Writing a Book to Build Your Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Writing a Book to Build Your Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career The biggest challenges new authors face when writing a brand-building book is the need to organize their ideas, followed by the need to track their progress and maintain their enthusiasm. Heres a simple, affordable set of low-tech organizing tools that will pay big dividends as you write your first brand-building booktools that you continue to use as you write your follow-up brand-building books. Sometimes the best idea writing tools are the simplestand the least expensive! Important organizing tools For less than $25, you can visit a big box office supply store, like Staples, or an online vendor, like Avery, where you can purchase a complete set of organizing tools for writing your book, including: 3- ring binder. Use the binder to store your manuscript, and other documents, as you write your book. Choose a View binder with a clear plastic cover allowing you to insert a cover describing the contents of the binder. 3-hole punched copier paper. Get in the habit of printing updated copies of your manuscript at the end of each writing session. Tab index dividers. Use numbered tab dividers to permit easy access to each chapter of your book. Use Write-on tab dividers for indicating   sections of your book, like front matter (acknowledgments, foreword, introduction, and table of contents, and end matter (glossary, resources, and author background). Spine inserts. An important, often-overlooked detail, spine inserts permit you to quickly locate the binder you want when it is stored in a bookcase. Buying tips Here are some recommendations and buying tips, based on years of experience: Size. Although binders are available in a variety of sizes, I recommend 2-inch binders as the ideal compromise between capacity and easy access to your manuscript printouts. I find 3-inch binders are significantly heavier and less comfortable to hold while reading. False economy alert! Avoid the temptation to save money by not choosing a binder without a View cover. If you purchase additional binders, youll find it difficult to choose the desired binder when youre in a hurry. Types of rings. I have found that the Avery Easy-Turn binders are easier to use than the Avery D-Ring binders when going directly from page-to-page, or chapter-to-chapter. Colors. If you need more than one binder, i.e., if youre working on multiple projects at one time, or want to create a separate binder for print-outs of your blog and website planning and SEO, you can choose different color binders for different categories of projects. Why authors need 3-ring binders The obvious reason why authors writing books to build their personal brand should use 3-ring binders is to work as efficiently as possible and   make your book as tangible as possible, as quickly as possible. An authors search for efficiency begins at the earliest, topic-exploration stages of writing a book. At this stage, you can use the numbered chapter dividers to organize print-outs of mind maps and worksheets used for each chapter. Even if youre just writing ideas out in long-hand, it helps to store them in one place, organized by chapter for easy reference. Books that exist only as files saved on a computer are difficult to relate to as as published books. Its harder to get a sense of the finished book, from the readers perspective, when youre only seeing one screen at a time on your monitor. But, when you can page through your manuscript, page by page and chapter by chapter, you gain a new perspective on how effectively youve organized your book. Finally, editing is harder on screen; errors are easier to locate from printed copies. Reading a print-out of your manuscript is far more revealing of problems relating to sentence structure and length, missing words, or duplicated words. Tracking your writing progress Most of all, files stored on a computer dont provide a meaningful way to track your progress, which is necessary for maintaining your enthusiasm while writing your book. However, a 3-ring binder containing print-outs of your manuscript grows a little thicker each day, and a lot thicker each week. As you print-out what youve written at the end of each writing session, and insert it into your binder, you feel a sense of progress as you see your binder continually getting thicker. Binders and writing rituals After writing 40 books, Im more and more convinced that a great deal of writing and publishing success is based on establishing and following rituals. To me, one of the great joys of life is the trip to the local office supply store to purchase a new 3-ring binder and dividers, then going back to the office to set up my new book by creating a cover and spine. When Im finished, I enjoy the excitement of starting a new project, not knowing where its going to take me or how its going to turn out. Likewise, at the end of writing sessions, I enjoy the ritual of printing out what Ive just written, and inserting it in the right place in the binder. Am I acting foolishly? Perhaps. Yet, I suspect a lot of other published authors share similar writing rituals. What are yours? Should I explore the topic in future blog posts? Share your rituals and comments, below. Author: Roger C. Parker‘s Published Profitable blog offers personalized help and over 1,000 blog posts and tips for planning, writing, promoting, profiting from a brand-building book.

A Guide to Mentoring for Career Success

A Guide to Mentoring for Career Success The benefits of mentoring throughout various career stages has been the basis of many great debates. With the transition to a coaching leadership style, many individuals believe that this removes the need for promoting the benefits of mentor programs or seeking out a career mentor. The reality is however that successful people still have mentors. The misconception however is that a mentor relationship has to be a formal agreement with predetermined outcomes that are measureable. It is true, a formal mentor relationship will define outcomes however, the nature of a mentor relationship, means that there is a degree of flexibility required. Initially determined outcomes most likely will change during the course of the relationship. There are some key things that individuals need to be aware of about mentoring to allow them to realise the benefits for themselves. What is a mentor? A mentor is generally an individual that has experience and knowledge that is of value to another professional. They will generally understand the industry or role of the individual that they are mentoring or have experience in an area that the mentee is keen to develop understanding and awareness of. What is important here is that a mentor needs to be someone that is willing to share the good, the bad and the ugly. They are happy to talk about their failures, their successes and their challenges in a light that does not create misconceptions or unrealistic expectations from the mentee. Who can be a mentor? The reality is everyone will have the opportunity of being a mentor if they want throughout their career. It is important to consider that many people perceive that a mentor should be older than the mentee; this is a complete misconception. A mentor relationship is about what the mentor can bring from their own career or experience to another individual with age being irrelevant. In a lot of mentor relationships that are cross-generational, the level of experience and differing perspectives heighten the outcome and success for both the mentor and the mentee. How do I choose a mentor? The level of connection between the mentor and mentee is extremely important to the success of the relationship. This means that you have to be able to build trust, respect and appreciation for the knowledge and contribution that both the mentee and mentor bring to the relationship. For this reason, when choosing a mentor, you need to look beyond qualifications, age and gender and to what it is you wish to gain from the overall experience. Be open to mentoring from someone quite different to yourself or someone similar. What is the most important thing however when choosing a mentor is that you are able to develop a level of rapport that will drive open and honest communication and mutual respect. When is the right time to get a mentor? The right time to get a mentor for most people is when they are looking at enhancing their career beyond what they can achieve through formal education and training. This is the reason why many successful people start their career with a mentor and as they develop they transition their mentor relationship to continue to support their growth and development. The first mentor you have in your career may have a substantial influence on your career direction, success and commitment; but they will not always be your mentor. A good mentor will identify when it is time for their mentee to find a new mentor that will provide something new and continue to challenge the mentee. For this reason, you should not be looking at when is the right time to get a mentor but rather what is the reason for not having a mentor? (I doubt you will find many!) The value of a mentor for all professionals is well known, which is the reason that most successful people have had, have now or are a mentor themselves. To decide for yourself if a mentor will benefit you, look beyond where are you are at in your career to where you want to be and look to others that are already there. Ask yourself, what can you learn from their experience and failures? The reality is that this level of knowledge and experience will never be found in a text book. Image: Shutterstock

4 Tips For Getting the Most Use Our of Your LinkedIn Account - CareerMetis.com

4 Tips For Getting the Most Use Our of Your LinkedIn Account Hopefully, you already understand the necessity of having and using a LinkedIn account.It is the most popular business networking platform in the world, after all. As such, a LinkedIn account is also something that no serious professional can do without. That is, not if they want to maximize their opportunities for career development, better pay, and overall job satisfaction.evalSimilarly, you probably also understand that you can’t just throw a profile together and expect to get satisfying results. If not, let’s get this out there right awayâ€" proper use of your LinkedIn account is an absolute necessity in today’s ridiculously crowded job market.But don’t worry if you don’t know exactly how to use your LinkedIn account in an optimal way. You’re certainly not alone in this and there are several things you can do in a short amount of time.Follow these four tips and your LinkedIn account can start gaining traction a lot more quickly than you might think.1. Leave Nothing to ChanceevalThis suggestion is as much of an attitude as it is a set of specific directions. In terms of attitude, it means taking control of your account and knowing that great networking opportunities don’t happen by accident. In other words, it’s your responsibility to use your LinkedIn account effectively.Once this attitude of accountability is firmly in place, you can start translating it into constructive action. It all starts with crafting your profile.It goes without saying that you need a great photo attached to your account. You certainly don’t need to have supermodel good looks, but your picture does have topresent you in the best and most professional light.Going Beneath the SurfaceNext, make sure that prospective employers can find out what they need to know quickly, preferably with a single glance. Think about how quickly you tend to sift through online profiles, articles, etc. and adjust your profile accordingly.evalOne of the most effective ways to draw positive attention to yourself is by using the profile heading to create a personal sales pitch that’s both appealing and searchable. This means telling prospective employers exactly what you do, not just mentioning your job title.It also means including keywords that aremost relevant to your career goals, andmore likely to help the right employers find you.Clarity is also a key to optimizing your profile. Be concise and very specific regarding your skill set and goals.You also have tokeep your profile as up-to-date as possible.Rememberâ€" you’re trying to tell the world what you can do today, not what you were up to last year.evalLastly, make sure to list any references and endorsements you have at your disposal. Sure, lots of people falsify these things, but a legitimate The best methods for fine-tuning your network depends on your situation, but here are a few things everyone should consider:Find and participate in groups that will expand your network in meaningful ways. We already m entioned this up above, but it’s so important that it bears repeating in this context.Don’t hesitate to turn down connection requests from people who don’t seem relevant to your field.Don’t be shy about pursuing connections and relationships with professionals you personally respect.As you’ve probably already experienced firsthand, today’s job market is significantly more competitive today than it was even a few years ago. This means networking is more important than ever. And in today’s digital world, networking is more or less synonymous with the LinkedIn platform.Hopefully, these tips will help connect you to people and companies that relevant to your field. The key is to get started immediately.LinkedIn can do many things to help you advance along your career path, and the time for an overhaul is right now.