Values Marketing Builds Long Term Relationships

by BusinessHow To Build A BrandJob Seeker

Values-based relationship between a business and a consumer create loyalty. Marylin Manson is a rock and roll singer, who has been popular among his fan-base for the last 30 years. He has gone through several reinventions in that time, with his musical style varying wildly, all the while staying true to a set of values that his marketing has centered around.

Fans have stayed with Manson through several musical genre changes because they’re not really there for his music, they’re there for his values. They’re there because he embodies a certain kind of weirdness that they identify with and like seeing performed. When they buy a ticket to his show, they’re not thinking about the money. They’re excited to be participating in something outside the norm.

Using Values Marketing To Build Loyalty

So, values are important because they facilitate relationships between businesses and customers, with the result being long-term customer loyalty. As long as you stay true to your values, your business relationships will remain solid over time.

If you’re building a personal following to gain career security, or one for your business, you want loyal business relationships that last a long time. That’s where security comes from. Those are the kinds of business relationships that last through recessions, and frankly, those are some of the only business relationships that are built during recessions and bad times.

When I work with someone at Stand Out Professional Branding, the first thing I do with them is establish their values. Everything else, including their social media communications, the events they organize, and even the companies they look to do business with, will be informed by those values that they establish.

The Results Of This Strategy

The end goal from this process is to build the kind of long-term relationships between businesses and customers that Marilyn Manson has cultivated with his career. Those relationships have lasted through several genres of music, fluctuations in popular trends, and even different lineups of the eponymous Marilyn Manson band due to the consistent values on display. To build relationships with the same kind of loyalty, you need to be using your values consistently.

You Can Always Reinvent Yourself

by Job Seeker

You Can Always Reinvent Yourself.

Just because you have a specific job right now, doesn’t mean you have to stay in that job forever. You can break free from boxes like that and reinvent yourself through a variety of means. One way is through personal branding. Another is through career coaching.

Leave Law Behind

Leave Law Behind is a company that helps lawyers break out of the box of “lawyerdom” and pursue alternative careers. They are like an incredibly specific career coach who focuses on solving one problem extremely well. LLB is a good friend of Stand Out Professional Branding, and if you’re a lawyer looking to break out of the law, we couldn’t recommend them more.

What Does It Look Like To Reinvent Yourself?

Leave Law Behind recently published three articles about how to leave the law and reinvent yourself. I present them here now and hope they can benefit you if you’d like to reinvent yourself.

What You Can Do With A Law Degree Besides Being a Lawyer

We hear the questions “What can you do with a law degree?” or “What can you do with a law degree besides be a lawyer?” very regularly. These questions occasionally come from students considering going to law school and want to know their future job prospects. More times than not, we hear these questions from current lawyers who are unhappy in the profession, and would like to explore their career options out of the law and want to know what other types of “alternative” jobs and careers they can do with a law degree. 

 

The truth is that the old maxim “you can do anything with a law degree” actually carries more weight than you may realize. Having coached thousands of attorneys through our blog, how they can land their dream career out of the law, this article lays out a two-step process, you can begin using to determine your ideal job. Read Full Article Here.

How an In House Legal Job Can Be Your Path Out of the Law

If you are looking for a change from your current law job, but you’re not ready yet to entirely stop using your law license, then you may want to consider an in house legal job.
 
You may feel that an in house legal job can let you have your cake and eat it too: You want to remain as an attorney, but you want to free yourself from most of the stress and anxiety of being an attorney in a firm or solo practice.
There is much truth to this. Casey Berman, Leave Law Behind founder, has been an in house counsel myself, and have helped many unhappy attorneys transition to general counsel jobs. This article will deep dive into the differences between an in house counsel job and the traditional law firm role you have now. We will also explore what you might want to watch out for when you’re considering taking one of these jobs. This article will also help you decide whether an in house legal job might be that stepping stone to your dream career out of the law. Read Full Article Here.
 

"Don't Be A Lawyer": What the TV Show Video Got Right

Written by a Leave Law Behind grad who successfully left the law for a management consultant career, this article explores how the song “Don’t Be a Lawyer” from the TV show “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” aligned with his own career path and life journey. 
 
The author discusses his journey as a lawyer, why he wanted to leave, the steps he took to map his way out of the law and the main revelation he gathered throughout it all. As he writes “I took a long look at myself – if you want to change your life, you have to change yourself first. I really dug deep into who I thought I was, how I saw myself, and what I wanted to be doing with my time. The realization that I was simply not aligned with my true self was jarring. But we can all move forward to our true nature, this much I know.” Read Full Article Here.

It's Never Too Late

It’s never too late to make a change, and if you need to make one, I hope those fantastic articles from Leave Law Behind help inspire you to reinvent yourself.

Alex Becker: Play To Your Strengths

by BusinessBusiness and Job SeekerEditor's PickJob Seeker

Play To Your Strengths

One Of My Strengths

One of my strengths is that I know that there are people who are better than I am at certain things. And that doesn’t take away from what I’m good at in the slightest. In fact, recognizing that fact makes me better at what I’m good at because it means I can incorporate ideas from others without having some kind of ego about it preventing me from doing something because it was someone else’s idea.

To wit, here is a video from Alex Becker, a thought leader in business that I very much so admire, where he discusses how important it is to play to one’s strengths.

Playing To Your Strengths Is Important In Both Business And Job Hunting

When you’re job hunting or running your business, you’ll be the most successful when you maximize your strengths and doing what makes you great. Don’t take my word for it though; watch the video above for an excellent argument about why this is so.

Lawyers: Make A Career Change With Leave Law Behind

by Job Seekerlawyer

Leave Law Behind

Although personal branding with Stand Out Professional Branding is definitely a strong way to go when you’re looking for a career change or get a new job, there are other ways to do that. Especially if you’re a lawyer.

Leave Law Behind is a company that helps lawyers transition out of law. And if you’re a lawyer, they can be a powerful resource for helping you leave a profession that is making you miserable.

Below I’ve included some articles and summaries from their blog to give you a sense of how Leave Law Behind can help you leave your frustrating, miserable career as an attorney, and transition to something much better suited to you.

The Ultimate Guide to Finding Your Dream Career Out of the Law

Article Link –> https://leavelawbehind.com/alternative-careers-for-lawyers/ 
Summary –> Are you an unhappy attorney struggling to live the life you truly want? Do you feel like you’re hopelessly trapped in the practice of law? Are you not clear on the next steps you can take to leave the law and find an alternative career that you like (or even love)? In this article, the team at Leave Law Behind will discuss how you can take your first steps out of the law and make a satisfying career change. They will also highlight and prepare you for some of the challenges you will encounter as you begin this process.

The Real (Surprising) Reason You Hate Being a Lawyer

Article Link –> https://leavelawbehind.com/i-hate-being-a-lawyer/ 
Summary–> If you are tired of being a lawyer or you feel being a lawyer sucks, the team at Leave Law Behind understands. In this article, they help you unpack the core reason why you hate being an attorney (which they think will surprise you) and learn what steps you can take to explore an alternative career out of the law. There is hope!

career change

Attorney Burnout: Break Free from Your Lawyer Anxiety

Article Link –> https://leavelawbehind.com/lawyer-burnout/ 
Summary –> If there is one word lawyers in the Leave Law Behind community say more often than any other term, it is “burnout,” as in “I’m so burned out practicing law, I need to leave before my mental and physical health suffers any more.” In this article, the team at Leave Law Behind does a deep dive into what burnout means in the context of lawyers’ health. They examine why being a lawyer takes such a toll on you, as well as provide you with some actionable ways you can free yourself from this “broken system that is the legal profession.”

I Know What I’m Talking About So You Should Hire Me To Build Your Brand

by BusinessBusiness and Job SeekerHow To Build A BrandJob Seeker

My Prediction Came True, Quickly. It Shows Why You Need A Personal Brand

In April 2020, I saw a video of an app developer called Kilo Loco I follow on YouTube saying he’d been laid off. And I wrote an article here saying that I was sure he’d get a job soon because his personal brand and large following means he has career security. 

It turns out I was right and I know what I’m talking about when I say building a personal brand results in career security (so, you should probably get started building a your personal or business brand with Stand Out Professional Branding today, eh?)

Here’s a timeline of those events:

March 27, 2020: Kilo Loco posts on YouTube about his firing.

April 10th, 2020: I post about how his personal brand would help him get another job.

May 11th, 2020: Kilo Loco posts on YouTube about getting another job.

Proof That I Know What I'm Talking About

I Know What I'm Talking About And Can Help You Build A Personal Brand

Stand Out Professional Branding exists to help people and businesses build their brands to develop career security.

Here’s how that looks in practice:

  1. Develop a personal brand by providing value consistently over social media and in real life, over a long period of time to make connections with large groups of people. I’ve got lots of free guidance for how to do this in the articles on this website.
  2. There is no step 2.

Developing A Brand On Your Own Is Difficult, But Career Security Is Worth It.

I started Stand Out Professional Branding because I know what it’s like to have career insecurity and don’t want anyone else to go through that nightmare. I graduated from college into the financial crisis of 2008, which was no picnic. Since then I’ve spent the last decade+ learning how business, digital marketing, and branding work and how to leverage them effectively.

When the job market started tanking again recently because of the Covid crisis, I knew I had to do something so that job seekers wouldn’t go through what I did in 2008. 

To get started building your personal brand and and gaining career security with Stand Out Professional Branding, email us at: standoutprofessionalbranding@gmail.com or fill out our contact form here and we will get back to you ASAP.

West Kraemer On: How To Build A Brand Basics Part 2

by How To Build A BrandJob Seeker

Hello again, I’m West Kraemer, founder of Stand Out Professional Branding, and I’m here to show you how your business values can successfully shape your branding. In part 1 of this series we talked about how your digital presence should be established and gave you a schedule to maintain for posting your content. 

The Foundation Of Your Messaging

Here in part 2, I’m going to talk about what the foundation of all of your messaging is going to be. This is going to help you establish your business values, mission statement, and slogan.

How To Find Your Business Values

Ultimately, to find your values, you want to ask yourself two questions:

  1. What result do you want to drive with your career?
  2. Why do you want to drive that result?

The answers to those questions, combined, are your business values. For a deeper dive into this subject, you can have a look at this article, which has more questions on the topic.

An Example Of Business Values

So, here’s an example from my life to get you started. I, West Kraemer, decided to create a digital marketing company because I want to help people gain career security.

The reason for this is because I graduated University into the 2008 financial crisis, and I want to help people avoid the difficulties I saw happening all around me at that time.

Turning Values Into Content

From these values, I created a mission statement, and slogan, which you can find here. Looking at the content on this website, you can see, it all relates back to the values, mission statement, and slogan.

When you’re putting out your pillar content, it should all come back to your values. Every time I put out a post, I think “will this post help a job seeker gain career security?” If the answer to that question is yes, then I know I’ve written a piece of pillar content that aligns with my values.

So, when you’re creating your content, think about what your values are, and then think about how you can advance those values with your content.

Next Steps

Okay, this is West Kraemer, founder at Stand Out Professional Branding, thanking you for reading this two part series. I sincerely hope it helps you start building your brand that results in career security.

If you want to hire Stand Out Professional Branding to help you build your brand and identify your values as effectively and efficiently as possible (we do most of the technical heavy lifting so that you can focus essentially just on creating content), you can hire us here if you’re a job seeker, and here if you’re a business owner.

West Kraemer On: How To Build A Brand Basics Part 1

by How To Build A BrandJob Seeker

Hi, my name is West Kraemer and I’m here to show you the very basics of building a digital brand for yourself during your job hunt.

Start With A Website

The first thing you want is a website. You’ll publish your tent pole, or “pillar” material there. That kind of content usually breaks down along the lines of “audio” (podcast), “written” (blog post), or “visual” (video). 

So, if you’re making a podcast, you’ll publish your podcast on your website and send it out to the streaming services from there. If you’re writing a blog, you’ll publish your blog posts there. And if you’re making videos, you’ll use YouTube to host them (because YouTube is free), and embed them onto your website from YouTube. 

You’ll build this project on WordPress, which is free. Your website will be “hosted” on Bluehost.(“hosting” means the website’s files will be located there. You’ve got to pay for that. It’s about $80 a year, give or take depending on how much data you use.).

Posting Schedule

Once you’ve got your website and pillar content going, you’re going to start posting it on social media. You’re going to want to post a piece of pillar content once every 4-5 days. In between posting, you’re writing new pillar content, and posting small snippets of information from your previous “pillar” post.

This in-between period is also a great time to post content documenting your process. Overcoming struggle is a compelling narrative, so if you’re frustrated with a process and want to Tweet/IG/LinkedIn about how you overcame that challenge, go for it.

Between these posts of snippets, documentation, and pillar content, try to post at least once a day.

Next Steps

Now, with these tools in your belt, you’re almost ready to start building your brand online so that employers can see why they should hire you. 

But, what are you going to post about for all of this? In Part 2 of this series “West Kraemer On:“, I’m going to write about how you first establish your values, a mission statement, and a slogan, then use those values to shape your message and ensure you always have something to write about.

Job Hunting Is Lonely And Ineffective, Brand Yourself Instead

by Job Seeker

Personal Branding Is A Better Way To Get A Job Than Traditional Job Hunting

Results Comparison

Personal Branding

  • Companies approach you to work for them. 
  • Potentially avoid several rounds of interviews because the decision makers at a company want you on board.
  • No need to send out thousands of resumes or spend hours a day searching for jobs.
  • You get to be creative and show off your skills in a way that you’re already good at.
  • Feedback received frequently.

Traditional Job Hunting

  • Sending out thousands of job applications, 99% of which will be ignored.
  • You have to spend hours searching for the right jobs to apply to.
  • Filling out applications takes forever.
  • Everyone else is doing the exact same thing, so unbelievable level of competition.
  • Ghosted constantly during interview process.
  • No way to tell if you’re going in the right direction.

Personal Branding > Job Hunting

Personal branding is a much better way to go than traditional job hunting. If done well, you’re working a lot smarter. Think about it: if you’re constantly publishing the fact that you’re good at what you do online, Google search results for your name are eventually going to reflect that. So, you’ll stand out to companies a lot more than a competitor who just has their LinkedIn profile and maybe some results from a track meet pop up when you Google their name.

Another reason why personal branding is a better idea to use for job hunting is that you’re not just going to get yourself the next job. You’re going to get yourself the next 3 jobs with the connections you make while doing it, so it offers your more security.

How To Get Started Building Your Brand

To start building your brand, you need to decide on your values, and use them in your messaging. Then you need to make a piece of pillar content per week, which you post on a website. From there, you spend the rest of the week posting about that pillar content online. That pillar content needs to give a real value to the person reading, watching, or listening to it. After you’ve begun establishing your digital presence, you need to start creating and organizing in-person events for people in the field you want to enter to gain value from.

To get started establishing your values, you can look at the free PDF here. 

A Network Is Important Because It Helps You Land On Your Feet

by Job Seeker

A Network Is Important Because It Helps You Land On Your Feet

The fact that you need to develop a network (while employed and while unemployed) is the single most important message I can provide to job seekers. A network is important because it helps you land on your feet.

The developer in the video below, Kilo Loco, is a great example of why this is the case. He’s recently been fired, but he’s absolutely, 100% going to land on his feet because he was working on creating a network of people before he even got hired at his most recent job.

The Engineer In The Video Below Is Going To Be Fine Because He Has A Successful Personal Brand

A Network Is Important: Especially When You've Been Fired

Kilo Loco has got 17,500 subscribers on YouTube alone. Do you think out of one of those 17,500 people one of them isn’t going to be willing to help him get his next job? Of course they will; having built this network Kilo Loco has essentially created career security.

But his network isn’t going to help him because they feel bad for him. They’re going to help (if he wants them to) because, over the course of ~200 videos, he’s provided value by sharing his coding knowledge for free. (And his videos are good! I used them a ton when I was learning to code. If you need an iOS app, hire this guy).

I’ve said that building a network is important here, here, and here. And guess what? I’m going to say it a lot more, because it’s the most important thing you can do while you’re employed and unemployed.


Conclusion

If you’ve currently got a job, now is the time to develop a network so that if something bad happens, you can land on your feet. If you don’t have a job, getting started on this is as urgent as ever, and can be a more direct path to employment than simply sending off hundreds or thousands of resumes. 

So, get started on building your network and getting career security. Job seekers can get started hiring Stand Out Professional Branding to help them develop their networks to gain career security here.

Become A Marketable Employee

by Job Seeker

Why Do You Need To Become A Marketable Employee?

You probably won’t have the same job between now and when you retire. That’s a fact for 90-95% of the people reading this right now. The market is simply different from what it used to be. So, job hunting is inevitably in your future. When you’re looking for a new job, you want to be as marketable as possible. So you need to become a marketable employee and you need to Stand Out. Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Scroll down and look at the accomplish of both people below. Which would you rather hire? 

Become a marketable employee
5/5
  • Does job well
  • Shows up on time
  • Liked by colleagues
  • Hosted conferences in several cities for professionals in her field
  • Organized events for people in her field to gain knowledge
  • Given lectures on her professional expertise
  • Built a community of professionals in her field
  • Has several established social media channels dedicated to providing value to professionals within her field and showing her values
  • Has Google Search results of her name reflect all of this
Become a marketable employee
3/5
  • Does job well
  • Shows up on time
  • Liked by colleagues
  • Recently updated LinkedIn account and resume

So, if you’d hire the first candidate over the second, BECOME THE FIRST CANDIDATE.

Ultimately, you need to become a marketable employee by standing out if you want career security. I’m writing this in April of 2020 and things are about to get really difficult to people looking for jobs.

Doing all of these things is going to take time. You’re talking about building security in the long term. You can do that over a period of months, but you need to start now.  I can help you become more like the second candidate and gain career security if you hire me to do so. You can click here to get started.