A good work history or impressive resume is required but not sufficient today. Employers are looking for people with both outstanding technical skills and soft skills.

Today’s employees are looking for a “best places to work” culture which fosters career growth, encourages collaboration and rewards high performance.

I bring 15+ years experience in sales management, training, and image consulting with a passion for helping people reach their full professional potential. I believe “professional” is defined by the person, not the title, and that school is never out for the pro.

I work with:

– Employers who see value in offering training on soft skills such as business etiquette, emotional intelligence, professional appearance, and networking/relationship building;

– Individuals and teams looking to communicate confidence and success and represent themselves and their employer well;

– Professionals who want to know how to make a lasting, positive impact on their career.

By sharing a collection of my experience and life lessons at 1:1 consultations and group workshops, I provide people with the latest knowledge, right skills, and tools to succeed in New Buffalo.

Do you ever look at them through the eyes of your clients, or competitors, or just as if you’re seeing them for the first time? Because people don’t just work for a company. They represent that company to everyone they come in contact with.

To many of those people, they ARE the company.

Whether they’re on the outside….making sales calls, meeting with clients, working with them on projects…..or on the inside….answering phones, working in an office or cubicle or at the front desk.

Truly successful companies know this, and make sure their employees’ personal brands match their corporate brand.

But even many of the smartest and most successful business executives often overlook their employees’ personal brand, and how it relates to their company.

My book, “Own Your Personal Brand: The 7 Key Abilities Every Business Professional Should Have”, provides a blueprint for building the right brand, and making it a key component in professional success.

So what is personal branding? It’s much more than how you dress.

Personal branding is all about marketing yourself to the world.

What’s your story? How are you telling it?

Our brand is our way of determining how the world sees us, and interprets the verbal and non-verbal messages we’re sending.

Your brand is your image.

And image is everything. Nike didn’t get where they are just with a slogan.

Your employees represent your corporate culture to the world.

When their personal brands work hand in hand with your business brand, it provides many of the same benefits as soft skills development, both in the office and in the field.

Increased productivity and close rate.

A unified team and a better work environment.

When personal brands match the company brand, individual success leads to collective success.

So take a closer look at your employees. Especially the key ones. What’s their brand? Do they have one? Does their personal brand match your company brand?

When that happens, individual success leads to collective success.

Here’s something else to consider as you take that closer look at your employees.

How well do they work with each other? Or their managers, or the people they manage?

How well do they relate to clients and vendors and other people outside the company?

Those are important questions…but here’s one that’s more important: How well do you know the answers?

Unfortunately, in too many companies the answer to that last question is “not very well”.

That’s because many companies don’t take advantage of valuable tools to help them gauge and improve teamwork and communication.

For example, DISC Assessment.

Many Human Resources professionals know the value of that one first-hand…either from undergoing one themselves, or having key employees evaluated.

The key difference between DISC and others is it doesn’t assess personality traits, it assesses someone’s behavior in different circumstances and situations.

The four behavior types are Dominance, Inducement, Submission, and Compliance.

Think about how those types interact. Think about how much you could increase productivity if you knew which employee was which type.

Think about the benefits of understanding the likely reactions of key employees in specific situations. Or in specific teams. Or with specific managers.

One of the reasons I became certified in DISC Assessment, so I could make it a key component in my coaching programs, was to help companies get much more out of their employees.

It helps them determine leadership and groom future managers.

Many companies even use it during the interview stage to screen potential employees.

Would it benefit your company to have certain behavioral types in certain jobs?

Another important benefit of behavior assessments is helping to keep valuable employees.

One of the biggest challenges any company faces is not just recruiting the right employees, but retaining them.

A recent study said US companies lose 25% of new employees within a year. And when you think about what it costs to recruit, hire and train every new employee, making a bad hire can be a very costly mistake.

The HR professionals questioned in that study said one of the top reasons new employees leave is their relationship with their manager.

Being able to predict behavior goes a long way toward preventing problems with those relationships.

No one wants to put good people in situations where they’re destined to fail.

Here’s something else to consider. Many HR professionals don’t know employees are unhappy until they leave. We interview people when we want to hire them. We do exit interviews when they leave. But how often do we do “stay” interviews? Assessments like DISC give us the chance to do that.

The more you know about your employees…from their personal brand to their professional skills….the more you can do to help them succeed. And when they succeed, your company does too.