Friday, August 24, 2012

blogbon


Lessons I Learned from My Rebranding Experience
7 days ago I put my latest brand, Be Irresistible Online, with a completely new website design and Facebook page. For the past two months I’ve been working really hard on this brand and it’s been a learning process for me as I’ve discovered what it is that makes a brand great and how to create an inspiring online presence.
There are 3 things I learnt about the rebranding process:
1. It’s acceptable to ask for help - and it can save LOTs of time, energy and aggravation.
My job is as a designer, and part of my role, is to help customers with their brand design, this involves the website, Facebook and other social media.
I should have been able to do the design for my own brand with my eyes closed, however I found I couldn’t come up with anything! I realized that this was because it was far too personal to me, and so even though I did try, I ended up wasting a lot of time and ended up with nothing satisfactory.
Eventually I decided to pay a professional to do it for me. I hired a designer who could do the design, and with someone who had no personal interest, it all soon came together.
There are times when it makes no difference if you have the skills to do a particular task, it needs another viewpoint to work wonders. Occasionally bringing in a fresh face who is going to have a different perspective and can see things a lot more clearly than you can is what’s necessary.
If you really find yourself struggling and wasting time then stop being stubborn and waiting for a good idea to come. Instead hire a professional who has experience and can get it completed in next to no time, or at least give you some good pointers to get you moving.
2. It’s Essential your Design Makes You Sing Out Loud!
The design and brand already in place were actually ok as they were, however they were looking tired, and as my business grew they seemed out of place and left behind. It was time to make a change.
The look of my website also affected my business as in I would hold back on certain projects simply because I felt a bit embarrassed by the look of my site or my Facebook! I had no confidence in my brand image, which in turn affected my communication with potential clients; my image was having a knock on effect as it wasn’t a full representation of my business.
I am so happy with my new brand design that I could stand up and sing from the rooftops! When I look at it I get a warm glow inside, and I am heaps more confident about my business and achieving a lot more in the future.
3. A Brand should reveal Who You are Becoming
Over the past two months or so I have learnt a lot from my guru, and one of them is this, it’s also shown me a total fresh outlook with regards to branding and building up an empire online. The idea is that branding is not about who you are or have been, it’s an indication of who you are becoming.  
Once your brand reflects who you’re developing into and where you want to be in 5 years time for example, it will work in a positive way as it pulls you towards those goals. It will provide motivation and a constant reminder of your aims.
As my rebrand was underway it gave me a chance to think about this, where did I want to be in a few years time? The first thing that sprang to mind was that I want to be an published author, to do more public speaking, and offering more first-class packages and services.
My ideas and goals are ambitious, and my brand needed to echo that.
The very first time I saw my new brand image I was scared as it made me realize that I wouldn’t be able to hide anymore. It was time to get out there in the spotlight and face the future in a much bigger arena than I ever imagined.
I have to say that this has been an experience that has shown me I can be a pretty impressive force online, but not only that, it also provided me with the tools to help my clients create their very own empires that will make them sing from the rooftops too!
Is your brand image one that makes you sing out loud?


 
Increase Your Success by Living Your Passion
“Nothing in this world has ever been accomplished without great passion”
           – Hebbel, German Poet
An enthusiasm for living and working is what gets us up every day and attempt to realize our ambitions.  Owning a business, and being a professional, it’s all too simple to start walking down the road of success, and not stop until we get to the finish line.  However, the hard part is that the road that leads to success tries to prevent us from getting to the finishing line by throwing ‘life’ at us. Life bombards us with opportunities, chores, errands, diversions, and other responsibilities that try to distract from what makes us thrive and feel passionate about.
In 2008 as the economy took a downturn and cutbacks were being made I noticed something strange starting to happen amongst my close friends and colleagues. Many of them had really good jobs they’d worked hard to attain and were on high salaries, off they’d go to the office every day, work long hours then come home to the family. To the outside world they were happy in their work; after all they had chosen these careers so didn’t their success demonstrate this? 
Once the economy took a nosedive many of these ‘satisfied’ people made surprising decisions that resulted in lifestyle changes – some gave up work and set up their own business, and some even returned to education.  It seems that, although they gave the impression they were happy enough at the time, as they followed their road to success which had brought them to secure, well-paid jobs, they weren’t actually happy with their lives. It didn’t matter why they decided to make a change in their lives, from stress, company cutbacks, or bored with a mundane routine, they left an unsettled position to follow their hearts and do something they were enthusiastic about.
Something comparable to this just happened to me.  One business I set up called for me to go in every day and work full-time on the premises. I agreed and started work with pleasure, however it didn’t take very long before I realized I didn’t actually want to be there, and was not enjoying myself.  Although I had been energized to start the company, that didn’t mean I wanted to work there on a daily basis.
How could that be, when it was I who established the business?  It is extremely simple to undertake extra tasks and duties that alter your daily life and suddenly find yourself somewhere where you can’t focus on your strong points and things you love.  What we all should do from time to time is to continually assess our situation and function in a company to establish if our passions are alive each and every day.
There are 5 questions you should think about:
1.         At what time have I felt the most proficient?
2.         What part of the working day is the best?
3.         What do I find easy about my work day and doesn’t stress me out?
4.         At some stage in the day do you find you are smiling about something you’re thinking of?
5.         What do you miss about your work day, and what would you enjoy doing more of?
Study the answers you give, assess your business or situation and enthusiastically search for methods to integrate those things each day.  Although you might think you can’t accomplish them every day, make an effort to fit them in as much as possible as this will boost efficiency and make life a lot more enjoyable.
There are other question to ask consider:
1.         In what situation do I get stressed?
2.         What duties do I dodge, or put off regularly?
3.         What is my least preferred time of the day?
Having a business of your own means you can get someone to do the jobs you hate to do.  They’ll probably be more capable than you at doing them anyway, and then you have more time to do the things you are good at, which will give the business a chance to grow.  Delegation is the key, if you have a team to manage then give little jobs and tasks to do, they might have allocated jobs they don’t like, so by putting your heads together efficiency and work contentment can be improved.
On balance we all desire to do well, realize the goals we define for ourselves, and feel fulfilled with our achievements.  The key element is to take care that the focus includes your own happiness.  If you think and work with this in mind you’ll flourish, and achieve more throughout the day.


 
The Meaning of “Gainful Employment” for Students
Do you remember what it was like to be 18 again, just left school and looking for a college place? The most important information at that time was how much fun it was going to be, and what additional activities were available. Add a few years and college again beckons, but now your priorities have changed and you’re more interested in what kind of money you can expect to earn after paying all that money to get a degree.
There’s no college that can assure you of getting a good job after graduation, but what you can do is get an idea of what to expect by checking out previous graduates. The Gainful Employment data held by the Department of Education has its uses here, although the numbers involved are not easy to decipher! 
This where a new tool on the internet, designed by CollegeMeasures.org,, comes into force. It’s designed to make it a lot simpler to examine the information and decide whether particular college-level career training programs are worth the effort. A united project between Matrix Knowledge Group and the American Institutes for Research, the website is intended to push improvement in higher education results in America.
The web tool is structured by state; viewers are permitted to inspect named institutions to check if their programs fulfill federal requirements.
For those who don’t know, there are 3 performance principles that establish gainful employment:
1) Loan Repayment Rate – no less than 35% of students pay back their student loans;
2) Annual Income to Debt Ratio – graduates’ total annual loan payments are 12% or less of their yearly income;
3) Discretionary Income Debt to Earnings Ratio – yearly loan payments do not surpass 30% of a graduate’s discretionary income, this is the amount left once basics have been covered, such as food, housing, and clothing. Institutions are required to meet at least one of these values to classify for federal financial aid.
Below are a few highlights from the statistics:
           SCHOOLS: Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, AZ, possesses a faultless record as each of its 12 programs passed every threshold. More than half of its programs are connected to education.
           STATES: Connecticut.is one of the top states. All 52 programs passed all metrics, and 77% of its programs passed all thresholds – the second-highest percentage in the country.
           STUDIES: Many areas of study had a faultless record of no failing programs, with the leading area Mechanic and Repair Technologies (159 programs) and Construction Trades (60 programs).
And a few lowlights:
           SCHOOLS: Eighteen schools received a 100% failure rate, however several only offered one program. Sanford-Brown College in McLean, VA, had all three programs fail.
           STATES: Alabama – out of 27 programs only two passed all metrics, and seven programs (19% of their total) failing all thresholds.
           STUDIES: Homeland Security/Law Enforcemen was the worst performance with 24% of its programs failing all three metrics. The next two lowest were Visual and Performing Arts and Communications Technologies, both with a 15% failure.
Obviously, as with any statistics, the numbers can’t just be looked at separately, they have to be considered alongside other factors. Although the Homeland Security programs didn’t achieve highly in this metric it doesn’t necessarily follow that they should be disregarded. The Department of Education even cautions that these informational rates are not to be used for speculating about particular Gainful Employment programs or making predictions about rates in the future.
If you do use the web tool and find the college you’re interested in didn’t perform very well, try to find out more before taking any action and ask some relevant questions.