Personal Branding for Business Growth: Key take-aways from Quantum TX workshop by NWC
Julissa Shrewsbury - New Work Workshop for Atomic Sky QuantumTX Program
Quantum Technology Exchange ran a specialist workshop on developing your personal brand and getting better at networking, something everyone struggles with, for the QTX Program Cohort at CERI. The workshop was introduced by Peter Rossdeutscher, of Atomic Sky and followed by speaker, Julissa Shrewsbury from New Work Consulting, who brought insights and inspiration for business and company leaders to get their brand right and out into the market in a professional sense, aligned with the company brand, but with their own personal style and story.
QuantumTX is about accelerating innovation where Australia’s strongest industries are aligned, focusing on areas of existing world-class capabilities in cross-sector technologies. The QTX Program develops SME capability & capacity while facilitating strategic partnering & collaboration to solve large industry problems & includes a range of development programs.
Julissa Shrewsbury’s Take-aways;
Why is developing your Founder, CEO or Product Leader personal brand important for business growth?
How do you develop and lead the business brand, expressed powerfully through your team?
How do you develop an influential network to help achieve your business growth goals?
These were the questions we tackled last week during a half-day workshop run by New Work Consulting for Quantum Technology Exchange’s Accelerator Workshop Series. The workshop was held at the Centre for Entrepreneurial Research & Innovation (CERI), overseen by Atomic Sky and in conjunction with Fast Forward WA and AgriStart. Participants ranged from start-ups to corporate scale-ups across a variety of industries, featuring some exciting technology and ideas.
Director of New Work Consulting, Julissa Shrewsbury, started by posing the core problems she sees as a consultant walking into organisations, asking staff about the brand they represent.
“What I see:
Asking a staff member about the company brand gets me a blank look or a memorised, meaningless response.
The overarching business objective is unclear to the individual employee… who really does want to help.
Individuals know they need to have a professional online presence but often lack the how-to.
Marketing teams and others responsible for communicating the brand in formal ways often lack knowledge of tools, and strategies for using those tools.
Individuals fail to present as confident professionals at introductions or first impressions.“
Despite coming from a broad range of industries and experience, our participants intrinsically understood the need for a brand to go beyond the logo and corporate colours, to clarify core value messaging and what it means to the staff members who express it in their work every day.
Breaking down Personal Branding for Business Leaders
Our look at Brand Strategy began with the Personal Brand, and specifically, the requirements of a Leadership Personal Brand.
Our group tested how well they know their personal brands and finished with a reflection on their leader personal brand development using NWC’s Personal Brand Planning Wheel. It was great to see how collaborative this session was, with leaders of different businesses using their experience to help each other to brainstorm action plans!
What your Business Brand Profile should look like
After a break, we moved on to a consideration of the business brand, including a breakdown of what a Business Brand Profile (a document outlining the Brand Strategy, that sits in your business plan) should look like. Participants were shown a template for creating a robust brand profile that can be used with anyone formally communicating the brand, and even more importantly, as a discussion tool with team members engaging with the brand. We then worked together to review or build brand messages around stakeholder value, as well as considering brand communication platforms and guidelines to empower marketing teams.
A Strategy to Networking for business growth
This started with a reflection on what is and isn’t working in networking in 2021, in a Covid-Recovery, post- or semi-lockdown environment with unique global and economic challenges, as well as opportunities.
Despite the unusual times, there are also typical challenges that remain: How to choose the right networking activities to create opportunities, how to structure and deliver the types of conversations that move the needle, and how to get in front of decision-makers and key influencers to promote business growth.
Julissa demonstrated the need for a network-building strategy that centres on introductions to and conversations with key stakeholders, built on an understanding of these stakeholders – where they play, what they talk about, what matters to them. She also touched on other tools such as NWC’s 3 Platforms of strong LinkedIn strategic plan to support personal brand positioning, thought leadership, visibility and networking, and provided templates for strong emails requesting introductions and coffee meetings, along with a flow chart exercise to help participants work through their networking plan step-by-step.
Throughout the morning Julissa emphasised to participants the potential to take these activities into their organisations and run with them to empower their teams. As with many of NWC’s workshops, participants receive a summary video reviewing some of the key exercises to help them to implement these internally.
See the full article including more on exercises completed by participants.
Find out more about the Quantum TX Programs.