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6 Personal Branding Lessons Every Working Professional Can Learn from Trump and Clinton

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Despite having the two highest unfavorable ratings of any major presidential candidates in history, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have outlasted their competitors—and one of them is going to become the leader of the free world.

What does success in the face of such highly unfavorable ratings teach us about personal branding? And what can working professionals at every level learn from it?

6 Personal Branding Lessons Every Working Professional Can Learn from Trump and ClintonBelow is an examination of both candidates’ personal branding successes, challenges and resulting lessons for us all in six specific areas. The success of any brand — in business, politics or otherwise — boils down to how the brand performs across these six key dimensions. Each dimension, including exactly how each candidate fared therein as well as the correlated Personal Brand Takeaways, can help other enterprising professionals achieve in kind.

1. Develop Your Brand by Design, Not Default. Know precisely where you are so you can discern where you need to go.

Trump: The Donald has clearly defined himself as the billionaire Maverick, owing no one anything. Trump has carefully crafted his image as the anti-establishment candidate proudly going against the grain. As a general strategy, it has allowed him to get away with more than the typical business leader or politician normally would.

Clinton: Despite her best efforts to promote herself as “the qualified candidate,” many Americans have by default stamped Clinton with the brand of Matron—part of the old guard of Washington politics. Recently she has begun to pivot and is trying to find her way to a brand by design based on straight-talking thoughtfulness.

Personal Brand Takeaway: Every business person, from secretary to CEO, needs to start by assessing the personal brand they currently have and be truthful about the degree to which it exists by design—or default. Then they need to take stock of the impact that current brand is having. Is your brand producing the reputation you desire? Is it creating the environment and responses you are looking for? If not, a pivot to a more powerful personal brand may be needed.

The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build, and Accelerate Your Brand2. Anchor Statement. What is the go-to description of who you are and what you do? This is sometimes referred to as an elevator pitch.

Clinton: To date, Mrs. Clinton has made her marketing bottom line “I’m the woman candidate,” but that has not played well with Sanders supporters and younger voters in general. While Clinton’s status as the first woman Presidential nominee is certainly history-making and a proud moment, as an elevator pitch, it’s flawed. She would be better served by focusing on another message (consider Obama’s focus on messages of hope and change, as opposed to his race) that resonates with a wider slice of democrats and the population at large.

Trump: Four words—“Make America Great Again.” This single sentence has become Trump’s signature call to arms, his reason why voters should check the box next to his name come November. The issue Trump will face as the election gets closer is how he will translate this general idea into specific policies.

Personal Brand Takeaway: All business people need to be able to present their brand in less than a minute. For example: When at a cocktail party you are asked the standard, “What do you do?” can you answer in a few short sentences that pique the listener’s interest? If not, your anchor statement needs some work. In addition, it’s important to pay attention to how your anchor statement is resonating and landing with your desired audience.

3. Unique Branding Proposition. What is it about what you do, or how you do it, that makes you unique, distinct and special? What sets you apart?

Trump: The presumed Republican nominee, Trump has taken a two-pronged approach to differentiating himself. First off, he is keen to point out (at every possible opportunity) that he is a businessman, as opposed to a career politician. Secondly, his message of “I’m willing to go it alone,” whether it relates to raising money to fund his campaign or being supported by the Republican party, is at the heart of his “why I’m unique” message.

Clinton: Hillary’s strongest point of differentiation to date has been “I’m the woman candidate.” The problem is that too much of her messaging has focused on this, and the voters don’t really seem to care.

Personal Brand Takeaway: Positioning yourself by specifically articulating how your brand speaks to the needs of your audience, and the unique way you address those needs, is critical to creating an effective personal brand. And the more specific you can be, the better.

4. Brand Tone and Temperament. What is the consistent mood, tenor, quality, character and manner you bring to all your interactions?

Clinton: Clinton’s tone has consistently been one of a serious Implementer. The tonal subtexts to her speeches ring with “I’m experienced, I know what I’m doing and I can get the job done.” Her demeanor, while dignified, is missing an accessibility (and even friendliness) that voters need to see in order to wholeheartedly embrace her as their Presidential candidate. However, given the alternative, it may be enough to win her the highest office in the land.

Trump: Trump is always Trump. To some, his brash pronouncements play with a tone of rugged individualism. For others, (even some members of his own party) his demeanor shows up as angry, and even childish in cases. So much so that the question of his temperamental suitability to be President has become a Democratic rallying cry. Likewise, Trump’s tone has some Republicans begrudgingly supporting him for the sole “anyone but Hillary” reason. Not exactly the inspiring message you would want your personal brand to create.

Personal Brand Takeaway: What you say has power, but the way you say it — your tone — has just as much impact. Every businessperson needs to be aware of how their brand tone is coming across (online and off) and adjust where necessary. In addition, taking any tone to an extreme will always backfire: Too serious or too snarky both harm a brand in the long run.

5. Signature Story. Why do you do what you do? What’s the essential story that brought you to this place?

Trump: Rather than focus on a narrative based on how his past has informed his bid for the Presidency, Trump is pointing to the present problems America faces as his reason for seeking office. But by doing so, he is missing the opportunity to tie his brand to a bigger, more historical reason for running.

Clinton: After her win in California on Super Tuesday, Hillary Clinton spoke about her mother, the influence she had on her life and how the way she grew up set her on a path to public service. Clinton has skillfully integrated her history into her narrative and connected the dots from how what she learned there has brought her to here.

Personal Brand Takeaway: Never underestimate the power of a good story. A strong (and truthful) narrative about where you came from and what has influenced you to do the work you now do can connect you with your customers, employees and colleagues at a deeper level. Your brand needs to be more than a single sound bite or pithy elevator pitch. Otherwise, you run the risk of damaging your brand when things don’t go exactly as you planned. The best brands feature multiple, complementary messages that weave together to form an accessibly complex and in-depth communication.

6. Signature Services. What are your core competencies?

Clinton: At the heart of Hillary Clinton’s brand is her varied and deep experience in government — and her proven ability to get things done in a political system that makes this challenging at best. Her particular expertise in foreign relations — especially at this time in American’s history—gives her a powerful place to stand as the candidate of choice. She is able and willing to talk about the “how” of the why.

Trump: In almost direct opposition to Clinton, Donald Trump’s brand is rooted in being “not” a government insider — but a business one. Continually providing tough talk about his corporate success, negotiation expertise and business acumen, Trump is presenting voters with the idea of a president who would function more like the CEO of a company than the head of state. While this “non-establishment” message is resonating with many people, the downside is Trump’s lack of specifics and seemingly naïve understanding of how things actually work in Washington and the protocols that keep the wheels turning—thus causing a questioning of his suitability for the job.

Personal Brand Takeaway: Know exactly what your brand brings to the table and how it stacks up against your competitors, and craft a powerful way to talk about it that inspires confidence in others. The fulcrum of your brand needs to rest on the material ingredients of your values and commitments.

A standout style (be it a brash Trump or competent Clinton) is a plus, but it will only take you so far. At some point going beyond taking a stand for what you believe in and specifically letting people know how you plan to get there will become a central issue. Think about one area where your personal brand is being expressed more in talk than displayed in action and focus on aligning the two.

About the Author

Karen LelandKaren Leland is CEO of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding and marketing strategy and implementation firm helping CEO’s, businesses and teams develop stronger personal and business brands. Clients include AT&T, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn and Twitter. She is the best-selling author of 9 books, including her most recent title, The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build, and Accelerate Your Brand, which details proven strategies, best practices and anecdotes from real life brand-building successes to help readers design, build and accelerate a successful brand. Learn more online at www.KarenLeland.com.

Seven Highly Desirable Characteristics of An Employable College Graduate

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As a college graduate, you now have a clearer path to increased earning potential, compounded retirement potential, and a longer and healthier life. In fact, young adults with a bachelor’s degree earned 57% more than young adults with a high school diploma and 105% more than young adults without a high school diploma, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

What does an employer expect from a college graduate? The tried and true trifecta – resume, degree, and “hard skills” – get you the interview, but your “soft skills” get you the job. You may be surprised to learn that the institution, degree, and GPA are certainly important, but the mastery of soft skills is your true business advantage.

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About the Author

Anne Deeter GallaherAnne Deeter Gallaher is CEO of Deeter Gallaher Group LLC and co-author of Women in High Gear: A Guide for Entrepreneurs, On-Rampers, and Aspiring Executives and The Future Belongs to Students in High Gear. For more information, please visit, www.studentsinhighgear.com and connect with Anne on Twitter, @AnneDGallaher.

The How of Heart

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Collaboration. Empowerment. Win/Win. Integrity. Authenticity. We’re finally recognizing the efficacy of acting with humanitarian values! But how do we DO it? How do we know what, or if, to change our comfortable communication patterns? How do we modify any unconscious behaviors to make new habitual choices and recognize when what we’re doing no longer is sufficient?

I’m excited: I’ve spent my life designing models that work with the unconscious to facilitate real change and choice. Esoteric, I suppose. But I’ve always known that habitual change cannot come from merely attempting to change behaviors.

From Abuse to Decryption: The How of Choice

As a child of extreme domestic, sexual, and physical violence, I frequently ran away to a rock on a nearby reservoir for safety and solace. Because I was an ‘A’ student, cheerleader, school pianist and Editor of the school newspaper – one of those ‘good kids’ – I couldn’t understand why I was being abused (The skeleton in the closet appeared years later.). Unfortunately, there were no agencies to help me in those days.

Sitting and thinking by the water, I wrote in Thinking Journals to decode my parents’ behaviors (In retrospect, odd for an 11-year-old.) so I could recognize an oncoming assault – something many incest survivors do. My dream was to make the data available so no child, no human, would ever be harmed again. I believed that people would prefer to do no harm if they could make mindful choices rather than have harmful, unconscious reactions. This ambitious goal matched my fledgling identity: when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I’d say “Change the world”. How odd for someone so young! (I was diagnosed with a form of Asperger’s decades later.).

During my years by the water, my Thinking Journals, of which there are now hundreds, filled with rookie drawings, illustrations, and ideas of ways to recognize patterns in both conversation and actions. For decades thereafter, I studied how language works with the brain, how brains create habits, and how to tear apart and understand human systems to add choice.

Decades later, as an entrepreneur, I had a complete, scalable skill set that facilitates a route between unconscious triggers and habits to make new choices: a new way to listen to avoid biases and assumptions, a new form of question that enables brains to capture, systemize, and shift the unconscious rules that govern each of us, and the sequence of change and choice so any aberrant behaviors could be interrupted and redirected. I developed a model of How to Change congruently that adopts the new without resistance; I’ve been teaching this in sales, coaching, leadership, and change management.

Much different than offering the Why and What of change, I offer the How – how to go into the unconscious and make systemic, congruent change.

Why Behavior Change Isn’t Good Enough

Our brains unconsciously choose our behaviors from our cache of lifelong subjective experience that I call our system; our subjective experience is a well-oiled machine that keeps us ticking congruently every moment of the day. Our viewpoints, our styles, our behaviors are all pre-determined and set to maintain systems congruence. I realize we all think we have unrestricted choice; we don’t. We follow our personal ‘company line’ in every communication.

When we wish to add anything new, it will be resisted as it will cause our system to shift out of congruence – even if it’s something we’re in agreement with because our brains must fit the new in with the old/habitual. We know we should go to the gym more often, or eat healthy; we know we should allow our relatives to have disparate political viewpoints. But try as we might, we hard-pressed to permanently change our behaviors. This is the problem with conventional training and Self-Help books.

Why can’t we just DO something different? Because it’s a Belief issue. The 400-pound man walking down the street will not heed an offer of a half-priced gym membership – not because he hasn’t looked in the mirror lately or because he’s ignoring his doctor’s warnings, but because his eating and lack of exercise are habitual: to make a permanent change, he’d have to ‘chunk up’ as they say in NLP, and go beyond the ‘What’ or the ‘Why’; he’d have to change his beliefs about who he is. He’d have to become a healthy person.

‘What’ to do is behavioral. ‘How’ is structural, systemic, and unconscious. Here’s an example of the difference: ZDNet has an article on transforming an organization on the principles of collaboration. They say it’s necessary to “Empower staff”: “To accomplish this goal it is important to train, support, and mentor staff to help them work more collaboratively. Staff must also practice their new collaboration skills back in the workplace so it becomes the new daily business and not just the latest management fad.”

Great. But HOW does one accomplish this? Everyone will interpret these words subjectively, according to their own beliefs about their skills. Obviously there can’t be organization-wide consistent adoption with just the What. ‘What’ offers a description and doesn’t address how to redirect our brain’s automatic choices. To convert the ‘What’ to the ‘How’ we must

  • add automatic unconscious choices to our habitual behaviors to comply with our new goals;
  • recognize the difference between what we think we’re doing and what we’re actually doing;
  • install something new without offending what’s been working well;
  • facilitate internal buy-in to make changes in the Status Quo;
  • override habitual behavior choices and replace them with the new as appropriate;
  • maintain systems congruence.

It’s far more complicated than just understanding What to Do. It’s actually How to Be.

Changing Beliefs Causes Changed Behaviors

The problem with seeking to act with authenticity or empowerment, etc., is that we attempt to make behavioral changes without shifting the underlying system that holds our current choices in place. We must change from our core Identities and Beliefs.

All of us have unique Identities; our Beliefs are the operating manuals; our Behaviors exhibit our Beliefs in action. Every day, in every way, we ACT who we ARE. I, for one, work out at the gym 9 hours a week. I hate it. Hate it. Words can’t describe how much I hate going to the gym. But I’m fit, healthy and strong. I AM a Healthy Person; my Behaviors carry out my Identity accordingly: I eat healthy, exercise, and meditate. We all do this in our own ways.

When anything seeks to change us – when we receive training, or get told to ‘do’ something, or when coaches ‘suggest’ or sellers ‘recommend’ or leaders promote a new change – it shows up as a threat and will be resisted unless it’s accepted and adopted by our Identity and given a value set in our Beliefs.

To act with compassion, to have empathy, to lead with values, to design collaborative environments, we need a set of core Beliefs that get incorporated into our habitual choices; we need to inform our system to match the Doing to the Being. We cannot congruently act the Doing if it’s incongruent with our Identity. It’s the most difficult aspect of change – creating consistent, habitual actions – because it’s unconscious, systemic, and resistant. It is possible, however, but not simple.

Working, speaking, acting with Heart is not behavioral. We must first Be the people with heart; Be kind, collaborative, authentic people. Organizations need to shift their corporate identities and manage behavioral adoption; we must become Servant Leaders and compassionate Leaders. We just need the Skills of How to accomplish this.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the NYTimes Business BestsellerSelling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]

How To Find A Mentor

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How does one find, or how did you find, a mentor/mentee?

Before finding a mentor, a person should ask “what do I want to be the best at?” and then find the person whom they feel is currently the best at whatever they want to me the best at. Once you identify this person, you become a scholar at their life’s work and then you make every effort possible to make contact with this person. I think one of the best ways of doing this is to offer your potential mentor/mentee a number of ways on how you can help them out. Maybe there are some skills you have that can benefit your mentor’s career. You can offer to do administrative work for them. You need to make a personal connection with your potential mentor – make them see a piece of themselves in your eyes.

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About the Author

Ryan McCormickRyan McCormick is Co-Founder of Goldman McCormick Public Relations (www.goldmanmccormick.com) and Host & Executive Producer of the nationally syndicated Outer Limits of Inner Truth Radio Show (www.outerlimitsradio.com).

Skills necessary to compete in rapidly evolving markets

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Speed, agility, communication, delegation, innovation

You’ve heard the saying “fighting the last war”. It refers to preparing to compete using familiar techniques, against competitors you’ve faced before, in the same markets or industries, only to discover that the rules have changed. Modern business competition is changing rapidly, and to compete effectively, you need to understand the skills that are required to win.

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About the Authors

Jeffrey Phillips leads a strategy and innovation practice at OVO Innovation. Before OVO he has led strategic marketing and sales teams in software and consulting companies. Jeffrey is a recognized thought leader in innovation, and has published three books on innovation, including Relentless Innovation. He has consulted in the US and Western Europe, and led training programs and workshops in the Middle East, South Africa, South America and Southeast Asia.

Alex Verjovsky brings over 20 years’ experience in the consulting and technology sectors as both a consultant and entrepreneur. His most recent company, Castor Fields SAPI, reached over 12 billion dollars in sales. Prior to Castor Fields, Alex founded BioFuel Alternatives, a pioneer in the biodiesel market. Alex is a graduate of Columbia Business School.