Managing Your Personal Brand "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken." - Oscar Wilde, Author

For many, the word ‘brand’ conjures images of corporate board rooms, elaborate advertising campaigns and television commercials with catchy jingles.  Regardless of the product, ‘brand’ signifies consistency; a company’s promise to...
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... customers about the quality of their offerings.  People possess brands as well – demonstrated not only by the clothes we wear, social network messages we send and people we spend our time with, but also by what we don’t do.  Personal brand management enables us to communicate purposeful messages to the world about who we are and allows the opportunity to consistently present our very best.         

This month, The LI offers the advice of Tory Johnson, a staunch business woman, insightful public speaker and best-selling author whose company, Women For Hire, has helped thousands of women identify and achieve their professional hearts’ desires.  Johnson shares first-hand knowledge of the importance of managing one’s personal brand, which is beneficial to all women regardless of their current level on the ladder to success. 

Ms. Johnson’s Biography:

After unexpectedly losing a job she loved, Tory Johnson formed Women For Hire in 1999 with two missions in mind: 1) Make a decent living to support her family and, 2) Help women find jobs. Today, the multi-million dollar company has provided an array of recruiting services to thousands of women, helping them take deliberate steps and apply essential strategies to create their own blueprints for success.  Her national conferences, Spark & Hustle, offer women entrepreneurs – regardless of education, connections or capital – the necessary tools to profit financially from their passion and purpose by combining their spark of an idea with the hustle to make it happen. 

Johnson is the Workplace Contributor on ABC’s Good Morning America, host of Job Hunt on WNYC, anchor of @ Work on ABC News Now and a frequent guest expert on talk shows nationwide.  A sought-after public speaker, Johnson has lent her talents and insights to Maria Shriver’s Women’s Conference, the NCAA Gender Equity Forum and a plethora of college and government-sponsored conferences for women.

Johnson has penned several titles to help women enhance their personal brands in order to obtain, retain and get ahead in the workplace, including:

• Fired to Hired: Bouncing Back from Job Loss to Get to Work Right Now , which chronicles Johnson’s struggle with a pink slip and subsequent successes.  Throughout the book, Johnson offers insights to help women overcome challenges to get hired now.
• Will Work From Home: Earn the Cash without the Commute , an easy-to-follow New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller that is filled with ideas and resources to help women make money from home.
• Take This Book to Work: How to Ask For (and Get) Money, Fulfillment and Advancement , which teaches women how to ask for what they want, from a promotion to a flexible work arrangement, and much more.
• Women For Hire’s Get-Ahead Guide to Career Success , a book that contains time-tested tips and tricks to help women figure out what they want and how to get it.

Johnson serves on the Alumni Association Board of Directors for Emerson College. She has received numerous awards for her work ranging from Distinguished Alumni Achievement honors to the Annual Leadership Award from The Women’s Center, which has a rich history of recognizing the most successful women in business.  She is a mentor to dozens of women throughout the country, providing one-on-one guidance on both career advancement and entrepreneurship. Johnson has assisted people displaced in the Gulf states following Hurricane Katrina, and is an active volunteer for many community-based organizations that focus on women’s issues and education.  She lives in New York City with her husband and children.

A Message from The LI

Managing one’s personal brand is about being authentic, making purposeful decisions and being mindful that what we do today directly affects the results of tomorrow.   The LI’s course Footprint Leadership strengthens women’s leadership skills in these areas by helping them identify all of the gifts they have received in life and to create a plan on how to pay it forward.  The LI also provides articles, websites and book recommendations on managing one’s personal brand, including: 

• Dangers of Social Networking Sites , an article by Melissa Gonzalez, reminds us that while social networking is an efficient, fun way to communicate with others, we must be aware of the implications related to employment and privacy we face when sharing our lives online.
• 12 Ways to Develop Your Brand-Power , a recommendation of Tory Johnson, offers practical yet powerful tips for entrepreneurs and individuals alike, including “be helpful and solve problems;” “be caring, kind and generous;” and “be respectful and thankful.”
• Managing Brand You: 7 Steps to Creating Your Most Successful Self by Jerry S. Wilson and Ira Blumenthal.  This book helps readers identify what it is that makes them unique and to communicate it in a way that guarantees success.  It provides a step-by-step guide for conducting self-analysis, creating a unique identity, defining objectives, discovering passions, creating a plan, putting that plan into action and monitoring progress.