Today's hottest business concept meets the realities of the modern workplace. U R a Brand! delivers 10 key personal brand strategies that aren't taught in business school—or anywhere else. Like a personal branding coach right by your side, Catherine Kaputa reveals the inside secrets of Madison Avenue product branding and applies these tried-and-true principles and techniques to a dynamic new strategic branding process for individuals. U R a Brand! highlights the self branding odysseys of savvy professionals who have repositioned their experience and talents in pursuit of the corner office and budding entrepreneurs launching their own business ventures—all from the personal brand strategist and executive coach who helped them achieve their success. Finalist for Career Book of the Year. -- ForeWord, June 2007 If you're seeking new ways to get ahead in a very competitive business world, this book can teach you how to brand yourself as a success. -- Innovation, August-September 2008 If you're seeking new ways to get ahead in a very competitive business world, this book can tell you how to get yourself branded. -- getAbstract, September 2007 Loaded with advice and tools. To learn how to deploy the strategies, you need to read the book. -- ExecuNet, August 14, 2006 Winner of the Ben Franklin Award for Best Career Book. -- Publishers Marketing Association, June 2007 If you're seeking new ways to get ahead in a very competitive business world, this book can teach you how to brand yourself as a success. An innovative field guide to business success, U R A BRAND! combines today's hottest business concept with the realities of the modern workplace to help business professionals everywhere harness their personal potential, take charge of their careers, and contribute their dynamic energy to create sustainable advantage for their organizations. Taking field-tested strategies directly from the playbook used by Madison Avenue's best product brand managers, U R A BRAND! unlocks the hidden rules for creating a one-of-a-kind self-brand. Like having a personal coach right by your side, here are the inside secrets of how to think and act like a brand. A Top Ten List of tried-and-true strategies, plenty of exercises, and "brainstormer" tools at the end of each chapter make hands-on practical what it takes to package a personal brand with a powerful visual and verbal identity, think in terms of markets, and execute a tactical marketing plan that generates the buzz needed to become an effective brand builder. U R A BRAND! gives voice to dozens of executives and savvy professionals who have realized the power of these self-brand principles to move up the corporate ladder, reenergize a stalled career, start their own business, or establish an intrapreneurial enterprise that generates both personal and organizational growth and success. Like a lot people--perhaps even you--my life and career is not one straight upward climb in a chosen field, but made up of fits and starts. I began as a journalism major in college, but was an art historian at graduation. I spent some years in museums, then entered a Ph.D. program. At the last minute I decided, this is not me. Dr. Kaputa is not going to happen. I hopped on a plane to my favorite city--the Big Apple--and decided to reinvent myself as an advertising executive--a lot more dynamic job than academia and museum life. I took a bigger career leap when I moved to head up advertising at a major financial firm on Wall Street. And perhaps the biggest leap of all when I decided to retool my brand and hang up my shingle as an entrepreneur. Starting your own business requires good branding instincts--particularly when you start your business like I did in New York City right after 9/11. And I had to apply everything I had learned in working for other brands to myself and my business. I also realized I had been using brand ideas every step of the way in my career encompassing five mergers, one spin-off, numerous management changes along with my personal repositionings. That's how I got the idea to write this book. And self-branding is a particularly important message in the new world of work where change is the new normal. Catherine Kaputa Corporate icons, star athletes, entertainers--they all have what it takes to be in control and in demand: a unique brand. Now you, too, can learn the secrets of how to think and act like a brand, harness your potential, and take charge of your career, your business, and your life. Taking strategies and "brainstormer" tools directly from the playbook used by Madison Avenue's advertising executives and the country's best brand managers, U R A BRAND! uncovers the hidden rules for creating a one-of-a-kind brand that is you. Join brand strategy expert Catherine Kaputa on an exciting journey of discovery and insight to develop and leverage your brand power. Like a personal coach standing by your side, U R A BRAND! lays out a top ten list of strategies