Courtney Stanley, a keynote speaker and event emcee with Courtney Stanley Consulting LLC, will be presenting “Rise Above the Noise: Building and Championing a Winning Brand” at the MPI World Education Congress (WEC), June 21-23 in San Francisco. We asked her about building a brand and demonstrating your value.
Can you tell us about one thing meeting professionals often fail to consider when building their brands?
Oftentimes people neglect building a brand outside of the company that they work for. Unless you’re the owner of the company, it’s important that people know you as an individual brand, not just an extension of a company's brand. When many members of our community found themselves out of work during the pandemic after spending years connected to their company, there was often a sense of overwhelm in trying to clarify their professional identity and re-establish themselves in the industry. Asking yourself, “What do people know me for?” is a great place to start in determining whether your brand is out of alignment.
What’s a common mistake many meeting professionals make when trying to communicate the value of their businesses?
When communicating their value, oftentimes people focus too much on the product or service they’re selling instead of understanding the challenges their audience is struggling with. Prioritizing the pain points of their audience should be at the heart of the conversation as well as listening with great intention to better support their needs.
What do you hope attendees will take away from this session?
By the end of this session, attendees will have an increased awareness of how their individual brand is perceived by those around them and how to position their best, most authentic self to their audience. They’ll have also created a foundation to nail their perfect introductory pitch and will have learned how to spotlight their skills, strengths and value in a way that creates more visibility and drives career success.
