn it?”

His expression actually said: “Hmm, why should I believe you?”. That’s a pretty fair question because this friend of mine only knows the silly non-serious side of me so he still has to get used to the concept that I can dish out some powerful self-promotional advice…

You probably do face a similar situation as you try to establish your expertise. Your family and friends must be supportive yet they don’t really seem to buy into your ideas… How do you change their mind? Easy: make sure that you get some accolades from respectable third-party source.

That can be a professor, a positive newspaper mention or photograph, an award, a testimonial from happy readers/clients/customers and so on. In this case, I showed my email inbox to this friend of mine with the thank-you letters from people who have benefited from my advice during the years including executives from companies such as Apple to Toshiba and within ten seconds, he took me seriously and was more receptive to the advice I gave to him.

Moral of the story? Some people (actually most people) will not believe your claims or ideas until they see or hear others raving about you. It might be sad but that’s the way it is.

What’s Personal Branding?

I would be a liar if I said that I am the person who invented the whole personal branding movement (although I can safely brag that I make the whole concept simpler as far as the practical application is concerned).

Few career and marketing thinkers have been on the ball for quite a few years but I find that they tend to be involved in so many things that they’re never really thorough in the whole personal branding discipline. My guess is that it’s not that a profitable topic?

Here are some good articles and books that you should read to understand the reasons why you need to create a personal brand in order to survive the harsh job marketplace:

- The Brand Called You by Tom Peters:

Big companies understand the importance of brands. Today, in the Age of the Individual, you have to be your own brand. Here’s what it takes to be the CEO of Me Inc.

- What Is Personal branding? by Peter Motoya:

It’s the new reality no one wants to concede – and it’s the cold, hard reality behind success in the new millennium. From the schoolroom to the boardroom, everyone succeeds – or fails – by the rules of Personal Branding

- The Brand Called “YOU” by Laura Ries:

With a New Year fast approaching, many of us reevaluate our lives and jobs and make resolutions to change. So I thought it might be helpful to think about how you can best improve and build your own brand

There are more articles on the topic but I find that some of them are just plain stupid… For instance, some say: “Return phone calls on time” or “Be polite” or “Dress for success” or “Think positive”. That’s just common manners and relying on those pointers alone to get you ahead in your career is like giving baby food to a wrestler: it might taste sweet but it will not do much for his body…

It’s Never Too Late

It does not matter if you still have 10 years to go before you retire or if you have just started a new job in a company and it seems that you do not need to promote yourself anymore.

You still need to brand yourself. Stand out from the crowd, get known by standing for something. In simpler terms: be different.

You never know when that nice company of yours might go bankrupt, when they might decide to lay you off or heaven forbid, you mess up and find yourself in the street.

Even if you are nearing retirement, you never know what might happen in your retirement years that you need to get back in the job marketplace.

It’s never too late. Start today! Start now! What makes you different? Are you claims believable (i.e.: do you have proof)? What are you doing to let the world (i.e.: your industry) know that are you the real deal? Get to work!

Another Reason Why We’re All Sheep

Creating a hit record has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of a song. If you don’t believe me, check out the current charts. I mean if a song like “My Humps” can make it while some songs that are good are nowhere to be found, it means that music is more marketing than art.

Whether we (humans) admit this or not but we heavily rely on the opinions of other before we make our own. That’s just one thing about human nature that you need to know in order to move up the corporate ladder or make any career move.

That’s why you should focus on programs that get you an initial loyal and vocal fan base and usually, the herd effect will kick in. If some people say that you are good everyone is going to wonder what is the big deal about you and you are going to attract more attention.

More attention leads to more popularity and more popularity leads to more attention, which eventually leads to an avalanche of emails with enticing job offers.

In theory it’s pretty simple… the practice is another matter. But we’re not talking about rocket science either! You just need a good idea that will make you stand out, fuel it and before you know it, you will no longer be invisible. Stay tuned on more ways to get all this done.

Hello world!

After talking to some of you, I have decided to drop the email format and just create a website where everyone can get any new tips and advice on their own time instead of me invading your inboxes.

I guess that this will also go down in history as being the first blog post. If you have no idea what this posts means, it’s because you were not on the email list.

A few years ago, friends who knew that I was in the marketing field and who were amazed at the way I had managed to move into a new city and establish a strong and reputable career, started seeking my advice on how they could get ahead in their careers.

Some were still at university or college, some were currently employed but not enjoying their current position for various reasons and some simply wanted to get a raise.

I simply applied the marketing principles that I learned in my years of practice, added them with my personal experience and did some extra digging into what makes a successful career and then reported the results via email on an occasional basis.

This informal mailing list quickly grew thanks to the feedback but it got to a point where people that I did not sometimes know, were asking me for issues pertaining to their personal situations and some were even asking me to search a job for them!

To simplify everybody’s life including mine, I have decided to move everything on a blog format. You can still subscribe but this time via RSS. If you have no idea what that is, I suggest that you visit Wikipedia and get informed.

I will shortly create an “About Us” page where, I will show new readers what we are all about and remind current readers of our mission and future direction.

Interesting… this first post was meant to be nice and short… It turned out to be a semi-novel! If you were on the email list, you probably are used to me by now, aren’t you?