![buy-and-sell-.png buy and sell](http://www.innovationamerica.us/media/Editor/buy-and-sell-1294572486.png)
If you follow me on Twitter, or have ventured over and read my blog posts on Aspyre Solutions, you know that I take a big interest in small business & entrepreneurship as well. I thrive on understanding what breeds the entrepreneurial bug in people, what pushes them to make the transition from employee to entrepreneur and how the actions we take early on set some people up for success, and other for, well, not success. It’s so heavily about brands – creating a brand with buzz, that’s visually appealing, speaks to it’s audience’s challenges, needs, wants and interests, and as such delivers a specific value that allows it to carve its place into the marketplace. And when done right, all of that is worth moola!
You know what else I dig? Career management is very similar to building and running a business. It sounds informal as heck, but you really are a brand, in the sense that you have unique value to offer, and the trick is in how you position and communicate that value to get the right people to pay for it. If you want to propel your career, you know well enough that you need certain things to help you move along, like a solid resume/cover letter/digital presence (I call it a Brand Portfolio), excellent interviewing skills, the ability to recognize obvious and not-so-obvious networking opportunities, a fab portfolio if you’re a creative, etc. And the meat that makes up all those tools is your brand – who you are, what you do, what you have to offer, what it’s worth, and how you say it.