Branding Yourself For Marketing

I was at a career fair representing Ford recently, and one thing struck me: there's a lack of truly decent personal presentation skills out there.

For example, to any number of college seniors who said they were interested in getting into sales, I said: "Great. Sell yourself to me."

The reaction I got was a stunned look, followed immediately by a rambling choice of words that didn't really convince me of much. Well, maybe they convinced me of something, but it wasn't to hire them.

I had just made a presentation to Brand Camp University, so perhaps presentations and personal branding was on my mind, but it got me to thinking: there could be a number of people who might benefit from some suggestions.

I know I've got a lot of followers on Twitter and here on the blog who are college students (hello Golf Management program at Ferris State (what a cool major!); hello students of Barbara Nixon at GSU), so I thought I might help out with some specific suggestions to consider.

Before I get into the steps I recommend, here's the deck I presented. I hope to have the video of my presentation at a future date.