Creating positive personal impact is one of the seven keys to life and career success that I discuss in my forthcoming book, Climbing the Corporate Ladder.  When you create positive personal impact, you brand yourself as a polished professional.

My career success coach clients and membership site members ask me lots of questions about how to create positive personal impact.  So I decided to take a few minutes and create 15 rules for creating positive personal impact.  Check it out and let me know what you think…

15 Career Success Tips for Creating Powerful Personal Impact

1. Become known as a person of character and high integrity.  Be true yourself.  Your reputation is all you’ve got.

2. Know your values and stick to them.  If you haven’t already articulated your values (what’s important to you in life), take a few minutes, think about them and write them down.  Review them often.  Make sure you’re staying true to yourself.

3. Take responsibility for your life and career.  You are the one who is responsible for making your dreams come true.  Embrace this responsibility.  Do what it takes to succeed.

4. Build your legacy.  Your legacy is how people will remember you when you’re gone.  Think about the memories you are leaving behind every day.  How will people remember you?  Focus on ensuring that people will remember you as someone who did his or her best.

5. Make yourself stand out.  Identify the qualities or characteristics that make you a unique human being.  Develop your unique feature/benefit statement.  Identify what sets you apart (the feature) and how this benefits the people around you?

6. Become widely trusted. Deliver on what you say you’ll do.  If you can’t meet a commitment, let the other person know as soon as you can.  Keep confidences.  Avoid gossip.  It is never good to embarrass others by repeating what they have shared with you – even if it isn’t in confidence.

7. Use the two most important words in the world – “thank you” – often.  People who use these two simple words do well in their life and career.  And they others come to see them as a truly nice person.

8. Treat every social interaction as an opportunity to build and strengthen relationships.  Strong relationships are key to success in business.  When meeting people, make a personal connection.  You’ll generate opportunities for yourself.

9. Stand up straight, smile, look people in the eye.  Shake hands as if you mean it.  Use the other person’s name frequently during conversations.  Be genuinely interested in what other people have to say.

10. Business meals are about business, not the food.  Learn and use simple table manners.  Good table manners make you look polished and poised.

11. Dedicate time and money to your wardrobe.  Purchase your clothing according to a well thought out plan.  Buy the highest quality clothes that you can afford.  This will pay off in the long run.  High quality clothes look better and wear longer.

12. Make sure your clothes fit well are well tailored.  Use the three way mirror when trying on clothes.  Make sure you look good from the front, back and side.  Keep your clothes looking good.

13. Have your hair cut and styled regularly.  Your hair stylist is your friend.  Visit him or her as often as necessary to keep you looking sharp.

14. Become a great communicator.  Learn to write well, handle yourself in conversations and present to a group.

15. Seek out and welcome feedback.  Listen to what people, especially your employees and customers, tell you.  Absorb it, even though it may hurt.  Develop a plan for modifying your behavior.  Work your plan.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  You have to brand yourself as a polished professional by creating positive personal impact if you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve.  People who create positive personal impact are in demand.  Others look up to them and want them on their teams.  Their names come up in promotion discussions – and are never mentioned when layoffs threaten.  Follow these 15 common sense tips and you’ll be on your way to not only creating positive personal impact, but to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my career advice on creating positive personal impact.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I really value you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Joe Paterno passed away over the weekend.  You probably know this but he was the football coach at Penn State for the past 46 years.  He has more wins than any other coach in Division I college football.  He was known for running a very clean program with no recruiting violations or scandals.  Besides building a winning football program, Joe did a lot for Penn State, giving millions of dollars to the university to expand the library.

I’m a Penn State alum.  Joe was the head coach when I arrived there in the Fall of 1968.  I was always proud to be a Penn State alum.  I was especially proud of the football program and is reputation for fair play.

That all changed for me last Fall when one of Joe’s longtime assistant coaches was charged with several counts of child sex abuse.  You probably know the story.  In 2002, one of Joe’s assistant coaches, Mike McQueary observed Sandusky, who was retired but still had access to the Penn State football facilities, raping a young boy in a shower.  McQueary told Joe, who reported the incident to the Athletic Director.

Sandusky was never barred from the Penn State training facilities, and it is alleged that he continued to abuse young boys up until his arrest last Fall.  Many people, myself included, feel that Joe Paterno should have done more to follow up on what McQueary told him.  Make no mistake, he did what was required of him by law – he even testified at the Grand Jury investigating the allegations.  But doing what’s legal, isn’t necessarily doing what’s right.

Joe Paterno will forever be regarded as a great football coach, but one who gave tacit approval to child sex abuse.  And that’s the career success point of this post.   Your personal brand and reputation are important.  Guard them with all your might.

Last Friday, I was doing an interview for my membership site with Van Horsley, President of the Colorado operations of a large national bank.  I do these interviews to give my members inside advice on life and career success from successful people.  If you would like to see what the membership site is all about, go to http://www.MyCorporateClimb.com.  In our interview, Van concluded his remarks by saying, “Your integrity is an asset.  And once you spend that asset, it’s gone forever.”

As I listened to the coverage of Joe Paterno’s passing, I was reminded of Van’s remarks on integrity.  Joe Paterno spent his integrity when he didn’t follow up on the allegations about Jerry Sandusky.  By not doing so, and by continuing to let this man have access to the Penn State athletic facilities, Joe lost his integrity – which is too bad, because by all accounts he is a man of high integrity.

But that’s the way it goes.  It takes a long time to build a reputation as a person of integrity.  One foolish move can destroy all that.  All of the coverage on Joe’s passing said he “was a great football coach, BUT…”

Tweet 62 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Your personal brand should be unique to you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”

According to Wikipedia, “Integrity is consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles.”  Integrity and consistency are intertwined.  People who are consistent in their actions are seen as people with a high degree of integrity.

Oprah says, “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”  This is true.  If you practice situational ethics – doing the right thing only when you’re in the public eye — you aren’t really a person of high integrity, you’re just pretending to be one.

Besides, it’s hard to act one way in public, and another in private.  So to be safe, resolve to act like Oprah.  Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do – not because you’ll get credit, or avoid getting into trouble.

John Maxwell is a well-known business author.  One of his books sends the same message.  It’s called, There’s No Such Thing As Business Ethics: There’s Only One Rule for Making Decisions.  According to John, that rule is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In other words, do the right thing.

There’s a practical side to this too.  Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”  In other words, if you’re always a person of high integrity, it’s easy to be a person of high integrity; there are no complicating factors – like remembering what you did or said in a given situation.

Polonius gave similar advice to Hamlet.  “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night, thou canst be false to no man.”  Roy Blackman, my father in law, passed away a few years ago.  This quote was his epitaph.  It was on the program handed out at his funeral.  Roy embodied it in how he lived his life.  It was the only piece of advice he gave his grandson, Matt, as he went off to college.

Oprah, John Maxwell, Mark Twain and Shakespeare are all in agreement on one common sense piece of career advice.  If you want to become known as a person of high integrity – and I believe integrity is the cornerstone of any personal brand – act as a person of high integrity all the time – not just when it suits you, or when someone might notice.

Here’s a story to illustrate this point.  Cathy, my wife, was a flight attendant for 36 years.  Seniority is a very important thing in the airline industry.  It governs how you bid for trips, positions on the airplane and vacations – almost anything important to a flight attendant’s quality of work life.

Cathy was very active in her union.  And seniority was one of the union’s most sacred principles.  A few years before she retired, Cathy’s airline made a big push into the international market.  International flights were plum assignments; they went to people with high seniority.

However, the airline realized that it would be to their advantage to have some flight attendants who spoke the language of the country to which they were flying on these international flights.  Most flight attendants in her airline spoke English only.  The airline proposed putting two “language speakers” on each international flight.  Many people, including Cathy, were upset with this arrangement as they felt it violated the seniority concept.

Cathy used to fly from the US to London.  One day I said to her, “This whole language speaker issue doesn’t really affect you.  You fly to London; there are no language speakers on those flights.  Why do you care so much?”  She said, “I believe in the concept of seniority.  It doesn’t matter if I’m affected by language speakers.  It’s the principle of the thing.”  That’s consistency – and integrity — in action.

And that brings us back to Joe Paterno.  Here was a man with an incredibly strong personal brand.  He was known for doing the right thing in a business where too many people don’t do the right thing.  Sadly, his legacy is forever tarnished, because of what he didn’t do at a moment of truth.  I’m not writing this post to pass judgment on Joe – enough people have done that already.  I am writing it however, to reinforce my point of building your personal brand on integrity.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Creating positive personal impact is one of the competencies all successful people possess.  You create positive personal impact by developing and nurturing your unique personal brand, being impeccable in your presentation of self, and knowing and following the basic rules of etiquette.  Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but it should be built on integrity.  Follow the advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  As the sad ending to Joe Paterno’s career and life demonstrates, even a momentary lapse in your integrity can lead to serious consequences for a carefully crafted brand.

That’s the career advice I take from the sad ending of Joe Paterno’s life and career.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

The ability to create positive personal impact is an important key to your life and career success. If you want to create positive personal impact, you need to do three things: 1) Create and nurture your unique personal brand; 2) Dress for success; and 3) Know and follow the basic rules of etiquette.

Today I’d like to tell you the story of Peggy Williams, a woman with a very unique personal brand. Peggy retired after 10 years as President of Ithaca College. Ithaca is an elite liberal arts institution. Ithaca is expensive and hard to get into. You might expect that the Ithaca president would be conservative and a bit of a stuffed shirt.

Not Peggy. Here’s an excerpt from a story that appeared in the Ithaca Journal. It illustrates her brand.

“Ithaca College’s first female president was hiding in the lighting booth of Emerson Suites as a large male student aped around on stage making fun of her. The student wore a black, Peggy-esque wig and was imitating her penchant for yo-yoing in front of hundreds of students as the final act of a comedy show…Mustering her best presidential voice, she belted out into the microphone, “You’re not the real Peggy Williams. I’m Peggy Williams!” and then leapt on-stage and hurled a pie into the hapless student’s face…Her performance would become legendary. Prospective students at the event would cite her appearance as one of the reasons they chose to attend the college.”

Peggy has a unique brand for a college president – she is a former yo-yo champion who is goal oriented while being down to earth, fun loving and willing to make fun of herself. Students at Ithaca call her “P-Willie” or “The Pegster.”

I don’t know how you referred to your college president, but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t something like “The Pegster.” Eric Walker was the president of Penn State my first two years. John Oswald was the president my junior and senior year. We students referred to them as President Walker and President Oswald – and trust me, they were conservative stuffed shirts.

Peggy is well known for opening up the President’s Mansion to Ithaca students, attending Ithaca’s sporting events whenever she could, creating great relationships with alumni, and playing with her yo-yo in her office. She is also well known for raising $145 Million for capital improvements at the college – $30 Million more than the original goal; her work on sustainability at Ithaca; making Ithaca a more diverse place; and creating a service oriented culture among Ithaca students.

Peggy Williams’ brand is unique in higher education. It works because it is authentic.

I met Peggy in the fall of 1980. We were both graduate students at Harvard. There was this woman with wild, curly red hair in my Labor Relations class who always had great answers during case discussions, but who also was very funny. After a few classes, I introduced myself and we became great friends, sharing many meals at a Cambridge Chinese restaurant.

Peggy was funny and irreverent as a student. She was funny and irreverent as a college president. That’s authenticity!

Peggy’s brand was on display until the end. Guests at her retirement party received a silver plate engraved yo-yo. Peggy was kind enough to send me one, as I wasn’t able to attend.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Successful people create positive personal impact. People who create positive personal impact develop and nurture their unique personal brand. The best personal brands are authentic. Peggy Williams, retired president of Ithaca College, has a unique personal brand. She doesn’t take herself too seriously. And, believe me that is a truly unique personal brand in higher education. She is true to her brand. She is authentic. If you follow Peggy’s model, you too, will create positive personal impact and be on your way to a successful life and career.

That’s my career advice on authenticity in personal branding. What’s yours? Please leave a comment sharing your brand with us. As always, I appreciate you and your comments. Thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

The ability to create positive personal impact is an important key to your life and career success. If you want to create positive personal impact, you need to do three things: 1) Create and nurture your unique personal brand; 2) Dress for success; and 3) Know and follow the basic rules of etiquette.

Today I’d like to tell you the story of Peggy Williams, a woman with a very unique personal brand. Peggy retired after 10 years as President of Ithaca College. Ithaca is an elite liberal arts institution. Ithaca is expensive and hard to get into. You might expect that the Ithaca president would be conservative and a bit of a stuffed shirt.

Not Peggy. Here’s an excerpt from a story that appeared in the Ithaca Journal. It illustrates her brand.

“Ithaca College’s first female president was hiding in the lighting booth of Emerson Suites as a large male student aped around on stage making fun of her. The student wore a black, Peggy-esque wig and was imitating her penchant for yo-yoing in front of hundreds of students as the final act of a comedy show…Mustering her best presidential voice, she belted out into the microphone, “You’re not the real Peggy Williams. I’m Peggy Williams!” and then leapt on-stage and hurled a pie into the hapless student’s face…Her performance would become legendary. Prospective students at the event would cite her appearance as one of the reasons they chose to attend the college.”

Peggy has a unique brand for a college president – she is a former yo-yo champion who is goal oriented while being down to earth, fun loving and willing to make fun of herself. Students at Ithaca call her “P-Willie” or “The Pegster.”

I don’t know how you referred to your college president, but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t something like “The Pegster.” Eric Walker was the president of Penn State my first two years. John Oswald was the president my junior and senior year. We students referred to them as President Walker and President Oswald – and trust me, they were conservative stuffed shirts.

Peggy is well known for opening up the President’s Mansion to Ithaca students, attending Ithaca’s sporting events whenever she could, creating great relationships with alumni, and playing with her yo-yo in her office. She is also well known for raising $145 Million for capital improvements at the college – $30 Million more than the original goal; her work on sustainability at Ithaca; making Ithaca a more diverse place; and creating a service oriented culture among Ithaca students.

Peggy Williams’ brand is unique in higher education. It works because it is authentic.

I met Peggy in the fall of 1980. We were both graduate students at Harvard. There was this woman with wild, curly red hair in my Labor Relations class who always had great answers during case discussions, but who also was very funny. After a few classes, I introduced myself and we became great friends, sharing many meals at a Cambridge Chinese restaurant.

Peggy was funny and irreverent as a student. She was funny and irreverent as a college president. That’s authenticity!

Peggy’s brand was on display until the end. Guests at her retirement party received a silver plate engraved yo-yo. Peggy was kind enough to send me one, as I wasn’t able to attend.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Successful people create positive personal impact. People who create positive personal impact develop and nurture their unique personal brand. The best personal brands are authentic. Peggy Williams, retired president of Ithaca College, has a unique personal brand. She doesn’t take herself too seriously. And, believe me that is a truly unique personal brand in higher education. She is true to her brand. She is authentic. If you follow Peggy’s model, you too, will create positive personal impact and be on your way to a successful life and career.

That’s my career advice on authenticity in personal branding. What’s yours? Please leave a comment sharing your brand with us. As always, I appreciate you and your comments. Thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

I read a post on FastCompany.com yesterday called “5 Steps to a Better Personal Brand.”  It included some great career success advice that was focused on building your brand on line.  I devoted a couple of chapters in my career advice book, 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success to on line brand building.

Rule 13: Use the Web to Reinforce Your Brand Constantly and Consistently

Even if you’re not in business for yourself, you need to have a web presence to create positive personal impact.   These days, I hear the question, “If you don’t exist on line, do you really exist?”  That’s a good question.  Prospective employers and customers will Google you.  You’ll be better off if they like what they see.  It’s much better than if they find unfavorable results or nothing at all.  Today when people want to learn about you most of their answers usually come from Google.

This can be pretty scary – if you don’t take the time to make sure that you have an internet presence that reflects well on you.  The best place to begin is with your unique personal brand.  Your personal brand highlights what is special and unique about you – why you are not a commodity.

For my money, the best book on personal branding is Career Distinction by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson.  They stress the importance of the “Three C’s” – Clarity, Consistency and Constancy.  You can use the internet to help you with all three C’s.

I’m a big believer in social networking sites to help you build your brand online.  LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are great places to build relationships with like-minded people.  Choose the social network where you have the greatest affinity with the people who are on it.  For my money, LinkedIn is the best social network for professional success.

Leaving comments on targeted blogs is another good way to build your brand on line.  This means that you read blogs that are tied to your field or area of expertise and comment on posts that interest you.  I used to be bad about this.  I read quite a few blogs, but commented very infrequently.  I set a goal to leave at least five comments on blogs per day.  That’s 25 comments a week.  I’ve stuck to it, and it has paid off.  I have raised my web presence by commenting on other people’s blogs.

Of course, I am in business for myself, and my web presence is very important to me.  You don’t have to do 25 comments a week.  Start small, one comment a day is a reasonable goal if you have limited time.

Starting your own blog and posting two or three times a week is another good way to build your on line presence and enhance your personal brand.  This assumes, of course, that you have something to say.  And, in my opinion, everyone has something to say.

On line book reviews are another way to build your brand.  Do you read a lot?  If so, take a few minutes and review books that you like on Amazon.com.  Because I blog about books quite a bit, I have started to receive complimentary review copies from major publishing houses – a real bonus and money saver.

A while back, I decided to post only positive reviews.  If I don’t like a book, I don’t do a negative review.  I do this because there are enough interesting, well written books out there.  I choose to focus on them instead of bashing those books (however few) I don’t like.  In this way, I am building a web presence as a kind and helpful guy.

Rule 14: Become Active on LinkedIn — The Best Social Networking Site for Professionals

There are over 100 million professionals on LinkedIn.  Chris Muccio, David Burns and Peggy Murrah have written a great 42 Rules book called 42 Rules for 24-Hour Success on LinkedIn.  It is my bible for brand building via LinkedIn.  LinkedIn is the best social networking site for professionals.  LinkedIn is a place to find people and for people to find you.  It provides you with a communication tool that can help you create a platform for your success.

In 42 Rules for 24-Hour Success on LinkedIn, Chris, David and Peggy show you how to use LinkedIn to do the simple things that will create the opportunity for you to achieve success 24 hours a day.  Remember, the internet never sleeps.  Your LinkedIn profile is the place to begin.  It can help you build your brand.  A good profile will attract others, educate them about you and influence their feelings towards you – even if you’ve never met in person.  Chris, David and Peggy say that you have three seconds to communicate your brand on your LinkedIn profile.  Make those seconds count.

The LinkedIn provides you with the opportunity to create a “professional description.”  Prior to reading 42 Rules for 24-Hour Success on Linkedin, and speaking with Chris and Peggy, my professional description read “Bud Bilanich, The Common Sense Guy.”  Now it reads, “Bud Bilanich: I help individuals, teams and entire organizations succeed by helping them apply their common sense.”  I don’t know about you, but I think that the second professional description is much stronger, communicates better and makes the most out of my three seconds.

You can leverage your LinkedIn profile in several ways.  Invite everyone you know to connect with you on LinkedIn.  Use the LinkedIn colleagues and classmates reconnect function.  It can be a lot of fun to reconnect with people you used to know.  If you use Microsoft Outlook, download the Outlook toolbar.  It will let you know the LinkedIn status of everyone from whom you receive an email.  Ask your existing LinkedIn connections to introduce you to their connections.  In this way, you can build a large network of people who will be exposed to your brand.

Chris, David and Peggy showed me how the LinkedIn “What you are working on now” function can help build your brand.  Update it regularly.   Post all of the interesting things you are doing – at work and in your life.  This will help others get to know you better and it will showcase the depth and breadth of your experience.  Think of it as a longer tweet.  Twitter limits you to 140 characters per post.  Here you can post three or four sentences and go into a little more detail.

And, just like Twitter, people can respond to your LinkedIn “What you are working on now” posts.  This creates the opportunity for you to engage in dialogue with the people you meet on LinkedIn, strengthening your relationships.

LinkedIn Groups are another powerful way to leverage the power of LinkedIn.  You can find groups by seeing which groups people with interests similar to your own join.  You can use the LinkedIn search tool for this.  Chris, David and Peggy suggest joining no more than three groups at first.  Spend some time in these groups.  See if they appeal to you.  If they do, become active by participating in conversations; sharing your thoughts and ideas and links that you find helpful.  If you don’t like a group, drop out and find another.

Participating in groups can be time consuming.  Chris, David and Peggy suggest setting your default to receive emails from groups once a week.  Then set aside a specific period each week to read the recent post and reply to the relevant ones.

LinkedIn is a great social networking tool – if you leverage it correctly.  42 Rules for 24-Hour Success on LinkedIn is a great guide to using LinkedIn for building your brand and web presence.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Build your personal brand by paying attention to your internet presence.  Focus on the “three C’s” – Clarity, Consistency, and Constancy when building your brand on line.  Besides that, use your common sense.  Be judicious in what you post on line.  Don’t make social network posts that you wouldn’t want a prospective employer to see.  Get active on LinkedIn – it’s the best social network for professionals.  There are over 100 million LinkedIn users.  These folks can help you create the life and career success you want and deserve; but only if you demonstrate your willingness to help them first.  42 Rules for 24 Hour Success on LinkedIn is the best book I know for leveraging the power of LinkedIn.

That’s my career advice on using social media to build your personal brand.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Tweet 62 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Your personal brand should be unique to you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”

Last week the CEO of American Airlines did what he considered to be the right thing when everybody was looking.  American filed for bankruptcy early last week.  Late in the week the American CEO Gerard Arpey, a 30-year employee of the airline resigned.  He walked away with no severance package.  An Op Ed piece in the New York Times said…

“He (Mr. Arpey) split with his employer of 30 years out of a belief that bankruptcy was morally wrong, and that he could not, in good conscience, lead an organization that followed this familiar path.”

Several of the large US Airlines — Continental, Delta, Northwest, US Airways, United – have filed for bankruptcy since the airline industry was deregulated in 1978.  In most cases, these airlines used bankruptcy protection to cancel debt, rid themselves of responsibility for employee pensions and negotiate more favorable contracts with their unions.

Mr. Arpey feels that this is a morally bankrupt way to run a business.

“Our bankrupt colleagues all made net profits, good net profits last year, and we didn’t.  And you can mathematically pinpoint that to termination of pensions, termination of retiree medical benefits, changes of work rules, changes in the labor contracts. That puts a lot of pressure on our company, not to be ignored.”

D. Michael Lindsay, the author of the Op Ed piece said…

“I have interviewed hundreds of senior executives for a major academic study on leadership, including six airline C.E.O.’s. Mr. Arpey stood out among the 550 people I talked with not because he believed that business had a moral dimension, but because of his firm conviction that the C.E.O. must carefully attend to those considerations, even if doing so blunts financial success or negates organizational expediency. For him, it is an obligation that goes with the corner office.

“When we discussed the prospect of bankruptcy at American he spoke with an almost defiant tone of the company’s commitment to its employees and holders of its stock and debt. ‘I believe it’s important to the character of the company and its ultimate long-term success to do your very best to honor those commitments,” he said. “It is not good thinking — either at the corporate level or at the personal level — to believe you can simply walk away from your circumstances.’

“Mr. Arpey may be the only airline C.E.O. who regarded bankruptcy not simply as a financial tool, but more important, as a moral failing. In a day and age of outrageous executive compensation and protest movements justifiably angered at the self-serving nature of the 1 percent, it is refreshing to see a C.E.O. leave a position with honor even as he loses a long-fought battle.”

Once can argue that a publicly traded company’s main responsibility is to its shareholders and that filing for bankruptcy protection was in the best interest of American shareholders.  Mr. Arpey takes a bigger view when he asserts that companies have a responsibility to honor their commitments to their employees and holders of company debt.

That’s beside the point here.  But there is a career success point to be found in this situation.  Your personal brand is important.  It’s what you stand for.  It should be built on integrity.  Gerard Arpey resigned a highly paid position as the CEO of American Airlines because of his thought on bankruptcy.  I’m sure he is walking away a wealthy man – but he could have been wealthier if he hadn’t resigned in protest of his board’s decision to declare bankruptcy.  He leaves with his integrity intact.

Most of us won’t have to make decisions in our careers as momentous as Mr. Arpey’s.  But the next time you are faced with an ethical or moral dilemma, I suggest you think about Mr. Arpey’s stand as you consider your options.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  As I mention in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets, “Your personal brand should be unique to you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  At the end of the day, your good name is all that you have.  Gerard Arpey, former CEO of American Airlines resigned his position – without severance – in protest of American’s Board of Directors decision to declare bankruptcy.  You may never be called on to make a decision of such magnitude, but when you are faced with a decision that challenges your sense of right and wrong, remember what Mr. Arpey did.  If you build your personal brand on integrity, there will always be room for you in the career success sweepstakes.

That’s my career advice prompted by American Airlines’ former CEO decision to resign over his board’s decision to file for bankruptcy.  What do you think?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

As I”ve often said, I find ideas for this career success blog in a variety of places.  The other day I was flying from Denver to Des Moines.  At the end of the flight, the flight attendant came to me and handed me the First Officer’s – copilot in non airline speak — business card.  On the back, he had written…

Dear Dr. Bilanich:
As a frequent flyer with the new United Air Lines, welcome aboard and you thank you for your business.
Sincerely,
Scott Gough

That was a surprise.  I fly a lot — and I’ve never had a Captain of First Officer send me a handwritten note thanking me for my business.  As you probably know, United and Continental merged to create a huge airline which they call the “new United.”  They’ve done some interesting branding – the airline is called United, but the logo is Continental’s.

First Oficer Gough’s note to me was part of that branding.  And it reminded me of Tweet 65 in my career advice book Success Tweets.  “A good personal brand highlights your uniqueness.  Be unconventional.  Break rules.”  Let’s talk about breaking some rules when it comes to your personal brand.

I love the movies.  I was really pleased when I was asked to review a book called The Big Picture: Essential Lessons for the Movies. Authors Kevin Coupe and Michael Sansolo do a great job of discussing the life and career success ideas in over 200 movies.  This is a very thoughtful book.

Kevin and Michael make some great points about career success that pop up in some unlikely movies.  For example, they use the movie Babe to make the point that it’s important to be different – and break some rules — if you want to get recognized and create the life and career success you deserve.  They point out that Babe the pig doesn’t act like a pig.  He is friendly and mannerly – characteristics not usually associated with pigs.  That’s why he succeeds.  And that’s great personal branding and career advice.  Creating and nurturing your unique personal brand is the first step in creating positive personal impact – an important key to life and career success.

Here’s some of what Kevin and Michael have to say about Babe…

“Babe is a simple story, but it contains an important lesson.  Think of how many businesses have stuck to the way things always are and completely missed the opportunity to become something entirely new, bigger and better.

“MTV didn’t invent video or records, but pulled them together in an entirely new cable channel.  CBS, in contrast, owned a television network and a record company, but missed the chance.”

I experienced a rule-breaking moment a couple of years ago.  I was in a local bookstore looking for a book on fitness.  As you can imagine, there was no shortage.  As I opened various books to check them out, I found Tamba Mbawa’s business card in every one of them.  I purchased a book and took it home.  When I got there, I went to Tamba’s website to see what he is about.  Not surprisingly, Tamba is a personal trainer and fitness coach.

I thought this was a great example of breaking the rules and personal brand building.  Tamba spent the time to go to a local Barnes and Noble and place his card in every one of the fitness books they have on the shelf.  He was getting his name in front of a very targeted audience: people who purchase books on fitness.  Pretty cool idea in my book.  And one that is a perfect manifestation of what Kevin and Michael have to say about breaking the rules to get recognized for your uniqueness.

When I first started blogging, my dad read a few of my posts and said, “You’re giving away some of your best ideas.  You shouldn’t do that.  You need to be selling your advice, not giving it away.”  At the time, content-rich blogs ran counter to the rule of jealously guarding your proprietary information.  I told my dad that I’m happy when people read my career advice blog and find ideas they can put to use.  More power to them.  I also told him that people who find my ideas helpful are more likely to look to me for career advice when they run up against a problem they can’t solve on their own.  I was breaking a rule to build my brand.

Interestingly, giving away solid, useful information is the new rule.  Ask any Internet marketer or marketing guru.  They will all tell you to build a relationship and establish credibility with your target audience by providing them with useful information at no cost.  Funny how things change.

George Bernard Shaw is my favorite playwright.  There is nothing so good as a well-performed Bernard Shaw play.  He also had a couple of interesting things to say about breaking rules…

“All great truths start out as blasphemies.”

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

So go ahead, break a few rules.  Be a little unreasonable.  Be unconventional, make your brand uniquely you.

One last story.  Tim McKernan had one of the most unique personal brands I have come across.  He was The Barrel Man.  You might say that Tim was a superfan of the Denver Broncos.  For 30 years in all kinds of weather, he attended every Bronco home game wearing nothing but an orange barrel with a Broncos logo, a cowboy hat and boots.

He wore his costume for the first time in 1977.  He had a $10 bet with his brother.  He bet that the costume would get him on TV.  He won that one, and was on TV every time the Broncos were for the next 30 years.  John Madden always mentioned him when he was doing a game in Denver.

Tim’s unique brand got him inducted into the Visa Hall of Fans at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  He passed away in 2009.  He was in the stands for both of the Broncos’ Super Bowl victories.

You don’t have to go to the lengths Tim McKernan did when building your brand.  But I encourage you to think like Tim.  Being a little outrageous, like wearing only a barrel to football games in December in Denver, can help you stand out from the crowd and get recognized.

Scott Gough was being unconventional when he sent me a handwritten note thanking me for my business.  I thought that was pretty cool.  His actions certainly reinforce the new United’s brand of being customer friendly.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people build personal brands that are unique.  Breaking a few rules is one way of building a unique brand.  By breaking the rules, I don’t mean doing something illegal or unethical.  I mean thinking outside of the box and not being constrained by conventional wisdom.  In the movie “Babe,” Babe the pig succeeds because he doesn’t act like a pig.  He is friendly and mannerly – characteristics not usually associated with pigs.  What rules are holding you back from building a great personal brand?  How can you break them to demonstrate your uniqueness?  Follow the career advice in Tweet 65 in Success Tweets.  “A good personal brand highlights your uniqueness.  Be unconventional.  Break rules.”  Don’t do anything that will land you in jail, or get you fired.  But think outside the box, find ways to create a Cherry Garcia brand, not one which is plain vanilla.  Think of new ways to combine ideas.  An iPod after all, is nothing more than a hard drive with a set of headphones.  Figure out how you can become the iPod in your work team.  Create a brand that shows how unique and fascinating you really are.

That’s my career advice on building your personal brand by breaking a few rules.  What do you think?  Please share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  One is 140 bits of career advice, all in 140 characters or less.  The other is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb. You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

As I”ve often said, I find ideas for this career success blog in a variety of places.  The other day I was flying from Denver to Des Moines.  At the end of the flight, the flight attendant came to me and handed me the First Officer’s – copilot in non airline speak — business card.  On the back, he had written…

Dear Dr. Bilanich:
As a frequent flyer with the new United Air Lines, welcome aboard and you thank you for your business.
Sincerely,
Scott Gough

That was a surprise.  I fly a lot — and I’ve never had a Captain of First Officer send me a handwritten note thanking me for my business.  As you probably know, United and Continental merged to create a huge airline which they call the “new United.”  They’ve done some interesting branding – the airline is called United, but the logo is Continental’s.

First Oficer Gough’s note to me was part of that branding.  And it reminded me of Tweet 65 in my career advice book Success Tweets.  “A good personal brand highlights your uniqueness.  Be unconventional.  Break rules.”  Let’s talk about breaking some rules when it comes to your personal brand.

I love the movies.  I was really pleased when I was asked to review a book called The Big Picture: Essential Lessons for the Movies. Authors Kevin Coupe and Michael Sansolo do a great job of discussing the life and career success ideas in over 200 movies.  This is a very thoughtful book.

Kevin and Michael make some great points about career success that pop up in some unlikely movies.  For example, they use the movie Babe to make the point that it’s important to be different – and break some rules — if you want to get recognized and create the life and career success you deserve.  They point out that Babe the pig doesn’t act like a pig.  He is friendly and mannerly – characteristics not usually associated with pigs.  That’s why he succeeds.  And that’s great personal branding and career advice.  Creating and nurturing your unique personal brand is the first step in creating positive personal impact – an important key to life and career success.

Here’s some of what Kevin and Michael have to say about Babe…

“Babe is a simple story, but it contains an important lesson.  Think of how many businesses have stuck to the way things always are and completely missed the opportunity to become something entirely new, bigger and better.

“MTV didn’t invent video or records, but pulled them together in an entirely new cable channel.  CBS, in contrast, owned a television network and a record company, but missed the chance.”

I experienced a rule-breaking moment a couple of years ago.  I was in a local bookstore looking for a book on fitness.  As you can imagine, there was no shortage.  As I opened various books to check them out, I found Tamba Mbawa’s business card in every one of them.  I purchased a book and took it home.  When I got there, I went to Tamba’s website to see what he is about.  Not surprisingly, Tamba is a personal trainer and fitness coach.

I thought this was a great example of breaking the rules and personal brand building.  Tamba spent the time to go to a local Barnes and Noble and place his card in every one of the fitness books they have on the shelf.  He was getting his name in front of a very targeted audience: people who purchase books on fitness.  Pretty cool idea in my book.  And one that is a perfect manifestation of what Kevin and Michael have to say about breaking the rules to get recognized for your uniqueness.

When I first started blogging, my dad read a few of my posts and said, “You’re giving away some of your best ideas.  You shouldn’t do that.  You need to be selling your advice, not giving it away.”  At the time, content-rich blogs ran counter to the rule of jealously guarding your proprietary information.  I told my dad that I’m happy when people read my career advice blog and find ideas they can put to use.  More power to them.  I also told him that people who find my ideas helpful are more likely to look to me for career advice when they run up against a problem they can’t solve on their own.  I was breaking a rule to build my brand.

Interestingly, giving away solid, useful information is the new rule.  Ask any Internet marketer or marketing guru.  They will all tell you to build a relationship and establish credibility with your target audience by providing them with useful information at no cost.  Funny how things change.

George Bernard Shaw is my favorite playwright.  There is nothing so good as a well-performed Bernard Shaw play.  He also had a couple of interesting things to say about breaking rules…

“All great truths start out as blasphemies.”

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

So go ahead, break a few rules.  Be a little unreasonable.  Be unconventional, make your brand uniquely you.

One last story.  Tim McKernan had one of the most unique personal brands I have come across.  He was The Barrel Man.  You might say that Tim was a superfan of the Denver Broncos.  For 30 years in all kinds of weather, he attended every Bronco home game wearing nothing but an orange barrel with a Broncos logo, a cowboy hat and boots.

He wore his costume for the first time in 1977.  He had a $10 bet with his brother.  He bet that the costume would get him on TV.  He won that one, and was on TV every time the Broncos were for the next 30 years.  John Madden always mentioned him when he was doing a game in Denver.

Tim’s unique brand got him inducted into the Visa Hall of Fans at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  He passed away in 2009.  He was in the stands for both of the Broncos’ Super Bowl victories.

You don’t have to go to the lengths Tim McKernan did when building your brand.  But I encourage you to think like Tim.  Being a little outrageous, like wearing only a barrel to football games in December in Denver, can help you stand out from the crowd and get recognized.

Scott Gough was being unconventional when he sent me a handwritten note thanking me for my business.  I thought that was pretty cool.  His actions certainly reinforce the new United’s brand of being customer friendly.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people build personal brands that are unique.  Breaking a few rules is one way of building a unique brand.  By breaking the rules, I don’t mean doing something illegal or unethical.  I mean thinking outside of the box and not being constrained by conventional wisdom.  In the movie “Babe,” Babe the pig succeeds because he doesn’t act like a pig.  He is friendly and mannerly – characteristics not usually associated with pigs.  What rules are holding you back from building a great personal brand?  How can you break them to demonstrate your uniqueness?  Follow the career advice in Tweet 65 in Success Tweets.  “A good personal brand highlights your uniqueness.  Be unconventional.  Break rules.”  Don’t do anything that will land you in jail, or get you fired.  But think outside the box, find ways to create a Cherry Garcia brand, not one which is plain vanilla.  Think of new ways to combine ideas.  An iPod after all, is nothing more than a hard drive with a set of headphones.  Figure out how you can become the iPod in your work team.  Create a brand that shows how unique and fascinating you really are.

That’s my career advice on building your personal brand by breaking a few rules.  What do you think?  Please share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  One is 140 bits of career advice, all in 140 characters or less.  The other is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb. You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

The other day this career success coach received an invitation to join the Experts Industry Association.  It’s a trade association for authors, speakers, coaches, consultants, seminar leaders, and online information marketers.  Since I am all of these things I figured I should join.  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend their first conference, but I plan on becoming a member.

The association’s code of ethics sealed the deal.  Tweet 62 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  I have worked hard to build my Common Sense Guy brand on integrity.  That’s why I subscribe to the association’s code of ethics.  Check it out…

Experts Industry Association Code of Ethics

Section I: Transparency and Compliance

1. I will be transparent and truthful about my experience, expertise, results, credentials, and abilities with my customers, followers, peers, media, and the greater public.
2. I will make clear descriptions of any product or service I am offering for sale, including price points and any recurring billing, so that my customers always know what they are signing up for, purchasing, and receiving.
3. I will comply with the marketing guidelines of the CAN-SPAM Act in my electronic communications, including ensuring that recipients of my broadcast emails have opted-in to receive communications from me and that they have the option to unsubscribe or change their contact information at the bottom of all my emails.
4. I will comply with the marketing guidelines of the United States Federal Trade Commission, including refraining from making false claims, income or results guarantees, or misleading testimonials, income claims, or financial statements; I will only make claims which I can substantiate and I will also clearly post and articulate earning disclaimers on any webpage or correspondence that references income opportunities.
5. I will disclose to my audience that I am an affiliate of a third party should I anticipate receiving an affiliate commission or referral compensation for recommending their products or services to my audience.
6. I will not offer professional legal, financial, or medical advice unless I am qualified to do so, which in many cases require professional degrees or certifications by law, and when necessary I will refer my customers or followers to an appropriate certified advisors.
7. I will not promote any products, marketing campaigns, or services that (a) target children under the age of thirteen (13), (b) discriminates against others, (c) perpetuates hate or misinformation, (d) features paid actors pretending to be a fictional customer or client, (e) utilizes false scarcity techniques (for example, that claim a limited number of products exist when it is not true, or that a promotion expires at a certain time when it does not).

Section II: Customer Service Excellence

1. I will seek to overdeliver on my promises to my customers.
2. I will endeavor to understand my client and audience needs, problems, and ambitions in hopes of serving them with information that can help them achieve their goals.
3. I will provide a minimum of a 30-day money back guarantee on all of my products and programs, and I will not make my customers jump through hoops or endure hardships or humiliation in order to receive refunds.
4. I will provide customer support for all of my products and programs.
5. I will respect the privacy and confidential information of my clients and customers.
6. I will not participate in any forum or agreement that engages in illegal activity, marketplace collusion, or discrimination on the basis of age, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, or any other factor.
7. I will honor my customer’s financial situations and not seek to persuade them into spending money they do not have or that could lead to their financial ruin.
8. I will post contact information on all of my sales pages and in all of the receipts/confirmations that my customers receive so that they can always find a way to easily contact my office.

Section III: Community Collaboration

1. I will honor and engage my peers in the industry with respect and professionalism.
2. I will cite sources and give credit to others when I quote them in any format, and I will not misrepresent others’ works as my own.
3. I will not train from, distribute, or publish others’ works or content without permission from the author or originator of such work.
4. I will not misuse the name or likeness of others in the industry to create false associations of credibility.
5. I will pursue my profession, build my brand, and seek continuing education at the highest levels of excellence and refrain from practices that will discredit the community and industry.
6. I will not use the Experts Industry Association seal in any of my websites, materials, or communications until I have attended the Annual Conference, have agreed to further stringent guidelines, and have been given permission and certification to do so.
7. I will seek to leave a legacy of strong customer service, and focus my career on offering distinct and valuable information that helps others improve their lives.

I pledge to live up to this code in everything I do – personally and professionally.  I believe that if you want to become known as a person of high integrity – and I believe integrity is the cornerstone of any personal brand – act as a person of high integrity all the time – not just when it suits you, or when someone might notice.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  The ability to create positive personal impact is one of the competencies of all successful people.  You create positive personal impact by developing and nurturing your unique personal brand, being impeccable in your presentation of self, and knowing and following the basic rules of etiquette.  Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but it should be built on integrity.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  Recently I decided to join the Experts Industry Association – to build my brand, and to meet and work with like-minded people.  The association’s code of ethics was a big selling point for me.   I promise you, the readers of this career advice blog, that I will live up to that code every day and in everything I do.

That’s my career advice on integrity and personal branding – and my pledge to you.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share our thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened my new corporate career success membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get your free copy of I Want YOU by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.com.

The other day this career success coach received an invitation to join the Experts Industry Association.  It’s a trade association for authors, speakers, coaches, consultants, seminar leaders, and online information marketers.  Since I am all of these things I figured I should join.  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend their first conference, but I plan on becoming a member.

The association’s code of ethics sealed the deal.  Tweet 62 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  I have worked hard to build my Common Sense Guy brand on integrity.  That’s why I subscribe to the association’s code of ethics.  Check it out…

Experts Industry Association Code of Ethics

Section I: Transparency and Compliance

1. I will be transparent and truthful about my experience, expertise, results, credentials, and abilities with my customers, followers, peers, media, and the greater public.
2. I will make clear descriptions of any product or service I am offering for sale, including price points and any recurring billing, so that my customers always know what they are signing up for, purchasing, and receiving.
3. I will comply with the marketing guidelines of the CAN-SPAM Act in my electronic communications, including ensuring that recipients of my broadcast emails have opted-in to receive communications from me and that they have the option to unsubscribe or change their contact information at the bottom of all my emails.
4. I will comply with the marketing guidelines of the United States Federal Trade Commission, including refraining from making false claims, income or results guarantees, or misleading testimonials, income claims, or financial statements; I will only make claims which I can substantiate and I will also clearly post and articulate earning disclaimers on any webpage or correspondence that references income opportunities.
5. I will disclose to my audience that I am an affiliate of a third party should I anticipate receiving an affiliate commission or referral compensation for recommending their products or services to my audience.
6. I will not offer professional legal, financial, or medical advice unless I am qualified to do so, which in many cases require professional degrees or certifications by law, and when necessary I will refer my customers or followers to an appropriate certified advisors.
7. I will not promote any products, marketing campaigns, or services that (a) target children under the age of thirteen (13), (b) discriminates against others, (c) perpetuates hate or misinformation, (d) features paid actors pretending to be a fictional customer or client, (e) utilizes false scarcity techniques (for example, that claim a limited number of products exist when it is not true, or that a promotion expires at a certain time when it does not).

Section II: Customer Service Excellence

1. I will seek to overdeliver on my promises to my customers.
2. I will endeavor to understand my client and audience needs, problems, and ambitions in hopes of serving them with information that can help them achieve their goals.
3. I will provide a minimum of a 30-day money back guarantee on all of my products and programs, and I will not make my customers jump through hoops or endure hardships or humiliation in order to receive refunds.
4. I will provide customer support for all of my products and programs.
5. I will respect the privacy and confidential information of my clients and customers.
6. I will not participate in any forum or agreement that engages in illegal activity, marketplace collusion, or discrimination on the basis of age, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, or any other factor.
7. I will honor my customer’s financial situations and not seek to persuade them into spending money they do not have or that could lead to their financial ruin.
8. I will post contact information on all of my sales pages and in all of the receipts/confirmations that my customers receive so that they can always find a way to easily contact my office.

Section III: Community Collaboration

1. I will honor and engage my peers in the industry with respect and professionalism.
2. I will cite sources and give credit to others when I quote them in any format, and I will not misrepresent others’ works as my own.
3. I will not train from, distribute, or publish others’ works or content without permission from the author or originator of such work.
4. I will not misuse the name or likeness of others in the industry to create false associations of credibility.
5. I will pursue my profession, build my brand, and seek continuing education at the highest levels of excellence and refrain from practices that will discredit the community and industry.
6. I will not use the Experts Industry Association seal in any of my websites, materials, or communications until I have attended the Annual Conference, have agreed to further stringent guidelines, and have been given permission and certification to do so.
7. I will seek to leave a legacy of strong customer service, and focus my career on offering distinct and valuable information that helps others improve their lives.

I pledge to live up to this code in everything I do – personally and professionally.  I believe that if you want to become known as a person of high integrity – and I believe integrity is the cornerstone of any personal brand – act as a person of high integrity all the time – not just when it suits you, or when someone might notice.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  The ability to create positive personal impact is one of the competencies of all successful people.  You create positive personal impact by developing and nurturing your unique personal brand, being impeccable in your presentation of self, and knowing and following the basic rules of etiquette.  Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but it should be built on integrity.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  Recently I decided to join the Experts Industry Association – to build my brand, and to meet and work with like-minded people.  The association’s code of ethics was a big selling point for me.   I promise you, the readers of this career advice blog, that I will live up to that code every day and in everything I do.

That’s my career advice on integrity and personal branding – and my pledge to you.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share our thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened my new corporate career success membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get your free copy of I Want YOU by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.com.