Why It's a Mistake to Piggyback on Someone Else's Business

My company's experience developing a product that relied on Facebook shows how building a house on rented land is rarely a good idea. Here's why you might be better off investing your time and other resources in something you own.

Way back in 2007, Facebook was like the wild, wild West. Once the social network made it possible for brands to connect directly with their customers, it became a natural place for businesses to plant a social media flag. For awhile it was a total land grab. Hosting Facebook contests and promotions became very popular and my company profited from the trend. At first it was because I ran a web-design business that built Facebook applications (e.g., contests and promotions) for a handful of clients. And then it was because I took the experience I had building those apps and created a software product that anyone could use to do the same thing.

My company has grown nicely for the last few years--going from 80,000 users during 2011, our first year, to more than 300,000 in 2014. But Facebook's constant changes--to its algorithm, its terms of service, and its promotions guidelines, including a new ban on like-gating--made it clear that we needed to be independent. As of today, our product still works with Facebook, but it's no longer dependent on it.

Here are four things I've learned about piggybacking a new product on someone else's, and why it's not a good idea.

1. You're building a house on rented land.

The minute you build a company or product based entirely on what someone else is doing, your destiny becomes tied to theirs. What's more, if you happen to gain some traction, the "host" company will be watching what you do and learning from it. Basically, you're doing free R&D for a potentially huge and probably already profitable company. And once you figure out what your users--who are by default also their users--want, the landlord is going to swoop in.

We had this experience last summer when Facebook all of sudden revamped its promotions guidelines and made it possible for anyone to host a contest or sweepstakes on their Timeline without needing to use a third-party app provider (like my company ShortStack makes). We can only presume that they were well aware of how popular contests and promotions were on Facebook and wanted to grab a share of that attention--and the advertising dollars used to promote them--for themselves. On the day Facebook made that announcement, there was a bit of panic in our offices. But ultimately it motivated my co-founder/lead developer and me to rethink our product and get to work revamping the software to make it platform-agnostic.

2. You exist at the mercy of the landlord.

For several years, businesses were hungry for software like ShortStack's since it allowed them to leverage their Facebook presence. But over the years we've felt hamstrung by Facebook's ever-changing rules and regulations. Facebook's desire to "move fast and break things" made it difficult for us to consistently provide a stable platform for our users. Facebook's policies affected the way people used our product, but we didn't have a say in their decisions.

We were often frustrated on behalf of our users when they'd have an issue with something, but there was nothing we could do to help them. They'd ask us why a certain feature that worked "last week" didn't work any more. Or why a mobile function was giving them trouble. It was never our policy to blame Facebook but it was aggravating to take the hit for something that had nothing to do with our product.

3. You can't improve the house without the landlord's permission.

Another frustration we've had to deal with over the years is Facebook's less-than-stellar mobile experience. No matter what we did to make the mobile experience terrific for users of our platform, they had complaints that always led back to issues with Facebook's infrastructure. Our new product isn't affected by Facebook's mobile challenges. Another benefit of making our product function independently is that we don't have to follow all of Facebook's rules and regulations, making it easier for our users to run streamlined campaigns and action-gate them in multiple ways.

4. Sometimes the landlord doesn't want you around any more.

The landlord will always change the rules to benefit him. Always. Facebook has made so many changes to its platform and the rules its partners have to follow, that some of them, like Zynga, finally were forced to move away from Facebook. Zynga has 265 million monthly active users who evidently love the company's games, but the company's move away from Facebook hasn't gone well.

While it's absolutely true that using rented land can help you launch a product and even bring in revenue, it's important to make sure you're being smart with the money and saving up to go from renting to paying a mortgage. I'm armchair-quarterbacking here, but it seems like Zynga should have started with Facebook all the while knowing they'd need to move on sooner rather than later, when they were forced to.

The biggest lesson here is that entrepreneurs are much better off putting time, energy, and other resources into building something they own. Your growth rate might be slower, but ultimately you'll have more control over what you build and how it's used. Don't get me wrong, we still love Facebook and the majority of our users still publish what they build with our software to Facebook. But they no longer have to, which ultimately gives them more control over what they build, what kinds of data they can collect, and what they can do with it.

I'm curious to know if any of you have built a product or service that's closely tied to someone else's. Do you regret it or has it helped you get your business off the ground?

From Inc. Magazine

3 Crazy Ways to Boost Your Creativity

If you need fresh ideas, doing the same old thing probably won't help. Dare to try these wacky-sounding innovation boosters instead.

Creativity may be partly innate aptitude, but science has shown it's influenced by a host of other factors, including your physical environment and how many new experiences you expose yourself to. Businesses looking for fresh ideas can certainly leverage these lessons to build spaces that encourage creativity. Individuals can use them to maximize whatever level of inherent creativity they were born with.

But by now, a lot of these insights are old hat. The innovation-enhancing effects of officesthat allow people to bump into one another and gel together easily in small groups have been well covered, for instance. So what if you've been through the usual list of creativity boosters and are still hungry for new ways to rev up your brain to produce out-of-the box ideas?

It takes a little looking, but there is no shortage of more off-the-wall ideas. Recently, writer Herbert Lui went prospecting around the Web for weird and wacky creativity boosters for The Freelancer and came back with a host of promising possibilities. Here are a few of them:

Do It in the Dark

Getting outdoors has been shown to boost creativity, but if you're not really a nature person (or live in a concrete jungle), Liu found another idea. Leverage the power of darkness. Nope, you don't need to disobey Yoda and fail to resist the pull of the Dark Side; you just need toturn out the lights.

"If you're feeling stifled, try working in a dimmer environment. A study published in theJournal of Environmental Psychology has shown darkness and dim illumination promote creativity. Other experiments discovered that you can boost your creativity by simply priming yourself with the idea of darkness--even just describing an experience of being in the dark," writes Liu. Just be aware that while this works for generating ideas, when it actually comes to executing them, it's best to flip the switch on again.

Build Yourself a Box

Shakespeare's poetic genius thrived in the highly structured form of the sonnet (yup, ex-English major here). Why? Perhaps because constraints, even artificial ones, can spur creativity. Therefore, Liu suggests you skip thinking outside the box and opt to think inside one instead.

Medium, Twitter, and Blogspot co-founder Evan Williams has written about how constraints helped him make decisions more effectively: "With Medium, we have an engineering team that can build anything, matched with large ambitions, and plenty of capital. How do we ensure we don't create something overly complex and/or fail to ship at all? By picking a date,'" Liu reports, adding: "Think of it like having a blank canvas as opposed to one that already has a few brush strokes. It's much easier to work around the lines and create something based on those constraints rather than putting a brush to emptiness."

Annoy Your Friends

Listening to you babbling on about your half-baked notions might not please your friends, but if they're willing to lend you an ear, such aimless chatting is likely to help you develop new ideas, according to Liu. Just don't tell your buddies that their input and advice is completely beside the point.

"When you're stuck, a simple solution is to talk out your problems with a friend. You don't have to take any advice--but listening to ideas and responses could spark new ones of your own," Liu explains.

From Inc. Magazien

8 Inappropriate Things You Might Be Doing at Work

The workplace can be a difficult space to operate from a social perspective. You always want to be friendly, but there are some topics that are simply inappropriate for the office.

Sometimes without even knowing it, people say things to coworkers that could be considered inappropriate or discriminatory, even to the point of leaving their companies open to employment lawsuits.

Below are eight discriminatory things you or your coworkers might be doing that you should avoid. Keep in mind that employment laws vary from state to state, so what might be illegal in one place could be merely rude and inappropriate in another.

1. Asking someone when they plan to retire.

This can be construed to mean that you think your coworker or employee is becoming too old to work, a sentiment that violates the Age Discrimination Act of 1967, a federal law that applies to workers over the age of 40. While discrimination based on race or sex is often more overt, age discrimination can be as subtle as referring to someone as "past their prime" or "over the hill," or repeating the old maxim that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks."

In general, it is best to avoid remarking on people's age, unless their age is demonstrably relevant to their ability to perform a certain job function.

2. Making fun of someone's whiteness.

While there might not be much actual harm in referring to your coworker's brunch habit as "so white," the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects Caucasians from discrimination the same as it does people of any other race. One such instance won't be enough to get you sued, but repeated harassment could lead to your office being deemed a "hostile workplace environment" for white employees. 

In 2012, the County of Kauai, Hawaii paid out $120,000 to settle a reverse racism case brought by a white county lawyer who said one of her bosses allegedly told her she needed to assimilate better with the local culture and dump her white boyfriend.

3. Making positive generalized statements about an ethnic group or race.

The phrase "you people" is never a good idea because it makes it clear that you are classifying an employee in a given group with a set of pre-defined traits. Even if those traits are positive (i.e. "you guys are such hard workers"), it could lead others in your office to wonder whether your judgments about their race influence how you think about their work..

4. Repeatedly asking about someone's family health history.

Most people haven't heard of genetic discrimination, but the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 protects workers from being targeted for their family health history (i.e. a worker who is more likely to have breast cancer because it runs in their family). While off-handed remarks or light teasing are not actionable, repeated inquiry about an employee's susceptibility to various diseases could constitute harassment.

In addition to directly hectoring employees about their genetic information, the Texas Workforce Commission advises against discussing an employee's health conditions with others in the office.

5. Commenting on a coworker's appearance.

In the age of email and instant messaging, it can be hard to interpret tone in online communications, making comments about a coworker's appearance even more risky.

While you may mean it to be an innocuous compliment, a comment like, "that new outfit looks great on you" could be seen as having sexual intent if the person you're making it to can't read your body language as you say it.

If nothing else, these kinds of remarks can make your coworkers uncomfortable, unhappy, and unproductive. At worse, it could be considered sexual harassment.

6. Using gendered language.

It can be commonplace to casually describe a whiny client as "acting like a little girl" or an unpleasant boss as "being a total bitch," but these words carry a gendered connotation that could lead your coworkers to believe you think that only women are capable of being rude or whiny.

Additionally, certain characteristics can be interpreted differently for men and women, such as how an assertive man can be seen as "a leader," while an assertive woman is thought to be "bossy."

Be careful to avoid these misunderstandings and hurt feelings by saying exactly what you mean in a clear, gender-neutral way.

7. Asking someone to speak for the people of their race/ ethnicity/ gender/ sexuality.

Perhaps there's a hot-button social issue in the news and you'd like to know what your black/Latino/gay/female coworker thinks about it. This is fine, but don't make your query about their status as a minority. Whatever you do, don't start your sentence with the phrase: "As a [black/Latino/gay] person ...."

This can single out your coworker in an unpleasant way. Plus, no group is a monolith, so it's probably not helpful to get one person's opinion and extrapolate it across an entire ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

8. Asking people about their religious beliefs.

While it's fine to ask people what they're doing over a holiday break, it's best not to seek specific details on people's religious beliefs and practices unless they bring it up first.

Expressing too much interest can give the appearance that your opinion of a person (and potentially their job capabilities) hinges on their beliefs. Repeated comments about someone's religion can also be considered harassment, which can become a problem since religious discrimination is outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

From Entrepreneur

Why Being an Entrepreneur Is Like Eating Cupcakes

If you focus on enjoying the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, you may

just become better at it in the process. Here's how to have your cake and eat it too.

Most of us have eaten our fair share of cupcakes--completely ignoring the white elephant in the room.

What's the problem? Well, for starters, the frosting (aka the best part) is all at the top of the cupcake. So you eat the top and it's heavenly! But then you're left with the bottom, which you either throw away or eat, simply because you don't want to waste it. Let's face it though--you're not really enjoying it.

Wasn't your mind blown when some genius came up with the idea to cut the bottom off the cupcake and place it over the top like a sandwich so that all parts of the cupcake had frosting? Problem solving at its finest.

Entrepreneurship (like cupcake eating) can cause us to take a somewhat narrow view of our daily tasks. We get so focused on the end result (finishing the cupcake), that we don't realize that it could have been a whole lot more enjoyable.

Here are some tips from some seasoned entrepreneurs to enhance your startup experience:

Don't Be Afraid to Pivot

Danielle McDowell and Janell Shaffer founded My Best Friend's Hair, which was akin to Match.com for hairstylists and their clients. Great idea! But in starting their business, they realized that there was more of a demand for beauty products. So they decided to pivot and created Loxa Beauty, a one-of-a-kind e-commerce site that provides commission to a local salon or stylist with every customer purchase made online. Loxa was such a huge success that it was acquired by industry giant Sally Beauty.

"Changing your business model does not mean you failed. It means you learned, listened, and let the market lead you," McDowell and Shafer suggest. "Great companies are always pivoting, you just don't hear about it. So don't be afraid to do it, too. It might just be your ticket to a multimillion-dollar acquisition like it was for us."

It all goes back to cupcakes, ladies and gentlemen. Don't get stuck in your ways. If there's a better way to do something, then do it!

Work Smarter, Not Harder

You've heard the phrase. But how do you actually make it happen? Serial entrepreneur Ben Pappas suggests it's by getting out of your head.

All the daily tasks rolling around in your mind can drive you crazy if you're not careful. Clear your brain by taking the time to write down your thoughts and prioritize your day. "Being able to see my thoughts organized gives me a feeling of control," Pappas says. "And it makes me excited to keep working on the boundless possibilities that are out there--without becoming overwhelmed."

Keep Your Work and Home in Balance

Pssst. Taking a break to do something you love will actually help you be better at your job. Ask Bryan Papé, founder of MiiR, a company that makes products for active people. "I wish I would have known how much of my life [being an entrepreneur] would take over. The whole work/life balance is kind of a misnomer because when you start something with your own time and money and are super passionate about it, it begins to become all-consuming."

Bryan balances life and work by taking time every day to get outside, whether it's biking, hiking, or simply going on a walk with his wife. And it helps his business! "My best ideas and problem solving usually occur on a hike or bike ride," he says. "There's something magical about nature, use that to your advantage."

If you work in a way that doesn't fulfill you, your life will pass you by. Don't let that happen. Always remember, businesses (like cupcakes) are meant to be enjoyed.

From Inc. Magazine

How the 10-Foot Rule Can Help You Win Customers

Just the other day I walked in to my credit union and was greeted by one of the managers. I walked another 20 feet and was greeted by a second employee. Finally, when I stepped up to the window, the teller greeted me by my last name. Talk about feeling important. I felt it.

When a customer is greeted by an employee that they come within a certain distance of, it is commonly referred to as the “10-Foot Rule”. That is, whenever an employee comes within 10 feet of a customer, the employee greets the person with a cheerful hello, or simply makes eye contact, smiles and nods his or her head.

Think about your own company. Have you ever noticed how most customers seem to immediately warm up and feel more comfortable after being greeted by one of your managers or employees? As Charles Lamb, the great English essayist once said, “Damn it, I like to be liked.” Your customers like to be liked. It’s as if they have a sign on their forehead that reads “Make me feel important."

It is not just common sense to treat your customers with respect, it is downright savvy marketing. With so much competition in the market place today, you and your employees can give your company a distinct advantage by creating the added value of being a friendly place to do business. It can be one of the key ways your company can create a perceived difference in the eyes of your customers.

When you stop to think, this kind of strategy will work best when we consistently set the example ourselves.  This applies not only when using the 10-foot rule with our customers, but with our own employees. In other words, the way we treat our employees is the way they will treat our customers. Makes sense doesn’t it?

One of the main reasons employees leave a company is not because they can make more money elsewhere, but often they leave because they get the feeling they don’t make much of a difference, and are not given positive recognition.

Keep in mind, you are not only in the business of providing a service or product to your customers, you are also in the self esteem and “feel good” business. People want to feel good about the money they spend to purchase the products or services they need and want. They want to be acknowledged as a human being for who they are. They also want to feel important. You and your team can help them do both, when they visit or call your business. It stands to reason that your team’s mission should be to make sure that your customers feel good about themselves, and are happy with the purchases they make from your company.

So, I encourage you and your team to adopt and start using the 10-foot rule. Regularly acknowledge and greet your customers. When this starts to happen on a regular basis, you and your team will be building your profits and creating a loyal lifetime relationship with more and more of the customers you serve. 

From Entrepreneur

6 Fundamentals Every Modern Entrepreneur Needs to Succeed

The road to being a true-blue entrepreneur is paved with spectacular stories of crash-and-burn. It requires a certain type of stamina that few possess and an insatiable desire to do better than the day before. Such a demanding lifestyle has no boundaries in place, except for those self-imposed. This alone can prove deadly for the half-serious startup hopeful.

Mastering the daily hustle is something that will either make or break any hopes for success. If you’re not serious about upgrading your skill set, than prepare to be beaten by those who make it their mission.

Succeeding today calls for a jack-of-all-trades-like approach. Here are the qualities that future success stories in business need to possess:

1. A scholarly research ability. People don't simply buy things anymore. There's a winning mix of brand interactions, advertisements and recommendations that go into every significant purchase we make.

Getting this recipe to truly click involves not only knowing the history of your industry and competitors, but also knowing where and when to go for the latest updates and insights. Don't pick up a copy of The New York Times, read through, and call it a day. Find those bloggers and influencers leading the way, peruse every trade publication for your industry and learn where to go for real answers.

Having an edge in the form of information is what will help you win those customers who are still on the fence.

2. A strong social media presence. If your LinkedIn profile looks like a phone book listing, we have a serious problem. If your indecent Facebook photos show up in an online search for your company, we might have a catastrophe. Tighten up your presentation to the world to leverage the free online assets we know as social media.

Designers are using Instagram to showcase their portfolios. Business owners are using Facebook to adjust their product offerings. Twitter breaks news, Tumblr shows trends and Pinterest uncovers customer buying habits. Find the channels best suited to your industry and start making them work for you. Just make sure to tie up any loose ends first.

3. An actively updated blog or website.  If you are so much as selling lemonade, you need a website. Unless you don’t like making money, you need a blog. If you’re not actively engaging potential customers online, showcasing your expertise and properly updating your channels and site, you’re losing to someone who is. Get in a weekly rhythm of updating your digital properties.

Websites drive conversions and blogs drive search traffic. Both can become bottomless pits when it comes to managing your time. It helps to have a set of resources or a resident expert in your corner. Wordpress sites, and the like, make updating your content painless but consider teaming-up with an outside firm or consultant. Their insights and strategies can save hours of frustration.

4. A professional look and feel to everything you do. Even if you're not in the fashion industry, every entrepreneur needs to work on perfecting their own personal style.

There’s a certain beauty to a freshly-minted business card or fine-pressed uniform. Clean, appropriate, smart design is what drives the professional world. Even for multi-colored or explosively creative big-league companies, there is a certain order and form that exists in their business materials that simply screams professional.

If you want to succeed, you will eventually need to develop an eye (or at least an appreciation) for the power of superior branding. Because superior branding is enough to turn a “maybe” into a “yes, please!”

5. A knack for storytelling. This is an often untapped asset in the business world, an escape from being perceived as just another vendor. While a great many might feel like they don't have one, rest assured: every business has a story worth telling. It may take some soul searching, but once you lock in to that narrative, greater opportunities will begin to present themselves.

The world is filled with truly special individuals and great stories just waiting to be told. Recognize where your products or services come into that story and align yourself with it.

When it comes to keeping things fresh, it helps to keep a journal to recount all of your awesomeness. At a company, it’s about creating the story of a best-in-class service or product that makes life better. And don’t forget: a great story needs great characters!

6. A way to put it all together.  Keeping an ear to the online grindstone is a full-time job. A limitless smorgasbord of productivity apps and software services can leave many anxious and distraught. Turn these feelings into fuel and recognize that anything is possible. Use sites like IFTTT.com to automate certain processes and services like Evernote to keep tabs on your daily readings.

Be sure to take a step back from it all every day. Find time to reflect, with family or through fitness. Keep yourself motivated by seeking out mentors, video tutorials and new information. You don't need to back yourself into a corner, but you do need a strong focal point to help guide you through hardships the that will inevitably come about. The stronger your focus, the better chance you have of coming out victorious.

In today’s world, it’s never been easier to make your mark in business. The challenge lies in saying something meaningful and relevant. Take part in the global economy, find the balance that best suits you and get ready for big things to happen.

From Entrepreneur

These 5 Incredible People Went from Broke to Billionaire

How Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos, and others embody the American Dream

Creativity and ambition breed hope in the hearts and minds of entrepreneurs across America. These five incredible people embody the American Dream and though they came from humble beginnings, now rank among the wealthiest and most successful business people on the planet.

Howard Schultz Poured His Heart Into It

The son of a high school dropout and a truck driver, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz grew up in public housing in Brooklyn. He was encouraged from an early age to believe in his ability to succeed and ended up the first person in his family to go to college.

In his book, Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, Schultz explained that he bartended, sold his blood, and took out loans to get himself through college. After stints selling kitchen equipment and housewares, Schultz took a marketing job with a little coffee store called Starbucks. He wanted to start a small espresso bar but was told "No," by his superiors, so he simply used their beans and started his own rival store. Two years later, in 1987, he bought Starbucks for $3.8 million. Their sales now top $15 billion a year.

Today, Schultz is widely recognized as a business savant and has a net worth of $2.2 billion, according to Forbes.

Oprah Winfrey Takes Control of Her Own Business Destiny

She leads the kind of glamorous life today that millions covet, but Oprah certainly knows hardship. A survivor of sexual assault and teen pregnancy, Oprah was raised by her teen single mom in poverty in 1950s and 1960s rural Mississippi.

At 32, Oprah landed her TV show, a spot she would go on to occupy for 25 years. It was her business and communications savvy that really elevated her to billionaire status, though. The massive success of her multimedia brand Harpo Productions and more recently, the Oprah Winfrey Network, made Oprah a force to be reckoned with not only with a microphone but also at the board table.

Currently, Oprah's net worth is an estimated $2.9 billion. Not bad for a young girl trying to find her way out of poverty in rural America.

Larry Ellison Beat the Odds in Every Way Imaginable

After a bout of pneumonia as a toddler, Larry Ellison left the young, single mother in New York who couldn't care for him, only to land in the care of a poor immigrant relative on Chicago's south side. According to Ellison's biography as written by Mike Wilson, his adopted father told Ellison he would never amount to anything.

After the death of his adoptive mother, Ellison left the University of Illinois in his second year without taking his final exams. He tried a term at the University of Chicago, but ended up moving to California. After a few false starts with other companies, Ellison and two partners founded Software Development Laboratories with combined personal investments of $2,000. In 1982, the company was renamed Oracle Systems Corporation after its main product, the Oracle database.

Today, Ellison's net worth is an estimated $51.5 billion and, at 70 years old, he shows no signs of retiring from his position as Oracle's CEO.

Jeff Bezos Shows Value of Youth Work Ethic

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos had a modest upbringing. As a child, he worked hard on his grandfather's farm near Albuquerque, helping with chores like laying pipe and vaccinating cattle. In his teens, Bezos had a summer job at McDonald's, just a year before he really showed his entrepreneurial chops by launching a $600-per-child summer science camp.

Bezos graduated from Princeton in 1986, but he didn't find his life's greatest success until he left a good hedge fund job and founded Amazon in 1994. Amazon exploded in the latter part of the first decade of the new millennium.

Though much of his wealth is tied up in his company's stock and declines this year have eaten into his net worth, as of April 2014, Bezos was still worth $29.7 billion.

Jan Koum and the American Dream

Ukrainian immigrant Jan Koum came to the United States at the age of 16 with his mother and grandmother. The little family settled in a small two-bedroom apartment in Mountain View, California, with the assistance of a social support program. Koum's mother babysat for a living while the teen worked at a grocery store.

Koum taught himself computer networking outside of his work hours, and this interest in programming took him to San Jose State University at 18. He worked as a security tester to help pay for his schooling and landed an infrastructure engineer position at Yahoo in 1997. Early in 2009, he and partner Brian Acton launched cross-platform mobile messaging app WhatsApp, which sold to Facebook this year for $19 billion.

Koum signed the papers for Facebook's acquisition of his company on the steps of the same welfare office he used to frequent for food stamps.

There's a common element in each of these success stories: entrepreneurial spirit. Whatever your station in life, know that great things are possible. These people who took themselves from broke to billionaire are living proof.

From Inc. Magazine

5 Steps to Building a Personal Brand (and Why You Need One)

People want to do business with other people, not with companies. Putting a strong personal brand on the frontline of your sales process can dramatically improve conversion rates.

Your company's brand is one of the most important factors for its eventual success. It's the culmination of your company's identity, packaged and presented in a way that's pleasing, familiar, and attractive to your prospective and recurring customers.

However, companies and organizations aren't alone in the need for solid branding. Personal branding, the art of building a unique brand around yourself as an individual, is just as important. Just as so with a traditional brand, personal branding requires you to find a signature image, a unique voice, and a recognizable standard that your readers, fans, and customers can grow to recognize.

Personal branding is becoming increasingly important because modern audiences tend to trust people more than corporations. Audiences are used to seeing advertising everywhere, and tend to believe corporations and organizations take actions and speak with only sales in mind. Personal branding allows you to establish a reputation and an identity while still maintaining a personal level of trust and interaction, usually through social media.

Furthermore, people want to do business with other people, not with companies. Putting a strong personal brand on the frontline of your sales process can dramatically improve conversion rates.

Whether you use your personal brand to consult, freelance, or drive more traffic and trust to your company, it's vitally important to establish one to stay competitive.

Step 1: Determine Your Area of Expertise

Before you can establish or develop your expertise, you have to decide what you want to be known for. The world of personal branding is flooded with competing entrepreneurs, so it isn't enough to choose a general field like "marketing" or "human resources." Instead, it's best to develop yourself in a very specific niche. With a niche focus, you'll have more opportunities to prove you know what you're talking about, and while your potential audience might be slightly smaller, it will also be that much more relevant. Specificity is a trade of volume for significance.

Step 2: Start Writing and Publishing

Once you know your area of focus, it's time to start building your reputation, and the best way to do that is to show off your expertise. Content marketing is the best way to build a brand and reputation online; when people look for information, they tend to go back to sources that were helpful to them. If you can become a trusted source of information through your content, over time you'll become collectively known as the expert of your specific field. It's best to start your own blog and update it on a regular (at least weekly) basis, but it's also a good idea to start guest blogging on other reputable blogs.

Step 3: Flesh Out Your Social Media Profiles

If content is the fuel for your personal brand, social media is the engine. Take the time to flesh out the details of your social media profiles, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and make sure they're consistently in line with your personal brand standards. Post updates regularly (at least once a day for Facebook and LinkedIn, at least a few times a day for Twitter), and don't be afraid to re-post your older content for your new followers.

Step 4: Speak at Events and Develop Case Studies

If you're trying to win the business of your personal brand followers, it's a good idea to work up a few case studies. Work with your past or present clients and co-workers to spin and present a solid narrative. People love real stories more than promises or speculation, so prove what you've done by giving them digestible case studies. You should also consider looking for speaking events in your area, which will give you the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise while connecting with new audiences.

Step 5: Network, Network, Network

On social media and in the real world, the key to sparking growth in your personal brand is networking. Engage with other individuals in your field, social influencers who have many connections, and anybody else who could be valuable in helping you spread the word about your expertise. Attend professional networking events to meet influencers in your area, and in the online world, engage in community discussions whenever you can. The more opportunities you have to meet people and talk, the better.

A personal brand is like a garden. Once you lay the groundwork and plant the seeds, you'll be in a great position to eventually reap the benefits. However, it still takes time and dedication to nurture and expand your creation. As you continue to develop your personal brand, stay consistent with your efforts, pay close attention to how your audience responds to your content, and hone your direction until your focus is razor sharp.

From Inc. Magazine

HOW TO FIGURE OUT IF YOU AND YOUR CAREER ARE MEANT TO BE

IF YOU'RE FALLING OUT OF LOVE WITH THE CAREER YOU'VE CHOSEN, IT'S TIME TO TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR TRUE TALENTS AND APTITUDES.

I’m curious how many people in the corporate world these days are satisfied in their work. More importantly, I wonder if they feel that what they do for a living is a good fit for them. My hypothesis is that this number is much lower than it could be. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

We choose careers for many reasons: Parental expectations, earning potential, cultural expectations, and the letters after the name, to name a few. Unfortunately, we don’t often choose based on innate talents and aptitudes.

FINDING YOUR NATURAL TALENTS

As it turns out, aptitudes, the things we learn easily and do well, are genetic. If we get them tested at 14 years of age or 80, the results will be the same. This means that if your work requires aptitudes that you don’t naturally have, then you most likely become easily frustrated in your job.

Of course you can adapt skills, and even be successful in forcing what is actually an unnatural talent, but something will feel off. Conversely, if you have high aptitudes that are not at play in your life or profession, you will have a sense of restlessness. High musical aptitudes are an excellent example of this. People with musical talent who aren’t working musicians are likely active with music outside of their occupation.

The first step in finding the best career fit is to get your aptitudes tested.

I’ve referred many people to the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation, a nonprofit scientific research and education organization founded in 1922. They’re committed to studying human abilities and providing people with knowledge about their aptitudes that will help them in make decisions about school and work. I found the testing enlightening and have recommended it for years to friends and colleagues.

Next, ask yourself how well your current job matches your aptitudes. For the aptitudes in which you test high, are those skills being used regularly in your job? If not, you’re probably not very happy with your current state of work and that could be spilling over into the rest of your life.

Also ask yourself if every single one of your aptitudes is active in your life. And if not, what steps can you take to remedy that?

MOVING ON

It takes a lot of courage to admit that you don’t have the perfect professional marriage. It takes even more guts to do something about it. The only thing you have to gain by facing this is happiness and fulfillment, and perhaps a sense of adventure.

One of my clients, a well-respected IT executive, started to recognize some dissatisfaction with his role at work. Rather than give in and stay, he quit without even having a new job lined up. He got his aptitudes tested to help him in making his next career move, and to understand the dissatisfaction he felt in his last role.

As he told me, “Understanding my aptitudes gave me a new vocabulary for understanding myself.” This turned out to be a brilliant move by a brilliant person, as it opened up new life and work vistas. Suddenly, his world became a much bigger, more interesting place.

My own story had me headed from MBA school into the corporate world, where I wanted to be a big-company executive, even a CEO. Yet I kept finding myself in start-ups because the opportunities seemed interesting.

Then one day my “dream” came true: the start up I was with was bought by one of the biggest companies in the world and I became a VP before the age of 40. My star was on the rise. Yet the bigger my title and paycheck got, the smaller and smaller I felt. I had less of a sense of being where I needed to be.

So I quit.

I decided to have my aptitudes tested, and it turns out that two of my high aptitudes are in Divergent Thinking: the ability to generate ideas through many possible solutions, andForesight: the ability to envision future possibilities.

It turns out that many executives at large companies (the ones who enjoy it, anyway) are often low in these particular aptitudes as they are more often called on to implement current plans than to come up with new ones. It would have helped me to know that sooner. (By the way, those big company execs have their own set of high aptitudes that make them a good fit where they are).

We all have high aptitudes, every single one of us. Knowing and owning what we learn easily and do well-- and what we don’t--can help us on our way to designing fulfilling and meaningful work as part of a great life. It also helps us to uncover our unique gifts and talents that we have to offer the world. After all, there is no more important work than that.

From Fast Company