What is Value Real Estate, and Why Does it Matter?
Value Real Estate is how you invest in and use your possessions - your finances, hobbies, habits, relationships, and dreams for the lifestyle you want to live. A personal enterprise is the system you build to keep your value real estate portfolio functional and growing.
To do this process it’s similar to preparing to buy property. It’s taking on the perspective of seeing your resources as tools to build your future and every decision as the fuel to keep building. In practice, it’s deciding to set up a yearly budget to show you where your money can work for you. It could also be opting for a flex schedule job opportunity that allows you to spend more time with family.
Here are some questions to help you evaluate your value real estate portfolio, where all of it goes, and what you need to build a personal enterprise.
How much of your value do you own?
How much of it are you renting out to others?
Do you know how to keep track of it?
So why should this matter to you?
Because it impacts whether you are searching for it or trying to stay out of the way. Thanks to technology.
Technology is changing what is deemed valuable and how you access opportunities and benefits as an employee.
We are currently in the fourth industrial revolution or the digital age. If you notice everything from your doctor's appointment to your tire change has been digitized. Technology has blurred the lines between how we are educated, professional options (remote work and hybrid work), and how we interact with people through tech in our personal lives.
It’s the first time in history that people from all classes can easily access information. From a workforce perspective, access to technology is helping bridge skill gaps and access to roles. It’s also helping to move employees to act more like entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs in the marketplace. Some companies are taking lessons from startups and adopting lean operations to put the cost and responsibilities back on employees. It shows up when traditional benefits like health care coverage get swapped out for fixed-rate health care stipends or acquiring paid time off (PTO) gets switched for unlimited PTO and lower professional development budgets.
Do your research
For context, the workplace is a marketplace for your skill set to be used. Don’t believe me? According to Merriam-Webster, employ means to make use of. Don’t let your employers be the only ones who know how to make use of your skills.
It’s your responsibility as an adult to figure out how to use your skills. To figure out your options, do your research on your role across your industry to evaluate where your strengths and weaknesses are.
How do I start building?
Before you start acting, the first step is to view yourself as a brand and an enterprise.
A brand is a public image, reputation, or identity conceived of as something to be marketed or promoted or a characteristic or distinctive kind.
An enterprise is a unit of economic or business organization or a systematic activity that’s purposeful.
Once you make that change in your mind, the way you approach what you do will be different because these perspectives are now part of your purpose. In the section after next we’ll talk about your personal brand.
Evaluate Your Experience
Now it’s time to start pulling together your experience to evaluate.
Review all of the skills that you have from your:
Credentials
Work Experience
Hobbies
Associations
Create a master resume to mark down everything that you’ve done in your career. I learned this from a brilliant Human Resources Expert April Christina Curley. April suggested dumping all versions of your resumes in one place so you have a big picture of all of the value you’ve brought to roles you are in. To add to April’s point, when you have all of the things you have done from experience to big wins and lessons learned it helps you write a cohesive story. dump all of your value out of your head and onto this master resume.
Compile your expertise into a personal brand
This concept has been thrown around a lot lately. To be clear, your personal brand is how you communicate the value of your professional and take ownership of the piece of your market you dominate. It is how you speak about the investments you’ve made into your profession and will set you up to attract new opportunities as you evolve.
Building a personal brand is an investment. It takes time to gather information about yourself, organize it, and promote it compellingly to your audience. If you don’t have one yet, here’s my personal branding roadmap worksheet to get you started. I used it to map out my brand and track what works. It helped me organize all of my thoughts and notes for all the frequently requested things like “What do you do?”, my bio, and my credentials into one place. In tech people always ask for this stuff.
Start tracking your progress
Now that we outlined the things that you need to track, you can start tracking your value. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at your current company or if you’re in a transition, it’s never too late to start organizing your files and tracking your progress.
Tracking your progress helps you know what keeps you competitive and helps you make decisions quickly when opportunities are presented. Remember the big goal is to take control of how your skillset is being utilized and not allow your employer to be the only party to know how to use your expertise. This is one of the ways to do that. Staying organized helps you move quickly on big opportunities and negotiating.
Pro Tip: Start a professional folder on your Google Drive to save this workbook, personal brand worksheet, and other assets as you build your professional portfolio.
Here’s what my professional folder looks like on my drive.
The worth of your value real estate portfolio increases depending on how much you invest in taking care of your resources and fueling the journey with intentional decisions and strategy. You are the only person who is going to care about your career as much as you do. In this future of work, you have to stay ready. The time of getting is behind you.
Get to work! I’ll see you at the top.
Christina L Glancy is a leading voice in shaping first-generation professionals into confident and decisive leaders. She helps them use healthy communication and boundaries to navigate their growing pains on the journey to achieving and sustaining success. She is passionate about having tough conversations that lead to growth and solutions. If she’s not strategizing with her clients, you’ll find her traveling or starting pillow fights with her nieces and nephews.
