May 2016

Dear Colleague,

Every time the topic of personal branding emerges in a discussion, it evokes a range of perspectives and comments. Some people get inspired to embrace the concept as a necessity in managing their careers, others get very uncomfortable with the concept. I had lunch the other day with a new contact who is one of those uncomfortable people. When she acknowledged her reluctance is causing others to define her brand for her, she became motivated to rectify the situation. Seeing that light bulb turn on for her was inspiring and the rest of our lunch we discussed how she would go about doing so. When I wrote my book on the topic of personal branding, I hoped to provide a guide to help navigate through this process that many people do find overwhelming. But it does not need to be. It's all about being your authentic best self. Do you know your personal brand, and do you work on building and enhancing it? As my friend said, if we don't do so, someone else will. Take the lead in managing your career.

Please share your career stories and updates with me. I look forward to hearing from you!

How Are You Building Your 'Personal Brand'? and Benefits of Coaching as a Developmental Strategy. Please take a moment to read below and feel free to forward along to others.

The last few weeks, I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to be on Sue O'Connell's talk show on NECN, 'The Take' to discuss leadership skills within a presidential campaign, as well as to join Michele McPhee on WMEX 1510 Talk Radio to chat about personal branding.

Click each logo to go to the respective page on my website.

Best Regards,

Rita Balian Allen

How Are You Building Your 'Personal Brand'?

By: Rita Balian Allen, Rita B. Allen Associates
Published on The Huffington Post

Every professional needs to empower themselves to own their careers. We are in a competitive and demanding global, multigenerational marketplace where our ability to articulate our value is essential. How do we stand out and differentiate ourselves? Do we have a specific niche, skill or experience…or is it something about our personality and approach that sets us apart from our colleagues? Look at our current political candidates - some have distinct brands they have built over many years and some are still building or it's been built for them.

Identifying and defining our personal brand is the first step; followed by creating and building our brand; and ultimately articulating and enhancing our brand throughout our career. Many people find this concept challenging but the reality is we must see ourselves as a commodity to be marketed. Being your authentic self, staying true to yourself and engaging in a way that allows you to be the best you can be. That's what personal branding is all about. Putting our best foot forward and being in the driver's seat in managing our career. Having a solid plan for ourselves with specific goals and objectives is the best way to start this process. Embracing the concept of marketing ourselves as a core competency for every professional today is essential.

Read the full article, "How Are You Building Your 'Personal Brand'?"...

Benefits of Coaching as a Developmental Strategy

By: Rita Balian Allen, Rita B. Allen Associates
Published on L&MB

The demand for coaching has grown over the years and has evolved in a variety of ways. Individuals and organizations are engaging executive coaches, career coaches, team coaches, business coaches, life coaches, marketing coaches, writing coaches, and the list goes on and on for other specialty areas of coaches. What is coaching and what value can a coach add?

“To coach” comes from the root meaning “to bring a person from where they are to where they want to be.”
~ David Cattrell from The Manager’s Coaching Handbook

Read the full article, "Values Driven Leadership"...