So with just a week until Christmas, have you remembered to buy gifts for your colleagues and business partners? And what about your team?
A recent survey by Morgan McKinley of secretarial and support staff working in London’s financial services industry has found that a 71 percent of bosses have either never, or only occasionally, shown their appreciation for their hard work.

77 percent of the respondents to the survey said that they would be more enthusiastic about their work if their boss showed their appreciation more often - and I am guessing less likely to resign as research into retention consistently show that people leave jobs not usually because of financial reward or career progression, but because of the relationships - or should I say poor relationships with their boss.

And when it comes to Christmas gifts, 56 percent of the respondents either didn’t like the gift they received from their bosses last Christmas or didn’t receive one at all.

So what do you buy your administration assistant? Well the respondents to the survey indicated that the most wanted gifts were:

• Dinner for two at a top restaurant
• Luxury accessories or gift ‘experience’ vouchers
• Pampering/grooming products.

And the three Christmas gifts to avoid were:

• Chocolates
• Designer stationery
• Flowers/plants.

Taking a little time and thinking through what would really inspire your people and connect to their interests and passions as a Christmas gift takes little time and perhaps a little more effort than a job lot of hampers or buying a case of wine. However it will mean that your team realise that they are valued as individuals.

I always find that selecting a gift that is something that I know a member of my team would really enjoy and perhaps is something that they would not indulge or invest in themselves goes down a treat.

So if you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping you have just about enough time to find a gift that will inspire and excite your team.

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In any successful business, the role of the leadership team is to unlock the potential of the company’s brands, a critical business asset, with the result that the brand will grow and the business will succeed.

As an HR or organisational development leader, your role is to unlock the potential of your people – possibly your company’s most valuable asset - so that they too will grow and the business succeed.

I am going to be leading a workshop at the forthcoming HR Ireland Conference to share how major organisations are deploying the strategies used by marketing functions to build corporate and product brands to support the people development agenda, supporting their people to build their own personal brand.

The conference takes place on the 22 April 2008  and is called “Learning and Development in the Workplace“. The conference will be in Portadown.

We will explore how to support your people in nurturing and developing their personal brand to expand their career success and realise their potential, and at the same time ensuring your company becomes known as a great place to develop a successful career and therefore become a magnet for the talent you need to deliver your business strategy.

You can book your place online for the HR Ireland Learning and Development in the Workplace conference.

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As you will have read about, I have been chairing the organisation of a global telesummit taking place on the 8 November 2007 and will be attended by authors, speakers and leaders in the field of personal branding.

In case you have not had the opportunity to study the programme schedule in detail, I am going to post the details of the seminars I will be specifically taking part in. If the event is not of interest to you, then there is no need to continue to read the remainder of this article.

Do you sometimes wonder how to find meaning in your role as a leader?

Do you ever wonder how some of the world’s most remarkable people have managed to build lives that matter, lives that have made a difference, and how they built those lives for the long haul?

If you have read the book Success Built to Last , you will know of the exceptional leaders that the authors interviewed during their research, including Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Sir Richard Branson, and Warren Buffet.

The book outlines a framework you can use immediately to duplicate in yourself what these leaders have in common. Comprised of three elements that transcend luck or good genes, this framework offers crucial guideposts if you seek to achieve lasting leadership success, impact, and personal fulfillment.

During the personal branding summit, one of the seminars I will be hosting is a conversation with Stewart Emery co-author of the international bestseller, Success Built to Last who will share insights from his research and how to build your career using the same principles as world class leaders. 

This session will take place at 6pm ET (11pm Dublin and London) on the 8 November 2007.

Stewart is co-founder and president of Belvedere Consultants, a consulting firm located in San Francisco. His passion is to support individuals and organizations turning their talent into world-class performance and enduring success. Stewart leads executive teams and organisations through Vision—Values—Strategy initiatives.

This event is FREE to attend. If you would like to join me to listen my conversation with Stewart, you can register at the personal branding summit website - and if you can not attend then we will be recording the seminar.

I do hope you will be able to join us.

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As you have read here in many articles, building and expressing your personal brand is a key to positioning you and your professional services firm as a leader in your field of expertise.

I am therefore thrilled to have the opportunity to announce a forthcoming event - the first of it’s kind - a global personal branding telesummit taking place on 8 November 2007.

I have had the priviledge of being the chair of the organising team who have all gifted their time to bring this event to life. We have attracted some amazing speakers who are authors on subjects related to personal branding including William Arruda, Dick Bolles, Anita Bruzzese, Kirsten Dixson, Stewart Emery,Neville Hobson, John Jantsch, Catherine Kaputa, Guy Kawasaki, David Meerman Scott and Debbie Weil.

All of these speakers are gifting their time to support us in our goals of reaching 100,000 people across the globe with this FREE event to educate people about personal branding.

Yes the event will cost you nothing to attend - just the cost of your phone call so make sure that you register. And if you are not able to attend the event due to your schedule, we will be making the recordings available after the event for you to access.

We also have a social cause partner in Kiva, who support entrepreneurs on developing countries by providing them with microfinance loans. Their goal is to elimate global poverty and we think their goals are so aligned to personal branding that we will be inviting attendees of the event to make a contribution if they felt the event provided them with great value.

The event is also made possible thanks to Zane Safrit and his wonderful team over at Conference Calls Unlimited who are one of our sponsors and have donated the two bridge lines that we will be using to deliver the 24 sessions.

Yes 24 hours of content about personal branding that you can access at NO COST from anywhere in the world.

The content has been developed so that we have three streams:

• Career Management Success
  The content of this stream will be relevant for career professionals who want to apply personal branding strategies to support their career success. This content stream is also relevant for professionals in the field of career coaching, resume writing and career counselling
• Talent Management
  The content of this stream will be relevant for HR professionals and business leaders who want to discover how to attract, develop and retain talent through the application of personal branding strategies
• Entrepreneurship
  This content stream will be applicable for business owners and solopreneurs who want to apply personal branding strategies to grow their business.

If you too are a blogger or podcaster or have a newsletter, I would be honoured if you could spread the word about the event. If you write an article about the event to share the news to your own community, be sure to let me know by posting a comment and sending me a trackback to this article, I’ll be sure to make a link back to you on a special post I will do about personal branding (sharing the link love!). For the pupose of tagging please use ‘personal branding summit’.

You will find badges for your blog and website at the personal branding summit website. Make sure that you subscribe to the feed as well as to attend the event as we will be adding articles about personal bradning to the website from our guest experts and the evetn organisers over the forthcoming weeks.

I have to say that while the event organising has taken a lot of time, the organising team have had great fun getting to know and work with each other - we too are from across the globe and all our meetings were virtual. So if anyone has a question about being in an organisation or a network trying to achieve big things in the world but feel they have to meet face to face, what I can tell you is that you do not need to be together. We have created this event without ever meeting each other and without real connections to the speakers. That for me is an incredible testament to the vision and personal values of everyone involved and a key to building a strong personal brand - the power of collaboration.

I do hope you will be able to join us on the 8 November and access some great advice from some of the foremost leaders in the world of personal branding and career success.

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Positioning yourself as a thought leader in your area of expertise through presenting and speaking is a tremendous way to enhance your profile, build your personal leadership brand, extend your reach and attract more clients .

Recent research by Wesley Hills and Deltek amongst professional services firms found that presenting and speaking was the second most successful method of generating new leads, building brand awareness and attracting more clients. The most successful lead generation strategy was networking and referrals.

But how can you ensure that you are effective in presenting? Here are 7 tips to enhance your professional presentations.

1. DO YOUR RESEARCH – If you have been approached to speak at an event, make sure that you check with the events organiser who has been the most recent speakers and what they talked about. You need to make sure that you provide value to the attendees and do not repeat what others have spoken about.
2. PREPARE FOR SUCCESS – As the group you are speaking with will probably have had other events, ask the event organiser what success will look like for their attendees. Make sure that you have an understanding of the details of the location and room layout. And check where your presentation will come in the running order of the event.
3. MAKE IT RELEVANT – Once you know who your attendees will be and the backgrounds they have, make sure that you customise your presentation with case studies that are relevant to their industry, geography and background. That way you will be more impactful and your audience will consider you more credible to listen to.
4. BE TECH SAVVY – Try not to rely on PowerPoint slides to keep your audience engaged through your presentation. As they say, “less is more” – so the fewer slides and the fewer words on the slides the better. If you plan to include video and audio clips in your presentation, make sure that these are of a high quality and that launching the audio or video clips runs smoothly – only use technology you are proficient in using.
5. SEEK SIGNALS – As you start your presentation, be aware of signals you are getting back from your audience. Different groups will react to your same materials in different ways. A truly successful speaker will be able to adapt their style on their feet – just because your style of engagement may work with one audience, you need to remain open and flexible if you find that your audience is not responding as you might expect.
6. ADD VALUE – Prepare some hand out materials that your attendees can use to write their notes on as you speak. This is a great opportunity to put documentation into their hands that not only is branded with your corporate identity, but also to have resources listed that they will find relevant ideally which they have to access through your website.
7. REVIEW AND REFINE – After the event, seek feedback from the event organisers on your presentation. Also take time out to review your own performance. You might consider recording the event with the event organisers permission so that you can review your own performance. Take the time to capture thoughts and amend your presentation to incorporate your learnings on what went well and what you would like to improve for your next speaking gig.

YOUR BIZ GROWTH ACTION STEPS:

• If you are not experienced in professional speaking, search on the Internet for your local branch of “Toast Masters”, a global not for profit organisation whose goal is to help their members become more proficient in public speaking.
• Review communities where you might be able to speak to reach more of your ideal clients and set yourself a goal of finding at least one speaking engagement to take place in the next 90 days.
• Use the tips above to help you prepare to wow your audience and power up your presentation.

Speaking and presenting is a great way to reach an extended audience and enhance your credibility as an expert in your field. Power up your presentations to build your brand and attract more of your ideal clients.

NOTE: If you enjoyed this article, you may be interested in accessing more articles about branding and business development strategies to grow your practice. If so you can register to join our weekly newsletter and weekly no-cost workshops at Biz Growth Live.

TERMS OF REPRINT: You are welcome to publish this article in your own online ezine or news letter, providing the article is printed in its entirety and is left unedited and you include the copyright notice and the following statement:

©Krishna De, Oneocean Ltd 2007. All rights reserved. Reprinted from ‘Biz Growth News’ (http://www.bizgrowthnews.com/), a Oneocean Ltd publication for leaders in professional services practices, featuring inspiration, strategies and tips to build your brand, attract your ideal clients and enjoy greater success with less stress.  Subscribe today at http://www.bizgrowthlive.com/ .

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