RAISE YOUR PROFILE
by Jenny Handley

Strong, well-known brands survive and thrive in a soft economy when people cannot afford to take risks. Become a familiar brand. Raise your profile to attract the work you love, be head-hunted, be called upon for expert comment, elevate your status from consultant to specialist and ultimately, to realise greater earning potential.

From leader to learner, aspirant to the "arrived", entrepreneur to employee - we all need to market ourselves. This unique guide exposes the best way of doing it on a zero budget. It innovatively extends the traditional P's of marketing to include push-button marketing, developing your profile, finding your platform, presenting your brand, packaging, press coverage and the most important 'P', people. The pages are bulging with useful brand practices, brand scorecards and practical marketing information, presented with inimitable flair.

"We feel privileged in being able to expose our entrepreneurs to quality information and experience of this calibre." Chris Meyiwa, enterprise development manager, SAB Ltd

SAB's flagship enterprise development programme, KickStart, has two main objectives, namely the promotion of entrepreneurship and the enhancement of competitiveness and capability at the enterprise level. "Our high regard for "Raise your Profile" is motivated by the urgent need to elevate the stature of the entrepreneur as a personal marketer and an astute business person in his or her own right. Whereas the indefatigable spirit of entrepreneurship will always spur on the entrepreneur, they still need to attract the right clients or be head-hunted rather than having to job hunt. This book will equip them with the ability to sell themselves!"

"Raise your Profile provides a practical personal marketing and brand plan for anyone in business." Gavin Cowley, marketing director, adidas SA

Author Jenny Handley's insights, lively anecdotes, endearing wisdom and success stories are shared in a bright, refreshing conversational style that inspires, ignites and excites the readers along a creative path to building their own brands.

New information available:

New Talks: "Build your company brand at no cost"

Articles:
Raising your profile from TotallyMAD (PDF 76KB)
Leadership magazine article (PDF 870KB)
Risk SA (PDF 230KB)
Succeed (PDF 490KB)

KickStart

KickStart is SAB's Flagship youth entrepreneurship programme. It was launched in 1995 and it is targeted at youth black-owned (50% black ownership) businesses. Youth in this case refers to ages 18 to 35 years.

It is a business plan competition where youth receive training on all aspects of the business plan. The competition takes place regionally, after a stringent selection process where about 20 participants are shortlisted in each of the six SAB regions. The participants undergo in-house training for 14 days. After the training each participant is given 30 days to prepare a business plan. The business plans are presented to a panel of regional adjudicators and four winners per region are selected. The regional grants range from R50,000 to R120,000.

All regional winners receive mentorship for six months from accredited trainers and the mentorship is enhanced through the implementation of action coaching.

The top three regional winners qualify for entry into the National Awards. The National Awards adjudication takes place in Johannesburg. The National winners in the "developed category" walk away with R250,000 whilst the winner for the "developing category" receives around R120,000. All the grants are used for asset financing of the businesses.

KickStart has two main objectives, namely the promotion of entrepreneurship and the enhancement of competitiveness and capability at the enterprise level. To this end SAB has sponsored numerous business skills and most recently entrepreneurship publications, most notably, "Run Your own Business and Make Lots of Money".

The support for Raise your Profile is motivated by the urgent need to elevate the stature of the entrepreneur as a personal marketer and an astute businessman in his own right. Whereas the indefatigable spirit of entrepreneurship will always spur the entrepreneur, he still needs to attract the right clients or be head-hunted than have to job hunt - it will equip him with the ability to sell himself!

Chris Meyiwa
Enterprise Development Manager
SAB KickStart
www.sabkickstart.co.za