In the de-jobbed world, a worker without a product is like a company without a product: full of potential resources, perhaps, but competitively not even in the game.
William Bridges, Career Strategist
As a worker, it is critical that you start now to define your Brand You and reputation. Most workers today offer interchangeable services. It is very difficult to establish service value. How do people see, feel, or know your value add? Starting now, to establish your Brand You may be the only way to ensure continued high value added employability throughout your work life.
Brand You reputation is what you carry throughout your life. Building the Brand You is difficult today for a number of reasons:
- Globalization, outsourcing, and off shoring are rapidly commoditizing professions.
- Self-promotion is perceived negatively.
- Much higher work and job competition.
- Difficulty to establish a highly differentiable value add.
- Globalization creates more Brand You competition from Chinese and Indian workers.
- Strong downward price pressures.
Life Lesson Earned: What does this mean for you? If you are a Commoditization U, then your work and contributions will not be properly valued by customer or employers. The result is that your work will be perceived as commodity work that can be standardized and ultimately outsourced to China or India. Remember, perceptions are everything.