Personal branding - podcast summary

Listen to the complete Andrew Warner's (Mixergy) interview with Sasha Strauss. Downloadable podcast episode is here.

Sasha Strauss on LinkedIn
Sasha Strauss on Twitter

My notes are as follows:

Craft your own story. Don't let others do it for you. Control the information that is about you.

• Define five different main audiences that you have.
• For each audience, define touch-points.
• For each audience, think of yourself as a business. Find your competitors (who compete for the same mindshare), both direct and indirect (tangential). Study them thoroughly and find niches that they do not cover. Focus on those niches. You should not sound or look like anyone else.
• Collect information, but do not process it yet. Do not imagine what the answer is. Now, collect the stakeholders: investment parties, coworkers, buyers of your product or service, press, etc. Create profiles for all of them. Determine where they obtain their information from.
• Collect existing communication tools and materials for each audience as well.
• Once profiles and channels are defined, conduct interviews. Prepare your questions in advance. Collect the missing puzzle pieces. Test your message/plan.
  
• Now, write your story and define your message. It should align emotionally with your audience. Speak the language of your audience - use social language, not business language.

When you send out information, anticipate the reactions (including negative ones) and have follow-up prepared. Remember that haters are going to hate, so practice replying to negative feedback. Consider what you want people to remember about you when you reply.