On the NED journey, the hardest thing is to stand out from the crowd. With a market full of very qualified professionals who are perhaps better networked than you, what makes you striking and unique?
How can your NED Portfolio capture the attention of a prospective board?
As well as your Board CV that an organisation such as Transpire can help perfect, your back story needs to be a little more eye-catching and different. This means your website if you have one, your social media pages and everything that goes with it.
Transpire member Marla Ubhi of Marla Investments was looking for that differentiator too. Marla’s expertise is in the world of Mergers and Acquisitions which is a dry and boring space populated by stereotypes. Marla was very keen not to risk being placed in the same bracket and was fascinated watching me (as a Transpire Trusted Partner) live illustrate all the major and relevant points in a Transpire webinar. The illustration was not only beautifully drawn but explained effectively what had been said.
Marla contacted me to create her a Visual Identity.
I spent a long time talking to her over a week and getting to understand her personal values and her personal brand. I researched and truly understood the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of her approach of bringing emotional value to the businesses and SME owners in the Mergers and Acquisitions she did.
I translated and synthesised these key elements in the above understandable, engaging, and memorable graphic. This really works in her business context, injecting her personality into her comms. In one illustration it encompassed everything that Marla stands for and through exploring the narrative of YOU produced standout digital graphics to take to market.
The graphic above that I created wove together the eight parts of Marla’s unique offer.
The DNA of Business: How Marla gets to the core of what Business are, what their secret sauce is and what makes it unique and successful.
Unlocking Value: How Marla helps her clients put all their assets on the table and maximise the credibility of the business they are selling.
Emotions: Selling a business is emotional and making the decision to exit is fraught with different emotions. Marla believes that putting the emotional value and the legacy of the business at the heart of all conversations is vital.
Care: The most valuable assets of any business are the people. Marla believes that caring about those people is the secret to creating value in any business.
Deal Process: Graphic taken from a more detailed version detailing the two pathways Marla offers the seller and buyer for a successful merger.
Cogs: Marla’s skill is in pulling teams together, seeing which ones don’t work and knowing who to send in to fix them.
Listening: Marla’s skill of not just hearing what the business owners are saying, but attentively listening and acting upon it.
The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace: Marla helps businesses hear what they are feeling, facilitating productivity as staff are acknowledged, celebrated, supported.
A well-designed illustration makes the unfamiliar, familiar, and also relatable. The effect on people seeing the illustrations is a conversation starter. Curiosity about the meaning behind the pictures, encourages people to start a dialogue, the hardest part of selling yourself. When you are looking for a NED position, being able to talk through your values in the picture is a lot of more attractive to both you and the board. The conversation is always easier and flows better because it is easy for a potential NED to talk about everything that they offer and that matters to them. Illustration overcomes this, It is The Visual Articulation of YOU.