The Brand Called YOU: Strategizing for Global Marketing

Transcription

1 case February 8, 2016 The Brand Called YOU: Strategizing for Global Marketing "Success happens when reality catches up to your imagination " Simon Sinek Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you re the Charlie Browniest. Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts Your personal marketing plan is your guide to personal brand development. It organizes your thoughts about your competitive advantage, points of difference, and positioning. It defines your opportunities and helps you construct future plans for action. In a sense, it is your own, personal marketing plan. 1 A marketing plan is an important part of your personal brand development and global competitive stance. In preparing your personal marketing plan, keep in mind what you are going to market about yourself, to whom, and why. This is your map for planning and measuring your performance, so include as many hard facts as possible, as well as measurable goals and timelines. The plan should be concise, factual, and easy to read. Explanations for the Personal Branding Worksheet Mission Statement: Summarizes your purpose, values, ideals, vision, and overall goals. The mission statement provides the foundation upon which further planning is based. What is your reason for being and your desired contribution to society. Keep your statements clear and easy to follow. Consider your background, assets and aspirations. Your mission is at the intersection of what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs. Personal Goals: Describes what your personal focus and goal settings are on the basis of favored field of expertise in the short and long term. Michael Porter is famed for saying that sound strategy starts with having the right goals. Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely, Ethical and Reachable (SMARTER). Long term goals are 10 year goals, mid-term goals are 5 year goals, and short term goals are 1 to 2 year goals. Consider the position titles you wish to have (Sales Director, Marketing VP, etc.) and companies or industries (Fortune 500, Oil Industry, etc.). Which way you ought to go depends on where you want to get to. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Branding Yourself : For products, brands include name, logo, graphics, colors, and other atmospherics. This section describes strategies for informing potential employers about yourself. Your brand includes your background, education, looks, dress, speech, vocabulary and social media exposure. It also relates to how people perceive you, or your personal positioning. When branding yourself consider your positioning, points of difference, and points of parity. Your positioning is how people perceive you (does it match your own self impression?) Pick any one of your classmates and you get 10% of their earnings for the rest of their lives. And I ask you, what goes through your mind in determining which one of those you would pick? You ve got to do this on merit. But, you probably wouldn t pick the person that gets the highest grades in the class. Warren Buffet 2 Published by GlobaLens, a division of the William Davidson Institute (WDI) at the University of Michigan Ilan Alon. This exercise was developed by Dr. Ilan Alon at the University of Agder.

2 Situation Analysis: Classical situation analysis uses SWOT and PESTEL analyses. Same applies to individuals. Considering your goals, what are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and what are the environmental enablers and obstacles. How can you use your strengths to take advantage of your opportunities? How can you overcome your threats and compensate for your weaknesses. For this, you will need to do some honest self assessment and think clearly about the uncontrollable, but often, impactful external forces affecting your life. Planning: Describes how the individual will go about producing his or her service in the most efficient, cost-effective manner possible. This includes the 4P framework. Product: According to Kotler, a product consists of a core (benefit and service), (packaging, brand, quality and design), and augmented (dliver, after sale, warranty and installation) levels. What does it mean for a person? Based on your analyses, what can you do to make yourself more competitive and improve your marketability? Rather than just meeting the basic requirements for your desired job, what can you do to exceed the expectations of your potential employers? 3 Education? Extracurricular activities? Volunteer? Job experience? Price: Income is important, but benefits, experiences, promotion possibilities, branding, and cost of living should be taken into account. In the international environment, consider the purchasing power parity and social benefits for you and your family. Your income should be viewed as an investment, so try to consider the net present value (that is, present and future incomes discounted to the present). Think about what salary and compensation package you expect, not only after graduating, but in the long run in your respective field of work. Also consider what you would be settling for. What s the average salary received by competitors in your target market? How do you plan to increase/maintain this? Promotion: How do you plan to promote yourself? You need to be professional online as well as offline (real world). When using social media, remember: Consistency is key. Use the same version of your name and professional image of yourself in all your professional profiles, and make sure every link and typed message is consistent with the image you wish to promote. Some effective tools one can consider are social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter), networking events, webinars, or a good résumé. The old CV and cover letter are still used, but now social media is becoming a norm for promoting one's brand globally. Consider your linkedin, facebook, blog, website, twitter, address, and video resume. In the physical world, consider your wardrobe and networking activities. Place: Where do you want to live? Where would you like to work? What country/city state? Do you want to work from home or commute? Do you want a job that requires you to travel a lot? Consider the implications of this situation in your business before answering. Consider the countries, states, regions of the world and their advantages and disadvantages. Implementation: Discusses the action you want to take to achieve your objective with its intended impact and other pre-set standards. Implementation is a crucial point in marketing oneself. Execution is key to success. After analyzing yourself in the previous sections, complete the following sections. Objective: What are you immediate short term objectives supporting the long term ones? Action: What are the necessary steps you need to take to reach your goal? Intended Impact: How do you perceive the results of your actions? Deadline: List tasks on how you would measure the results of your actions and within a specific deadline. Example Implementation Phase 1. Objective 2. Action 3. Intended Impact 4. Deadline

3 Get a job as a project marketing intern. Take up marketing research course in summer. Learn method and procedure for market research. Secure a job as a project marketing intern in next two months. Control: Now it s time to re-evaluate, regroup, and grow further through introspection. After creating and implementing this plan, as a marketer, you should re-evaluate it periodically to gauge its success in moving the organization toward its goals. If necessary, changes should be implemented promptly. Evaluation: What did and didn t work? Why? Future Strategy: How can you improve the plan? Or if the plan failed, what is an alternate course of action? What are the pros and cons of each option? I am not concerned with simply surviving. I am very concerned about improving. I start each day by examining yesterday s work and looking for areas where I can improve. Charles M. Schulz, My Life with Charlie Brown Contingency Planning: The final step. Planning for foreseeable deviations from the plan and setting up a backup strategy. Before you rush off to implement your personal marketing plan, one last step in the process must be taken the preparation of a contingency plan. This plan examines the what-ifs the key assumptions that underpin your career plan. Contingency planning also helps you develop broad strategies for revising your plan in the event that your assumptions do not materialize. These events include probable situations, and the amount of liability can be estimated. A contingency plan acknowledges that no forecast is 100% accurate. It prepares you to be aware of and adjust to early warning signals that things may be moving off course. Prepare a plan of about 100 words. The preparation of a personal marketing plan will go a long way toward alleviating these problems. Effective self-marketing helps you identify it. A propensity for action ensures that you will find it.

4 I. Personal Goals PERSONAL BRANDING WORKSHEET THE BRAND CALLED My Personal Mission Statement: Focus and Goal Setting Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timely Ethical Reachable My Top Three Industries or Companies: Job Titles (Year): Industries: Short Term: Companies: Medium Term: Long Term: Brand Name Name, Nickname, Symbol, Title, etc. Positioning Perceptions vs. Reality: II. Branding Yourself Points of Difference Core Competencies (Valuable, Rare and Hard to Imitate) What differentiates you? How does it differentiate you?: Why does it matter? Points of Parity Necessary Competitive Qualities:

5 III. Situation Analysis STRATEGIC MARKETING PROCESS SWOT PESTEL Analyses DESCRIPTION Self Assessment Favorable Unfavorable Internal: My Strengths My Weaknesses Education Languages Skills Capabilities Know-how Personality Job Experience Motivation Family Other: External: Competition Opportunities Threats Political Economic Social Technical Environment Legal Other:

6 IV. Planning Phase Product Strategy (Actions to Improve My Marketability ) Formal Education/Courses: Job Experiences/Projects: Extracurricular/Volunteer Activities: Obstacles to Overcome: Price Strategy Income, Benefits and Others: Promotion Strategy Online: Offline: Place Strategy Desired Location/s:

7 V. Implementation Phase VI. Control Phase VII. Planning Contingencies STRATEGIC MARKETING PROCESS DESCRIPTION Objectives Actions Intended Impact Deadline Short- Term a. a. a. b. b. b. c. c. c. d. d. d. e. e. e. Evaluation What Did and Didn t Work: Control How to Modify Strategy: Contingency Plan My Backup Plan: 1 Kotler, Philip, and Keller, Kevin L. Marketing Management. 13th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

8 2 Buffett, Warren. Warren Buffett Speech to University of Georgia Students. 3 Kotler, Philip, and Keller, Kevin L.