Success Tips for Expat & International Careers

Expat Careers & Businesses: Storytelling about Your Brand Online and Offline

For today's post I’ve interviewed friend, colleague and fellow personal branding strategist Bernadette Martin about her new book Storytelling about Your Brand Online & Offline. The book explains how storytelling can help executives, entrepreneurs and professionals to message and strengthen their personal brand. 

I had the honor of penning a chapter in the book entitled, “How to Internationalize your Bio”.

 

 I want to thank Bernadette for taking the time to answer a few questions regarding storytelling and personal branding.

• So Bernadette, how do you define the word “story” and why are stories so powerful?

I believe a story is an expression of real and imagined experiences, crafted and woven by the storyteller in a sensory fashion. This can play out in an oral, written, visual or tactical context in a book, movie, poem, song or dance. Stories can be expressed online through vehicles like YouTube, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Second Life and more. 

Stories capture and hold our attention. They are an extremely powerful form of communication because stories combine facts, figures and details with emotions, colors and imagery, creating synapses between the left and right halves of your brain. Stories not only allow us to process information and store it effectively in memory, but also, perhaps most importantly, allow us connect emotionally with another person. 

Expat Careers & Businesses: How To Stand Out in the Global Marketplace - Part 2 of 3

This post is the second in a series discussing how expat professionals and entrepreneurs can stand out in the global marketplace. Before reading this article, I invite you to read Expat Careers & Businesses: How to Stand Out in the Global Marketplace - Part 1.

The second strategy for standing out in the global marketplace is through media or industry recognition. 

MEDIA OR INDUSTRY RECOGNITION

Given the global war for talent and trends like telecommuting and working via VOIP and videochat, you are competing in the global marketplace even if you are looking for a job or business locally. With such a phenomenal increase in competition, how can one be found and stand out?

Pursuing industry or media recognition is a very effective way to differentiate yourself from your competition. Consider the ratio of people in any given industry to those who have been recognized by industry leaders or the media and it would be hard to argue otherwise.

Not only will it increase your visibility and help you stand out, but it also helps build trust in your thought leadership in your area of expertise. This trust is critical when competing amongst other well qualified professionals or businesses.

Why?  Because people hire experts. People featured in the media or industry publications are seen as experts. They are seen as people you can trust to know what they are talking about. No credible media or industry source is going to quote or feature someone without demonstrated authority on their subject matter expertise. 

Ask the Expat & International Career Coach: How Do I Build a Career Abroad When I Don't Speak Another Language?

This is the next post in my "ASK THE EXPAT & INTERNATIONAL CAREER COACH" blog series. 

Today's question is very common one I get when speaking to people considering building a career overseas. Some are overseas already but feel predominantly held back professionally because of their lack of language skills. 

 

"HOW DO I BUILD A CAREER ABROAD WHEN I DON'T SPEAK ANOTHER LANGUAGE?" 

Only speaking your native language obviously significantly limits the number of job opportunities available to you in other countries where your mother tongue is not spoken.  

This not only has an impact on your chances of building a professional life but also being able to enjoy living in that country from a lifestyle perspective. Of course many expats take language classes before or after they've arrived in their new home to develop a functional fluency which does allow for engagement but not immersion into their new home culture. If that approach works for you and your native language is the one you are looking to depend on professionally, you still have options. 

 

The first and obvious option is to find other countries where your language is spoken. When I ask people how many countries speak their language, very few can give me an accurate number. People are generally surprised to find out how many countries from which they have to choose. 

 

Celebrating 100 Years of International Women's Day with the 100 Voices in Business Project - 100 Voices from Women Around the World

My colleague Krishna De is one of the top thought leaders in digital marketing and social media.  Krishna is a great source of information on anything related to those subjects (as well as many others), but is also someone who regularly gives back to her community. True to form Krishna conceived of the idea to mark the 100th birthday of International Women's Day by soliciting words of wisdom in 140 characters (a tweet) from women around the world on topics related to leadership, networking, productivity, work-life balance and professional development. The 100 Voices of Business Project culminated in a compilation of the top 100 tweets of wisdom in the presentation you see above.  I was honored to be asked to participate and to be selected as one of the contributors.

The presentation is packed with great thoughts and ideas that will certainly help you in all of the areas addressed. Take your time and read through it.  Feel free to share with others. If you share via twitter, be sure to use the hashtag: #100voicesbiz

 

EXPAT CAREER SUCCESS TIP: I invite you to review this presentation and pick 3 nuggets of wisdom from one of the categories for which you feel you need some inspiration or guidance. The categories again are: leadership, networking, productivity, work-life balance and professional development.  Apply one of these nuggets each day for 2 weeks.  See what sort of shifts happen after those two weeks are over. Fell free to come back and share what you learned.

Expat & International Careers: How To Stand Out in the Global Marketplace - Part 1 of 3

The easiest and most satisfying path to professional or business success is using your unique value to meet the needs of your target employers or market. This is the reason why personal branding is at the core of my work.

Personal branding is not about constructing an image that will appeal those you want to hire you. It's about unearthing and communicating the unique combination of qualities, abilities and strengths that make you exceptional. The value that this combination can create will help you naturally stand out from them competition and attract those who need what you offer most. 

Much of our unique value comes from our natural abilities, qualities and strengths. These things can be potentially be enhanced or strengthened but they cannot be changed. These unique gifts are the essence of how we can offer something that no one else in the world can offer in quite the way we offer it.

However there are pieces of our unique value proposition that can be developed and even transformed with the right amount of time, energy and strategy.  This post is a first of five posts which will discuss these things that can be developed or significantly changed to maximize the power of our personal brand and help us stand out in the global marketplace.

The first of these five areas is education and training.