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Back to School: Upcoming Can’t-Miss Writing Classes from Almond, ASF
Lately I’ve been feeling restless and wanting to take some writing classes—we all know that, as writers, not only is it like having homework for the rest of our lives, we’re never done learning. I’ve signed up for Steve Almond’s Almond Joy: A Trio of Classes to Kickstart Your Writing courses at Writing Co-Lab below, and wanted not only to share the opportunity out there with our 34 Orchard…
#American Short Fiction#classes on point of view revision and non-human characteristics#classes to help the writing muse#MFA for All#online writing courses#Steve Almond#Truth is the Arrow Mercy is the Bow#Writing Co-Lab
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Fixed Income Sales and Trading: The Definitive Guide
NOTE: This is a revised and updated version of a much older article on the site. Sales & Trading has changed significantly in the past decade, so we wanted to update and expand on the views in that older article.
Ask the average person what “Fixed Income Sales and Trading” means, and you’ll probably get pointed to a pension statement or a stack of social security checks because you mentioned the phrase”Fixed Income.”
Ask a banker, though, and you’ll probably hear, “Everything that isn’t Equities” – which is a more apt description at a bank.
“Fixed Income” or Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities (FICC) includes a huge range of different desks and is harder to generalize than Equities Sales and Trading.
FICC groups at banks employ more people and generate more revenue than Equities groups, and they may offer advantages in terms of the work and exit opportunities – if you make it in:
The Fixed Income Sales and Trading Job Description
We covered the basics in our feature on Equities Sales and Trading, but banks make money from agency trades and making markets for clients.
Agency trades are simple trade executions at market prices that incur a fee; by contrast, “making a market” means that the trader helps a client buy or sell securities at a set price that both sides agree upon.
If it’s a buy order, this price might be above the market price of the securities.
For example, a hedge fund professional might want to buy 10,000 individual bonds in a company’s issuance for a fixed price.
The face value of each bond is $1,000, the current market value is $980, and you, the Fixed Income Trader, might offer to buy the bonds at $970 and sell them at $990 (a “bid-ask spread” of $970 – $990).
The hedge fund investor likes this price of $990 because he could not normally get that price for this quantity of bonds.
He places a trade with you, and you are now “short” those 10,000 bonds at $990.
To make money, you’ll have to buy 10,000 bonds for less than $990, and you can’t place the entire order at once, or you’ll drive up the price from the current market value of $980.
So, you must divide this trade into smaller pieces, buy portions from different parties over time, and also earn something from commissions and fees.
This example uses corporate bonds, but Fixed Income also includes government bonds, credit-related derivatives, money markets, mortgage-backed securities, and more.
The name “Fixed Income” isn’t even accurate because this area also includes currencies and commodities, neither of which generate income in the same manner.
As we suggested above, it’s best to think of this group as “making markets for clients in everything that isn’t equities or equities-related.”
Fixed Income Sales vs. Trading vs. Structuring vs. Strategy
Many articles online pretend that “Sales & Trading” just means “Trading.”
But Sales is a division separate from Trading, and the two are quite different; trading is more about the execution of orders and market-making for clients, while sales is about developing client relationships, pitching ideas to clients, and representing the firm on important business issues.
As with Equities, salespeople must understand the fundamentals of the products they sell, but they don’t need to be math wizards.
Many banks divide their sales desks into two groups – “Institutions” and “Corporates.” Institutions focuses on hedge funds, pension funds, and mutual funds, while the Corporates group focuses on non-financial companies looking to hedge their exposure to market risks via derivatives.
Sales is suitable for outgoing, social people who like to read and talk about financial markets, while trading is a better fit for those who like math and can thrive with a quick, decision-making mindset.
You could also say that Structuring is a separate team within Fixed Income, given the complexity of some products.
Structurers have a more math-oriented job than traders because they create the custom securities that clients often use for specific needs, such as reducing volatility by 15% for a certain trading strategy.
The key difference is that Structurers work on longer-term projects rather than the day-to-day work that most traders spend their time on.
Finally, Strategy is a separate group in some markets divisions. If you’re in this team, you’ll develop investment recommendations for Fixed Income securities based on market fundamentals and technical research.
Will Fixed Income Sales and Trading Get Automated or Displaced?
The rule of thumb that we presented for Equities Sales and Trading holds true here as well:
“The simpler and more liquid a security is, the more likely it is to be automated; the less liquid and more complex it is, the less likely it is to be automated.”
The good news is that many Fixed Income products are complex; the bad news is that simpler areas such as investment-grade corporate bonds are still being automated.
And some of the products, such as cash FX, are even easier to automate.
Humans will probably not disappear completely, but if you want to work in trading or structuring, it’s in your best interest to gain knowledge of programming and data science.
Even if you’re in sales, knowledge of algorithms will be helpful and, eventually, essential.
Sales and Trading Recruiting and Interviews
The process for Fixed Income recruiting is largely the same as it is for Equities: expect an online application, video or on-campus interview, and a Superday (U.S.) or ticket to an assessment center (U.K.).
We covered assessment centers for sales & trading in a previous article on the rates trading desk, and we published a whole series on sales and trading interview questions (and the “fit” questions), so there is not much to add there.
A few differences in Fixed Income include:
More Focus on “The Macro” – Since FICC includes products such as FX, commodities, and government bonds, you’ll get more questions about GDP, interest rates, yield curves, inflation, monetary policy, exchange rates, and so on. You must understand how these factors influence the markets.
Math/Programming Knowledge is Important… to a Point – If you’re a salesperson or trader, you’re still not going sit around solving partial differential equations all day. Yes, some Fixed Income products are more complex, but you’ll be responsible for the execution. So, it’s a good idea to take math and CS classes, but you don’t need to win the International Math Olympiad to join the group.
Product Knowledge – For Fixed Income, it’s best to research a product that is “in the middle” in terms of complexity. For example, pick something more complex than cash FX, but less complex than a structured credit product; credit or interest rate derivatives might be good to discuss.
We cover Fixed Income concepts in the IB Interview Guide and Excel & Fundamentals course, but we focus on corporate bonds; the material is not targeted specifically at sales & trading.
That said, it’s still helpful as an introduction, especially if you’re applying to more than just S&T roles.
If you want to learn more about the points above, we also recommend the following resources:
Bloomberg: Lessons on Fixed Income (if you have Bloomberg access).
Reference: JP Morgan Guide to the Markets – Section on Fixed Income
Reading: Frank Fabozzi’s classic reference on Fixed Income
Networking: Fixed Income Analysts Society
Different Desks within Fixed Income Sales and Trading
There are many different desks within Fixed Income, so it’s much harder to generalize than Equities.
Therefore, we are not going to describe every single desk, group, and sub-group here.
Instead, we’ll focus on the most common desks and touch on the major themes:
Rates
You’ll find our feature on the rates trading desk helpful, so you should refer to that for all the details.
In short, the rates desk trades sovereign (government-issued) bonds, interest rate swaps and futures, and structured products based on rates, options and swaps, and others.
This desk is very macro-focused because interest rates drive the prices of government bonds and other products here, and everything from economic growth to trade and monetary policy to exchange rates could affect interest rates.
As a junior trader, you’ll spend a lot of time predicting changes in the interest rate curve and using that to price securities.
Rates products tend to be more complex and are, therefore, harder to automate, but you’ll still have an advantage in this group if you have computer science skills.
The rates desk could be a good fit for you if:
You’re comfortable with risk and you can work in intense environments.
You want to complete day-to-day tasks rather than longer-term projects.
And you like some math with plenty of macro analysis.
Municipal Bonds (“Munis”) or “Public Finance”
Municipal bonds are ones issued by local governments such as states, counties, and cities rather than the federal government.
Interest on municipal bonds issued in the U.S. can be [triple] tax-exempt, meaning that the bond is exempt from federal, state, and city taxes – which happens if the buyer of the bond lives in the same area as the issuer.
As a result, you’ll spend a lot of time analyzing the tax-exempt yield curve and comparing it to the taxable one.
Municipal bonds have the same characteristics as other bonds: yield, coupon, maturity date, and credit rating, and you can find issuances covering almost every time horizon.
Local trends, such as population metrics, demographics, tax collection, non-tax revenue sources, and property values make a big impact on the creditworthiness of the issuer, which, in turn, drives municipal bond prices.
Think of it as “macro analysis on a micro level” and a compromise between other desks in Fixed Income sales and trading.
In theory, municipal bonds are “safe,” but in practice, plenty of municipalities have gone bankrupt and repaid bondholders far less than what they were owed (e.g., Detroit – Michigan and Stockton – California).
On the sales side, many ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients like to buy municipal bonds for tax purposes, so you’ll often work with these individuals and mutual funds, especially on the “short end of the yield curve” (i.e., yields that are less than one year).
On the other end of the yield curve, insurance companies, specialty buyers, and retail investors are more active.
If you want to learn more, MunicipalBonds.com provides a screening filter and plenty of articles about the municipal bond markets.
Corporate Bonds and Credit Default Swaps (CDS)
Traders in this area buy and sell bonds issued by companies; groups are often split into investment-grade bonds (a BBB- rating or higher from S&P / Fitch) and high-yield bonds (lower than a BBB- credit rating).
Since most companies have a significantly higher risk of default than governments in developed countries, corporate-bond yields are higher to compensate for the risk.
You spend much of your time in this group analyzing companies’ credit profiles and looking at numbers such as the Interest Coverage Ratio (EBITDA / Interest Expense) and Leverage Ratio (Debt / EBITDA) in different scenarios to “stress test” firms.
You can value bonds by assessing the default probability of the firms that issue them and then comparing the coupon rates on bonds to prevailing market rates.
Credit Default Swaps (CDS) are derivatives based on corporate bonds that separate the risk of default from interest-rate risk; they’re a bit like “insurance” on bonds.
Since the values of corporate bonds and CDS are closely linked, banks tend to combine these two groups, with corporate bonds acting as the “cash” product for this desk and CDS acting as the “derivative” product.
Investment bankers also use the CDS “spread,” or the cost of insuring a unit of debt, to estimate the Cost of Debt in corporate valuations.
Of all the desks within Fixed Income Sales and Trading, the corporate bonds one is the most micro-oriented.
While you do need to be aware of broader economic happenings and monetary policy, company-specific events tend to make a bigger impact on corporate bond prices.
It’s also the group that’s most similar to the Debt Capital Markets and Leveraged Finance teams in investment banking since you do credit analysis in both.
So, if you’re interested in analyzing individual companies from a credit perspective, but you want to work in the markets rather than on large deals, the corporate bonds desk could be a good fit for you.
Some banks are automating corporate-bond trading and switching to electronic systems, but this has happened at a slower pace than in Equities.
Small orders (e.g., under $5 million) are fairly easy to fill electronically, but much larger block trades still require human relationships – so human traders on this desk will continue to exist in some form, even if their jobs involve more coding.
Foreign Exchange (FX) or Currencies
As the name implies, you make markets in currencies here.
The foreign exchange market is far bigger than the ones for Equities and traditional Fixed Income products, and the U.S. Dollar is the most heavily traded currency.
All forex contracts are quoted in pairs, so a trader might bet on the USD rising or falling relative to the EUR (the USD/EUR “pair”).
Forex rates are affected by nearly everything – inflation, interest rates, current account deficits, government debt, trade policy, and overall economic growth – so the analysis is squarely in the “macro” corner.
The big products within FX are Spots, Forwards, and Options:
Spots: Agreements between two parties to buy one currency and sell another currency at an agreed-upon price on a certain date, usually 1-2 days after the trade date. These are the simplest FX transactions.
Forwards: Agreements between two parties to buy or sell a certain volume of currency on a certain date – further into the future than Spots – for a particular price. There’s an obligation to buy or sell, which helps a company lock in an exchange rate, and there’s usually no upfront payment.
Futures: Similar, but the deal is done through an exchange rather than being directly negotiated between two parties.
Options: The right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a certain volume of currencies at a stated exchange rate on or before a certain date. Options are less risky for the participants because neither party is locked into buying/selling, but they also take more work to understand properly.
Swaps: These are simultaneous purchases and sales of identical amounts of one currency for another. For example, a U.S. company might borrow $X in USD from a European company and lend €Y in EUR to that same company at the spot rate. When the contract expires, they return those currencies to each other.
If you’re on the FX sales team at a bank, you’ll help companies and institutions (e.g., hedge funds) manage their exposure to FX risk via the products above.
For example, if a U.S.-based manufacturing company has its operations in Mexico, it pays for many of its expenses in Mexican pesos (MXN), but it reports its financial results in USD.
If the MXN suddenly rises against the USD, the company has to record significantly higher expenses on its financial statements and explain what happened to investors.
FX sales professionals in Fixed Income Sales and Trading help companies minimize the impact of these shifts.
Forwards and swaps support fairly simple hedging, while options are used for more complex trading strategies.
Since the FX market is highly liquid and the securities traded are extremely simple, this area lends itself to automation. It’s even simpler than Equities because currencies do not generate cash flow or dividends.
But once again, the more complex products, such as FX options and structured products based on FX, have lower liquidity and are more difficult to automate.
To keep up to date in this sector, take a look at the “Euromoney FX Survey” (Google it for the latest version).
Commodities
This desk is usually split into “Hard Commodities” (oil, natural gas, gold, silver, etc.) and “Soft Commodities” (agricultural products like livestock, soybeans, wheat, corn, rice, and cocoa), but some banks also divide it into Metals, Energy, and Agriculture.
Most of the description above for the FX Desk applies here as well, but everything is based on commodity prices rather than FX rates.
For example, there are still spots, options, futures, and swaps, and clients still trade for hedging purposes (companies) or speculation (hedge funds).
The difference is that different types of companies have significant exposure to commodities risk.
For example, airlines have huge risk exposure to increases in oil prices, so they often purchase oil swaps and futures to protect themselves by locking in their expenses.
Many people claim that commodities trading at large banks is “dying,” and it is true that firms have exited the business over time.
But it’s more accurate to say that commodities trading is highly cyclical, and when prices fall, or volatility is low for extended periods, commodities desks within Fixed Income Sales and Trading struggle and sometimes get shu from ronnykblair digest https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/fixed-income-sales-and-trading/
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北美作业代写:Western marxism
下面为大家整理一篇优秀的paper代写范文- Western marxism,供大家参考学习,这篇论文讨论了西方马克思主义。西方马克思主义思潮的出现是对20世纪初以来发生的一系列重大社会历史事件的批判和反思。20世纪30—60年代末,是西方马克思主义繁荣发展时期,而法西斯主义的出现,使西方马克思主义的发展获得了新的动力,大家也从马克思的手稿中吸取精神养料,对马克思主义作以人道主义的解释。
Western marxism is not only one of the western social thoughts with international influence in the 20th century, but also an unorthodox marxism with non-marxism tendency. Its development has gone through three stages of formation, prosperity and transformation, and has formed many schools. It has contributed to the study of marxist philosophy, social history theory, historical dialectics, ideology and alienation.
The concept of "western marxism" first appeared in the supplement material of kirsch's 1930 edition of marxism and philosophy. Put forward at the beginning of the 20th century is the background of the marxist camp debate on western revolutionary road, cole use of "western marxism" to represent the Russian marxism with the new tendency of marxism.
1955, mellau ponti in the second chapter "the adventures of dialectics", "western marxism", this paper discusses the "western marxism" and Leninism, and called the lukacs "western marxism", the founder of the lukacs's "history and class consciousness" referred to as the "bible" of western marxism. He attributed western marxists influenced by this work and inclined to understand marxism from the perspective of humanism and social theory to this trend of thought.
1976, perry Anderson in the western marxism to explore, expand the scope of the use of "western marxism", the main themes and concerns of the transfer from the theory to the analysis of "western marxism", thought theory theme of western marxism has moved from the traditional focus on economic focus on philosophy, and will have a common academic tradition theory of marxist scholars will be included in the "western marxism".
Chinese scholars use the concept of "western marxism" is more [xu chongwen in 1982 in the journal of "western marxism", meaning "after the first world war, the victory of the October revolution and the background of western revolution have failed, produced in the western capitalist countries, both against the second international new kantianism, and against the communist international 'mechanical materialism; In the analysis of modern capitalism and the prospect of socialism, in the revolutionary strategy and strategy and other issues, put forward different views from Leninism. In philosophy, it puts forward different from Engels and Lenin, marxist dialectical materialism and historical materialism, which was set forth, rediscover Marx's original design, main show is "left" ideology ".
At present, the concept of "western marxism" is still developing and enriching, and there are many controversies, but its existence as an ideological trend is an indisputable fact.
The emergence of western marxism is a critique and reflection on a series of important social and historical events since the beginning of the 20th century. In the course of more than 90 years of development, western marxism has experienced three periods, and there have been many schools of thought with different tendency and emphasis on different issues in different times.
From the 1920s to the end of the 1930s, western marxism was formed. After the first world war, the proletarian revolution succeeded in Russia, but failed successively in many countries in western and central Europe, which were more advanced than Russia. Lukacs, cole, gramsci marxists to rethink influenced western workers' movement of marxist theory of the second international, reflection, Leninism and stalinism formed different from Hegel's doctrine of marxism Leninism. They suggest should be restored marxism and dialectic relations, restore the marxist philosophy of consciousness, in the west to take, including economic, cultural and political revolution, overall strategy revolution. However, western marxism at this time is only an unorthodox marxist view within the international communist movement, and has not become an independent social thought.
The period from the 1930s to the end of the 1960s was a period of prosperity and development of western marxism. In the 1930s, the publication of Marx's economic -- philosophical manuscript of 1844 and the emergence of fascism gave new impetus to the development of western marxism. Marcuse et al. drew spiritual nourishment from Marx's manuscripts and interpreted marxism humanitarianism. For the proletariat has not been a significant development, but the fascism of the phenomenon, Reich's mass psychology of fascism, Bloch's legacy of this age, the hawk hammel "dictatorship", frome "escape from freedom" and so on a large number of works carried on the thorough analysis. After the 1950 s, the drawback of the Soviet socialist system becoming obvious, the rapid development of the western developed capitalist countries a lot of social problems, have brought the western marxist new confusion and thinking. Marcuse's Soviet marxism, Sartre "and critique of dialectical reason frome the marxist concept on people are against the Soviet union socialist mode and made a special analysis of the phenomenon of stalinism. Based on the reality of the development of capitalist society, western marxists believe that the basic contradiction of capitalist society still exists, but it is no longer an economic crisis, but mainly a human spiritual crisis. They reflect on the spirit of enlightenment, instrumental rationality, science and technology, mass culture, and are committed to the criticism of developed industrial civilization. Construct the philosophical foundation of critical theory and explain, supplement and reconstruct marxism with various western social thoughts. In the past three decades and more, western marxism has gradually evolved into a social ideological trend that combines unorthodox marxism with non-marxism with international influence. The main schools are: Frankfurt school, existentialist marxism, freudian marxism, structuralist marxism, new positivist marxism, etc. Among them, the Frankfurt school has the longest duration and the biggest influence.
After 1970s, it was the turning stage of western marxism. Increasingly acute contradictions between human and nature, the negative effect of science and technology is becoming more and more prominent, so a new generation of the western marxist social effect of science and technology revolution, and ecology problems as its research subject. Western marxism appeared diversified development, the Frankfurt school, existentialism, Freud's doctrine of marxism and marxism structuralist marxism divided, and the analysis of marxism, ecology marxism, post-modern marxism, etc. In the course of study, they transition from unorthodox marxism to non-marxism. This period are the common points of western marxism theory of marxism one or more of the main features of chronic rejection, these features include the historical materialism, as a social power and the method of dialectics, as the main characteristic of class of human society and the mode of production. Instead of trying to revise and supplement marxism, they abandoned it completely.
Western marxism various schools did not form a unified ideology, can only say that put forward from different angles and think about some common problems, and formed some theoretical hot spot in the development of western marxism.
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5 Steps to Find Your Brand Voice
Editor’s note: You may have missed this article when CMI published it a couple years ago. Interestingly, brand voice remains a critical need and this guide can help you create a helpful one.
If your logo didn’t appear with your content, could your audience identify the content as coming from your brand? Would someone viewing your content on different channels know it all came from the same brand?
If you’re not careful, you can end up with a random assortment of voices and tones in the content produced across your marketing ecosystem that doesn’t provide a consistent picture of your brand, or even use the same language consistently.
This inconsistent brand experience is more common as an organization grows and is often exacerbated as external entities such as freelancers and agencies get thrown into the brand’s content creation mix.
You may be asking why a brand voice matters – isn’t it more important to work hard to make your brand sound more human? A brand voice, though, isn’t about the creation of a non-human voice. It’s about being consistent with the voice you are creating – positioning yourself as an easily identified and authoritative source for your area of expertise. Similarly, a consistent brand voice and vocabulary is essential to implementing localized content and intelligent content strategies effectively.
A #brand voice isn’t about creating a non-human voice, says @SFErika. Read more >> Click To Tweet
Luckily, you can create a brand voice chart to help address the issue. I’ve outlined the five steps to establish, create, and maintain a desired brand voice to drive consistency in your content creation efforts.
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Style Guide: How to Write One for Your Brand
1. Gather a representative sample of your content
You want to cast a wide net – gather everything from videos to web pages, e-books to your social media calendar. Now, cast a critical eye on the content. Which of these examples could have come from any of your competitors? Set those aside. Your goal is to whittle your examples to a small group of pieces unique to your brand – examples of the brand voice you want to embody. Print these examples and put them up on a whiteboard, grouping together pieces with a similar feel.
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Audit Your Content: 5 Essential Steps
2. Describe your brand voice in three words
In the same room as the whiteboard (or with the board visible to all in a virtual environment) work with your key content creators and owners of the brand identity. Again, cast a wide net and invite content creators throughout your organization including teams from PR, sales enablement, customer success, etc. Review the selected content as the best examples of the brand voice you want to embody. Discuss common themes across all of those pieces. Group the examples into three thematic buckets.
If your brand was a person, how would you describe its personality to someone? At this point, talk about how you would describe your competitors as people, too. Is one of your competitors the class bully? Is another the head cheerleader? How do your brand’s personality traits make you different?
If your #brand was a person, how would you describe its personality? @SFErika #contentstrategy Click To Tweet
Let’s create an example using these three broad traits:
Passionate
Quirky
Authentic
Define each one further. How do these characteristics show up in how you communicate with your audience? How do they come across in the kind of content you’re creating? How do they appear in your focused topics? Let’s continue this example:
Passionate – expressive, enthusiastic, heartfelt, action-oriented
Quirky – irreverent, unexpected, contrarian
Authentic – genuine, trustworthy, engaging, direct
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Focus Your Marketing: Define Your 3(ish) Critical Words
3. Create a brand voice chart
With your brand’s voice defined, illustrate how it turns up more concretely in your content with a brand voice chart. It will be an essential reference tool to ensure that your content (text and visuals) is consistently using the same voice.
Include three rows for each of the primary characteristics accompanied by three columns – brief description, do’s, and don’ts. If necessary, add a row for secondary characteristics that need a little extra explanation. In this example, “irreverent” is a related word and should be fleshed out so the team is clear on how it is defined (i.e., to challenge the status quo or to be snarky?)
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Don’t Sound Like Everyone Else: 12 Essential Elements to Create a Consistent Brand Voice
4. Ensure that your writers understand how to put your brand voice into action
You’ve defined your voice and tone and shown it in an easy-to-understand chart. How do you get everyone onboard with using it? Meet with the team – anyone who creates content or communications – and walk them through the chart.
Go through some examples of content that hits the mark. Show in real time how you would revise some existing content that isn’t reflective of the defined voice. If possible, provide team members with a laminated or card-stock copy of the brand voice chart to keep at their desk for reference. Make sure an electronic version also is available.
Laminate your brand voice chart for content creators to keep on their desk, says @SFErika. Read more >> Click To Tweet
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Road Map to Success: Turn Your Strategy Into a Stellar Editorial Content Plan
5. Revisit and revise the brand voice chart as the company changes over time
A brand voice chart is not meant to be a one-time, set-it-and-forget-it tool. As your brand messaging evolves or new competitors come into your market, it’s good to take a look at the chart and refresh it with new examples.
A #brand voice chart is not meant to be a one-time, set-it-and-forget-it tool. Update it quarterly. @SFErika. Click To Tweet
Quarterly, convene your key content creators and communicators to find out if any voice attributes haven’t worked well or are more aspirational than possible for whatever reason. For instance, many brands initially include “irreverence,” but find their writers are uncomfortable flexing that muscle or key approvers consistently delete the copy. If that’s the case, it may be time for a voice refresh, or some new do’s and don’ts.
Use your voice to make the case for your content marketing team to participate in Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7 in Cleveland, Ohio. Use code BLOG100 to save $100. Register today.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
The post 5 Steps to Find Your Brand Voice appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.
5 Steps to Find Your Brand Voice syndicated from https://hotspread.wordpress.com
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5 Steps to Find Your Brand Voice
Editor’s note: You may have missed this article when CMI published it a couple years ago. Interestingly, brand voice remains a critical need and this guide can help you create a helpful one.
If your logo didn’t appear with your content, could your audience identify the content as coming from your brand? Would someone viewing your content on different channels know it all came from the same brand?
If you’re not careful, you can end up with a random assortment of voices and tones in the content produced across your marketing ecosystem that doesn’t provide a consistent picture of your brand, or even use the same language consistently.
This inconsistent brand experience is more common as an organization grows and is often exacerbated as external entities such as freelancers and agencies get thrown into the brand’s content creation mix.
You may be asking why a brand voice matters – isn’t it more important to work hard to make your brand sound more human? A brand voice, though, isn’t about the creation of a non-human voice. It’s about being consistent with the voice you are creating – positioning yourself as an easily identified and authoritative source for your area of expertise. Similarly, a consistent brand voice and vocabulary is essential to implementing localized content and intelligent content strategies effectively.
A #brand voice isn’t about creating a non-human voice, says @SFErika. Read more >> Click To Tweet
Luckily, you can create a brand voice chart to help address the issue. I’ve outlined the five steps to establish, create, and maintain a desired brand voice to drive consistency in your content creation efforts.
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Style Guide: How to Write One for Your Brand
1. Gather a representative sample of your content
You want to cast a wide net – gather everything from videos to web pages, e-books to your social media calendar. Now, cast a critical eye on the content. Which of these examples could have come from any of your competitors? Set those aside. Your goal is to whittle your examples to a small group of pieces unique to your brand – examples of the brand voice you want to embody. Print these examples and put them up on a whiteboard, grouping together pieces with a similar feel.
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Audit Your Content: 5 Essential Steps
2. Describe your brand voice in three words
In the same room as the whiteboard (or with the board visible to all in a virtual environment) work with your key content creators and owners of the brand identity. Again, cast a wide net and invite content creators throughout your organization including teams from PR, sales enablement, customer success, etc. Review the selected content as the best examples of the brand voice you want to embody. Discuss common themes across all of those pieces. Group the examples into three thematic buckets.
If your brand was a person, how would you describe its personality to someone? At this point, talk about how you would describe your competitors as people, too. Is one of your competitors the class bully? Is another the head cheerleader? How do your brand’s personality traits make you different?
If your #brand was a person, how would you describe its personality? @SFErika #contentstrategy Click To Tweet
Let’s create an example using these three broad traits:
Passionate
Quirky
Authentic
Define each one further. How do these characteristics show up in how you communicate with your audience? How do they come across in the kind of content you’re creating? How do they appear in your focused topics? Let’s continue this example:
Passionate – expressive, enthusiastic, heartfelt, action-oriented
Quirky – irreverent, unexpected, contrarian
Authentic – genuine, trustworthy, engaging, direct
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Focus Your Marketing: Define Your 3(ish) Critical Words
3. Create a brand voice chart
With your brand’s voice defined, illustrate how it turns up more concretely in your content with a brand voice chart. It will be an essential reference tool to ensure that your content (text and visuals) is consistently using the same voice.
Include three rows for each of the primary characteristics accompanied by three columns – brief description, do’s, and don’ts. If necessary, add a row for secondary characteristics that need a little extra explanation. In this example, “irreverent” is a related word and should be fleshed out so the team is clear on how it is defined (i.e., to challenge the status quo or to be snarky?)
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Don’t Sound Like Everyone Else: 12 Essential Elements to Create a Consistent Brand Voice
4. Ensure that your writers understand how to put your brand voice into action
You’ve defined your voice and tone and shown it in an easy-to-understand chart. How do you get everyone onboard with using it? Meet with the team – anyone who creates content or communications – and walk them through the chart.
Go through some examples of content that hits the mark. Show in real time how you would revise some existing content that isn’t reflective of the defined voice. If possible, provide team members with a laminated or card-stock copy of the brand voice chart to keep at their desk for reference. Make sure an electronic version also is available.
Laminate your brand voice chart for content creators to keep on their desk, says @SFErika. Read more >> Click To Tweet
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Road Map to Success: Turn Your Strategy Into a Stellar Editorial Content Plan
5. Revisit and revise the brand voice chart as the company changes over time
A brand voice chart is not meant to be a one-time, set-it-and-forget-it tool. As your brand messaging evolves or new competitors come into your market, it’s good to take a look at the chart and refresh it with new examples.
A #brand voice chart is not meant to be a one-time, set-it-and-forget-it tool. Update it quarterly. @SFErika. Click To Tweet
Quarterly, convene your key content creators and communicators to find out if any voice attributes haven’t worked well or are more aspirational than possible for whatever reason. For instance, many brands initially include “irreverence,” but find their writers are uncomfortable flexing that muscle or key approvers consistently delete the copy. If that’s the case, it may be time for a voice refresh, or some new do’s and don’ts.
Use your voice to make the case for your content marketing team to participate in Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7 in Cleveland, Ohio. Use code BLOG100 to save $100. Register today.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
The post 5 Steps to Find Your Brand Voice appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.
from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2018/04/find-brand-voice/
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New Post has been published on Attendantdesign
New Post has been published on https://attendantdesign.com/these-3-tips-will-help-you-win/
These 3 tips will help you win
To negotiate nicely, you need to recognize your counterpart’s aspect of the argument. Know what they want, understand what they will comply with and, if viable, realize it better than they do.To negotiate nicely, you need to recognize your counterpart’s aspect of the argument. Know what they want, understand what they will comply with and, if viable, realize it better than they do. This isn’t easy, but Peter B. Stark and Jane Flaherty describe the stairs you may take to acquire and produce such an information of their recently revised e book, “The Only Negotiating Guide You’ll Ever Need: a hundred and one Ways to Win Every Time in Any Situation.” Here’s what they endorse: To obtain lots, be organized “A negotiation is not an occasion, it’s far a system,” Stark and Flaherty write. “The side with the most and first-class records generally receives the higher outcome.” You want to increase a thorough expertise of what your counterpart is searching out and thinking.
Deepak Malhotra: a Harvard Business School professor and expert on the artwork
CNBCDeepak Malhotra: a Harvard Business School professor and expert on the art of negotiation.Stark and Flaherty use the instance of a person shopping an automobile. They write that the buyer “has the opportunity to get competitive bids and records about the strengths and weaknesses of the vendor’s service or product.” Unless you work in the vehicle commercial enterprise, you probably won’t know more about the auto you want than the provider. But if you put the effort in, you could at the least be extra organized than fellow customers and more prepared than the provider expects, they write. If you do not, the provider will win, you will lose, and you’ll emerge as paying extra than you ought to. ‘Stop talking and listen’
“Stop speak me and pay attention,” write Stark and Flaherty. “The satisfactory negotiators are nearly constantly the best listeners.” And the excellent listeners pay attention interactively — clarifying and verifying, reflecting deeply on new information, forming considerate responses. “Get to realize your counterpart,” they are saying. “Ask probing questions.” Suzy Welch: This is the biggest mistake human beings make when negotiating revenue Suzy Welch: This is the most important mistake human beings make whilst negotiating profits “An empathetic person is aware and relates to the opposite person’s emotions,” they upload. Empathetic listening allows you to realize the implicit goals beneath your counterpart’s phrases. You can infer what they want while not having them sincerely say it. Give them what they need
What is perhaps one of the more sudden factors that Stark and Flaherty make is this: “The best outcome for almost all negotiations is win-win.” The pleasant negotiators discover an answer that lets them get what they want and satisfy their counterparts, too. “The needs and goals of both events are met so that they each stroll away with fantastic feeling — a willingness to negotiate with every different again.” “Creating a win-lose situation is truly no longer the excellent business,” they say. “Almost all win-lose relationships become lose-lose over the years.” And the excellent way to keep away from this is to understand exactly what your counterpart desires and realize it properly.
What IS assertive communication?
Assertive communication is the ability to express positive and negative ideas and feelings in an open, honest and direct way. It recognizes our rights whilst still respecting the rights of others. It allows us to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions without judging or blaming other people. And it allows us to constructively confront and find a mutually satisfying solution where conflict exists.
So why use help assertive tips wincommunication?
All of us use assertive behavior at times… quite often when we feel vulnerable or unsure of ourselves we may resort to submissive, manipulative or aggressive behavior.
Yet being trained in assertive communication actually increases the appropriate use of this sort of behavior. It enables us to swap old behavior patterns for a more positive approach to life. I’ve found that changing my response to others (be they work colleagues, clients or even my own family) can be exciting and stimulating.
The advantages of assertive communication
There are many advantages of assertive communication, most notably these:
It helps us feel good about ourselves and others
It leads to the development of mutual respect with others
It increases our self-esteem
It helps us achieve our goals
It minimizes hurting and alienating other people
It reduces anxiety
It protects us from being taken advantage of by others
It enables us to make decisions and free choices in life
It enables us to express, both verbally and non-verbally, a wide range of feelings and thoughts, both positive and negative
There are, of course, disadvantages…
Disadvantages of assertive communication
Others may not approve of this style of communication, or may not approve of the views you express. Also, having a healthy regard for another person’s rights means that you won’t always get what YOU want. You may also find out that you were wrong about a viewpoint that you held. But most importantly, as mentioned earlier, it involves the risk that others may not understand and therefore not accept this style of communication.
What assertive communication is not…
Assertive communication is definitely NOT a lifestyle! It’s NOT a guarantee that you will get what you want. It’s definitely NOT an acceptable style of communication with everyone, but at least it’s NOT being aggressive.
But it IS about choice
Four behavioral choices
There are, as I see it, four choices you can make about which style of communication you can employ. These types are:
direct aggression: bossy, arrogant, bulldozing, intolerant, opinionated, and overbearing
indirect aggression: sarcastic, deceiving, ambiguous, insinuating, manipulative, and guilt-inducing
submissive: wailing, moaning, helpless, passive, indecisive, and apologetic
assertive: direct, honest, accepting, responsible, and spontaneous
Characteristics of assertive communication
There are six main characteristics of assertive communication. These are:
eye contact: demonstrates interest, shows sincerity
body posture: congruent body language will improve the significance of the message
gestures: appropriate gestures help to add emphasis
voice: a level, the well-modulated tone is more convincing and acceptable and is not intimidating
timing: use your judgment to maximize receptivity and impact
content: how, where and when you choose to comment is probably more important than WHAT you say
The importance of “I” statements
Part of being assertive involves the ability to appropriately express your needs and feelings. You can accomplish this by using “I” statements. These indicate ownership, do not attribute blame, focuses on behavior, identifies the effect of behavior, is direct and honest, and contributes to the growth of your relationship with each other.
Strong “I” statements have three specific elements:
Behaviour
Feeling
Tangible effect (consequence to you)
Example: “I feel frustrated when you are late for meetings. I don’t like having to repeat information.”
Six techniques for assertive communication
There are six assertive techniques – let’s look at each of them in turn.
1. Behaviour Rehearsal: which is literally practicing how you want to look and sound. It is a very useful technique when you first want to use “I” statements, as it helps dissipate any emotion associated with an experience and allows you to accurately identify the behavior you wish to confront.
2. Repeated Assertion (the ‘broken record’): this technique allows you to feel comfortable by ignoring manipulative verbal side traps, argumentative baiting, and irrelevant logic while sticking to your point. To most effectively use this technique use calm repetition, and say what you want and stay focused on the issue. You’ll find that there is no need to rehearse this technique, and no need to ‘hype yourself up’ to deal with others.
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5 Steps to Find Your Brand Voice
Editor’s note: You may have missed this article when CMI published it a couple years ago. Interestingly, brand voice remains a critical need and this guide can help you create a helpful one.
If your logo didn’t appear with your content, could your audience identify the content as coming from your brand? Would someone viewing your content on different channels know it all came from the same brand?
If you’re not careful, you can end up with a random assortment of voices and tones in the content produced across your marketing ecosystem that doesn’t provide a consistent picture of your brand, or even use the same language consistently.
This inconsistent brand experience is more common as an organization grows and is often exacerbated as external entities such as freelancers and agencies get thrown into the brand’s content creation mix.
You may be asking why a brand voice matters – isn’t it more important to work hard to make your brand sound more human? A brand voice, though, isn’t about the creation of a non-human voice. It’s about being consistent with the voice you are creating – positioning yourself as an easily identified and authoritative source for your area of expertise. Similarly, a consistent brand voice and vocabulary is essential to implementing localized content and intelligent content strategies effectively.
A #brand voice isn’t about creating a non-human voice, says @SFErika. Read more >> Click To Tweet
Luckily, you can create a brand voice chart to help address the issue. I’ve outlined the five steps to establish, create, and maintain a desired brand voice to drive consistency in your content creation efforts.
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Style Guide: How to Write One for Your Brand
1. Gather a representative sample of your content
You want to cast a wide net – gather everything from videos to web pages, e-books to your social media calendar. Now, cast a critical eye on the content. Which of these examples could have come from any of your competitors? Set those aside. Your goal is to whittle your examples to a small group of pieces unique to your brand – examples of the brand voice you want to embody. Print these examples and put them up on a whiteboard, grouping together pieces with a similar feel.
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Audit Your Content: 5 Essential Steps
2. Describe your brand voice in three words
In the same room as the whiteboard (or with the board visible to all in a virtual environment) work with your key content creators and owners of the brand identity. Again, cast a wide net and invite content creators throughout your organization including teams from PR, sales enablement, customer success, etc. Review the selected content as the best examples of the brand voice you want to embody. Discuss common themes across all of those pieces. Group the examples into three thematic buckets.
If your brand was a person, how would you describe its personality to someone? At this point, talk about how you would describe your competitors as people, too. Is one of your competitors the class bully? Is another the head cheerleader? How do your brand’s personality traits make you different?
If your #brand was a person, how would you describe its personality? @SFErika #contentstrategy Click To Tweet
Let’s create an example using these three broad traits:
Passionate
Quirky
Authentic
Define each one further. How do these characteristics show up in how you communicate with your audience? How do they come across in the kind of content you’re creating? How do they appear in your focused topics? Let’s continue this example:
Passionate – expressive, enthusiastic, heartfelt, action-oriented
Quirky – irreverent, unexpected, contrarian
Authentic – genuine, trustworthy, engaging, direct
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Focus Your Marketing: Define Your 3(ish) Critical Words
3. Create a brand voice chart
With your brand’s voice defined, illustrate how it turns up more concretely in your content with a brand voice chart. It will be an essential reference tool to ensure that your content (text and visuals) is consistently using the same voice.
Include three rows for each of the primary characteristics accompanied by three columns – brief description, do’s, and don’ts. If necessary, add a row for secondary characteristics that need a little extra explanation. In this example, “irreverent” is a related word and should be fleshed out so the team is clear on how it is defined (i.e., to challenge the status quo or to be snarky?)
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Don’t Sound Like Everyone Else: 12 Essential Elements to Create a Consistent Brand Voice
4. Ensure that your writers understand how to put your brand voice into action
You’ve defined your voice and tone and shown it in an easy-to-understand chart. How do you get everyone onboard with using it? Meet with the team – anyone who creates content or communications – and walk them through the chart.
Go through some examples of content that hits the mark. Show in real time how you would revise some existing content that isn’t reflective of the defined voice. If possible, provide team members with a laminated or card-stock copy of the brand voice chart to keep at their desk for reference. Make sure an electronic version also is available.
Laminate your brand voice chart for content creators to keep on their desk, says @SFErika. Read more >> Click To Tweet
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Road Map to Success: Turn Your Strategy Into a Stellar Editorial Content Plan
5. Revisit and revise the brand voice chart as the company changes over time
A brand voice chart is not meant to be a one-time, set-it-and-forget-it tool. As your brand messaging evolves or new competitors come into your market, it’s good to take a look at the chart and refresh it with new examples.
A #brand voice chart is not meant to be a one-time, set-it-and-forget-it tool. Update it quarterly. @SFErika. Click To Tweet
Quarterly, convene your key content creators and communicators to find out if any voice attributes haven’t worked well or are more aspirational than possible for whatever reason. For instance, many brands initially include “irreverence,” but find their writers are uncomfortable flexing that muscle or key approvers consistently delete the copy. If that’s the case, it may be time for a voice refresh, or some new do’s and don’ts.
Use your voice to make the case for your content marketing team to participate in Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7 in Cleveland, Ohio. Use code BLOG100 to save $100. Register today.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
The post 5 Steps to Find Your Brand Voice appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.
5 Steps to Find Your Brand Voice syndicated from https://hotspread.wordpress.com
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