Baby Boomers and Your Brand Story

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June 27, 2012 by 4 Comments

If you had the opportunity to tell your unique value proposition and story in 5 or 6 short clear paragraphs could you do it?

This is not your elevator pitch but your Brand Story.

In my last post, I wrote about developing the vocabulary that you will use to define your personal brand.

Your Brand Story is about who you are and not what you have done or will do in the future.

As Baby Boomers we have years of experiences that have shaped who we are.

My Brand Story involves telling the story of my bicycle accident and how is shaped the rest of my life. If you have not read the post take a moment to read my story of hitting a car head on while riding my bicycle. That event and the adventures that followed tells you more about me than any elevator pitch. I sometimes refer to this as my Signature Story.

We all have had life events, both  successes and failures that can be used to tell our story. The real challenge is writing the story.

First step is to do reflection on you life and career:

  • What were the significant successes in your life?
  • What were the significant failures that you recovered and learned from?
  • What significant events in your life caused you make changes?

What are you good at?  What are your innate talents?  What skills have you developed?  More importantly, what skills do you want to carry forward?  I have several very valuable skills that I do not want to use anymore!

Go write the story.

Go find a friend to help you.  Go hire a writer!  It is always good to get an outsider to write about you.

LinkedIn Summary

Your story should go in the LinkedIn summary section.  You have 2,000 characters to tell your story. Let’s look at several examples of LinkedIn profiles with good summary sections.  Click on each link and scroll down to the summary section:

  • Tonya Clement – What is the significant event in her life that she weaved into her story?
  • Carol Ross – Carol is a story teller and a career coach. Check out Carol’s self paced course called Discover Your Brand Story.
  • Marc Miller – Check out my summary section and give me some feedback.

Do you have a story you want to tell?

___________________________

I will be scheduling the next round of the Cure for Career Insanity very soon. The first people who sign up will help pick the actual dates for the next session. Go the the Cure for Career Insanity page or just click here to put your name on the list for the next session.

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Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Baby Boomer, LinkedIn, Personal Brand Tagged With: , , , ,

Comments

  1. Carol Ross says:
    June 27, 2012 at 8:52 pm

    Thanks, Marc, for highlighting both my brand story and my self-guided program to create your own brand story, Discover Your Brand Story. I agree that Baby Boomers have a unique opportunity to tell their story, because of the life experience they have. And I love how you’ve pointed to the value of significant events that have contributed to who they are today. Often, people overlook these events because they don’t seem relevant to their professional life or they are “messy” and it’s not obvious how to talk about them.

    Your story is a great example of a major event that changed your life, AND sometimes people don’t have such a dramatic event in their life to point to. But they still have smaller stories that reveal who they are. So I would urge your readers to look for the stories that may not be as dramatic, but still rich in defining their beliefs, attitudes and wisdom.

    There are two points where we may differ in terms of creating a brand story.

    The first is third person vs. first person. I noticed that your brand story is told in third person. I advise my clients to use first person, because I think it is more effective in drawing the reader into the story. Curious to know why you chose third person.

    The second is the use of an outside writer. I *always* ask my clients to write the first draft of their brand story. Why? Because in the often challenging process of writing the first draft, the client has to make meaning before they can write. When someone else does the writing (at least the first draft), it robs the client of this internal process. It works to use an outside writer to do subsequent drafts, to help refine the flow of the content, but the first draft is critical for the “owner” to do. It’s a part of the process of owning/claiming your story.

    Sorry for the long comment, but I hope I just couldn’t help myself!

    Reply
    • Marc Miller says:
      June 27, 2012 at 9:28 pm

      Carol,
      My brand story came from my about page with some additions. You are completely correct about using an outside writer. That will be in my next post. The reason is two fold:
      1. When writing your own story — it never gets done.
      2. We do not know ourselves very well. It takes someone from the outside to do this.

      I had not thought about first versus third person but that makes sense. I will be doing a talk in a couple of weeks on this topic. The room will be filled with small business owners, job seekers and writers!

      Reply
      • Carol Ross says:
        June 27, 2012 at 9:40 pm

        You are correct that many people have good intentions to write their story but it never gets done! So I can see your thinking about having an outside person be the nudge. AND maybe it doesn’t have to be a writer you hire, but a buddy that partners with you. Again, I’m thinking about the incredible richness that comes when someone writes their own story.

        I also agree that self-knowledge is often in short supply. However, I think that’s where a trained career coach can help uncover more about oneself–better than a professional writer can.

        Good luck with your talk!

        Reply
  2. Dean Goranson says:
    August 2, 2012 at 11:27 pm

    It may have been one of your previous posts, metioning how the baby boomer generation
    just doesn’t like to make public things about themselves. I for one have a tendency to diminish
    past events in my life as being pivotal. and recalling the particulars about such events I put
    out of my mind. How many times have you heard the answer “same old same old” to the question, How was your day? For many of my generation todays rules of engagement are
    very different then how we where raised to think and function

    Reply
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