You share your expertise both as information and tools communicated in print or in person, or as products and services you offer to others.

How do experts communicate their expertise?

Conor Neill, a professor at the IESE Business School in Barcelona, addressed the foundations of expertise-based personal brands in a thought-provoking recent Rhetorical Journey blog post, What Makes An Expert Different?

In my posts leading up to this one, I have shown you ways to build a stronger online personal branding platform by using social media profiles and basic search engine optimization techniques. Everything has been predicated on your being able to earn some listings in the top-ten Google search results for your name. This is relatively easy for unique or not-so-common names, like mine. (Do you think my parents planned it that way?)

But what do you do if your name doesn't stand out from the pack? What if you share a name with a celebrity or an infamous criminal? What if yourname.com is already taken? What if the Google search results for your name are so crowded, you'll never crack the top-10 without shelling out a lot of cash to buy links?

Don't worry. Even with what seems like a house of cards stacked against you, there are still ways to carve out your personal brand niche.

Hiring pros share the faux pas they find in real resumes, including wacky e-mail addresses, defunct phone numbers and cookie-cutter templates.

I've been a Personal Branding coach for a large part of my working life. I've had the privilege of working with a group of men and women who in many ways have been my teachers.

When I began my retail fashion business in the late 70s, the branding aspect of my business focused on what I now describe as Outer Branding. Outer Branding includes attire, grooming, our physicality and the way we communicate verbally.

Posting a resume online doesn’t guarantee you will find a job – and it certainly doesn’t mean you should forget about traditional methods of finding a job – like networking.

Today we’re going to uncover what makes you uniquely you. We’re going to go through your vision, purpose, values, goals, and extract the core of your personal brand.

This worksheet is a slightly adapted version of the original by Meg Guiseppi, a good friend of mine and a leading Personal Branding Expert for executives.

Companies have long understood the power of branding. They spend millions of dollars a year making a brand promise to customers that goes beyond the technical and physical attributes of a particular product. They build an identity that customers feel safe choosing over the competition.

So, what four specific takeaways can you get from corporate branding, and how can you apply it to yourself?

As our clients take those initial steps towards getting that ideal job, launching a promising business, or following a new career path, a certain phenomenon called The Golden Carrot Syndrome seems to occur. This is when the universe presents you with a very attractive, less risky alternative that looks extremely appealing from the distance.

When Sara Sutton Fell, CEO of FlexJobs.com, was hiring for her entry-level job site, one particular resume stood out from all the others.

The reason? The applicant claimed to be a "Pig Wrestling Champion" and included details like weight of the pig (see photo, left), number of competitors, and months of training.

A tutorial on how to set up a Google profile to promote yourself online.