My multipreneur life – how to brand?
Slightly off my ‘core’ recruitment focus but linked in that it is about me and my professional life which I have recently discovered has a name.
Multipreneur.
Whilst this might sound a bit american (and it is?) it does describe my new working outlook. I own the innovative executive search and recruitment business mckinley|resource, I am a business coach for the NWDA high growth programme, I provide job search advice as part of the job centre plus and last but not least I provide interim recruitment services for corporate organisations.
This multi-faceted DNA has always been at the heart of my work life. Throughout my career I have always strived to avoid being pigeonholed and now I am carving out a unique role as a business juggler, keeping several separate yet interlinking activities on the go. In the main I love it, it works well for me, allows me to collaborate with individuals, SME’s and corporates, making me more rather than less employable as I never lose touch with any one sector or size of business.
However I’m struggling.
Let me be more specific i’m struggling to describe what I do, how I do it in a simple concise way that covers all aspects of my career.
What I would advise any of the businesses or individuals that i work with is to look at their strengths and unite each of the elements of their portfolio under a single unified personal brand. So in true cobblers shoes style I have started this and begun to develop a brand equity that conveys my value and purpose.
Phase 1 has been the re-launch of www.martindangerfield.com. That has helped clarify what is in, what is out and what ‘my brand’ could be. However as we are all aware, branding is more than a website, it’s more about what I stand for, how I deliver the services I do and most importantly why you should engage with me for all your people needs.
So over to you, I need your help, what next? What logically comes next for you?
Email me at martin.dangerfield@mckinleyresource.com, call me on 0161.955.3647 or get me on Twitter
posted by Martin Dangerfield - 2 Comments - 13 Sep 2009
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Lyndsey Michaels 13th-10-2009 11:27am
Hi Martin
You and me both!
My new website is on its way and developing the content for it forced me to better define who I am and what I do – and where the dividing lines are.
I’ve now developed 3 types of ‘service offering’: two are fairly focused and specific and the third is ‘everything else’. Whether this works or not in terms of client understanding remains to be seen : )
But at the very least it helped me to figure out the types of work I *want* to be doing, out of the varied types I *could* be doing. This should give me more motivation, personal work satisfaction and so on and ultimately lead, I hope, to a better client experience.
Although there are a lot of businesspeople already on, or starting to take, this route, we’re still part of the early vanguard of ‘multipreneurs’ (oh I do wish there was a better word for that!). The traditional 9-5 and associated specific job titles are gradually becoming more flexible and I am impatiently waiting for the day when the majority of people have such control over and flexibility of their own careers and lifestyle. By then, I’m sure, the current cacophony of diverse personal branding do’s and don’ts will have settled into some global unwritten rules that most people will follow. In the meantime, you and I and others like us are willing (if slightly nervous) guinea pigs, looking for ways to help not only our clients understand what we do, but ourselves!
Scary, complicated, confusing and yet, exciting times!
All the best
Lyndsey
(Hm, I feel a focus group coming on)