Dave Gordon

Personal branding is the promotion, education and sustainability of the unique value and purpose that differentiates you from your colleagues and competitors. Without it, you are simply your title, your company and your function. With it, you are a marketable product of unique value that stands out from the crowd. When the world or your company knows who you are and what you stand for, your brand becomes more valuable. When your brand is more valuable, people want you on their team. When you are wanted, your company and the clients you serve are much more willing to pay and promote you for your differentiation.

No matter your career, your level of expertise, your industry or your role, it’s time to take ownership of your reputation, focus on the unique value you bring to the world, and take a stand for your brand. When you develop a strong personal brand, it immediately increases the value of your team and your company. As a leader, salesperson or customer service representative, you are the face of your brand. But, nowadays, with social media allowing anyone to talk to the world at any given moment, any employee, partner or customer can be the face of a company, just as much as the CEO.

Key takeaways of the session will be awareness and application of the four cornerstones to build a stand out personal brand:

• Identity – What makes you interesting, unique and valuable to your customers and your team?
• Communication – How do you confidently communicate your value to your stakeholders?
• Actions – Are your actions consistent with your identity and perceived value?
• Unique Value – What experiences do you create that classify you as a collaborative partner?

Companies spend an incredible amount of time, effort and money to get their identity, messaging, and unique value proposition just right. But, the moment they launch their new campaign, message, product or service, the value of the brand becomes the responsibility of anyone who directly interacts with a customer. Nurse, salesperson, waitress, financial advisor, teacher, CEO, data analyst…it really doesn’t matter who you are; we all serve a customer.

In any service industry, employees are accountable for the fulfillment of a promise to your customers. The delivery of consistent quality customer service is crucial for everyone in the organization and a team will only succeed, and a company will only grow, when each person on that team is accountable for their own success and brings unique value to their role while representing the larger team and organizational brand.

Based on Dave Gordon’s book “TIP: A Simple Strategy to Inspire High Performance and Lasting Success,” this session will leave the audience with the following new takeaway skills and beliefs:

• Greater accountability for personal, team and organizational goals
• Alignment of beliefs, thoughts, actions and goals to the team/organization
• Ability to consistently represent the best version of oneself with confidence
• Commitment to behaviors that align to a brand promise
• Greater fulfillment of the promise made to colleagues and customers

Your work-day starts with an entrance but, do you have an entrance song? We have wedding songs, fight songs, workout songs, love songs and songs that continue to anchor us to the meaningful moments in our lives. What song is playing in your head when you walk in the door to work? If it’s “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC, we have a problem. And, actually, we do have a big problem. 70% of employees are disengaged with their jobs and their work. It’s not because they don’t value their job…it’s because they have lost the meaning behind what they do. They are uninspired. They have no soundtrack to their lives. Unfortunately, the people who lead and manage them are just as disengaged.

The best leaders have the ability to help others believe their lives are purposeful. But, if you are not sure what you are doing or why you are doing it, why on earth would anyone follow you? To be a great leader you must be able to create meaningful experiences and emotional anchors for yourself and your people to ultimately influence change. You must be able to help someone understand how, every day, they have the power to influence their own change and the ability to make a difference in the lives of customers and colleagues. The best leaders, like the best songs have the ability to get people to move! ROCK YOUR ROLE is a highly interactive, entertaining session designed to motivate, inspire and educate attendees on the best practices of authentic, emotional and inspirational leadership.

By applying the principles of emotional intelligence, “flow” and leader branding we help attendees find, rekindle or enhance the meaning of what they do each and every day. By embracing the emotional language of leadership and a greater sense of purpose to influence change, they will not only boost productivity in themselves, but also their teams and their entire organization. And, yes, there will be music in this session. Lots of music.

• Embrace the roles they have in work and life
• Increase productivity and confidence in themselves and their people
• Master the skills to become a more creative, engaged, communicative and empowering leader and partner
• Create meaningful connections between their work, their co-workers, and their company
• Better understand the “”stories”, “songs” and “soundtracks” that inspire themselves and their people
• Create a more empathetic and engaging “voice” of leadership
• Understand their responsibility and purpose to influence change

In a typical day, you spend up to 90 percent of your time engaged in some form of written or oral communication; influencing, convincing, persuading, selling, negotiating and producing. However, if you are like most business professionals, you are sharing information and content…but you are finding it difficult to connect with your audience. Technology has made it possible to share enormous amounts of information which has made communication both easier and harder. It is easy to share, but harder to make a real connection with your audience.

Studies show communicators who can create and share content that is more relevant, interactive, visual, emotional and actionable will connect easier with audiences and increase productivity, engagement, sales and learning. By changing an “FYI” culture to a set of communication values that embrace the principles of “change, challenge or champion” attendees will be able to understand the audience mindset and create meaningful connections with their most important stakeholders and customers. Whether it is a face-to-face meeting, presentation, training class, webinar, phone call or written correspondence, there are best practices that need to be followed to influence others to change and create a culture of learning and growth.

• Present complex issues and ideas in a clear and simple manner
• Influence others to act on their Ideas
• Master the persuasive power of stories to easily engage their audiences
• Transfer belief with a balance of credibility, logic and emotion
• Embrace positive language to foster collaboration and cooperation
• Create brand alignment between themselves, their teams and their organization

“Hello” is the first moment in any relationship. It’s that moment of magic when two people who have never met before suddenly form a connection. Whether that connection lasts depends on many factors, but mastering that first moment of “hello” will give you best chance to not only make a first impression, but a lasting one. What does your hello say about you? How good are you at making connections with people of influence? In a world where much of our communication is now done via email and texting, the art of starting and sustaining real time, authentic, face to face, verbal conversations is becoming more important than ever. Deals are made and careers are built on the ability to quickly connect to and earn trust from clients and colleagues. Therefore, those professionals who can immediately engage and connect to their most important prospects and stakeholders will always be perceived as more valuable in the marketplace. YOU HAD ME AT HELLO is designed to help people develop their “one to one” and “one to many” relationship building skills. By employing the principles of personal branding, brain science, positive psychology and persuasive communications, attendees will become more confident in their ability to connect with audiences of influence.

• Create more engaging first impressions
• Immediately establish credibility and trust with clients and colleagues
• Speak with confidence and clarity in any public situation
• Use the power of eye contact, body language and voice inflection to engage
• Create more lasting and meaningful business and personal relationships

Leaders have a unique ability to inspire employees around a vision and a mission. It is the leader’s passion and strong belief in this vision that makes employees want to follow. If the future of your organization depends on empowering your managers to act more like leaders, then the next step is to give them the tools and techniques to understand and communicate the “big picture” to the teams they manage. People need to believe their achievements will make a difference. Therefore, we need more managers to take on the role of “leader.” To do this, they will need to develop a new set of skills based on a new belief system. By following the principles of leader branding, persuasive communications, “big picture” thinking and archetypal brand development we inspire front line managers to take on greater accountability for Implementing change management initiatives as well as more responsible for the motivation, education and growth of their people and teams.

In partnership with best-selling author Jon Gordon, author of “The Energy Bus” and “Power of Positive Leadership,” this session will leave the audience of managers and leaders armed with new skills and beliefs for greater team success. Key takeaways from this session will include the ability to:

• Create a Great Culture
• Overcome negativity
• Build a connected and committed team
• Stay positive through adversity
• Achieve superior results
• Create a long term vision for themselves and their team