Billions of dollars are spent on marketing each year. Celebrities of all sorts enjoy fame and fortune that isn't necessarily related to theirs skills. Why? Because marketing works and like it or not, if you want move beyond a basic career and really open up opportunities for yourself, you've got to learn how to market yourself as a software developer. In this session, I'll teach you some quick and easy things you can do to enhance the marketability of your skills and personal brand immediately and talk about some long term plans you can put into action so that everyone will know your name.
2. Why Listen To Me?
I actively managed my personal brand to go from relative obscurity to a
pretty big following in just a 3-4 years
2009
• No blog
• Relatively unknown
2013
• Blog gets 100k views a month
• 55 Pluralsight courses
• Podcasts
• 3x Hanselminutes
• Windows Developer Show
• 2x Tablet Show
• Dot Net Rocks
• Yet Another Podcast
• Several Hacker News front page appearances
• Big social network presence
It doesn’t take a long time to build a big personal brand
3. Why Marketing Yourself
Is Important
“I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man!”
- Jay Z
How come this guy gets
Paid so much to speak?
You need style and substance
4. The Game Plan
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Building a personal brand
Building brand recognition
Creating social proof
Creating the right connections
“Be everywhere” – Pat Flynn
10. Creating a Brand
• Overall message
– What is your mission statement?
• Logo
–
http://britfitzpatrick.com/15-super-fly-personal-branding-logos-toinspire-you-and-me/
• Consistency
– Use the same message, same images
Don’t be the guy who works for company X
11. Cheap And Easy Branding
• Fiverr
– http://fiverr.com
• oDesk
– http://odesk.com
It is amazing how cheap talent is
16. LinkedIn
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Add your complete resume
Make lots of connections
Ask for recommendations
Join groups
LinkedIn can be one of the most important networks