Networking and communication skills are vitally important in the modern business world. But to make a real impact, you need to carefully manage all aspects of your professional image, according to Rosemarie Yau, a personal branding and communications strategist. It's a relatively new concept in Asia but one that is catching on fast.
The bottom line, said Yau, quoting Harvard Business School professor Laura Morgan Roberts, is if you're not managing your own professional image, others will.
In a half-day workshop on September 26, co-organised by Classified Post and Kornerstone - an institute of corporate and professional development - Yau offered a range of tips and advice to more than 80 participants from a wide range of professional backgrounds. The common factor? All wanted to better package themselves to put to the fore their personal and brand values.
Yau kicked off the workshop with a 15-minute session during which participants had to network with as many people as possible, and write down three words to describe each person they met.
The idea was to find out whether they are any good at communicating or networking.
'When we meet someone for the first time, we tend to fall into the trap of talking about ourselves in order to sell ourselves to the other party. It is a big mistake if you want to impress someone. We need to be good listeners and show interest in wanting to know about the other person,' Yau said.