SA: You’re a strong advocate of “personal branding”. Could you define what that means to you?
JA: I had no concept of personal branding during my job search, and that contributed to the painful job search. I talk about personal branding as it relates to push and pull marketing. If you have a strong personal brand, you can enjoy the benefits of pull marketing – that is, people know you, they know what you have to offer, they know how you’ll fit into their organization or needs, and they reach out to you. If you have no personal brand you have to do push marketing – that is, you have to educate them on yourself and your value, and why they should consider you. I’ve seen people with strong personal brands transition very quickly, and I’ve since fallen in love with the idea of developing a strong personal brand as a career management strategy.
SA: And secondly, why is it so important both for entrepreneurs and job seekers?
JA: Anytime you can have the need for you or your offerings, it’s going to be better to sell (yourself or your stuff). Imagine if Coca-Cola had NO brand (hard to imagine, I know). I bet they would lose HUGE market share… but since we know what it is, and what we are getting, and there is no education involved, they enjoy a lot of sales without doing any educating. Think about Nike, Coca-Cola, and other companies who enjoy the value of their brand… what if YOU had some of that brand power?
SA: You do a lot of public speaking. Had you done that much before or was it new for you? How did you get started?
JA: I have been a speaker for a long time, and am comfortable in front of audiences since I was young. The key to getting speaking engagements, and getting paid for it, has been becoming an author. Being a CEO of a cool web company? No big deal, we’re a-dime-a-dozen. But being an author of a relatively popular/successful book on a popular technology, that has been HUGE. In fact, if I realized how powerful this was, it would have been one of the first things I did when I started my company two years ago.
SA: Do you speak for free or fee? How do you go about getting speaking engagements?
JA: I will speak for free to certain groups, mostly job search or networking clubs who have no budget and are the perfect market for JibberJobber. But as I’ve entered into the world of professional speaking, which I love, I am charging for my engagements (whether it’s a webinar or in-person). So far I’ve gotten all of my engagements because people have found me through search engines or on Amazon, or because of existing network contacts. I do a ton of networking, and love to nurture relationships, and have found that people remember me and are willing to help me, as I let them know what I’m interested in.
SA: You’ve written a couple of books – I’m on LinkedIn -- Now What?? and I’m on Facebook – Now What?? One might have expected that you’d first do I’m on JibberJobber – Now What?? What prompted you to do these books instead?
JA: Two things prompted me to roll out the first book. First, I blogged about using LinkedIn as a career management tool, and my blog readers asked me how to really get value out of it. I figured the answers needed would be more appropriate in a book format than in a series of blog posts. Second, I heard Andy Sernovitz (DamnIWish.com) talk about creating word of mouth buzz for your business, and he suggested that you find another business/brand/product that was getting a lot of word of mouth and figure out how to latch onto that. And it worked. I wrote the second book because people asked for it, specifically, the career experts I work with on a regular basis, who needed answers for their clients.
SA: How does promoting these other services help you grow your business?
JA: I’ve been asked if I’m an employee or evangelist of LinkedIn or Facebook… the truth is, they hardly know who I am, and I doubt they care. I wrote these books to help my readers and increase my reach, and it certainly has. Have you seen JibberJobber on 60 Minutes, or talked about in the way that the media talks about LinkedIn or Facebook? No. But the millions of people who read about LinkedIn and Facebook in traditional media, and then go to Amazon or Google to learn more, find my books… and that has been excellent for my branding as a speaker, and for JibberJibber’s brand.
SA: How have these tools helped you grow your business? How can they help other entrepreneurs?
JA: I talk about LinkedIn and Facebook as tools to help you with your networking and branding. As you participate in these social environments, and complement your strategy with other tools like Twitter, blogs, article writing, etc., you will expand your reach, develop relationships, nurture relationships, create evangelists, strengthen your brand, find opportunities, … etc. etc. I’m not a social nut, in fact, I’ve been “social-networked-out” for over two years… but I do like to figure out what I can and need to do, get it done, and move on to the rest of my business.
SA: You also have a very popular blog. What do you cover on it and how has it helped you grow your business?
JA: I don’t talk much about how to use JibberJobber, or how to do a job search (which I find kind of boring)…. Even though those would be perfect topics for my blog and blog readers. Instead, I wanted to attract a larger audience, including non-JibberJobber users and non-job seekers. So I talk about career management stuff – developing relationships, personal branding, volunteering and service, being CEO of Me, Inc., and stuff like that. Obviously my JibberJobber users are blog readers, but I have career coaches, resume writers, career center counselors, outplacement professionals, recruiters, and people who are happily employed read my blog. It’s very gratifying to get an e-mail from a happily employed professional who says something like “I didn’t work on career management before, but I finally get it and am more proactive about networking, my personal brand, etc.” How cool is that!