Advice/Tips
CHICAGO – It can be a challenge to stand out in the business community. Even after you start to build relationships, you need to find ways to continuously connect and stay in front of people.
You need to be creative and brand yourself so you can stand apart from the crowd. Take the time to develop techniques that work for you.
Speak in Front of Groups
One way to brand yourself is to become a subject matter expert. Pick a topic you’re passionate about and feel comfortable talking about to others.
After you decide on a topic, you need to find business organizations you can approach so you can offer to speak at events. Don’t worry about compensation for your talks. At first, you will have to do many for free.
As you start speaking more often, you will continuously get better and figure out your own style. Practice is so important for you to become a good speaker.
Over time and if you do a good job, organizations will start contacting you to speak. Once people seek you out, you will have made a name for yourself.
Start Your Own Blog
Another excellent way to brand yourself is to create your own blog. As you likely know, a blog is an online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption.
It seems like everyone has a blog these days. While this may be true, many of them are unprofessional and aren’t an interesting read.
Take advantage of this medium to share with other people your knowledge and thoughts. Whatever you decide to write about, make sure it’s professional and thoughtful.
You want people to value what you have to say. When you meet people, you can send them to your blog. This is a great way to build your credibility.
One very well-written blog is called VC Confidential, which is written by Chicago venture capitalist Matt McCall of Portage Venture Partners. He does an excellent job sharing his insights into the venture capital world while branding his expertise as an investor.
Create Your Own E-Mail Newsletter
Creating an e-mail newsletter is another avenue to share your expertise with people. Just like with speaking, pick a topic you’re passionate about and feel comfortable talking about to others.
Once you have a topic, spend time thinking about the format of your newsletter. Do you want to write your own articles? Do you want to share industry stories? Do you want to allow subscribers to provide content?
Whatever content you decide, make sure the information is valuable and worthwhile for people to read. If it’s not engaging enough, you will lose interest and hurt your credibility.
A newsletter is a great way to get in front of people on a regular basis. Never hard sell your company’s products and services in your newsletter. If you do, you will turn people off and lose them as subscribers.
A newsletter is also an excellent way to build a customer database. Your main goal should be to share good information. When people are ready to purchase from you, they already feel comfortable with you.
Build Your Own Web Site
Just like developing an e-mail newsletter, building a Web site is also a good way to share information on a regular basis. Again, pick a topic you are passionate about and develop a site around this topic.
Your Web site doesn’t have to be related to your career or current job. Whatever you choose, just make sure it displays that you are an expert on a particular subject.
Take time to decide what should be on this Web site because it will be a branding tool for you. The site should be updated on a regular basis. Managing a Web site will take extra time out of your already busy schedule.
If you do it right, you will notice the positive impact it will have on your networking efforts. For example, I have created a networking and business resource Web site at Jacobsohn.com. I share this with people on a regular basis. It has been a nice networking tool for me because I have an instant resource to share with people.
If you are interested in developing your own Web site, check out Chicago-based Tecture. Tecture provides affordable Web site management solutions for non-technical users.
Final Thought
Branding yourself in the business community is very important to set yourself apart. When building relationships with other people, it’s very helpful if you can provide resources.
Take the time to devote yourself to becoming a subject matter expert. Be creative and use tools such as a blog, newsletter or Web site.
Jason Jacobsohn is a business advisor with the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC). He also operates a business and networking resources Web site at Jacobsohn.com and publishes the blog “Networking Insight”. Jacobsohn can be e-mailed at jason@jacobsohn.com. This article first appeared on MidwestBusiness.com and is being republished with permission.
