Before starting my personal branding business over two years ago, I was a "head hunter". An executive recruiter who would hunt talent on behalf of my clients. It did not take me long in my young career to realize a personal brand was the key to becoming the hunted rather than hunter.
You see, when others were idolizing the brand name athletes and movie stars, I was getting goose bumps when the same name came up over and over as an expert in industry, product, leadership...I was a generalist which meant I worked on multiple industry, company size and geographic searches. Learning a new business plan, strategy, culture and trends often. The challenge was not always knowing the players right away so I had to pound the phone and comb the net researching companies and people. It was this process were I was able to notice the same names coming up. Most valuable the referrals with the same message telling me I must talk to so and so because of their personal experience and trust while pointing me to examples. Time and time again these people were the ONE!
I saw a trend I want to share with you. Our top candidates were the ones hardest to schedule and ultimately harder to close. Negotiations were tight and I was stressing out trying to keep my highly capable backup candidate "warm". Ironically, they were the easiest to find. Meanwhile, the hunters are calling frustrated because they are not moving fast enough. They are "perfect", available and ready to close they tell me. Looking back over the years I saw in action what I was taught by my mentors - "Hunt for the ones that don't need you right now"; huh, like getting funding is easier when you don't need money I thought! The referrals where the personal brand rose to the top based on my pitch were the ones I wanted while the people finding me (not referred), are struggling with a pitch of their own.
Twist, these were the few. The ones that our clients were willing to pay money for and planned time to get. I noticed they worked hard on common traits:
- Had a plan - may be loose and usually changes, but there was a vision and strategy that makes sense and you can identify (even with the out of box thinkers).
- Took Risk - always growing!
- Confident - not only in what they can do well, but can't. Aware!
- Build great teams - I mean great teams; inspired by the leaders vision. (I know because they referred and/or were references and would end up on my networking short list themselves)!
- Connected
Working on your personal brand should be one of your core competencies and when you nail it - others will evangelize. That is a brand!
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