Todays Women in Business

Trust: the heart of your personal brand

As I continue to reference here and over at Biz Growth News, building your personal brand as a leader takes many forms and we can build or destroy our reputation in just one action or comment.

Today I received an urgent call from a client who was distressed by a conversation she had had with a potential designer. She had been connected to this person in good faith by her local printer as she wanted to work on developing a new visual identity for her business.

What threw her was the downright rudeness of the designer. During the course of the conversation they completely savaged the website and reputation of one of her colleagues, quoting what can only be construed as gross fabrications and lies - yet they had never met my clients colleague or knew anything about thei business.

They then went on to be dismissive of her business without knowing much about it.

When you are in the early stages of developing a business, it is easy to be put off course by people who are "nay sayers" and this conversation today was of little help to my client.

I was only too pleased to have been on hand to talk to her.

Bottom line, this designer has done nothing to further their reputation or credibility. As my client stated:

If they are like that about people they do not even know and they are talking about someone I respect hugely, there is no way I could put my trust in them.

In that short conversation on the phone, that designer has put into question one of the most important things we must develop for healthy relationships in business and our personal life - trust.

It takes time to develop, a moment to destroy and an eternity to rebuild.

While we may have beliefs about our own expertise against that of others, don't forget that to be dismissive and rude about others says more about us than it does of the other person.

Safe to say, my client now has the contact details of four designers I have recommended to her!

A Brand You World Episode 1 – Express your personal brand through your writing

Personal Branding Quick Tips - Discover three actions you can take to express your expertise and personal brand through your writing.

Listen to this four minute personal branding tutorial from "A Brand You World" bringing you personal branding guidance.

"A Brand You World" is hosted by Krishna De, Ireland’s leading Personal Branding Strategist.

How To Leave Us Feedback

Do share your thoughts on this employer branding quick tip. Perhaps you have found some of the strategies and tips we share have worked for you or perhaps you have ideas and suggestions you would like to share with our listeners. You can choose one of 5 different ways to get in touch so why not:

1. post your feedback the comments section
2. leave comments at our media centre, you can call +1 214 615 6505ext 6842. As this is a US based number you make low cost calls from Ireland using AllFreeCalls.ie or from the UK using AllFreeCalls.co.uk
3. leave an audio comment on our site here at Todays Women in Business - just plug in your headset and micophone and you can leave a message
4. leave an audio comment on our Irish media centre at 086 8163096      
5. or send us an email at connect(at)todayswomeninbusiness.com

Do let me know about your success in bringing your personal brand to life.

And if you are looking for additional resources to build your corporate brand, employer brand and personal brand why not visit our brand building blog and podcast at Biz Growth News where you can also register for our no cost branding audio seminars and our weekly brand building ezine.

Enhancing Employee Engagement: Women in Business, 18 April 2007: Hosted by Krishna De and Ann Green

Continuing our series on employee engagement to enhance organisational performance, get ready to take notes as we provide an overview of how to enhance dialogue and engagement with your people and how to define your communications and engagement policy.

You can listen the Women in Business podcast by clicking the player below or you can download it to your PC by clicking the download MP3 link; or you can find us in iTunes.

Enhancing Employee Engagement Show Notes:

00.00  Employee Engagement: introduction
01.33  Engagement and communication strategies
08.38  How to create tow way dialogue with employees
11.51  Formalising your engagement and communications policy - what to consider
15.24  Anonymous or attributed feedback from employees - the options to consider
18.00  Employee engagement - conclusions

If you missed the first part in this two part series on employee engagement, you can listen to the previous show which introduced the concept of employee engagement to enhance organisational performance.

Do share your thoughts on this audio tutorial by posting in the comments section and if you have found specific strategies that have worked for you ,we would love to hear from you.

If you would prefer to leave comments at our media centre, you can call +1 214 615 6505 ext 6842.

As this is a US based number you make low cost calls from Ireland using AllFreeCalls.ie or from the UK using AllFreeCalls.co.uk

Improving Organisational Performance Through Employee Engagement: Women in Business, 11 April 2007: Hosted by Krishna De

If you are wondering how to enhance organisational performance without the investment of expensive programmes, have you considered enhancing the engagement of your employees with the goals of the organisation?

Get ready to take notes in this first of a two part series on employee engagement as we provide an overview of what employee engagement is, how you can establish your employee engagement strategy and the benefits you will realise.

You can listen the Women in Business podcast by clicking the player below or you can download it to your PC by clicking the download MP3 link; or you can find us in iTunes.

Improving Organisational Performance Through Employee Engement Show Notes:

00:00     Introduction to improving organisational performance through employee engagement
00:47     What is employee 'engagement'?
01:43     Tools for assessing how engaged people are in your organisation?
04:33     Employee engagement - the myths
05:45     What is the cost of engaging employees?
07:59     The role of the line manager vs HR in employee engagement
11:13     What impact can you expect from implementing your employee engagement strategy?
14:54     What benefits could you see from my employee engagement strategy?
17:02     How can I measure the benefits of implementing your employee engagement strategy?
20:02     Summary

Do share your thoughts on this audio tutorial by posting in the comments section and if you have found specific strategies that have worked for you, we would love to hear from you.

If you would prefer to leave comments at our media centre, you can call +1 214 615 6505 ext 6842.

As this is a US based number you make low cost calls from Ireland using AllFreeCalls.ie or from the UK using AllFreeCalls.co.uk

How to Develop Your Personal Leadership Brand: Women in Business, 28 March 2007: Hosted by Krishna De

In our third and final part of our series on how to develop a compelling corporate, employer and leadership brand to attract and retain talent, this week we focus on developing your personal leadership brand.

Get ready to take notes as we provide an overview of personal branding and actions you can take today to further strengthen your personal leadership brand.

You can listen the Women in Business podcast by clicking the player below or you can download it to your PC by clicking the download MP3 link; or you can find us in iTunes.

Personal Leadership Brand Show Notes:

00.24   Introduction                                                      

01.03   Why is your personal or leadership brand important?       

03.40   How is your personal or leadership brand expressed?       

09.15   How to establish how your personal leadership brand is perceived by others?

11.28   What might your brand be expressed - particularly by developing your online presence? 

19.05   What actions can you take today to further strengthen your own personal / leadership brand?   

21.34 Where can you access Oneocean's nocost on-line webinar on personal branding and get more formation? 

Do share your thoughts on this audio tutorial by posting in the comments section and if you have found specific strategies that have worked for you in developing the your personal leadership brand I would love to hear from you.

If you would prefer to leave comments at our media centre, you can call +1 214 615 6505 ext 6842.

As this is a US based number you make low cost calls from Ireland using AllFreeCalls.ie or from the UK using AllFreeCalls.co.uk

Employer Branding Resources:

Access the previous shows on building a compelling corporate brand where we focused on building your employer brand and building your team brand.

How to Develop Your Team Brand: Women in Business, 21 March 2007: Hosted by Krishna De

In our second part of our series on how to develop a compelling corporate and employer brand to attract and retain talent, this week we focus on developing your team brand.

Get ready to take notes as we provide an overview of employer branding and three actions you can take to strengthen your employer brand.

Team Brand Show Notes:

00.25    Your Team Brand - An Introduction
02.00    Defining your team brand                                 
04.45    How your team brand is expressed                               
09.55    How to establish the perceptions of other colleagues about your team
12.15    Actions to strengthen your team brand

You can listen the Women in Business podcast by clicking the player below or you can download it to your PC by clicking the download MP3 link; or you can find us in iTunes.

Do share your thoughts on this audio tutorial by posting in the comments section and if you have found specific strategies that have worked for you in developing the reputation of your team I would love to hear from you.

If you would prefer to leave comments at our media centre, you can call +1 214 615 6505 ext 6842.

As this is a US based number you make low cost calls from Ireland using AllFreeCalls.ie or from the UK using AllFreeCalls.co.uk

Employer Branding Resources:

Access the previous show on building a compelling corporate brand where we focused on building your employer brand.

Women in Business, 14 March 2007: Hosted by Krishna De: How to build your employer brand

Building a strong and compelling corporate brand is critical to the success of your business. Take for example the brand equity that has been built in the global consumer brands of Nike, Disney, Apple, Starbucks to name only a few.

In today's fast paced world of work, if we are to attract and retain great talent to deliver our goals, it is insufficient to build only a strong corporate brand.

We have to consider three other aspects of building our brand:

1. our employer brand - how we differentiate ourselves as an employer of choice for the people we want to attract and retain to help us deliver our business vision and strategy
2. our team brand - building a team that has a strong sense of purpose and identity and one that other teams inside your business and outside your business want to do business with
3. our personal leadership brand - ensuring we stand out from the crowd as a business leader, not only to achieve the career success we desire but also to inspire our people to both deliver great performance but realise their own potential.

Over the next three weeks, I will be in conversation with my podcast partner here at TodaysWomenInBusiness.com, Ann Greene and we will be sharing tips on how to strengthen your employer brand, your team brand and your personal leadership brand.

Today we start with how to develop your employer brand.G et ready to take notes as we provide an overview of employer branding and three actions you can take to strengthen your employer brand.

Employer Brand Show Notes:

01.20  What is your employer brand?
01.40  Why is it important to build and leverage your employer brand?
05.00  Is developing your employer brand is only relevant to large corporates?
06.40  How we can express our employer brand?
12.30  How do you determine other people's perceptions of your employer brand?
16.00  Three actions you can take to further strengthen your employer brand

You can listen the Women in Business podcast by clicking the player above or you can download it to your PC by clicking the download MP3 link; or you can find us in iTunes.

Do share your thoughts on this audio tutorial by posting in the comments section and if you have found specific strategies that have worked for you in developing a strong employer brand I would love to hear from you.

Women in Business, 8 March 2007: Hosted by Krishna De: International Women's Day

In celebration of International Women's Day, we have recorded a special edition podcast for all women in business.

We decided to focus on how we can be more impactful in our engagement in meetings - be they one to one meetings, team meetings or even global conferences.

Get ready to take notes as we share a six step process to enhance your ability to be more impactful and influential in meetings so that you realise great outcomes and expand your professional success.

You can listen the Women in Business podcast by clicking the player below; or you can download it to your PC by clicking the download MP3 link; or you can find us in iTunes.

Do share your thoughts on this audio tutorial by posting in the comments section and if you have found other strategies that have worked for you in being more effective in meetings do let us know.

Women in Business, 7 March 2007: Hosted by Krishna De: Stages of team development

In our third and final part of the short series on building and developing teams to support your business growth and achieving your business strategy, this week we focus on the stages of team development.

You can listen the Women in Business podcast by clicking the player below; or you can download it to your PC by clicking the download MP3 link; or you can find us in iTunes.

If you missed our previous episodes you will find them here:

Part one - an introduction to teams

Part two - five steps to building your success team

Do share your thoughts on this audio tutorial by posting in the comments section and if you have found other strategies that have worked for you in building your success team or if you have questions about how to build your high performing team.

Women in Business, 28 February 2007: Hosted by Krishna De: Building your success team

So you have made a decision to grow your team to support the growth of your business. But how do you ensure that you make the right investment and appoint the right people to your key team roles?

Make sure you have a pen and paper ready to take notes as colleague Ann Greene and I share in this second of a three part series on team effectiveness.

In this weeks we the 5 steps to building your success team including:

• developing clarity of purpose for your team
• how to define the capabilities that you need
• translating the capabilities into a role profile
• selecting your team members
• getting your team off to a flying start so that you deliver your business goals.

You can listen the Women in Business podcast by clicking the player below; or you can download it to your PC by clicking the download MP3 link; or you can find us in iTunes.

If you missed our first episode you will find it here.

Do share your thoughts on this audio tutorial by posting in the comments section and if you have found other strategies that have worked for you in building your success team or if you have questions about how to build your high performing team.