SFBLC Recap! (part 1) – Personal Branding
Hey PBL’ers! This is An, your PBL co-design manager.
So as you all know, SFBLC was last weekend! Hope those of you who went had fun, got to know everyone better, and took something away from the talks!
For those of you who couldn’t make it, I’m gonna give y’alls a recap of what went down, so you don’t feel out of the loop. The recap will be split into 2 parts: 1) what we learned, 2) everything else!
First off, the keynote speaker at the conference was Morgan Brown, Director of Marketing for TurnHere.com (a successful startup Internet video making services company). The talk focused on Personal Branding and how you can build your personal brand, make industry connections, and gain expertise by using personal initiative and social media tools.
*For the super quick I-have-no-time-to-read-this version, jump down to the bottom of the post to view the PowerPoint slides used in the presentation*
So what is Personal Branding? Quite simply, it’s exactly what it sounds like: people and their careers being marked as brands.
One of the things Mr. Brown emphasized and encouraged everyone to do was to start a blog (hey, we did!). He highly recommends doing so because his own career took off through getting noticed for his finance blog, blownmortgage.com (which he sold for a hefty sum – I forget how much, but it was quite a lotta dough). Even if you’re not an ‘expert’ in any particular field, just start writing about what you are passionate about. Not only will it improve your writing skills, but you will be creating content that can potentially serve as a platform to propel your career and network with others. If you don’t know what you’re passionate about, start writing anyway and find out!
Morgan also came up with the “4c’s to a Successful Personal Brand”. These points also apply to your career in general. You can find the full write-up on his site, but I’m gonna give you the special condensed PBL version here:
The 4c’s to a successful personal brand
- Character - Character is everything. Whatever you do, if it’s not authentic, transparent, and based on ethics, you’re never gonna be successful in the long run. Have the mindset of helping others with what you’re doing.
- Commitment – Building a personal brand is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to be consistently persistent.
- Create – Stop playing Farmville. While Facebook and Twitter are important networking tools, you don’t get too far by spending all your time on them. Lay a solid foundation of your expertise by creating valuable content. Write. Design. Build.
- Connect – Connect, connect, connect. You need to build relationships with people in your industry to find the success and recognition you need to cement your personal brand. Be earnest. Get offline. Go to conferences, mixers, meetups, and other real world gatherings and connect with the people in your industry!
But why is all this Personal Branding stuff important now? Because employers are hiring 22% fewer college graduates this year than they did in 2008.
Here’s the evolution of success:
Who You Were –> What You Knew –> Who You Knew –> Who Knows You
Personal Branding allows the important people in your industry to get to know YOU.
There was more to his talk, but these were the main points. If any of the above has interested you, I encourage you all to find/learn more about/connect with Morgan through the following:
twitter.com/morganb
facebook.com/morganb
linkedin.com/in/morganb
pmorganbrown.com
Don’t be shy! Even if you didn’t attend conference, say you’re with FBLA PBL and that you’re interested in learning more about this Personal Branding business (or anything else really). I’m sure he’d love to hear from any of you 
Here are the slides Morgan used in his talk:
Phew! Now for part 2…
