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My Mother was not an entrepreneur, but she taught me some things that still are with me today and guide me in business as well as other areas of life.

My mother was a perfectionist.  Long before laser levelers, every picture or painting in our home hung perfectly straight, centered or lined up by countless measuring of rulers, yardsticks and tape measures.  Forget that “eyeballing”.  That was for a different breed.  My mother wanted it straight, and that meant measured and verified straight.

When times were hard, in the beginning of her marriage, she went out and taught school to help support the family. When times were very good, she made the home and family her work.  That meant the silver sparkled and the mirrors gleamed.  And she intended that her children should shine too.

When I was in the eighth grade, we were given an art assignment that lasted over the whole year.  We were to take each age of art, from cave to contemporary, and create a scrapbook with essays of each period and it’s major artists. This was accompanied by copies of major paintings by representative artists and our comments on them.  Ultimately, it became a challenge to look at the paintings and figure out what was unique about them as our paintings started to number in the hundreds. This process of just looking at the paintings long enough forced us to begin to see them and understand them on a different level.  When most of the other kids turned in their scrapbooks  they were meager books an inch or so thick.  Mine, however, with my mother spurring me on each evening, turned into 5 huge volumes, 6 to 8 inches thick, with hand painted cover sheets for each period, featuring such elaborate items as the crown jewels of England, or an 18th century coach.

Did I become an overachiever ?  Did I have a choice?

My school actually created special awards for some of the things I did which were pretty much “over the top”, like how many tickets I sold for events, which really had nothing to do with my education.

But what I learned was to put in the extra effort to do things as well as I possibly could, to go beyond expectations to achieve another level of results.

And I tried to instill that in other colleagues.  I had a surgical clinic and recovery villas with a partner in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato Mexico.  I would tell the maintenance staff I wanted the silver to sparkle and the mirrors to gleam so that when clients walked in they would have to put on their sunglasses.  I knew I had succeeded when I heard the staff start training new employees by telling them, in Spanish,they : “wanted the silver to sparkle and the mirrors to gleam so that when clients walked in they would have to put on their “anteojos” (sunglasses).”

Although we had the best surgeons in Mexico, one of whom held the top position in a U.S. surgical association, many clients told us: ” As soon as I walked through door, I knew this was going to be where I wanted to be”.  Why?  Perfectionism. If you’re conscientious about the small things it conveys the message you will be conscientious about everything.

How does that apply to the Net or to blogging?  I think it applies to all business and careers.

You are trying to “brand” yourself — to unearth what is different and unique about you that your competitors don’t have. That could be whatever your talents, abilities and professional skills are — let’s say you’re creative and know everything about web design or fund raising or estate planning —plus — you will always go the extra mile.  You will come up with concepts or research no one has ever heard of; you will track down that lost document; you will work late in a crunch, or get a project completed and executed over a week end if a client’s website has crashed.  That can be the strongest part of your brand.

My mentors with my art project were both my mother and my teacher and many lessons flowed from that. On a personal level,  It transformed me into a life long art maven, haunting the best museums in the U.S. and wherever I traveled in the world, learning even more about aspiring to be the best. I also learned to solve problems in businesses by just looking at them long and hard enough.  At the dawn of the Net there was no choice but to learn html coding.  I just looked at it long and hard enough until it became clear to me how to do it…at least until newer and easier processes came along.  And I’ve continued daily to strive to do my best in business, where, like life, you always fall short, you never reach perfection but the sense of gratification and fulfillment is in the constant striving.

If you don’t have a mentor who inspires you with ambition to do your best, get one.  If you’ve had one, pass it along and become a mentor.  If you need one and are still looking, let AdvancingWomen.com be your virtual mentor. Write and tell us what you need to know and we’ll try to help. And please do share with us your lessons and your thoughts.

For more, read:

• Think of yourself as your #1 product.
• Manage your career like your #1 product
• Market yourself like your # product.

The first priority in developing “Brand You”, is to develop your skills and abilities and professional reputation. You can do this by identifying your strengths, value and accomplishments, then broadcasting them in your community, through social networking sites or on the web with your own page.

An observation to consider by Alisha Nicole on her blog, PR Vision: ” I came across an interesting site created as experiment in brand perception. Noah Brier’s Brand Tags shows visitors a logo and asks them to submit a word or phrase that they immediately associate with this brand.  “The basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people’s heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, is what it is.”

The take away from that observation on brand perception is that you have a blank canvass on which you get to create the best possible, and also true, image of yourself.  Focus on the positive, on your best traits, strongest skills and greatest accomplishments.  Modesty doesn’t create opportunity.

The benefits are many. Personal branding:

• Adds perceived value to your product or service
• Increases your earning potential
• Differentiates you from the competition
• Enhances your reputation and prestige
• Positions your focused message in the minds of your target market
• Confers top of mind status
• Increases your authority and credibility

Branding yourself should become a life long habit. Once you’ve recognized and developed your strengths, think about how you best connect with people. Consider what your target audience needs and wants, identify the value you deliver to meet those needs and wants, and communicate that value in a way that reaches your target market through the channels that work best for you.  Word of mouth works.  Speaking works and giving presentations works.  Websites and social networking sites work.  Practice them all.  Or start by identifying which venue you feel most comfortable with and do that first.  But keep expanding your comfort zone until you’re doing them all.

Brands are built over the long term, so don’t expect instant results.  But the rewards and benefits are also long term, so an investment of time and energy in building and broadcasting “Brand You”, will be a productive and valuable investment earning lifetime returns.

( Brand Perception graphic from PR Vision by Alisha Nicole)

See also Professional Online Career Portfolios