First seminar for Linkedin Malta group

Brand You, the first seminar for Malta’s largest Linkedin group Business Professionals in Malta, organised recently with Lead Events at the Black Pearl in Ta’ Xbiex, heard from Mark Galea and Deborah Marshall Warren who shared their insight on personal branding.

Mr Galea, managing director of Quad Consultancy, explained there were two facets to knowing yourself: your social behaviour and your social media image on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.

Personal branding is the way we tell the world who we are. The benefits include understanding yourself better; increasing self-confidence; knowing your strengths; increasing your visibility; and differentiating yourself from your peers through your unique selling proposition.

This enables people to be assigned tasks that play to their strengths and to deliver good results through better performance.

Ms Marshall Warren, an interactive hypnotherapist and trainer, spoke about nurturing your inner brand and stressed the need to identify the subconscious drivers, knowing your personal branding from within, designing your own label to connect with yourself and polishing your inner jewels.

By owning your success you overcome fear, insecurity, anxiety and low self-worth, she said. She spoke about the conscious mind as our front office and compared it to the part of the iceberg that is visible, with the back office occupying the part that is below the surface.

Know Now Ltd Malcolm Naudi moderated a panel discussion which involved Playmobil Malta chief executive Helga Ellul, AX Holdings chairman Angelo Xuereb, Misco managing director Joseph F.X. Zahra, Switch director of brand strategy Edward Muscat Azzopardi, and Studio 7 chief executive Sue Pisani.

In the course of the discussion, the panel members and the audience were invited to vote in real time on four key branding questions. Participants later networked, using pen and paper, to play social bingo and there were prizes for people who successfully filled in their cards.

James Grech, managing director of Lead Events, said afterwards: “This was a highly successful first event for the Linkedin Business Professionals in Malta group and we will certainly be looking for opportunities to follow it up in the near future.”

Business Professionals in Malta is moderated by Jeffrey Romano and currently has 2,600 members. Growing at the rate of 40 new members a week, the group is useful to organisations and individuals, as it enables them to better establish themselves in the local business community.