Ah…the beach picture. Hope she didn’t compound the matter by wearing a bikini and having her la-las on display! And the Elvis picture I used is indeed one of an impersonator. (He looks more authentic than the Chinese guy I saw years ago in a restaurant in Tunbridge Wells.)

my favorite was, after being directed to someone in Human Resources, this person’s LinkedIn page had a photo of her on the beach and holding a drink in her hand. i have nothing against beaches, nothing against drinks and (almost) nothing against most HR people. but the combination of the three made me question the company i was interested in. in this case, the photo said less about that person’s brand than it did about the organization she was representing.

Best,
m

Love the Elvis pic btw. [am assuming he's not an Elvis impersonator?]

Ah, the old ‘I think my children are fab and therefore everyone else will’ scenario. I’ve seen many a person do this – even recently I saw an HR Director of a large corporate who posed with her grandchild!

Jennifer

Good to hear from you and glad to share the jam experiment with someone else! When you say you need to do some brand market research, I’m assuming you mean on your personal brand.

If you’re willing to be blatant about it, try asking some people who know you but aren’t emotionally connected to you (ie not friends or family) if they only had three words or phrases to describe you, what would they be? And if you’re looking for some self improvement tips, you could follow it up by asking what you could do to improve your personal brand ie is there a ‘cherry on the cake’ that you could change to make your brand shine.

Hope that helps!

Jennifer

I’d never come across the jam experiment before, quite surprising as I’ve worked in several retail training teams and done endless customer service sessions talking about choice. Many thanks for the tip off, I appreciate it!
Tip #9 reminds me of one of the customer service tips a certain large department store in Knightsbridge says ‘Never treat the customer how you want to be treated, treat them as they want to be treated’.

I need to do some brand market research, I appreciate that you are incredibly generous with the amount of tips you give out, but any suggestions on a great question to ask? I’m brave enough to be blatent!

Many thanks,
Nikki

Appreciate your comment and all I can say is, “Ah, bless”. Sometimes these people just don’t know their arse from their elbow when it comes to making the right impression, do they? Shows you the power of your online brand though!

Thanks for adding to the list. On the animal front, I once had a guy criticise me for something to do with my brand, but when I looked him up on LinkedIn found that his profile picture was of a cat. Enough said!