LinkedIn and Recruitment at Universidad del Pacifico in Lima, Peru

jorgen sundberg lima peru linkedin

In case you live in Peru or happen to be in Lima on 12-14 September, wanted to let you know that I will be speaking about LinkedIn at a conference called I Encuentro de Empleabilidad y Talento  - LinkedIn y el reclutamiento 2.0. This event held by the Postgraduate School at the University del Pacifico will be all about using LinkedIn and recruitment 2.0 to find the best talent for large companies in Peru.

My talk will apparently be the first ever about LinkedIn which is very exciting. I will actually two talks, in the morning there’s a 2 hour session for talent acquisition and HR managers, very much focused around hiring the best staff. In the evening there a session aimed at MBAs and alumni of the university, this session will be more about using Linkedin for career and personal branding success.

In preparation for the conference, I have joined the university’s LinkedIn group, I have connected to a number of recruitment people in the country and I have started following lots of Peruvians on Twitter. All this will help once I’m on the ground I’m sure.

And “how’s your Spanish” I hear you think… Well it’s not brilliant but fortunately there will be an interpreter at the conference to translate what I’ve got to say. I hope this person knows their way around LinkedIn! And here’s how my bio looks en espanol by the way:

jorgen sundberg linkedin speaker university lima peru

Please let me know if  you are planning to attend or if you have any tips for me – it will certainly be the first time I speak to a Peruvian audience!

Filed Under: LinkedIn, Monthly Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How Trade Associations Can Use Social Media [Seminar Slides]

Yesterday I had the pleasure of delivering a social media seminar to The Trade Association Forum, part of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in London. We were supposed to do it at our offices but due to a big demand it was moved to Centre Point which is a skyscraper (kind of) in central London. This made the whole experience more interesting for me as my presentation had to compete with a nice view of the royal capital as per my iPhone image above.

This is the first time I have ever trained trade associations and their management teams. Their marketing efforts on social media and online in general aren't that straightforward as you would think. Yes they have to recruit new members and tell existing member about how useful the association is, basically what value they can add to the member companies' business. Then they also want to communicate with the press, basically putting out stories about the industry and hopefully getting some good write-ups in traditional media (which is where most of the end-customers consume news still). Finally, they want to use social media as a lead generation tool for their member companies. This means they can pick up leads and enquiries from social media and distribute to relevant companies perhaps based on location. To sum up, trade associations have a three-pronged approach to social networking and we addressed a number of their challenges and how to overcome these.

We recognised that the most relevant social network for most of the associations is LinkedIn, as their their target audience consists of professionals. Some also use Twitter and very few use Facebook. LinkedIn is useful for community building with the members, LinkedIn groups are of course a great place to have industry discussions and to facilitate partnerships in the trade. Twitter does come in handy for reaching out to press, it's no secret journalists are all over Twitter. Finally, Facebook could be useful for lead generation in terms of creating communities around a topic area and attracting end-customers to it. This of course depends on the nature of the trade.

Here is a summary of the presentation I used yesterday, any questions just let me know.

More about the Philips case study at How Philips Built a Community on LinkedIn.
Filed Under: Events, Monthly, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

Personal Branding Talk at Edelman London and IgnitePR

Last week I gave a personal branding presentation at Edelman in London, for IgnitePR which is an association that promotes diversity in the PR industry. I only had twenty minutes so had to pack in a lot of content and thought I would share not only the slide deck but also the Audioboo clip (there's a first for everything).

I would like to thank Bienosa Ebite and Lee Edwards for inviting me and making it a great event. I would also like to thank the other presenter, Sarah Stimson from the Taylor Bennett Foundation who is doing great work helping young graduates find their feet in the very competitive PR field.

Here is the audio:

And here are the slides:

Would love to get your feedback, please let me know what you think!
Filed Under: Events, Monthly, Personal Branding, Slides Tagged With: ,

Public Speaking Tips for Your Personal Brand

Let me take a wild guess. You are full of great ideas that you want to unleash on the world but not quite sure how to reach out? Well in the weird and wonderful world of personal branding we have a number of channels at our disposal such as blogging, social media, networking and yes – public speaking.

What is public speaking?

It's all about speaking before an audience of people that you may or may not know. This includes both prepared speeches (see more on TED for inspiration) and impromptu speaking where you have to think on your feet.

No thanks, I'd rather jump out of an airplane

They say the notion of speaking in public is the greatest fear in people today, worse than war, starvation and even dying (and carnies by the way). The difference between these and public speaking is that you are not likely to be physically harmed by speaking. This of course doesn't apply at some comedy clubs where they hand out tennis balls to the audience.

Why public speaking?

In terms of personal branding, being able to speak to an audience is critical. If you want to run your own business or climb the corporate ladder you will have to use speaking skills. Any sales pitch, job interview or presentation will require the same skills.

Think about your role models, ever heard them give a speech by any chance? Yes I thought so. Ever since the days of Cicero, people have been able to propel their success by having excellent communication skills and so should you.

What do you speak about?

This one's completely up to you. I would recommend you speak about things you are passionate about; first of all you'll know the content better than most folks and second your delivery will be more authentic as the topic means something to you.

Start looking at what books you have read, films you have seen, current affairs or observations from life in general. There is always an interesting angle on things; namely your angle. If you are a blogger, you know that you can turn anything into a blog post, same with speeches.

Where do you speak?

When your other half and even your mirror are sick of you speaking at home, it's time to venture out to find a forum for your public speaking. Fortunately there are a number of organizations that cater for needs like yours.

I am a member of Toastmasters International which is a non-profit speaker's club represented in most cities across the world. More here about Toastmasters.

I found Toastmasters through a little friend called Google, think I tapped in "speaking club London" and one of many clubs appeared in the results. The point is that you can do the same search for location, there will be plenty of alternatives to Toastmasters which I am sure will be equally good. See more at How to Find Networking Events.

How can I get a speaker one-sheet?

When you become a more advanced speaker you will want to look for some personal brand enhancing gigs. This could be at conferences, meetups or other networking events. The way to get these gigs will be to send over a speaker one-sheet, basically your speaker resume. More about here about how to create your one-sheet.

Is there money in public speaking?

Yes there certainly is money for the likes of Tony Blair, Colin Powell and folks of that caliber. What we have to bear in mind is that they have very strong personal brands already and can command a hefty fee for their appearances. Tony Blair got half a million dollars for one speech in 2007 by the way!

For our purposes, speaking is about reputation building and promotion that will boost your brand along with other activities. If you do find a knack for speaking, there is of course nothing to stop you from becoming the next big thing on the after-dinner circuit.

Final thoughts

Public speaking is integral for your personal brand. Even though we live in an online age, there is nothing more impressive than hearing a great speech from someone in person. Anyone can be that speaker but not everyone tries – I hope I have convinced you to try it out today.

Here's Gary Vaynerchuk giving a public speech on the topic of personal branding to inspire you further:

Do you ever speak in public? Would you recommend it to others?
 

Filed Under: Monthly, Personal Branding Tagged With: ,

Story Telling is Story Selling

Before an important business meeting, most people will spend time to prepare answers for likely scenarios and questions. This is useful and can get you prepared for the basics. The trouble is that your counterpart (the buyer) is not looking for answers that are already in your brochure, they want to hear something that adds to it.

You have to realize that a successful sales meeting isn’t a cross examination, it’s a conversation. If you want to break out of the question/answer ping pong match, you should aim to sprinkle in some interesting information about yourself in the shape of stories. People buy from people, and the more you can get the other person to buy into you – the easier it will be to close the deal.

The case for telling stories

If you have ever sat through a competency based job interview, you know how important stories are to convey your message. I say that stories work really well in any sales meeting as they are memorable. Facts can easily be forgotten and mixed up but people tend to remember stories and who told them. The human brain is hard wired to remember stories, not just the words but the visuals that went through the listeners head as well. Marketers make very clever use of stories to sell products and services and so should you.

If you think about it, your whole life you have been told stories in one form or another. Whether it was bed time stories or fairy tales adapted by Disney, whether it’s a French art house film or a detective novel– there is a story there that you will remember. By using stories you will appeal to the human mind, you will create a strong connection with the listener, you will demonstrate your communication skills and finally you will be remembered.

How to tell stories

A story needs to have a clear beginning, middle and end. The punch line will be your result. You don’t want your anecdotes to be too long, aim to be able to deliver the story within 60 seconds if required. There is no need to put more details in there, if it’s an interesting story you can be sure the other person will ask you about it and there is your chance to elaborate.

In order to tell a really memorable story, you will have to make it original. People want to hear about your out-of-the-box way of doing things, your imaginative and clever methods to reach goals. Your meeting counterpart has heard a few stories in their day so make sure yours are special and they will go down a treat.

Make sure you listen first

Another really important aspect to this is to remember to listen to the other person’s questions. Make sure you understand exactly what they are asking and what type of story that would apply. The kiss of death to your meeting would be you going in all guns blazing, churning out story after story when all they asked was whether you wanted coffee or tea. Remember that it’s a sales meeting, you are either selling yourself, a product or a service. You have to put the focus on the buyer and their needs as opposed to your ego.

Call to action

Tap in to the age-old human love of stories, get into story telling mode before your big meeting and you will be interesting, different and memorable. Work on a few different stories that you can fire off at will, making absolutely sure they are relevant to the person listening. The more stories you tell, the better you get – before you know it you'll be the bard of your industry!

More on storytelling in our Personal Branding workshops in London!
 

Filed Under: Marketing, Monthly Tagged With: ,
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