Top Expert Brand Accelerator

Did you know that Richard Brandon published his new autobiography ”Finding My Virginity“ - 20 years after his famous "Loosing My Virginity" autobiography?

In the new book he analyses last 2 decades of his life, how he has been dealing with adversity without compromising his values and what he learned from that.

What can we can learn from Mr. Branson whose name is a reference in building a successful and powerful ? Here are my major takeaways:

☑️ Be resilient and keep going. As an entrepreneur, Richard Branson launched more businesses which failed, than those which are successful. And despite of the fact, he has never stopped and given up.

☑️ Adopt a habit to write notes every day. Mr. Branson is often asked where he finds time to write blog posts, columns and even books. He takes daily notes about ideas, reminders, requests. It’s a great way to reflect, memorise and learn from what happened. It’s a great source to create the content later for the blog, posts, and even books.

☑️ Be actively present on social media. Mr. Branson insists that every leader should be on social media: to represent the business, to invite clients, customers and employees to his/her world, to analyse in real time the feedback - such a reaction can become a pivot point in the company’s success. The manager, who is active online, learns in real time what customers and employees think and can reply, thank and empathise.

Despite of many changes and technology development, Richard Branson says: “The key entrepreneur skills I used when I first started out are the very sameness I use today: the art of delegation, risk-taking, surrounding yourself with a great team and working on projects you really believe in “.

Growing you Brand takes time and effort, be sure you are passionate about what you do to be successful and happy in your journey.

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

How to communicate your Personal Brand with power:

One of the important ingredients of the Personal Brand formula - is the list of FACTS about you as Person-Brand and about your area of expertise.

📍Using facts in your elevator pitch, social media accounts, bio is the way to stand out and differentiate yourself. Facts validate your professionalism and create trust.

How many people would pay attention to communication like - "I'm a recognized expert in strategic procurement"

vs

"I've published 5 articles on the topic of procurement strategy in Top Industry magazine"

I see that people often mix facts and assumptions when it comes to self-presentation.

✅ Facts have power - they are not debatable. It can be checked or proved.
✅It can be quantitative - numbers, dates in a timeline, or specific names, like educational institutions. It can be qualitative - such as specific results of your work, your achievements, awards, results of your work.

For example,
❌ "I'm an experienced coach", is an assumption.
✅ "I'm ICF certified coach since 2014 and I have over 1500 coaching hours" -it's a fact.

What facts can you share about yourself as a professional, which are unique and make you stand out?

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

Career strategy advice: why leaders and experts in corporate need to focus on becoming visible in 2022:

I'm convinced that Professionals - Leaders and Experts with 10-15 years of experience should focus on building their .

📍The issue is that they already have a reputation for being high-level professionals inside their companies but they are not much known outside. Often in that career stage, they need to break the glass ceiling to attract new opportunities and get to the next level.

My advice is to focus on acquiring skills to become visible, including :

✅ Develop digital communication skills and articulate their expert or leader positioning.

The key here is being consistent to see the results over time.

However, there are several "speedboats" you can use to accelerate your visibility, showcase your leadership and establish yourself as Thought Leaders in the niche:

✅ Get speaking engagements
✅ Write a book
✅ Network for opportunities to build partnerships

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

How do you monetise your expertise? Do you have multiple streams of income? Are you looking for new opportunities?

If you do not see your option in the poll, please share it in the comments.

When I lost my job, back then in 2015, it struck me that actually you can not have all the eggs in one basket. And I started to look for and try different options.

I currently count with 9 monetisation options, among them:
📍coaching and consulting
📍online programs that I market on my own
📍online courses on Udemy
📍delivering tailor-made workshops
📍advertising by leveraging my social media visibility in Spanish-speaking market (Instagram and Pinterest)
📍monetised YouTube channel
📍monetisation of my blog content
📍affiliate marketing
📍speaking

Marina Vishnyakova
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

At some point of my professional life, to be exact after 2015, I totally changed my professional direction. After almost 20 years in banking and finance, I had a huge professional downshifting (as I thought in those times), that resulted in my enormous personal and professional transformation.

Many lessons were learned.

More in my article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-all-make-choices-lessons-i-learned-from-my-marina-vishnyakova/

Marina Vishnyakova
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

We All Make Choices, or The Lessons That I Learned From My Professional Downshifting There was one question for a pretty long period of time that I was not comfortable to answer: What do you do? If you would ask me that in the end of 2016, you would hear a long monologue about how I had worked successfully for almost 20 year in banking and finance. With not so many details about wha

The most popular definition of the personal brand is the one of Jeff Bezos, where he says that "your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room".

📍 We challenge this definition with Marina Vishnyakova, as we think what Mr. Bezos says is more about reputation

✅ It's not al all about cheesy PR strategy, it's about your professional and personal authenticity. About what do you care and committed to.

What do you think a personal brand is? When can you say that a person has a strong ?

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

Great article from HBR explaning how to destingish when praise and not blame for a failure

When I worki with clients - corporate leaders, we often discuss how to change the way they look at failure and give feedback to the team members to reinforce learning culture and here is a great tool:

Failures fall into three categories: preventable ones in predictable operations, which usually involve deviations from spec; unavoidable ones in complex systems, which may arise from unique combinations of needs, people, and problems; and intelligent ones at the frontier, where “good” failures occur quickly and on a small scale, providing the most valuable information.

Strong leadership can build a learning culture—one in which failures large and small are consistently reported and deeply analyzed, and opportunities to experiment are proactively sought.

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

Leadership behaviors to transform Organizational Culture

Self-awareness of the Leaders about their behaviors is a great starting point to transform organizational culture.

📍When I work with Leaders to define their leadership principles, as an example, I use this Table* of Eroding, Enduring and Emerging behaviors from MIT research.

Typically, we answer the following question: what behaviors are critical to adopt in order to achieve company vision? How Leaders articulate their Brand to set up the tone for organizational culture? How Leaders can become more authentic, purpose-driven and more empathic?

📍While company goals answering "WHAT" question, behaviors answering "HOW":

How, as an organization, we'll achieve our vision, engage and empower employees and stay competitive.

I believe, that focusing on values and leadership principles is equally important as focusing on business strategy.

What are your Leadership behaviors to focus on in 2022?

*"The 2020 Future of Leadership Global Executive Study and Research Report", by MIT SMR

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

Shortly after Warren Buffett met Bill Gates, Bill' s father asked each of them to write down on a piece of paper one word that would best describe what had helped them the most.

Both, without any collaboration at all, wrote the word "focus".

This weekend I was re-watching the HBO Documentary "Becoming Warren Buffet" from the point of view of analysing what stands behind such a powerful personal brand, what components of his personal and professional self allowed him to become a thought leader, "The Oracle of Omaha".

He always had clarity about the strong parts of his personality and has been leveraging them.

He was constantly working on expanding his knowledge, expertise, skills.

Did you know that in his office you will not see the degree he got from the University of Nebraska? And you will not see the Masters degree he got from Columbia University. But you will see the little award certificate that he got from the Dale Carnegie course on public speaking. He was not a born public speaker. But gaining that skill helped him a lot in life.

He was building his image, having some fun with that.

"What I saw first and foremost, day in and day out, was consistency," - one of his sons says.

Important components of his personal brand were his values.

He had clear positioning.

In 1986 everyone wanted to hear what Warren Buffett had to say.

He was not afraid of taking responsibility and work on the mistakes that others did. The example with Salomon Inc in 1991 totally demonstrated that and revealed the huge magnitude of his personality. He was saving 8000 people from losing their jobs.

I highly recommend you to watch this documentary, if you need insights and ideas to reflect on. Watch it from the angle of what you might take away from this documentary and from this person, that can help you in building a powerful brand and growing your thought leadership.

In the 4th cohort of the TopExpertBrand Mastermind Program we will be introducing complementary discussions and lessons on thought leaders who are the role models in their fields. We will be adding books, articles, documentaries, movies to provoke creative and analytical thinking and having more fun in the process.

Who are the role models for you? From whom you learn to become a greater person and professional? What traits of their personality impact you the most?

Marina Vishnyakova
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

Where to find quality free pictures for our posts and articles?

There are 3 major reasons why professionals and entrepreneurs do not post regularly on social media and do not grow their visibility:⁣

1️⃣ They do not know what to write about
2️⃣ They struggle with an Impostor syndrome (what others will think, I have nothing interesting and useful to share, ...)
3️⃣ They say they do not have good pictures⁣
⁣
In this post I am giving you the solution for the third problem.
⁣
It's not necessary to always use your own pictures . Depending on your goals and message you can use quality free (and paid if you want) photos, videos and even graphic vector images to make your post and article look professional and attractive⁣
⁣
Here is a list of 25 free resources that I personally use
⁣
📍Canva.com
📍Rawpixel.com⁣
📍Pixabay.com⁣
📍Unsplash.com⁣
📍Pexels.com⁣
📍Kaboompics.com⁣
📍Gratisography.com⁣
📍Isorepublic.com⁣
📍Picography.co⁣
📍Reshot.com⁣
📍Burst.shopify.com⁣
📍Stocksnap.io⁣
📍Skitterphoto.com⁣
📍Picjumbo.com⁣
📍Freepik.es⁣
📍Vectorstock.com⁣
📍Stokpic.com⁣
📍Lifeofpix.com⁣
📍Focastock.com⁣
📍Magdeleine.co⁣
📍Cupcake.nilssonlee.se⁣
📍Jaymantri.com⁣
📍Stockvault.net⁣
📍Startupstockphotos.com⁣
📍Vecteezy.com⁣
⁣
Some photo banks have also Premium photos, but I usually always find what I need with their free pictures and graphics⁣
⁣
If you find this information useful, don't hesitate to share this post with your colleagues and friends, so that more professionals can see it

Marina Vishnyakova
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

Top 10 job skills of tomorrow

❗️ 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025, as the adoption of technology increases, according to the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report

Comparing the list of top soft skills of 2020 and 2025, People Management skill replaced by Leadership and Social Influence.

📍For me, it's a great sign. I'm working with People Managers to help them become Inspiring Leaders, which require a shift of mindset from command & control to support & empowerment

Other Highlights from the list:

📍Problem-solving type of skills are top the list employers require in the next five years. These have been consistent since the first report in 2016:

✅ Analytical thinking and innovation
✅ Complex Problem-solving
✅ Critical thinking and analysis
✅ Creativity, originality and Initiative
✅ Reasoning, problem-solving and Ideation

📍No surprise, newly emerging this year are skills in self-management, related to the pandemic, such as:
✅ Active learning
✅ Resilience
✅ Stress tolerance and
✅ Flexibility

From your perspective, what do you see most-in demand, given this double-disruption impacts of the pandemic & automation transforming jobs?

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

Generation Z is coming to the workplace. How it's different from Millennials? How Leaders should be prepared and what to expect?

📍I see that the trend to be authentic, be vocal, purposeful, living their values even in a greater extent than Millennials, continue to grow

📍I would expect this generation to be more demanding for real and mission of organizations, committed to authentic values

Here are highlights from Zebra IQ Trends Report (link in the comments)

✅This is a video-first generation in consuming the content

✅Looking for places in Internet where they can be , real and expressive from the soul

✅Blurring digital and physical identities

✅Gen Z is the side-hustle

✅This is generation that grew up Online. They are making money freelancing, creating content in TikTok, Instagram, YouTube

✅They are very value-driven. Some strong values include: Human rights, Environmental aid, Political reform, education for all

✅They are vocal about their feelings -the most outspoken than ever, using technology, platforms as a place for activism and expressions

✅They are over the drama, looking to bring peace, solidarity and positivity, they are about well-being of each other and the planet

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

What really is about beyond a buzzword?

There are to components in it: Thought and Leadership. This is how we define it:

Thought
1.Formulate your brand
2.Position yourself- develop your opinion around the topic of your expertise -trends, future scenarios, your point of view
3.Define your Big Idea - what is possible in the area of your expertise
4.Codify your knowledge -lessons learned/your experience and expertise
5.Create intellectual property -property –visual representation, formulate a framework, a methodology, etc

Leadership
1. Take a lead to share your ideas, your story and your knowledge
2. Involve others in the discussion. Be prepared to overcome objections.
3. Grow your visibility and influence – broaden your impact beyond your organization, be present in social media, take speaking engagements
4.Create a community around your idea/cause - pull people

Last Thursday we organized a live webinar with Marina Vishnyakova and Elena Marie Ivanushkina where we discussed how Thought Leadership can help professionals grow their career and become known in their niche.

Thought Leadership is not about being known, it’s about being known for making a difference and creating positive change

If you want to watch the recording of the webinar, please feel free to access it via the link in the comments.

And please share with us in the comments also what Thought Leadership is to you? Who do you consider a Thought Leader?

What I do wrong trying to build strong Personal Brand?

Many professionals would like to build a successful , become visible, and become recognized as a thought leaders in the niche.

But sometimes, they don't see the results despite their efforts. Why?

At our workshop "Personal Branding: How to Boost Your Career and Be in High Demand", co-hosted with Marina Vishnyakova, we've covered typical mistakes professionals do when communicating their brand:

Not having a vision
- you need to have clarity on what you want to do as a professional and Thought Leader, how you want to impact the world

Not leveraging your values
- showing what you believe in creates trust and connection with your audience

Not having clarity about specialization and audience
- you should talk to specific audience using their language and not to "everybody"

Not understanding and transmitting your Unique Personal and Professional Value
- your audience should get a clear impression, beyond your professional title, what value do you bring and what sets you apart

Not having your elevator pitch crafted, tested, and rehearsed
- it should be resonating with people you are presenting yourself, it should be concise and inviting to learn more about you

Not having your authentic communication style
- resharing the content of others won't help you to build visibility

Not creating your media ecosystem
-you should choose strategically your main platforms, interconnect them and publish your content consistently

Not having strategic networking (both online and offline)
- Personal Branding is an interpersonal skill. You need to network constantly to build your community, find collaborations and partnerships and prom

Not having a clear strategy to grow your Personal Brand and visibility
- doing things from time to time and without clear objectives and metrics would downgrade your efforts. You need to identify that 20% of actions that bring 80% of results

Not working consistently on your Personal Brand and visibility
- consistency beets everything - you get better in your communication, it creates a compound effect, and its pays off in a long run

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

I see it from talking to our clients, that very often it's hard for them to start building their visibility by creating content. Because they think they should do everything at once (in addition to all other doubts that arise here).

We believe with Elena Marie Ivanushkina that it's crucial just to take the first step.

When you have already clarity about yourself and what Personal Brand, based on your strengths, authenticity, values etc, you want to translate to the world, just start with 1 thing.

Start creating just one type of content that you are really comfortable with and focus on delivering it consistently.

When done right, it will definitely bring results.

Marina Vishnyakova
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

📍One of the best things you can do for your professional and personal growth is to invest in developing your , your reputation and visibility as an expert and a professional.

✅ If you’d like to make a bigger impact with your work, advance your career or grow your business, then you know how powerful it is to become visible with your expertise, especially online

✅ Professionals with a strong Personal Brand do not go door to door to get attention and become noticed, people approach them willing to work together

✅ If you want to build your Brand strategically using proven methodology, we invite you to do it with us in a group of other like-minded and talented professionals.

Today we, Co-founders of TopExpertBrand Accelerator, Marina Vishnyakova and Elena Marie Ivanushkina are opening the enrollment in the 4th cohort of the Mastermind Program - our 10-weeks step-by-step immersive online program for managers, leaders, professionals, experts, coaches, consultants, business owners, entrepreneurs who want to grow their personal brand and professional visibility following the proven strategic and structured approach, and leveraging the power of the collective mind at masterminds.

The testimonials of the participants from the previous cohorts say much more than we can say about the program.

Check more details about the program at https://services.mvcoachsulting.com/mastermind-program-top-expert-brand and have a look at a short video about the value that our participants got from it.

Don´t hesitate to submit an application for a free 30 minutes strategic call to see if our program will help you in growing your brand and visibility and if you will be the right fit for the small group of those professionals who are already joining the program. The number of spots is limited.

Now, looking back, I would have done for sure 1 thing differently, when I was working still as an employee for the company.

I would look for additional income streams to monetise my expertise. And the first thing that I would chose would be writing a blog.

Why?

First of all, I love writing. It would not take me much effort to do that.

Second, blogging is a great way to grow your visibility, share your expertise, positioning, engage with people and build awareness about your personal brand and what you do.

Now I know that!

Then, I had no idea about it. And I missed the moment.

There is also the third point about blogging - it can bring you additional revenue streams. Not totally passive, because you need to create content, but if you love doing that, then, why not?! And it can be a good support in case if you lose a job, if you decide to quit, if you decide to take a break and take some time off of the usual daily job and tasks.

I have a blog that by today has reached 2.709.323 visits (the statistics is public on my site) and has been creating for me different interesting opportunities. I monetise this blog. And it’s a very interesting journey and experience for me.

If there is interest, I can share more about how I do it, how I monetise my content, what it gives me, challenges that you have when growing your blog, how to drive traffic there, etc.

Writing a blog can be done whether you are an employed worker or an entrepreneur.

Just let me know in the comments, is there is interest!

Marina Vishnyakova
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

Does it happen to you that some time ago you dreamed of your job, but now it is no longer inspiring?
And you might feel stuck, wanting more responsibility by going to the next level of your career. What can hold you back from growing?

📍 When I worked as a headhunter, I've often heard about the following obstacles:

✅ Company's organizational structure:
There is no next level or lateral opportunity to wider your scope of responsibilities or get a people management position. No new projects, where you can grow.

✅ Unsupportive boss:
Poor communication between you and your manager to understand possible obstacles, share your expectation and get regular feedback about your performance

✅ Lack of specific knowledge or skills:
Absence of degree or technical competency required for the next level

📍 They are all valid reasons. But they put us in the role of the victim in the situation.

And we might overlook underlying internal obstacles, which are not so obvious:

✅ Lack of self-confidence, believe in your ability to be successful
✅ Fear of change and fear of failure
✅ Self-limited believes and lack of proactive approach to career management
✅ No being clear about your strengths, unique value proposition, positioning in the area of your expertise and powerful vision whom you want to become as a professional at your best

📍 Those professionals, who are clear about what they have to offer, who are constantly learning, thinking big and are vocal about their ideas, they are stand out, inspire others and become noticed.

👉 That's why, I'm convinced that investing in developing your helps you to get clarity on your value proposition, understand, whom you want to become, focus on what you need to improve and be known for what you do.

👉 Build your brand intentionally and you'll have no need to use a resume. By doing so, you offer yourself broader career and life options.

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

I often hear a question "How often should I post in LinkedIn - twise a week, 3 times a week, to build my and be visible?"

However, the right question should be "How should I organise myself to post consistantly?" or "How to make it a habit?"

Consistency beats everything.

- It's better to post once a week, but every week
- It's better to post a not-perfect article than wait for months to make it perfect

When we are consistent, we learn and become better at expressing our thoughts with every post

Thank you Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy for this reminder. Love this illustration!

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

Leadership Branding - what is it and why do you need it?

Are you clear on whom you want to become as a Leader? To make an impact, create a better future and leave a legacy 🚀?

📍 I see personal branding as a self-development and self-actualization tool.

📍 You have an opportunity to decide consciously whom you want to become.

I'm fortunate to work with leaders, to help them create their Leadership Brand vision. What they want to be known for, beyond their job title. And then, they deliberately focusing on their personal transformation to achieve this vision

👉 This is my list of personal leadership transformation examples:

✅ From a leader of followers to leader of the leaders
✅ From a leader who pushes (imposing) to a leader who pulls (engaging and inspiring)
✅ From leader, who knows all the answers, to a leader who is a great listener and knows how to get the best ideas from his/her team
✅ From leader, who's known inside the company, to a leader who is a community builder
✅ From a leader, driven by ego, to a leader, who is promoting his team members by giving them exposure
✅ From a leader who controls to a leader, who empowers
✅ From a leader, focusing on short terms to a leader, driven by mission and purpose

What inspires you? What would you add to this list?

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator

I'm often asked whether Reputation is the synonym of Personal Brand. Here is my explanation:

📍 Others always have an opinion about you, but not a necessarily fair one.

✅ A strategic approach to your Personal Brand allows you to formulate a clear message - who are you, what are your professional value, positioning, what you are passionate about, and how you are different from others
✅ When you clear about it and communicate it, you give others chance to know you and to form the right reputation

Thoughts?

Elena Marie Ivanushkina
Co-founder of TopExpertBrand Accelerator