Layoffs Spread to More Sectors of the Economy

In the Economy section of the New York Times on-line, Catherine Rampell quoted Nigel Gault, chief United States economist at IHS Global Insight, as saying “There really isn’t any hiding place for companies anymore. The recent numbers coming in from the rest of the world are disastrous.”

The Comfort Zone with regard to careers, if ever there was one, is gone. When an announced seventy thousand jobs disappear in one day (knowing full well that the reality in these cases usually exceeds the announced numbers) on top of the jobs that have already slid into the ocean like so many melting glaciers, one cannot contemplate one's resume and feel reassured that what attracted offers a few years ago will have any allure for CEOs making hiring decisions in a time when the battle cry is "Abandon ship!"

It is a sad, but unavoidable, fact that many management-level executives aren't going to make it through their next job transition. No reflection on the quality of their skills and abilities, they've merely chosen to remain anonymous to their market--the CEOs in their sector--because it's easier to send out resumes and deal with hiring managers and head hunters rather than to confront the top brass. For many, it is uncomfortable to become known at that level of play.

If one isn't better known in the sector than the CEO who might tender an offer, the offer is likely never to come.

What is the difference between managing "Hollywood" talent and business executives?

Having managed actors, writers and directors for the better part of thirty years, I've been asked what is the difference between managing "Hollywood" talent and business executives. For me, there is no difference since the objectives are the same: Increase the client's visibility in the public media so as to attract enhanced offers and to proliferate sources of cash flow to the client.

The only difference I have to deal with is that, while every actor, writer and director I ever dealt with understood the need for strategic management and actively sought it out, business executives rarely understand the subject and believe that mailing out résumés and phoning their network contacts constitutes marketing. What this actually does is to advertise your misfortune rather than to create a demand for your services.

A presence in the media is the fastest way to double or triple an executive's earnings and television is the optimum outlet. It is a tool I've been using since 1980, so I speak from experience.

The question is: What does it take for an executive to see that television will do things a résumé could never hope to accomplish? The answer to this question could mean the difference between comedy and tragedy.

Manage Smarter

Excerpts from:
Ready for Your Close-Up, Mr. CEO?
Brand like a celebrity

By Stacy Straczynski

As a filmmaker and the founder of Hollywood-based talent management company Cine Paris, Stephen Mitchell is particularly intrigued by the enterprise of branding executives. During his 20-plus years in the entertainment industry, Mitchell knows first-hand the power that personal branding gives to an individual.

"I started as a filmmaker," Mitchell says. "My experience is that writers, directors and actors all need to brand themselves in order to break into the industry." He says he believes the same goes for executives' careers, and to that end recently expanded his company to offer an executive management consulting service.

"Executives have a need for visibility," he says. "No producer wants to cast an 'unknown.' The same goes for corporations." Companies are looking for a star to act as a business magnet and therefore want to hire an executive who has an established relationship with the public. They want their own industry celebrity who never fails to draw positive and profitable attention. But the problem is many executives don't know how to market themselves, and without correct self-positioning, companies will overlook them. "What actors have and CEOs don't is someone to help manage an executive's trajectory and career or even market them," Mitchell says. Executives often need help.

To begin building your personal brand, Mitchell says you need to start with the most important part—you. "When executives begin to find their interests and focus on areas in which they have a lot to say, they can begin to get a sense of who they are—and bring attention to themselves. It's a way to make a career out of being you that is separate from any corporate climate and affiliation," Mitchell says.

http://www.managesmarter.com/msg/content_display/marketing/e3if98651d51568f53a97b93b73dfad7696

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvWWoYK9hXw

Stephen Mitchell talks about Business on-demand

Q: What is Business on-demand?

SM: I intend Business on-demand as a cable and Internet channel to address the needs and interests of the business world by providing news, commentary and perspective to the major sectors of industry and which would be populated by icons from the business world rather than news readers. The channel would also serve to create strategic alliances with executives and corporations.

Q: Why "on-demand" as opposed to conventional program streaming?

SM: According to Roger Lynch, CEO of U.K.-based video-on-demand supplier HomeChoice when speaking at the inaugural MIPCOM CEO super panel assembled at Cannes to discuss changes affecting broadcasters, as much as 60% of viewing in Video On Demand-enabled homes ignores conventional TV channels. That's a compelling observation. Lynch went on to say that viewers are hemorrhaging away from conventional channels when given the choice of on-demand viewing.

Q: What is your goal for the channel?

SM: The goal is to surpass Bloomberg, CNBC and others as a portal to information and perspective vital to business around the world by creating a global interactive network of executives, businesses and industries as a revenue generating platform for further expansion. That I have a list of clients in the business world for whom I create management strategies dovetails nicely with the purpose and needs of Business on-demand.

Q: What would attract sponsors to business on-demand?

SM: The dynamics of advertising and programming content have traditionally been in conflict. Television has used the interruption model to communicate the advertising messages of sponsors to the detriment of the content and the irritation of the viewer. The advent of digital recording has, in effect, nullified entire ad campaigns given that viewers can elect to skip over a commercial thereby avoiding its message. Branded content uses the attraction model to deliver its product messages by creating an experiential context in which content and product message are “joined in a spiritual union” to paraphrase Frank Lloyd Wright, which is the model for Business on-demand.

Q: What excites you about the activity?

SM: The idea of providing a national or global platform for those who actually toil in the various sectors of business is very interesting to me. It is content I would want to watch as opposed to the all-too-prevalent practice of using a news program for the redistribution of press releases. I want to hear from active individuals who have something to say.

Think "Hollywood"

Most business executives are considerably undervalued. This may seem an extraordinary thing to say to a man or woman earning a base-line salary of $200-500K per annum along with stock options and benefits. One could easily respond by saying that this is the norm for executives in my position, and that would be correct except for one thing. All of the peers one would cite in making such a statement are as anonymous as you are.

Whether we are talking about athletes, actors or soft drinks, the greater the visibility the higher the value as a brand. In our society, what gets attention gets money. It is an unavoidable fact. The inclusion of a well-known actor in the cast of a movie can propel it out of the made-for-DVD realm and into a first-run theatrical release. Well-known actors sell tickets. When an executive sheds his or her anonymity to become known throughout an industry sector, their value goes
up; they, too, “sell tickets” in the form of increased interest in the company’s shares.

Don’t imagine that the visibilty factor is lost on the board of directors. Neither would it be lost on competing companies interested in having a well-positioned icon in their hierarchy. What was “book value” for a position becomes irrelevant as other, extremely important, dynamics come into play when you are well known.

The best advice I could give any executive is to think "Hollywood" where there are no generic jobs, only those that come because one has created a demand for one's specific identity.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and the business executive in transition

How can Arnold Schwarzenegger help you get a better job for your next engagement?

In the early 80s. I founded an organization that mimicked the old Hollywood studio system. We had a hundred actors and a dozen writers and directors at any given time. With this base, the company was like a guerilla army that could make movies effectively anytime the decision was taken. In addition to creating work for these creative individuals in our own projects, we undertook the strategic management of their individual careers so that they were also working in mainstream Hollywood productions. The first thing that happened when a new member came into the fold was to establish his or her 'signature'--that which only he or she could offer as a product.

The promoting of an actors 'signature' was vital since generic jobs are few and far between in Hollywood. It has always astonished me that men and women in the business world seldom recognize this aspect of developing a career and present themselves in a manner that classifies them as a utility player rather than a specialist.

An actor asked me if being defined by 'signature' would be limiting. I told him yes, in the same way that Arnold Schwarzenegger had been limited to multi-million dollar paydays playing Terminator-style roles.

If a business executive in transition understands how to publicly present his or her 'signature' to decision-makers (not hiring managers) in the sector, better job offers will be the result.

Personal Branding

What are its signature deliverables?

When one assesses the need for an application of brand management strategies, it requires the existence of a brand and a contemplation of its characteristics. What does the brand stand for? What are its signature deliverables? Most importantly, what can it offer to the marketplace that cannot be acquired elsewhere and which imbues the brand with exclusivity?

As one asks these questions of an executive who is wanting to aggrandize his or her personal brand, the perspective he or she offers based on years of accomplishment is usually the prime characteristic of the brand. That an executive’s wisdom might apply to a broad range of interest and act as a magnet for interesting offers from a wide horizon of companies, organizations and even governments is to be expected.

It is incumbent upon a brand to author and issue its own definition.

Every one of us has been branded to some degree by friends, associates and even people with only a passing acquaintance of us. It is incumbent upon a brand to author and issue its own definition. Otherwise, it may suffer from a seventieth percentile perception of it. At the seventieth percentile one sees a canvas and spilled paint; at the ninetieth one sees a Jackson Pollack rendering of a seasonal upstate New York. Both perceptions are accurate as far as they go. Through which filter do you want your brand perceived?

The strategic management of a personal brand can accomplish many things. The most notable is that it places control of its future in the hands of the brand.

As always, the media wants to hear from individuals who are affected by the decisions and actions of incumbents and candidates alike. The media is especially keen on hearing from articulate executive leaders who are able to express the concerns of business or industry sectors, whether he or she can argue in support of or against the implementation of an agenda. An executive's most powerful asset is his or her perspective born of experience and intellect and the ability to communicate extraordinary ideas to others.

The goal of personal branding is to maximize the yield from an individuals’s signature skills.

The goal of personal branding is to maximize the yield from an individuals’s signature skills. In the same manner that the large talent agencies of Hollywood create demand for their clients to make them independent of the hiring process and, further, too make of them a franchise, the strategy should be to make the client immune to the vicissitudes of any one corporate environment or the problems facing any particular sector of business.

Some will want to accelerate the process of their next engagement with enhanced terms and conditions. Others will look at how best to expand their personal franchise--to build out the brand, so to speak. Either is the very legitimate concern of personal branding.