Yesterday, I had a very long conversation with Robert S. Kaplan about business strategy and today I spoke with Mark Sanborn about how to deliver an encore performance at work, to keep them coming back for more. Mark was more brief, relative to Robert, but both share extremely good quality information for all of you.

Why should companies care about delivering an “encore” performance? If they don’t, will they survive in the future, in a world filled with unlimited choices?

It isn’t just the number of choices available but the quality and value of the offering. More options generally means more competition which makes remarkable products, services and performances stand out from the mass of offerings.

What traits do all extraordinary performers have in common? Can you explain why each is important to overall output?

What you’re asking is the essence of the book. There are shared skills that create a remarkable performance and that’s what I address: preparation, practice, performance, polish and dealing with pitfalls. Passion is the fuel that drives this process engine.

• Passion: The fuel for remarkable performance
• Prepare: How remarkable performance begins
• Practice: It won’t make you perfect, but it will make you better
• Perform: How to engage your audience
• Polish: Making your performance shine

Many workers are happy working 9-5 and delivering results on par with what their companies are demanding. What impact does this have on companies?

The corollary of “you get what you pay for” is “you get paid what you’re perceived as being worth.” While there are a few exceptions to the rule, companies will value and should reward employees who go beyond basic expectations. The value-creators are those who rise in an enlightened organization.

Why do companies need to start focusing on building their talent from within?

Engaging the people on the team is what gets them excited and committed about their work and their customers. Developing latent talent is the best way to increase organizational capacity.

What are a few tactics for achieving an encore performance? What will make people talk about you for time to come?

Knowing more about your product or service and your customer than anybody else is a good starting point. The more you know about your client–what he or she likes, values, desires, etc.–the greater the opportunity you have to provide personalized attention.

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Mark Sanborn, CSP, CPAE, is president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea studio dedicated to developing leaders in business and in life. Mark is an international bestselling author and noted authority on leadership, team building, customer service and change. His latest book is called, The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do.

Mark holds the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association (NSA) and is a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame. Mark’s list of over 1,500 clients includes Capital One, Costco, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, FedEx, Harley-Davidson, and many more.

Today, I spoke to Robert S. Kaplan, who is a Harvard University professor, as well as the chairman of the Palladium Group, Inc and the author of many books, including his latest called “The Execution Premium.” As you read this discussion, think about ways you can apply these business strategies in your own life. Robert has an abundance of knowledge in this area and you are guaranteed to learn a great deal with this blog post.

One example of how Robert’s comments are relevant to your personal brand is that we all need to have values, as well as a vision and mission statements. Many of these strategies can be incorporated in our own development plan and at the end of this conversation, Robert talks about how he manages multiple hats.

Why do so many companies have a hard time actually executing their business strategies? Why do people fail to act?

A key issue is to recognize that strategy and operations (or tactics) are both important but they are different. The normal course of events is for companies to focus on day-to-day operations and short-term problem solving. This is reinforced by their short-term financial measurement system, based on the annual budget. Management meetings focus on budget shortfalls, fighting fires and fixing problems. Often little time and few resources get committed to strategic issues.

We don’t advocate abandoning an intense focus on operations and their improvement. But we do advocate that planning strategy, not just describing it is important, and that the senior management team needs to have regular, probably monthly, meetings that focus only on strategy. We describe in the book the different roles, frequencies, participants, and agendas for operational review meetings and strategy review meetings. We open the book with a great quote “Strategy without tactics is the long road to victory; Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat” (often but perhaps inaccurately attributed to Sun Tzu, The Art of War). This quote highlights the importance of integrating strategy and operations, a central theme in our strategy execution system.

What tools are available to develop an effective and successful business strategy?

Before formulating a strategy, managers need to agree on their company’s purpose (mission), its aspiration for future results (vision), and the internal compass that will guide its actions (values).

The mission is a brief statement, typically one or two sentences, that defines why the organization exists, especially what it offers to its customers and clients. Novartis, the global pharmaceutical company, presents a good example: “We want to discover, develop and successfully market innovative products to prevent and cure diseases, to ease suffering and to enhance the quality of life. We also want to provide a shareholder return that reflects outstanding performance and to adequately reward those who invest ideas and work in our company.”

The vision is a concise statement that defines the mid- to long-term (three- to 10-year) goals of the organization. CIGNA Property and Casualty, an insurance company division we worked with in the 1990s, stated its goal this way: “to be a top-quartile specialist within 5 years.” Though short, this vision statement contained three vital components:

• Stretch goal: “top quartile” in profitability (at the time Cigna P&C was at the bottom of the fourth quartile).
• Definition of market focus: “a specialist,” not a general-purpose underwriter, as it was at the time.
• A time line for execution: “5 years” (a heartbeat in the slow-moving insurance industry).

The stretch goal in the vision statement should truly be a difficult reach for the company in its present position.

Finally, the values (often called core values) of a company prescribe the attitude, behavior, and character of an organization. Value statements, which are often lengthy, describe the desirable attitudes and behavior the company wants to promote as well as the forbidden conduct, such as bribery, harassment, and conflicts of interest, that employees should definitely avoid.

With mission, vision, and values established, managers undertake a strategic analysis of the company’s external and internal situation. The management team studies the industry’s economics using frameworks such as Michael Porter’s multiple industry force model (bargaining power of buyers; bargaining power of suppliers; availability of substitutes; threat of new entrants; industry rivalry; and role of complementers). The team assesses the external macroeconomic environment of growth, interest rates, currency movements, input prices, regulations, and general expectations of the corporation’s role in society. Often this is described as a PESTEL analysis, encompassing political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors. Managers can then dive into competitiveness data, and consider the dynamics of the company’s financial, technological, and market performance relative to its industry and principal competitors.

After completing the external analysis, managers should assess the company’s internal capabilities and performance. One approach is to use Michael Porter’s value chain model, categorizing capabilities in the processes that create markets; develop, produce, and deliver products and services; and sell to customers. Or the internal analysis could identify the unique resources and capabilities that give the company a distinctive competitive advantage.

The next step is to summarize the conclusions from the external and internal analyses in a classic SWOT matrix, assessing the ability of internal attributes and external factors to help or hinder the company’s achievement of its vision. The aim here is to ensure that the strategy leverages internal strengths to pursue external opportunities, while countering weaknesses and threats (internal and external factors that undermine successful strategy execution). This analysis will reveal a series of issues that the strategy must address: the best role for new products and services; whether new partners need to be acquired; what new market segments the company might enter; and which customer segments are contracting. These issues will become the focus of the strategy formulation process, which often takes place at a subsequent meeting.

Finally, the managers tackle the strategy formulation itself—the statement that describes the strategy and how the company proposes to achieve it. In this step, managers decide on a course of action that will create a sustainable competitive advantage by distinguishing the company’s offering from competitors’, and ultimately, lead to superior financial performance. The strategy must respond, in some form, to the following questions:

• Which customers or markets will we target?
• What is the value proposition that distinguishes us?
• What are the key processes that give us competitive advantage?
• What are the human capital capabilities required to excel at these key processes?
• What are the technology enablers of the strategy?
• What are the organizational enablers required for the strategy?

Managers can draw upon an abundance of models and frameworks as they formulate the strategy. We don’t have a preferred position on strategy formulation methodologies. We have seen each approach lead to success in different circumstances. If, for example, the company has low capital utilization, then some use of a value-based management approach would help to define a financial strategy. If the company does not have a distinctive brand or market presence, a focus on identifying an attractive customer segment, such as through Porter’s positioning framework, Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean approach, or Prahalad and Ramaswany’s customer co-creation process might prove most relevant.

• If the company has distinctive capabilities in important business processes – operations management, customer data mining, or product features and innovation – that are superior to or not possessed by competitors, then the resource-based view and identification of core competencies are effective frameworks for strategy formulation.
• If the company has a great human capital base, with skilled, experienced, and highly motivated employees, then striving to create a learning organization and encouraging emergent strategies to be proposed can identify promising new strategic approaches.

While we are agnostic with respect to which strategy methodology a company uses to arrive at its strategy, we do believe that creating a strategy map and scorecard for that strategy is the logical and proven next step for putting the strategy into action. The strategy map provides a powerful tool for visualizing the strategy as a chain of cause-and-effect relationships among strategic objectives. The chain starts with the company’s long-term financial objectives and then links down to objectives for customer loyalty and the company’s value propositions. From there, it links to goals related to critical processes and, ultimately, to the people, the technology, and the organizational climate and culture required for successful strategy execution. Typically, a large corporation will create an overall corporate strategy map and then link it to strategy maps for each of its operating and functional units.

Once managers have developed the strategy map, they link it to another tool of our design: a Balanced Scorecard of performance metrics and targets linked to each strategic objective. We believe that if you don’t measure an objective, you cannot manage and improve it. The Balanced Scorecard metrics allow executives to make better decisions about the strategy and quantitatively assess the strategy’s execution.

What tips can you provide to someone who has brilliant ideas but doesn’t know how to put them in motion?

Developing a strategy map and Balanced Scorecard with the executive team, based on the “brilliant idea” for the strategy, provides an opportunity for consensus to develop around the strategy, and provide a clear representation of it that can be communicated to all employees. Ultimately employees must implement the strategy. If they are unaware of the strategy or don’t understand how they can contribute to its success, then there is no hope that for the strategy to be effectively implemented.

At that point, the leader also needs to provide some resources for getting the strategic plan into action. The executive team should identify and authorize resources for a portfolio of strategic initiatives intended to help achieve the strategy’s objectives. A strategic initiative is a discretionary project or program, of finite duration, designed to close a performance gap for each Balanced Scorecard performance measure. It might focus on, say, developing a customer loyalty program or training all employees in Six Sigma quality management tools.

These are some of the initial steps. But we believe that all the stages in our management system, as described in The Execution Premium, add value and greatly increase the likelihood of successful strategy execution.

Which companies have implemented great business strategies and which ones come up short?

Clearly companies like Southwest Airlines, Dell Computer, Apple Computer, and Wal-Mart have had different but great strategies. They each identified niches in the competitive marketplace that were under-served by the companies then considered the industry leaders. And they executed their strategies well over a period of decades.

The companies that came up short are also very familiar. They were the industry leaders, as of 1970, who failed to adapt to changing technology, new consumer preferences, and new competition. Companies such as General Motors, US Steel, Sears, K-Mart, and all the established US airlines, at the time of deregulation, failed to adapt and have suffered huge losses for their shareholders and abandonment by their customers.

How have you developed your own strategy for personal growth and development? (from being a chairman of a company, to authoring several business books, and teaching classes at Harvard)

The trick has been to keep each of my major activities – teaching, research, writing, and consulting – in balance so that they reinforced each other. In that way, they are all complementary, and not competitive in the use of my time. My outside activities give me insights about where companies are having problems. I can also identify emerging new practices which I write up as teaching cases.

As I teach the cases to MBA students and executives, I get deeper insights into the underlying theory of the new concepts and the issues involved in putting them into practice in many different commercial sectors, and in the nonprofit and public sectors. Based on these insights, I write articles and books. And this visibility gives me access to a new set of companies where I can learn more about how the concepts can be enhanced and extended. So all my activities are complementary and reinforcing. They are also a great deal of fun, so I don’t begrudge the time required to be good at all of them.

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Robert S. Kaplan is Baker Foundation Professor at the Harvard Business School and chairman, Professional Practice, at Palladium Group, Inc. Kaplan’s research, Executive Education teaching, and consulting focus on linking cost and performance management systems to strategy implementation and operational excellence. He has been a co-developer of both activity-based costing and the Balanced Scorecard. He has authored or co-authored 14 books, 17 Harvard Business Review articles, and more than 120 other papers. Recent books include The Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage, his fifth Balanced Scorecard book co-authored with David Norton, and Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing with Steve Anderson. He blogs for HBS.

Let’s face it, most job seekers are too lazy to include a cover letter as part of their marketing kit, in addition to a simple resume. Recruiters know this, which means writing a cover letter is essential to proving to them you are that much more serious about the position. People feel that they should apply to hundreds of jobs by using the same resume, without a cover letter. The reality is that both resumes and cover letters must be custom to the job you’re applying for.

Right now you’re thinking “that’s way too much work.” The answer is that you need to have a focused job search instead of a resume blast. Today, I want to go over best practices for cover letters.

Your personal branding toolkit

1) Business cards
2) Portfolios
3) Resumes
4) Cover letters

The perfect format

Brand yourself with a cover letter

Your contact information

Name
Address
City, State, Zip Code
Phone Number
Email Address

Date

Employer contact information

Name
Title
Company
Address
City, State, Zip Code

Salutation

Dear Mr./Ms. Last Name:

Body of cover letter

The purpose of the body of the cover letter is to position yourself as the top candidate for the job. Also, it explains why you want to work for the company, in that specific position and why you are unique relative to other applicants.

First paragraph:

This paragraph calls for a few concise sentences talking about why you are writing the letter in the first place (your intention). Also, you will want to say how you learned about the position and include the person who referred you within the company.

Middle paragraphs:

This is the ultimate section for highlighting your personal brand. Now it’s time to discuss what makes you unique and incredible. Show as much passion and love for the position you’re applying for and what you bring to the table, in terms of work experience, skills and personality. The successful candidates always match their brand to the targeted position, to make the cover letter unique to that hiring manager. You’ve already read the job description, so look at a cover letter is a way for you to convince the employer that you can fill their need. Try to support each statement you make with a piece of evidence. Use several shorter paragraphs or bullets rather than one large block of text.

Final paragraph:

Conclude your cover letter by thanking the employer for considering you for the position. Include information on how you will follow-up. State that you will do so and indicate when (one week’s time is typical). You may want to reduce the time between sending out your resume and follow up if you fax or e-mail it.

Complimentary close:

Respectfully yours,

Signature:

Handwritten signature (for a mailed letter)

Typed signature

3 tips to standout

• 1) Pick a distinct template. Just like resumes, schools are notorious for passing out standard templates for cover letters. I have no problem with students and professionals using standard templates, as long as they MAKE IT THEIR OWN. What I mean by this is that, you need to take a basic cover letter and make it yours. It should have design elements that match your resume, portfolio and business card. Be smart about what font you use as well. Try not to use Arial and Times New “boring” Roman. To be different is to be successful.
• 2) Include your personality. Picture yourself as a recruiter looking at entire personal branding kits day in and day out. They are restless and bored! Just knowing this is a signal that you should bring your cover letter to life. Instead of sounding like a broken record or a textbook, write like you talk. You want recruiters to get a better sense of who you are, so they make the right decision and no ones time is wasted.
• 3) Less is more. If recruiters spend less than a minute on a resume, then a cover letter is 30 seconds or less. If you’re worried, then think about it this way; recruiters read fast! You need to hammer in the fact that you are different and you are the perfect match for the position. Just saying how great you are isn’t that important to them. You have to solve their problem, which is finding the best candidate to fill their open position.

Say Yes! to Robert Cialdini's New Book

Influence is important regardless of your position in the workplace. It doesn’t matter if you’re a manager, CEO or entrepreneur; it’s time to learn about how to persuade people to say “Yes!” Think about it; in order to accomplish anything in life that involves other people, you need to influence them to take action. It’s near impossible to complete major projects at work and hit deadlines without this aggressive action. Today, I’m going to expose a few of the big ideas in Robert Cialdini’s new book “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive.”

What common mistake causes messages to self-destruct?

Political groups condemn the rise in voter apathy and then watch their communication backfire as more and more voters fail to show up at the polls. Health centers place posters in the waiting room walls decrying the number of patients who don’t show up for their appointment. As a result, they don’t show up! By using negative social proof as part of a rallying cry, they might be inadvertently focusing the audience on the Prevalence, rather than the undesirability of that behavior.

How can a new superior product mean more sales than an interior one?

Williams-Sonoma, the kitchen retail store, offered a bread-making machine that was far superior to the best-selling bread maker that they stocked. When it was added, sales from the existing product doubled! This happens because when consumers consider a particular set of choices for a product, they tend to favor alternatives that are “compromise choices.” Compromise choices fall between what they need, at a minimum, and what they could possibly spend, at a maximum.

Which office item can make your influence stick?

If you guessed a pen or a paperweight, you are wrong. A survey was conducted by social scientist, Randy Garner, to see if Post-it Notes might have the power to enhance compliance with a written request made to another person. More than 75% of the people who received the survey with a sticky note request filled it out and returned it!

How can you become a Jedia master of persuasion?

In the Return of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker persuaded Darth Vader to turn against the evil emperor, saving his own life and restoring hope and peace to the galaxy. When Luke kept telling Darth that he knew there was still good in him, it convinced him to take action. This strategy is called the “Labeling technique,” which involves assigning a trait, attitude or belief to a person and then making a request of that person consistent with the label.

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Robert B. Cialdini is a social psychologist who is currently a Regents’ Professor of Psychology and a W.P. Carey Distinguished Professor of Marketing at Arizona State University. His books Influence: Science and Practice and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion are the result of years of study into the reasons that people comply with requests in business and other settings. Together, they have sold over a million copies and have been translated into twenty languages and consistently ranks within the top one half of one percent of books sold on Amazon.com. Dr. Cialdini is President of Influence At Work, an international consulting, strategic planning and training organization based on the Six Principles of Influence.

I’ve thought a lot about the distinction between company and individual this week. If you analyze the makeup of the company you work for, then you notice that the various business functions are relevant in your own life. In a world where, everyone is for themself, you have to understand how you can make yourself a successful business, without relying on others. Today, I examine 5 different roles each and every individual must play in a brand YOU world.  Don’t neglect any of them.

The roles of Me Inc.

1) Chief Executive Officer. You are in charge of yourself, which makes you the CEO. At the end of the day, personal failure or success lies in your hands. You make the final decision which company you want to work for or start. You are the decision maker in every aspect of life, but you, just like company’s, have little control of external factors (such as weather, politics, etc). As the decision maker, you can choose your own destiny and that is empowerment.

2) Chief People Officer. Who you surround yourself with is a representation of who you are. As the CPO, you are required to recruit and retain powerful allies. You need to meet people who have shared interest, but also have skills that compliment your own. For instance, if you are a talented musician, then you need to connect with a business expert in order to further your career. The more people you can “recruit” to be part of your network, the better equipped your business will be to succeed. Think about it, we are all in Human Resources (HR) because we have to locate and befriend people in order to have a social life and professional network. The hardest part is finding the right people and giving them enough value so you can have a substantial business advantage.

3) Chief Information Officer. Your role as CIO takes a few forms. First, everyone in the world needs to know how to create a website. If you don’t, you are at a severe disadvantage when establishing Me Inc. on the web. Second, you need to be able to pay attention to your industry (area of interest) and follow it. I have hundreds of news feeds as we speak. Follow the trends and research on a continuous basis because they lend to your credibility.

4) Chief Financial Officer. Everyone in the world has to be their own CFO because at some point in our lives, we will be accumulating wealth. Stop relying on financial advisers and start learning how to invest your money. Do you really want someone else controlling your money? I think you’d rather ensure that you are getting the most ROI possible. Businesses make and lose money and so do we. We all need to assume this role because it’s how we fund our lives over time.

5) Chief Marketing Officer. A CMO typically owns the PR arm of a business as well. As your own “personal PR” person, you need to represent yourself at all times. You are a spokesperson for your personal brand whether you like it or not. Everything you say and do can be used for or against you. Also, you need to put your marketing hat on and never take it off. Every new person you meet can change your life, so have your best marketing pitch ready. Learning about online marketing, direct marketing, public relations, advertising, etc, is going to play in your favor.

Start thinking like a company. I don’t care who you work for because at the end of the day, you are tasked with recruiting people, marketing yourself, handling your own finances and for learning the technical skills required to survive in this ever changing world of uncertainty.

I’ve spoken about gaining visibility for your personal brand many times. When you have the spotlight on you, the “haters” come out to play.

When you stand for something, there are going to be people or groups that are against you. Every Hollywood celebrity has AT LEAST one person in this world who hates them. Unless you’re Gandhi, there’s a pretty safe bet that you won’t get along with everyone. I think it’s important for all of you to learn what to do when these “haters” come after you.

Yesterday, I had an incident where a group of people in a forum posted a total of 21 entries citing my name, picture, and a video. Their thoughts were all negative and very harsh. Aside from trying to rip apart my personal brand behind my back, they decided to post comments on my MODERATED blog 9 times in order to really dig into me. First, I’m going to show you what they said and then I’m going to go over what I did in response and what you can do if this should arise in your life.

Please note that I’m not upset or angry. I like to take punishment, so I can help protect all of you.

Some of the comments

• “He is inspiring. He can make any blog a success (except apparently his own).”
• “I’d hire him…as a dart board.”
• “He does look cartoonish! He looks like one of those cartoon characters who wear glasses, and when they take them off, their eyes are really tiny and squinty. But he’s pretty cute for a squirrel getting hit by a car. BRAND ME SCHAWBEL!”
• “Regardless of how smart his ideas are (for the record I won’t read any of them), this guy is a major douchebag.”
• “This fella is quite sincere about all this, unless of course this is a joke of Andy Kaufman like magnitude. It’s a thought.”
• “He’s in Boston, so he could just be exceptionally annoying.”

What I did

I did absolutely nothing about this situation (until I blogged about it today). This discussion board is locked down, so I couldn’t register as a user. Also, the conversation wasn’t based on fact; it was a bunch of immature opinions. To these people, it wasn’t about analyzing my brand. Instead they wanted to tear into my brand and spare no expense. If I weighted in, the situation would have gotten worse. The best move was to back-off and let the situation settle. Ignoring works!

Dan why aren’t you linking us to this forum post? Your Google results are so important. What Google says about you is how others will perceive you. I have 124,000 Google results for my name right now, so the chances of this forum gaining traction and placing in the top 10 is near impossible. If I were to link to it in this post, it might give the forum wings, and we certainly wouldn’t want that!

Your options

1) Do nothing and ignore. When you can’t post a comment or write an email to the haters, then just sit back and ignore it. If the site has low authority and credibility (such as the above forum), then Google will brush the incident under a carpet (it will always be there though).

2) Show them the facts. Any legit source, such as the NY Times or TechCrunch will revise their articles if they don’t get their facts straight. It’s part of good journalism and building a brand. Send the journalist an email citing the facts and ask them nicely to repost or revise the article.

3) Comment with your opinion. If the article allows comments (blogs, forums, traditional news sites), then feel free to comment. When you comment, you MUST reveal the real brand you and not make up a fictitious name. Trolls should stay under the drawbridge. They have no place “hanging out” on blogs.

4) Blog about it: After showing them the facts and commenting, they might still not budge. The next step, is to post about it in your own blog. Only do this if you have to. I blogged about this incident to show that bad publicity does happen and what to do about it.

My Twitter friends weigh-in

Follow me on Twitter

The days of holding criticism back are banished. Forget about it! Now, with the click of a mouse, you know the ins and outs of any company. As the user, YOU are given the ability to fully examine any company based on what’s viewable online. This could be a few corporate blogs (with spokespeople), a YouTube video, the corporate homepage, a few news articles and now through rating systems. It was only a matter of time before complete transparency overshadowed corporate spin and “cover-ups.”

Now everyone at your company has to have a good experience, even your interns.

If you remember, there were always teacher rating sites (which I also discuss in this post), that set expectations for what it would be like to be a student in their class. Based on this information, you can register for their class or not. Heck, now you can watch teachers, such as Brian Garvey (from MIT), instruct a class right in front of your eyes, without attending it!

Employee ratings - corporate brands are under attack

Glassdoor.com holds a community of people who share real-time reviews, ratings and salary details about specific jobs for specific employers (for free). These community members are employees that know first hand what it’s like to work there. It doesn’t matter if it’s the CEO or the associate, everything is spilled here.

There is no more hiding. Oh and it gets better. Everything here is anonymous, which is good and bad. Think about it, if you are a competitor and login anonymously to haze the other company, it’s biased. I’ve read many of the comments, and I don’t see this happening much though, but there could be a civil war sometime soon.

Example: “In order to succeed at Accenture, you must be willing to put in a lot of hours for a number of years. On many projects there is an unwritten assumption that the company owns your time well beyond the 40 hours a week that they are paying you for.…”

See also: There is also JobVent.com, which has a similar mission, but is less popular and structured than Glassdoor.

Internship ratings - even the least prominent positions matter

Internshipratings.com is similar to Glassdoor, except that it’s sole purpose is to exposure internship experiences. Internships are very underrated, yet critical to success after College. If I didn’t have an internship in College (I had 8), I would probably still be looking for a job (2 years later). The fact is that in order to remain competitive in today’s job market, it’s imperative that you gain experience to prove to employers that you are capable of taking a job.

Not all internships are going to give you the work experience needed though. Some may position you at an administrative desk, sharpening pencils. YOU need internships that are going to build your personal brand (leadership, technical, communication skills). College students will love this site because they won’t waste time with internships that provide no value to their careers.

See also: There is also RateInternships.com, which is a running feed of jobs rated by users.

Example: “I really enjoyed my internship. This internship was a real you get out what you put in. I was generally interested in the stories we covered and actively wanted WBZ’s newscasts to be great! WBZ is a place of real journalism, not like some other stations in the Boston market. If you are serious about being a solid reporter or anchor, or want to work behind the scenes, BZ can really make that happen for you.”

Recently, I interviewed TuckerMax and it was hell! I actually learned a lot from Mr. Tucker and you will too if you read this interview. He’s not about products or services, but about being his transparent self. The result is that he is a bestselling author, movie producer, blogger, and business owner. Not too many people can get away with what he’s done, so kudos to him. Throughout the interview, I was trying to figure out what role branding played a role in his life and it doesn’t look at it that way (we know it’s all about branding). Enjoy the interview!

Why brand yourself as an asshole? How does this positioning support your attempts at seducing women, but at the same time, create a barrier between you and people who look down on that behavior?

It’s funny you call it “branding.” I call it “just being me.” I never set out to brand anything or create an image. Everything started with my stories, which started as emails to my friends. You can’t bullshit your friends, so I was just completely, absolutely honest. What resulted is just who I am, both the good and the bad. That’s makes branding easy for me, I just have to be honest. As to women, I don’t really try to seduce women. The word “seduce” implies something nefarious or dishonest, which is not what I’m about at all. I just go out and do things that I enjoy. What other people think doesn’t really even register on my radar.

Many other people have similar encounters with women, yet you decide to share them. What makes you write about your stories on the internet and even have a book dedicated to them? From your readers perspective, how are they drawn to them?

Like I said, the stories started as emails to my friends. The first set of stories were literally ripped verbatim from emails. I would never have thought to post them or do anything with them, except that my friends urged me to. I was just trying to make my friends laugh, it was really them that first saw it could be something more. What makes me write them? Why does any artist create anything? I’m not different–because I enjoy doing it.

To be honest, I have no idea why my fans like my writing; there are probably as many different reasons as there are people. Some people just like the poop jokes; some people like the second layer of more intellectual jokes. Some people like my brash, arrogant attitude. Some people like my philosophy towards life. I don’t know man, even though I love my fans, I didn’t start writing for the fans and I don’t write for them now. If I have something to say, I say it, and people respond. If I deconstruct it too much then it becomes about something other than just being me.

Who is your target audience? Do you find some adults reading your material?

Again, your assumptions are wrong. I don’t have a target audience because I am not building a product to sell to a niche nor do I go after any audience. People either respond or they don’t. And I don’t know why you would ask if adults read my book. If your assumption is that only young people like my stuff, that is far off the mark.

Do you think more people are going to follow in your footsteps after reading your book? Why will some succeed, while others fail?

Succeed at what? Writing? I hope so, the world can always use more great writers. If someone who wants to be a writer takes any lesson from my book, it should be that true key to success in writing comes from authenticity and hard work. If you have something to say, say it in a simple and emotionally authentic way that you can, and show up every day and put in the work to make it as good as possible. The recipe is simple, it’s the application that’s hard.

On your webpage you list all the girls you hooked up with. What is the purpose of this and has there been any retaliation?

Uh, no–I don’t list all the girls I have hooked up with. I think I have like eight girls listed, and they are some of the girls I have had serious relationships with. If I’d only hooked up with 8 girls, I shouldn’t be writing stories about partying.

I think you have a large following based on your transparency, story telling ability and because you are passionate and proud. What type of feedback do you get from your fans and enemies?

I get all kinds of feed back. Here are some examples:
http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/date/tucker_helps_people_no_really.phtml#1333

I get all kinds of feedback–just go look at my MySpace comments, you can see everything there:
http://comment.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewComments&friendID=15374081

What do females want? What makes them attracted to certain men over others? How have you capitalized?

There are a few things that most women want like intelligence, money, power, social status or sense of humor, but ultimately, it depends on the woman. I can write 10,000 words about this, but that’s pretty much what it all boils down to.

What is the Tucker Max grand vision? How do you want to be remembered.

I am way to early in my career to think about this. I’ll worry about my legacy when I am retired. For now, I am just going to keep doing what I enjoy and being who I am.

—-

Tucker Max received his BA from the University of Chicago, where he graduated in 1998. He attended Duke Law School on an academic scholarship, where he graduated with a JD in 2001 (despite the fact that he neglected to buy any of his textbooks for his final two years and spent part of one semester–while still enrolled in classes–living in Cancun). Tucker is purportedly the reason Duke dropped from 7 to 11 in the USN&WR rankings during his tenure. He currently lives in New York City, and when he isn’t drinking or fornicating, he writes for his website, TuckerMax.com. He is the author of the NY Times Bestseller I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and is filming a movie based on his stories with the same name.

I first become very interested in Ning when I interviewed Gina Bianchini (the co-founder) for the 3rd issue of Personal Branding Magazine. Ning hosts more than 275,000 networks. I’ve joined quite a few in the past 6-8 months and, to be honest, the usage rates aren’t that impressive. Most people just create Ning networks around a specific topic and abandon them or only have 10 active users because they don’t promote them. I’ve found two great examples of big “personal brand names” that are using Ning correctly. Have a look…

Seth Godin's Ning Community

As a soon-to-be author, I pay very close attention to Seth Godin and his book-selling and community building tactics. I woke right up when I saw Seth’s blog post about what he was doing with his new book Triiibes: We Need You To Lead Us. I didn’t join right away because I thought it was a scam to buy his book, then, after speaking to a few friends, I was convinced there was value-add. Seth took his extremely recognizable (bald head) and intelligent personal brand and plugged it into a Ning community to promote his new book. I think Seth was also trying to perform an experiment (much of what many of us corporate social media types are doing) and I think he was very successful. There are over 3,500 members currently!

What we can learn from Seth

• 1) Exclusivity: Seth only allowed a certain amount of people to join his network over a given period of time. Everyone wants to feel special, even you!
• 2) Seriousness: Seth forced people to pre-order his new book in order to gain access to his community.
• 3) Leadership: Seth didn’t want you to be just another member of the community; he wanted you to lead a tribe within the network. Each profile has a section where you fill out information about the tribe you want to lead.
• 4) Bonus: The site includes excerpts from the book as well as a chance to contribute to a new jointly-authored ebook, with full credit and links to the contributors. Members of the tribe get a chance to win free tickets to Seth’s launch event/presentation in New York as well as a few other goodies.
• 5) Viral: Seth didn’t announce his community as part of the front page of People Magazine. It was only through his blog and everyone else who linked and/or blogged about it.

Keith Ferrazzi's Ning Community

Keith Ferrazzi, like Seth Godin, is a very smart man. Aside from writing an instant classic, Never Eat Alone, he uses the power of networking to forge his own Ning community. After a bestseller, it’s nearly impossible to “quit while you’re ahead,” which is why there are movie sequels (there is a market and fan base). Keith has established a gathering place for a global community of entrepreneurs and professionals who believe in the power of relationships for success and happiness. For more information, see his podcast. There are over 1,800 members currently!

What we can learn from Keith

• 1) Common belief: “When it comes to success, you can’t do it alone – and why would you want to?”
• 2) No hierarchy: Don’t worry about just being another person. Even if you feel alone on this network, Keith is right there with you. I’ve already explored it and have noticed that he speaks and asks questions of his network. Very cool!
• 3) Generosity: Keith is all about giving to others and his network is symbolic of it.
• 4) Career: This is a site where individuals at all stages of their careers can meet a new friend or even a stranger. Advice can really make a difference!

If you’ve read my blog for at least a month, you’ll know that I despise resumes. They are important and the standard documents for recruitment, but they don’t do anyone justice. Colleges need to stop passing out standard templates because, let’s face it, students are more interested in partying than developing a resume to get a job. Even if their intent is great, the aftermath is thousands upon thousands of students with the same looking resume and similar experience. Well today it’s time to break resumes down and tell you how to use them for differentiation.

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Your personal branding toolkit

1) Business cards
2) Portfolios
3) Resumes
4) Cover letters

10 tips for effective resumes

1) Design your brand. Instead of using a standard template, use a branded template. A brand you template! If you have Microsoft Word or another word processing program, then you might notice shapes and colors at the top. If you don’t already have a website, blog, business card, etc, then you need to think about what colors you want to use, as well as what type of job you’re applying for. In the picture below, a woman is applying to be a “Cosmetic Nurse Specialist.” At the top of her resume, she has a picture of someone putting cosmetics on a patient. The rest of the resume has shades of pink. The resume comes off as “soft” and “gentle,” with the colors, picture and shapes used. To me this is effective.

Brand yourself with a resume

2) Don’t use your picture. I agree with my friend Chris Russell that pictures can’t be on resumes (even though I’d love to put mine on it). A personal photo is a distraction. Recruiters give you about 30 seconds to impress them with your experience and you don’t want 10 of those seconds to be eyes on your picture do you! Don’t come off as someone who is trying to get a job because of your looks. Companies are scared to deal with your picture because of discrimination laws and lawsuits.

3) Links rock. I haven’t seen many resumes with links EVEN from people that have blogs, social network profiles and other websites. It blows my mind! Why not have a link to your site. If the recruiter likes your resume or has further interest in your credentials, a link acts as a supplemental piece of marketing that will help you sell yourself without saying one word.

4) Experience trumps education. Don’t believe for a second that your degree and “deans list” on your resume is going to get you a job. Recruiters are starting to discount GPA for resumes! Listen, a resume is all about showing recruiters that you have had proven success, eliminating risk on the companies part. In life, experience is everything and if you don’t have it, you will leave to lean towards your education. Make a point to put your work experience in the top part of your resume because that’s what employers really care about.

5) Show some class. The quality of paper you use shows how serious you are about the position and can be used as a differentiator. Purchase quality paper and print your resume using it because more applicants use standard printer paper.

6) Create the multimedia you. How much information can you really get from a stupid resume? Not much. I’ve written about video resumes a lot and believe in them, as long as you are passionate, energetic and have some showmanship. If you plan on videoing yourself sleeping or eating chocolate than you might want to reconsider.

7) Get Linked-In. This is another topic I’ve touched on without a dedicated post. LinkedIn is a resume, cover letter and reference list all in one, which makes it exceptional. It is a virtual resume, with the same fields as a typical resume. It is a cover letter because you have space to explain where you’re at in your career, what you want to be and summarize your qualifications. It is a reference list because it’s searchable by recruiters and you can endorse others (managers, peers, etc).

8 ) Grow it. A resume is useless if it shows the brand you from 1938. You need to constantly update it as you grow, finish projects, switch organizations, etc. Always keep it up-to-date so it represents the “present brand you.” Feel free to grow your resume online as well, by creating a webpage dedicated to it or blending it onto a blog. I’ve seen people add social media elements(Facebook, Digg, Flickr, etc) to resumes such as Christopher Penn and Bryan Person, who have sharing features. Think about it this way; if someone finds your resume and has heard of an opening at a different company, they might share it using a social media tool!

9) Summarize it. If I were recruiting someone for a position I wouldn’t care about a resume. I’d ask for your blog, but for everyone else, I think a summary of your credentials is very very important. At the top of your resume, I’d like to see 3-4 sentences that showcases all your top achievements and your career objectives.

10) Customization. Aside from customizing your resume to fit your brand, you need to tailor it to the position your gunning for. The resume below is for a Oracle Certified Professional. Think about it, if you are branded as this type of expert, won’t it be clear to recruiters immediately once they see this resume? Aside from this, you should use keywords and experiences that match the position you are trying to fill.

Resume tailoring 101