Building A Brand From Scratch

When I left Cornerstone in July 2021, with COVID still in the headlines but travel restrictions lifted, I made the most of the summer by riding my bike. Mainly because I could. And I continued into 2022 and aim to continue for many more years.

Riding my bike is only one half of my life though and it takes more money than it gives, so I needed to think about how I'd pay for my high-tech bikes which is where Mr ATS came in! But starting a new business is never as easy as we like to think it is so I started with the question.

The question?

I often use the question for other people (as well).

If you could do anything, and you could guarantee it would be a success, what would you do?

It's rarely easy to answer but that's what makes it a great question, and with this question, there are two very separate but very important parts:

1. The "do" part: often the easier bit.
2. And the "success" part: can be a mix of things as money isn't (always) the only element that defines success.

To answer this question for myself I had to think about my purpose, what I liked to do, why I liked it, what value did I give, and how could I turn that into my definition of success?

LiFFFe

In thinking about the answer to the above question I also needed to factor in key parts of how the job, in order to be a success, must revolve around my life. Yes, that is life with 3 F's:

1. Freedom: time, flexibility and relationships that don't make it difficult to do what I want to do; holidays, biking, volunteering etc.
2. Fitness: maintaining the physical aspects needed to do the things I plan to do.
3. Finance: having enough money to do it all.

What and why

To try and answer the question I started with some things I know; what and why things:

• I know I like to help others, be that in their job, their hobby or their personal life "survival".
• I like to help because I enjoy seeing people achieve their own success, to be happy, to see a positive future for themselves.
• I like to make things better, fix them, improve them.
• And I love to write.

But, my "job" has to not only align with all of the above but also must have the flexibility to meet my liFFFe demands.

Enter Mr ATS

The name Mr ATS is not to be taken too seriously, and although I'm not quite Mr Robot I did build one of the first ATS's in 1999 and having worked in this sector ever since I felt I was Mr ATS by default rather than by design.

But I've also spent most of my career helping, coaching, and training others so it's something I know I enjoy and have the evidence to know I have helped others achieve some of their own success.

Plus I've been writing from an industry perspective since 2005 and have found it to be something that comes naturally to me without too much effort.

So the answer to the question for me is:

1. Earn from writing (the do).
2. Maintain the 3F's (the success).

And now the hardest part

Having decided then that Mr ATS will write content to help others but only do it on a part-time basis so he can ride his bike as often as he writes, he has to become relevant, valuable and impactful to his target audience.

But who is the Mr ATS target audience?

Is it the inhouse recruitment people or is it the technology vendors that serve the inhouse market? Or is it both?

In the same way that a recruiter has two "customers" (candidate and hiring manager) Mr ATS also has two customers:

1. Producing valuable information for the inhouse market to help them fix their ATS so they can hire more people. Such as The ATS Guidebook.
2. Helping recruitment technology vendors understand how to maximise their sales and marketing efforts so they sell more product.

Uphill from here

Building a new brand from scratch is an uphill battle with fierce competition vying for attention and money. So it's going to be tough. No guarantee I will succeed. Or survive. This means I now need to build a GTM strategy and will share my plans in a future post. Bearing my soul, ignoring my ego, hoping that in sharing my struggles I might help others!

#payitforward

In the meantime, Mr ATS is available for work. Get in touch if you need his help.

NOTE: I wasn't sure if I should publish this post. My ego said not, my head said do.