Raw Materials Assessment

“Start the Marketing Yourself Process by Assessing Your Raw Materials”

Anthony Miyazaki

MSM 2020

One of the first steps to take in “marketing yourself” is to determine what your “raw materials” are in developing yourself as a marketable you. If you were in a particular organization, you would consider the various resources that you have, such as financial resources, raw materials, inventory on hand, real estate, employee skill sets, brand equity, the social capital of your relationships with trading partners, and even resources such as employee morale, leadership styles, and various reputations of your people, brands, and industry.

But the case of marketing yourself, you are not an organization. You’re an individual person, and your raw materials come in various forms such as talents, abilities, skills, personalities, and even your interests, passions, desires, and preferences. Thus, it’s important for you to do an inventory of your raw materials by carefully assessing what you bring to the table—what you can use to develop your particular personal and professional brands.

To do this, you’ll need to do an assessment of both the positive—and the negative—traits and attributes that you have, so that you can determine what you’ll have to do to create the “you” that you’ll be marketing to employers, or to venture capitalists, or to your customers if you operate your own business.

As you consider your raw materials self-assessments, be sure to use any available assessment tools (there are many online resources) as well as the opinions of your friends, family members, coworkers, and supervisors. As much as people feel that they know themselves, outside opinions often provide perspectives that wouldn’t ordinarily be considered. You also will have to use a great deal of introspection during this process. Finally, to truly conduct the assessment well, you’ll need to be honest with yourself. All people have good and bad traits, habits, etc. By uncovering them, accepting them, and dealing with them, you’ll be able to create a better product you.

The personal raw materials inventory can be best organized by breaking it into six assessment groups:

1. Strengths (or w hat you ’re already good at)

This group of traits or attributes will include what various authors and researchers will refer to as competencies, strengths, talents, abilities, and skills. For simplicity purposes, let’s refer to these as “strengths.” While there are debates as to the degree to which any particular ability is the result of nature versus nurture (in other words, you’re physically strong because your parents are strong versus you’re strong because you’ve done a lot of physical labor for the past five years), the reality is that what you can do well will be a key component in developing your professional brand and in marketing yourself to others.

To assess your Strengths (i.e., determine what you’re good at doing), consider the answers to following questions:

 What do you do well? I love helping others and organizing everything. I am detail oriented, very clean and organized, punctual. I am very good at helping people with picking outfits, decorating for a party, a house, etc. In my job I am extremely good at branding the companies I work with and also creating the content that will be out in social media outlets.

Sister opinion- she gives her all to everything she sets her mind too, she finds ways to help people even if it doesn’t rewards her in anyway.

Friend-

 What tasks or activities come to you easily? Running, organizing others, brainstorming, creating ads changing a brand, advising others how to dress.

 What training have you had that you’ve retained as skills? (Consider knowledge-based skills such as math or proofreading or the use of particular software programs, manual skills such as keyboarding or using tools, job-specific skills that pertain to a particular position or industry, and transferable skills that you can take from job to job.)

I have taken many online curses that have helped me become the person who I am today, I also love reading about marketing and things that helps me take the brand to another level. Videos from youtube, my previous jobs also help me shape who I am today.

 In which areas in life do you typically excel? This is a very hard question because for some of my family member their opinion is that I exel by keeping everyone healthy and organized with their lifes, for my friends they say I am amazing in what I do and also by helping them make better decisions when it comes to their life.

 In which areas in life do you often receive praise from others? My body, My healthy habits, the way I can help others organize their life and my life is extremely organized.

2. Potential Strengths (or what you think you could possibly be good at with practice)

Many “life coaches,” “personal growth consultants,” etc. claim that focusing only on your known strengths is the best way to improve yourself and to build the most marketable you. The problem with this kind of thinking, particularly when you’re rather young (that is, under 70 or so), is that you’re

constantly growing in various areas of your life and, with determined effort, you can change your abilities so that you can become strong in something that previously was what you might have considered to be a weakness. Thus, it’s important to consider not only what you’re already good at, but what you “might” or “could” be good at if you put effort into a particular skill area.

For example, you might feel that you’re an intelligent person, but you’re really not that skilled at using spreadsheet programs. Yet, you feel confident that if you really put in the time and effort and received good training, you could change this potential strength into a clear and marketable strength that could give you an advantage over others in your field or industry.

The reasons that you might have particular potential strengths that are not yet developed could be that you (1) didn’t receive sufficient training in that skill area, (2) you lacked the opportunity to develop that skill area (it would be hard to practice playing the piano if you didn’t have one while growing up), and/or (3) you previously lacked the motivation or desire to develop that skill area. Indeed, the lack of motivation or desire is often exacerbated by your lack of ability in a particular skill area. For example, you weren’t skilled at using spreadsheets, so you didn’t want to practice using them because it was a difficult task for you, and thus, you haven’t yet developed this strength.

Questions you can ask to assess your Potential Strengths might be:

 What are skill areas that you wish you were better at? Writing, exel spreadsheets

 What can you do, but not do well? Writing

 What tasks do you often find difficult? Math anything that has to do with math is extremely hard and scary for me.

 What tasks do you avoid or put off because you feel you lack the skills to do them well? Doing my math problems and writing I try to leave that part to the end of the week or weekend.

3. Faults or Bad Habits

As you move through your raw materials self-assessments, you’ll likely come across some traits, attributes, or activities that you definitely wouldn’t classify as Strengths, and perhaps wouldn’t feel comfortable classifying as Potential Strengths either. Some researchers and consultants refer to these as weaknesses while others try to avoid that terminology and euphemistically refer to them as “areas for improvement” or “areas for growth.” Quite often, they’re just plain faults or bad habits. Some of these might be procrastination, laziness, being easily distracted (too much social media or television), impatience, disorganization, lack of follow-up, lack of focus, having a short temper, being too talkative, fear of confrontation, or other

Very likely, these aren’t raw material areas that you would want to disclose to others, particularly to a potential employer. Yet, it’s important for you to understand them as you do your self-assessment so that you can consider how they fit into your quest to develop the “product you” that will be most marketable.

While some “coaches” claim that you shouldn’t spend time trying to “fix” or improve these faults or habits, the truth is that these negative traits or attributes could easily overpower your set of strengths depending on your position or industry. For example, let’s say that you’re great at solving technical problems, but you’re consistently late to work or you anger easily when people interrupt you. Your employers and coworkers will likely discount the value of your technical problem-solving skills (as well as a multitude of other skills) because of the serious negative impact of your faults. Thus, it’s important

to consider how you can remedy faults and bad habits, or at least get them under control so that they don’t derail your efforts to showcase your strengths. Making your strengths stronger without correcting key weaknesses, faults, or bad habits may be meaningless if your negative attributes outweigh your positive attributes in the minds of your bosses, co-workers, or friends.

Some questions to assess your faults and bad habits are:

 In what areas of your life do you receive complaints or criticisms? Saying things when people didn’t ask for my opinion.

 What attributes or habits seem to slow down your progress on tasks? My phone! Need to stop scrolling thru Instagram sooooo much.

 What habits or traits would you rather hide from others? The fact that I think I do not write as well as everyone thinks

 (You may have to ask others for their honest opinions in this area because people often are bad judges of their own faults.)

4. Motivators (interests, desires, etc.)

One of the key ways that people change their bad habits, or overcome weaknesses, or develop mediocre attributes into strong attributes is because of motivation. Motivation often derives from your personal interests or desires. In his book Strengths Finder 2.0, author Tom Rath uses the example of Rudy Ruettiger (the protagonist of the 1993 movie Rudy) as an example of what not to do. Rudy wanted to play football for Notre Dame and, after years and years of practice, was only able to play for the final three plays of the game. Author Rath implies that Rudy would have been better off if he had focused on his strengths rather than on his desires—that he would have been more successful if he had not focused on playing football. Yet, all interviews with Rudy Ruettiger suggests that he is extremely happy with the results of his efforts to take what some would consider a weakness, or at the very least an undeveloped strength, and develop it into something that was of importance to him, even if it didn’t result in a college

or professional football career.

We all have particular motivators that can drive us to success. Sometimes, these successes are incredibly impressive. At other times, they end up being seemingly mild successes, perhaps that we accomplished something that was difficult to accomplish. Our interests and desires often serve as the basis for our motivations. As such, your interests and desires can give you insights into which skill areas you might be more successful in improving because you’re more likely to spend time practicing something that you enjoy, or something for which you have a more personal and meaningful purpose, rather than something that you are merely “fixing” because you consider it to be a weakness.

Some questions to assess your Motivations (Interests, Desires, etc.) are:

 What motivates you? God, my husband and my family.

 What do you like to do? Work in any fashion magazine for example Vogue, Elle, Harpers Bazaar. Be at a fashion week all over the world sitting in front row is my dream!

What do you enjoy? I love reading and informing myself to what is happening in the world, love watching movies, spending time with my family, traveling the world with my husband. What makes you happy? Seeing my family happy and being able to help them is what I love the most!

 What inspires you? Fashion, God, being the change, recycling, helping the world, helping others grow. Helping kids, donating at church!

 What drives you? Being able to help others and taking my career to the next level, my husband, my dogs and my family.

5. Your “Person ality”

“Personality” is a contested concept in psychology. Some people claim that your personality is inborn and unchangeable. Others claim that traits and habits that typically are associated with a particular personality “type” can be changed fairly easily. Another contested notion about personality is how it is tested and the validity of those tests.

As you assess your raw materials, you will find it useful to investigate a variety of tools to examine your personality. These assessments could give you insights into which strengths you could or should develop, how to develop them, how to deal with particular faults, the rationale behind your motivators, etc.

Be cautious, however, while conducting your personality assessments. Although many personality assessments have had considerable academic validation over the years, many can be influenced by the mood, situation, and perspective of the person being assessed. Thus, be careful about how much validity you attribute to a particular outcome of any one personality assessment.

Some personality assessments you might want to investigate are:

 The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

 The Big-Five Factor Markers

 Emotional Intelligence

 The International Personality Item Pool (IPIP-NEO)

 The Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS-II)

6. Core Valu es (o r w h at’s imp or tant to you )

Much of what people do is, or perhaps at least should be, driven by their core values. Core values are the guiding principles that often dictate people’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. They are the basis on which people judge their own actions, as well as how they judge whether particular actions are “right” or “wrong.”

Your core values may be absolute sets of rules by which you live your life, or they may be more of a general “feeling” by which you determine your willingness to think or act in certain ways. Much has been written about core values and their importance in setting a direction for the development of both a personal brand and a professional brand, and your success in creating a consistent workplace persona.

Although the identification (and perhaps development) of your core values may take weeks or even months to complete, you can get a good start on the process by asking questions such as:

 What are your beliefs with respect to family, honesty, health, wastefulness, work, religion, environment, friendship, loyalty, etc.?

Family- family oriented, God is our number one for everything we do. We always eat dinner together, traditions from my original country are a must! Specially during the holidays.

Honesty- I believe that being honest is a trait everyone should have because no matter what the situation is, we should always say the truth

Health- I had covid 2 months ago and this made me realize that being healthy is a priority for me and my entire family, I eat clean and run every day!

Work- This is one of the most important parts of my life I think is something I love and enjoy doing. My job is amazing I get to work from home and I think that is something very rewarding.

Religion- I am Christian and I follow God and Jesus love how my life has changed in the past 5 years because of them, even though because of the pandemic a lot has changed in my church (vous church Miami) I think that spending time with God and leaving all your worries stress etc is something that has taught me to be the person that I am today.

Environment- at my house we recycle and take care of the environment around us, I think if we don’t take care of the planet were going to keep suffering and every year is going to get worst .

 What is important to you? ?Having boundaries and respecting others. Helping each other so we can be better!

 What beliefs do you have that shape your view of the world? I believe in helping others so the world can be a better place, America right now is killing me for example, instead of helping one another we are creating hate, this country should be the leading sample but right now no one around the world likes where we are taking everything.

 A useful exercise to identify your personal core values can be found in the Inc. article by Kevin

Daum: http://bit.ly/KevinDaumValues

Please see below

1. Personal Core Values Exercise:

Grab a notebook. It's time to do some writing. Give yourself quiet space, no distractions, and at least an hour to reflect on each section.

Step 1--Think through and describe the following in detail:

1. What have been your three greatest accomplishments? Getting married, creating my jewelry brand, starting this Masters.

2. What have been your three greatest moments of efficiency? Being constant in my work place, helping my husband create his travel agency, Helping my parents buy their house.

· What are any common rules or themes that you can identify? Dependability.

· Reliability.

· Loyalty.

· Commitment.

· Open-mindedness.

· Consistency.

· Honesty.

Step 2--Think through and describe the following in detail:

1. What have been your three greatest failures? Not being able to get pregnant (I had a miscarriage a year ago and since then it has been nearly impossible to get pregnant), but again Gods time is perfect and when the time is right the baby will come. Losing one of my jobs a couple of years back, because of this matter we lost our house with my parent and we had to live separate for 6 months until we were able to afford a new one.

2. What have been your three greatest moments of inefficiency? Sometimes I lack organization and because of this I become a procrastinator, this has changed in the past years because I learn my lesson and now, I don’t leave anything till the last minute.

3. Step 3--Identify three or four brief sentences of advice you would give to yourself based upon these commonalities.

Be positive! Everything will work out your way! You are an amazing person who works hard for your dreams.

4. Step 4--Next try and reduce them to a few words. For example: If your advice is: "Don't overindulge in food and booze at parties and get in trouble," reduce that down to Keep Control Through Moderation, or even Moderation.

5. Step 5--Now comes the fun. You need to test the value. Think of a situation where following your core value hurts you rather than helps you. For example you might think Innovation sounds good until you realize that your life thrives on stability rather than constant change. You have to think it through carefully. If you can't identify a legitimate case where the value steers you wrong, you probably have a good core value.

6. Know that this process requires focused time and thought. I recommend doing it with someone you trust. Then you'll get honest feedback and you can help each other. It may require several discussions over weeks or even months. Your values may adjust and develop over time just as you do, so embrace the change.

The Importance of Synthesizing Your Assessments

Most people tend to take multiple personal raw material category assessments and summarize them into a

conglomeration of data where they list out what they’ve learned about themselves. But to build a truly

useful understanding of your raw materials, you need to synthesize your findings. Consider how various findings integrate with each other or conflict with each other. Perhaps your values are strongly aligned with your motivators and your strengths, and you can use this alignment to build potential strengths. But some alignments could be concerning. For example, perhaps your motivators or values are more aligned with your faults or bad habits. At this point, you’ll need to consider how to overcome those weaknesses when they are likely entrenched due to being supported by your motivators and/or values. You may also find that there are conflicts within or between these categories that give you insights into why you are the way you are, and how you can make changes.

As you compare and contrast your various discoveries, as well as find connections and conflicts, take the time to analyze the past and present, and to consider how changes to particular inventory categories may improve the future. Finally, reflect on what you’ve learned during the process.

In the end, remember that knowledge about any topic is most useful when you put it to work. Use your newfound knowledge of your personal raw materials to build a better YOU that will reflect a stronger personal/professional brand to others. As you build a better “product you” that is more marketable, you’re likely at the same time to build a stronger alignment between your core values, your motivators, and your various strengths.

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Online Raw Material Assessment Resources (updated August 2020)

Below are a set of links to various assessments that are available online. Most are free, although some require registration, payment, or provision of your email address. NOTE: Each test is to be used as an opportunity to provide you with some degree of insights into your raw materials, and NOT as a valid psychological assessment to be used for mental health purposes.

 http://www.wikihow.com/Identify-Your-Strengths-and-Weaknesses

 http://richardstep.com/richardstep-strengths-weaknesses-aptitude-test/free-aptitude-test-find-your- strengths-weaknesses-online-version/

 http://www.literacynet.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html

 https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register

 https://www.123test.com/personality-test/

 https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/home.aspx

 http://www.personalitytype.com/career_quiz

 https://www.123test.com/jung-personality-test/

 Big-Five Factor Markers: http://personality-testing.info/tests/BIG5.php

 International Personality Item Pool (IPIP-NEO): http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/5/j5j/IPIP/

 The Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS-II):

http://www.keirsey.com/sorter/instruments2.aspx?partid=0

 Personality Profile: http://www.personalityonline.com/tests/

 Core Values Exercise: http://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/define-your-personal-core-values-5- steps.html

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