Speaking in London last week at the 8th eprivateclient Leadership Insight Seminar, Mark McMullen, a partner at BDO explained that you need to “know yourself, be yourself and project yourself” in order to build one’s profile both in and out of work.
Mr McMullen explained to an audience made up of young private client accountants, solicitors and trustees that his three tenets of advice was “motherhood and apple pie” rather than rocket science but were pretty much universally agreed and had proved important in his own professional development.
Firstly, Mr McMullen said, what an individual needed to do was “know yourself” and the key there was to be self-aware and emotionally intelligent about yourself.
“I’ve only really heard EQ being discussed in the context of others, but to me the first step is to apply EI to oneself,” Mr McMullen said.
He told the audience that it was important “to know your personality, strengths & weaknesses, drivers, black holes, values – both personal and professional values.”
Mr McMullen explained that one could analyse part of this with a simple ABC model where A stood for Ambition, B for Beliefs and C for Competencies.
He also suggested the use of personality test such as Myers-Briggs or MBTI, which can add awareness but cautioned that different tests can have different outcomes. “One described me,” he mentioned, “as a “hub” character, at the centre of everything, whilst another said that I was very analytical - the two descriptions are not mutually exclusive but they emphasise different personality planes.”
Looking at one’s weaknesses, Mr McMullen said that if you have them then “try to address, manage or minimise those” whilst at the same time “try to develop and maintain resilience, humour and good mental health.”
Another area where you should “know yourself” was how you react to stress. Mr McMullen explained that he used to be quite nervous about public speaking.
“For me, a spot of compulsory immersion therapy - being a best man a couple of times - greatly helped my self-confidence in public – amazingly the speeches were funny and well received! After that you think you can do anything!”
Secondly, Mr McMullen said that to help build your profile you need to “be yourself”.
It was vitally important, Mr McMullen stressed, that you should “be honest and authentic.”
On one hand, he said, “not everyone will like you – it took me a while to accept this. From what I can see, most clients and referrers do business with those that they like, but not always.”
But on the other hand, Mr McMullen said, it can be natural to adapt your personality a little to empathise with the person you are meeting or talking or writing to. “But whilst I think a little adaption is fine and good, a lot of adaption is not,” he advised, adding, ”otherwise, be yourself with clients, contacts and the team - we probably spend more time with the team than any other category (including family) so those relationships are absolutely key.”
Finally, Mr McMullen told the audience of the importance of “projecting yourself” as a means to build your profile.
Mr McMullen explained that a person should build a personal brand – what do others see, hear and feel about that person.
Mr McMullen then went on to look at three aspects of personal brand - body language, speaking and meetings – and how these can be used to build your profile.
When it comes to body language, Mr McMullen suggested to the audience to not aspire to be Gordon Brown but instead aspire to be Tony Blair or Usain Bolt and exude confidence. At the same time he recommended reading “What Every BODY Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People” by Joe Navarro and if all else fails “if you can, fake it until you become it.”
When it came to speaking in a professional environment, Mr McMullen highlighted the seven Cs of Communication, which were to be clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete and courteous.
At the same time, analysing great speakers would be beneficial. Barack Obama, Mr McMullen said as an example, uses transcendence (taking you to another place), repetition (anaphora), gestures and voice to be impactful when speaking.
The third aspect of one’s personal brand that Mr McMullen touched on was meetings and with them the importance of “preparation, timing, dress and voice.”
Lastly, Mr McMullen looked at professional relationships and how one should build and nurture them.
Rather than a scattergun approach to contacts, Mr McMullen advised on choosing them carefully. You should look to build your profile through your firm in both domestic and international markets and take time and maintain relationships.
For internal meetings, Mr McMullen said to do simple things like prepare yourself, check if the person is free (electronic diary or PA) and not rushing off to a meeting, for example, and try to be brief.
Social media can be useful, Mr McMullen added, but stressed not to hide behind it and make sure “you have to be visible too.”
“My aim,” he said, “is to be ‘trusted adviser’ to clients – sometimes lead and sometimes secondary. I suggest that in our private client world we should aim for influence rather than fame.”
Mr McMullen was speaking at the 8th eprivateclient Leadership Insight Seminar – Building your profile both in and out of work – which also featured talks from Matthew Fleming of Stonehage Fleming and Forsters’ head of family Jo Edwards. The seminar was kindly sponsored and hosted by Ruffer at its London office on Wednesday 27 February 2019.