Blogging has become an impulsive contemporary art for careerists. Should you develop your own blog or shouldn’t you? Will it help or hurt your career? Let me present this canvas to you as a primer of sorts to think about this issue.
Much of my career practice and coaching involves an organizing thought: You own the business of your career. It’s your worklife mission, your vision. For years I coached and, some would say, admonished my clients to take ownership of their career paths as they work for someone else. When you do not own the business, one of the greatest ways you can help or hurt your career centers around your own online and offline reputation. With so many choices and so much information at the click of a computer key we may feel information overload no matter what our career field might be. We may also feel empowered to create or destroy.
What’s easy can be fun or dangerous. In a matter of minutes you can set up your Blogger, WordPress, Typepad or related blog site. And the minute you post? Your words can be accessed by billions of people around the world. No web designer needs to be hired. No technical guru at x dollars an hour has to listen to and potentially kill your ideas. You own this medium. You have freedom. You can say or site anything. There’s no waste of time and no need to white-board everyone else’s ideas.
It’s so easy but don’t let the impulsive ease of blogging let you forget about the eyes that watch your art, your views, your passions, protests, observations and objections.
How might this medium help – or hurt – your career direction and path?
How it can help:
1. You have an audience. Keep it positive. Blogging may add to the company’s brand and your position as an authority or subject matter expert within your company or your field. Jane S. worked at a powerful, regional advertising company. She cleared her personal blog through her boss, her boss’ boss and her company human resources department. They said she didn’t have to but with my advice she did. During a recession she has received two promotions and her blog has since been incorporated into the main site of the corporation because of its powerful, business development prowess. She says, “Now 40 percent of my time is incorporating my personal brand or blog into the company’s brand with the complete blessing of the executive team.”
2. Paint the right picture. Drive customer confidence. As you cite critical sources and make intelligent, important observations your personal blog augments your position within your company and promotes your company. You never bash your company. You can be yourself and be authentic. James P., a salesman, asked for permission from his company to comment on his business travels and business adventures as a technology sales consultant. Customers love the funny, idiosyncratic stories. James says, “My blog has been a business generator for the company and earned me four speaking engagements on behalf of the company and four speaking engagements locally that were sponsored by local sales networking organizations. I can’t believe it. It’s made me kind of recession-proof in my career!” His first book is being self-published and his company uses him to teach and train all new sales personnel.
3. Get a raise and a promotion. Defend the faith. Blogging helps you document and publish your ideas while associating with great people. Again, Alice P. published her blog under a pseudonym two years ago. Today she has kept the quirky observations about life, travel, art and kids quite eclectic. Her blogging has incorporated funny observations about office life without offending anyone at work. It’s been serialized by the company and referred to. The CEO thought her site should be commented on, featured and linked to by the company to help with esprit de corps. Alice states, “Now I have an in-house company editor who helps me promote and publish my blog. We’ve added videos and more fun stuff. The company pays me monthly.” She keeps her comments happy, funny and still personal.
How blogs can hurt:
1. One small step. Negative posts can be fatal. Blogging can open you up for many legal, liability and employment questions, problems or crises. Last year, Jim C. came to me after he had posted a rather nasty post on his Top Ten Worst Retailers in the World blog. His company did business with two of those retailers and as nosy or highly-sensitive corporate personnel found out about his lambaste it caused a rift at the company. According to Jim, “This year for other reasons I was let go. It was not the economy. I crossed the line.”
2. Pictures tell a thousand stories. Larry seemed to pipe up at work a lot about things that bothered him. So he decided to publish a seemingly anonymous blog. As a techy he posted hundreds of comments on political ideas, people he thought should be impeached and railed against what he considered bad taste and fashion. He did this anonymously under a lot of different names. But when he decided to take pictures at the year end Christmas party and publish captions that offended nearly everyone, he was, well, suspended without pay forever (fired).
3. Beautiful art can be destroyed. Craig became disillusioned after an 18-year career. Nearing retirement, his company had promoted three people younger than him to the technology director level. Years ago he had engineered their web presence. Knowing that having no blog presence left his company vulnerable, he found it increasingly interesting and titillating when he created a blog presence, added negative comments to company products and dumped a list of customer complaints onto the proverbial, anonymous IHATEXCOMPANY.com, the site a former employee developed to stick it to the man. Under pressure, the IHATEXCOMPANY.com author faced legal entanglements and gave up Craig’s name as a blogger. Now Craig is in litigation. It’s not looking good.
Imagine you’re an artist like Michelangelo dipping brush to paint; a seemingly limitless creative well. You’re halfway done with your masterpiece, the signature of your worklife and rather spiritual mission. As you take your impossible position on the scaffold to paint more of the Sistine Chapel you have a thought. Imagine you could destroy your Sistine Chapel with one strike of the match. Like the great artist, blogging can help you take ownership of your career and worklife vision. Of course, it can also be just for fun too. But let’s also realize you, like the great artist, have the power to create or destroy your career future with just a few strokes or decisions.
Make sure you know your audience and you understand the potential impact of your newly -minted blog posts. It could make a lasting impression and a permanently positive or negative impact on your career picture.
Paint yours. Paint it well.
John M. O’Connor, MFA, is the President of Career Pro of NC, Inc., a comprehensive career services organization specializing in Executive Outplacement, Corporate Outplacement, Federal/Military Career Transition and Consulting. He was appointed to the Board of Directors (2006) for Raleigh-Wake Human Resources Management Association (RWHRMA.org). He is also a Certified Career Coach, Certified Resume Writer, and Credentialed Career Master.
If you haven’t figured out that you are being Googled in your job search just as frequently as you are Googling your business contacts, then it is time to enter the world of modern career management. Whether you want to or not, you must develop and maintain some kind of professional online profile and recognize that people are forming opinions about you based on what they find after typing your name into a search engine.
Your own approach to online reputation management will be dependent on your career goals and personal comfort level with becoming visible online. Ideally, everyone would invest in a customized online portal for his or her personal brand (see examples). When you have your own blog or website designed, you have total control over how you present yourself. However, if you have limited time or funds, you may be wondering what you can do to establish or extend your online brand quickly and economically. Here are five free resources (some also have paid services):
1. www.Naymz.com. Think of Naymz as the 411 to your online identity. Not only can you create a profile, but you can also point people to all the other online content that you want them to see. This includes your other social media profiles (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), websites, articles and relevant links. You can upgrade your account to have Naymz buy your name in the paid search results so that you get guaranteed first page placement on the leading search engines. A paid listing can be especially helpful if you have a common name, digital dirt or are impatient to show up in the natural listings.
2. www.BusinessCard2.com.BusinessCard2 is a virtual business card that is designed to show up in your search results. In addition to a downloadable vCard with contact information, you can include a bio, recommendations and attachments such as a resume, presentations, articles and photos.
3. www.LinkedIn.com. LinkedIn is a must for every business professional, and it’s not just a networking tool. Create your profile at LinkedIn, and make it public. Chances are that you already have a LinkedIn profile, but you haven’t gotten it ready for public consumption. LinkedIn has good “Google juice,” so your public profile will typically rank high in the results when someone searches for your name. (If you have a common name, be sure to include qualifiers as keywords in your profiles. When people type your name into the search box and they get millions of results, they will begin to narrow down their search by the name of your latest employer or MBA program, your specialty, job title or location.) You can control what elements appear on the public Internet versus the content that only gets displayed to your LinkedIn contacts. Write a keyword-rich, easy-to-digest profile that showcases your value to your target audience and request endorsements from contacts that support your claims. The best way to get endorsements from people is to go ahead and endorse them. LinkedIn will prompt them to return the favor so you don’t have to. Recruiters value LinkedIn endorsements because you cannot edit them (but you can decide not to use them). Also keep in mind that the size of your network will display as part of your public profile and judgments may be made about having too many or too few connections. The right quantity for you is purely subjective, but know that the intention of LinkedIn is to connect with only those you actually know and would recommend to others in your network.
4. www.VisualCV.com. VisualCV takes having your resume online to the next level by allowing you to back up your achievements with proof of your performance. Think of it as an online, multimedia executive portfolio that is template-like in design (your site looks like all the other VisualCVs). You can upload or link to relevant content that supports your claims and also control who sees what.
5. www.Alltop.com. I strongly advocate publishing articles or posting thoughtful blog comments related to your area of expertise. Searching Alltop will help you find the websites and blogs that would be effective in reaching your target audience.
To avoid possible confusion and more work later, don’t start using any of these online identity management resources before you take the important first steps of discovering and articulating your personal brand. Ask yourself, what is my unique promise of value or value proposition, and how can I differentiate myself from others who are vying for the same opportunities? Write one compelling social networking bio that you copy and paste consistently across all of your online profiles. To make a great first impression, you will also want to get a professional headshot since people are often meeting you online before they meet you in person.
Thanks to the extraordinary hospitality of the folks at Toyota Motorsports, I had a dream day for a business writer on July 12th. My next book, which will be coming out in a year, is about management lessons gleaned from the history of auto racing.
On July 12th I attended the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series LifeLock.com 400 at the Chicagoland Speedway. The race began at 7 PM, and I drove into the parking lot at 11 AM; it was eight hours before the action started. Or so I thought. It turns out that I was attending my first NASCAR race as a fan on the exact 50th Anniversary of Richard Petty’s first NASCAR race as a driver.
If I had had even a small clue about how many management insights I would gain from studying auto racing, I would have written this book five years ago. Here are just a few things I learned.
Add Value
A NASCAR race is so much more than just a car race. It’s a Super Bowl event. There were 75,000 people there, and I estimate there were at least 20,000 people tailgating at 11 AM. I repeat, this was eight hours before the race started. It’s a giant carnival, with actual old-fashioned barkers yelling out that they had free offers inside their tents. It’s a giant concert with singers and entertainers on stage all day. It’s a massive outdoor mall with over 100 booths selling caps, shirts, buttons, miniature cars, giant corn dogs, and even lemonade.
A NASCAR event attracts every conceivable brand name product. I walked through the largest Abraham Lincoln museum I’d ever been in, and it was on wheels. I even saw a display set up with dozens of the largest and most magnificent televisions I had ever seen.
The race – and the organization – provided value beyond its product.
What is the overall concept of the value your company offers and how can you deliver that value in synergistic ways that can support each other?
Personalize Your Brand
The strongest brands there were the racecar drivers themselves. People of all ages wore shirts with the faces and numbers of their favorite drivers. There was booth after booth of shirts, cups, cars, and other take home goodies with pictures of an individual driver and the number of their car on them. I bought two small replicas for both of my children of the M&M’s car that Kyle Busch drives and a Toyota Racing t-shirt for myself.
On top of all that, the drivers themselves appeared all over the place to meet with fans. These drivers are highly paid and are doing extremely intense and dangerous work for nearly three hours during the race. However, for several hours leading up to the race they are going around and saying hello to fans.
Can you imagine a CEO who makes millions and millions of dollars a year going around to customers for several hours to talk with them right before an important board meeting? That’s essentially what these racecar drivers do before every race.
How can you make your organization’s brand more personal for customers?
Create an Experience
There are 43 drivers who compete at each NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race and there are 36 such races each year all over the U.S. This is a traveling circus that is bigger than any circus I had ever witnessed. And then there’s the race itself. You haven’t heard loud until you’ve heard a NASCAR race. If you haven’t been to a race, then watching it on television doesn’t demonstrate the speed well either. These cars were within a few inches of each other going at least 160 MPH and jumping from high to low on the turns in the track.
The whole day pulsated with lessons both on and off the track including: branding, innovation, teamwork, strategy, execution, planning, problem solving, winning, dealing with change, and preparation. It wasn’t just a race; it was a 360 degree experience. I encourage you to read “One Helluva Ride” by Liz Clarke, which is about the history of NASCAR and also provides powerful thoughts on business momentum.
How can your organization take your product and create a compelling experience around it?
Make Your Own Pit Row
One of the highlights of the day was being allowed to spend 45 minutes walking up and down pit row a few hours before the race started. Pit row houses 43 pit stalls used to replace tires, refuel cars, and fix any car problems. The actual racecars were sitting about 25 feet away from pit row itself while I walked up and down.
This was branding heaven. A place where customers, corporations, and racing teams all met in one spot. It created an extraordinary win-win-win situation. The racing teams provided additional value to the customers by letting them see up close where the cars went during the race. I saw hundreds of photos being taken where fans would sit with the crew members and get their pictures taken in the pit stalls. Every one of those pictures the fans took had corporate logos in them. That meant the sponsors would be seen thousands of times when those pictures were developed and shown with pride to family members and friends. These corporate sponsors weren’t just hidden on the last page of a brochure. They were part of the fan interaction with the racing teams at the pit stalls.
As I watched all of this several questions popped into my mind. Can you imagine professional baseball or football players letting fans look in their lockers a few hours before the game and have their pictures taken standing in front of those lockers? Can you imagine corporate logos all over the lockers and the field itself? You might think that would ruin those games, and you might be right. However, think of the total cost of going to a Major League Baseball game or an NFL Game. I can’t afford to take my wife, Barb, and our children, Ben and Sarah, to very many Major League Baseball games. We have this thing called college tuition to pay for someday. The last time I went to a Major League Baseball game it cost me something like $225 for one night.
Yikes.
At the NASCAR event, the parking was free, the food was reasonable, and the ticket prices were not exorbitant.
How can you create a pit row in your business? Make a list of all of the types of customers you have. Now make a list of all of the companies that would like to sell to those customers. Could you create a unique event for your customers featuring your products and services? Could you then include other companies at that event as sponsors who would underwrite the cost of the event and benefit from being in front of your customers?
Mind the Caution Flags
During the race there is one turn in the track that has nothing to do with what’s right in front of the racecar driver. It’s called the caution flag. When debris lands on the track or a car gets damaged while racing, the caution flag is waved and all the drivers have to slow down and get behind the pace car. That doesn’t seem too bad, except for the lead driver, who has to slow down and let all the other cars line up right behind them. The cushion suddenly evaporates.
This same thing happens in business. You’re doing a good job and staying focused. You’ve built tremendous momentum and you are well beyond the projected pace. Your organization is by far the best in the industry, and you continually generate significant, sustainable, and profitable growth.
Then suddenly the market place changes. Instantly all of the businesses in your industry slow way down. A series of national stories about your industry immediately sends even your most loyal customers searching for alternatives.
Think of the housing downturn that occurred in 2007 and 2008. Suddenly the most successful and the least successful real estate agents were compressed into an incredibly tight market. The leader’s lead was no longer what it had been. When there is even an isolated incident of Mad Cow disease, it sends restaurants and grocery stores into a temporary spiral, whether they were way ahead of their plan or way behind.
This is why it is so important to focus on improving performance and not solely on your relative position compared to others at any given moment. Just because you had a great or terrible quarter doesn’t mean you’re stuck in that position forever. Perhaps your competitor made a big sale right before the quarter ended, and you made one right after the next quarter started. It looks like you’re way behind when in reality you’re not.
When your market gets compressed how will you be prepared to win the race in front of you?
I encourage you to go to a NASCAR race, but get there way, way before it starts and let the lessons on management soak in.
Dan Coughlin is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, and author of “Accelerate: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum.” He speaks on entrepreneurial habits, quality, leadership, branding, sales, and innovatio
What does it take to achieve sales success? A near-infinite number of experts have pondered, theorized, and philosophized about the answer to this basic question. But when you break down that mountain of opinions (at least the credible ones) it becomes clear that they all have some elements in common.
1. No dead-end leads
In a successful sales strategy, salespeople are not asked to pursue, or even to initially contact, an unqualified lead. Ensure the prospect is shopping for what you’re selling before the lead ever reaches your sales department. Otherwise, you’re wasting salespeople’s time, a valuable commodity. The best way to do this is to place advertising where buyers in your market are already searching for your product or service. Send only qualified leads their way, and salespeople will spend their time wisely and profitably.
2. A tried and true process
You have your sales team screened, hired and trained on the features and benefits of your product. Now it’s time for them to step up to the plate. But what’s their sales approach? Did you think through the possible sales techniques and make an informed choice about what would work most effectively for your product and market? If not, your team may not hit the home run you’re hoping for. Take the time to think about what approach would work best for the sales environment your reps will be facing. Once the process is in place, keep an eye on its progress. Determine what the salespeople do with those leads and (if possible) how many resulted in a sale.
3. Armed with the right tools
A sales team must have the tools necessary to complete the job successfully. If a rep has no leave-behinds or follow-up materials, they are losing the race before they ever leave the gate. Arm your sales team with the knowledge and materials (online and in print) they need to do their job effectively. And make sure your brand is represented…and easily reachable…online. Your brand should be visible on reputable websites where industry buyers go to do research before purchasing.
4. Data intelligence
To succeed, you must have a good handle on what’s working, and what’s not. Spend your budget on the right advertising – that which produces qualified leads. To make sure you’re doing that, track the performance of your marketing programs. No longer is marketing an ambiguous function that’s nearly impossible to track and measure. One of the draws of online marketing is that it has taken the guesswork and mystery out of measuring an ad’s performance. Pick your key metrics – focus on 1 or 2 metrics which show clear progress toward the goal.
5. Secure the future
Once the sale is made, the job shouldn’t be done. At least it’s not for successful sales organizations. Follow-up and relationship building should be a part of the sales process, not a “nice-to-have” extra. Strive to make every company you do business with a long-term customer. When new products and services come out, make sure your best customers from the past know about the new options available to them. To ensure this long-term relationship building happens, it is marketing’s job to provide salespeople reasons to keep in touch with customers. Newsletters, white papers and press releases keep your name at the front of the customer’s mind long after the initial sale is completed.
Make sure your sales strategy incorporates these tools and your salespeople will be on the road to success.
-Source: MediaBrains September 15, 2008 newsletter.
Remember all the talk in the late 90s of the “brand called you?” Well, much has changed in the past 10 years – including the way we conduct a job search and the way we network with each other. But the original concept of branding yourself, especially in today’s competitive marketplace for plum roles and positions, is more relevant than ever.
Sure, you have a LinkedIn page. Perhaps you’ve signed up for Naymz and one of your colleagues invited you to join NotchUp or even one of the newer business social networks like Ryze. More and more online business networking opportunities are sprouting up every day. You may have even designed a personal web page with your professional credentials.
That’s a good start, but is that enough to build your own personal brand? No.
Focus on Number One
As executives in marketing, advertising and sales can certainly attest, marketing a company’s product or service, generating sales leads and enhancing the brand is paramount to company success. So why wouldn’t you use that same approach for yourself? Sound too self-serving? Think again.
Really successful executives, the ones that are consistently written about, quoted as experts, and asked to partner with top executives and companies, do one thing and do it well. They promote themselves and their expert opinions.
Creating an online profile in a number of places and monitoring your online presence is definitely important, but if you ignore your real world presence, you’re cutting your own legs. Busy executives pour through hundreds of emails and view scores of web pages each day. Will your digital communication or web presence stand out among the deluge of daily digital information? Well, it’s a big challenge.
What will be remembered is poignant, real world interaction.
Make it Real
You can generate this sort of interaction and attention for the “brand called you” in a dozen different ways. However, the three ways that have had the biggest impact and are often a catalyst for more opportunities are:
Participating in industry trade groups and associations
Speaking at prominent industry events
Writing well-crafted, by-lined articles in trade publications
In a sense, think back to basics. Some may scoff at the notion of participation at the trade level. Whether it’s engineering, finance or technology, the trades are not nearly as glamorous as being featured in Forbes or Fortune or speaking at Davos. But let’s be realistic, only a very small handful of people are invited to participate at those high levels.
So don’t scoff at them – embrace your trades! It will be your entrance to bigger and better things. Everything is cyclical – a trade article could lead to being selected for a speaking engagement, which leads to being quoted in a news article, which leads to a panel opportunity, which leads to being interviewed on television as an industry expert. You never know. Your participation with Beer Advocate magazine six months ago could have led to being asked to comment on the mammoth Anheuser-Busch/InBev merger.
Be Memorable
The same holds true for conferences, conventions and industry association events. You certainly don’t need to attend every single one in your industry, but select a few key events and really focus on your personal interactions. You may be a sales person for your organization, so of course one of your goals might be generating sales leads, but don’t make the mistake of ignoring your other goal – selling YOU.
Focus on real world interaction with people. Have the kind of conversations that will make people remember you, not run the other direction because you are hounding them. Be genuine. Be thoughtful. Find ways you can help people as much as they can help you. These tenets may seem natural to some, foreign to others, but in any case, they will go a long way in building your brand.
In Short
Create this simple litmus test: Is what I am doing improving my brand, both online and off-line?
Remember: Networking is not about collecting as many business cards as you can. It’s about quality over quantity.
I recently attended a conference and during the networking portion I was approached by a gentleman who quite frankly told me that his boss told him to attend the conference and hand out his business cards. He then offered me his business card and walked away.
Obviously, his business card was immediately circular filed the same way I file random online invites when I receive them. Do yourself a favor – don’t be that person.
Scott Lahde is a 15-year veteran of the communications industry and is Vice President, Associate Director of Corporate Communications at Deutsch Inc., a $2.5 billion top-ten, bi-coastal communications agency.
As I coach candidates on job search and interview tactics globally, I admit that there is a bit of a science to nailing the second round interview. If you have the proper formula, you may be the only candidate to make a lasting impression that the company will not soon forget!
Chances are good that if you’re being invited back for a second round of interviews, then you’ve made a good initial impression and have something that they want. That said, besides charisma and all of the right answers to their questions, what will you bring to the interview that will impress them enough to use your interview as the standard against which to grade all other candidates?
Answer: Your 60/90-Day Strategic Plan.
During your first interview, you probably heard all about the pain-points that are driving the hiring manager crazy. This includes project deadlines, technology initiatives, budgets, client visits (if you’re in Sales), revenue goals and so on. Additionally, you may have noticed that they never seem to have enough people on staff!
If you’ve asked the right questions in your first round of interviews, and you are truly excited about this potential opportunity, then you should have a pretty good idea as to what you will do to be successful in this role. You should be able to identify at least a 60/90-day strategic plan, based upon your knowledge of the role as it is today.
If used carefully and properly, your strategic plan can be “The Difference Maker” for you in your second round of the interview process.
Three of the primary factors that demonstrate your value proposition, and will drive your success in this new potential role are as follows: having a vision / overview for the job, establishing trust with clients and colleagues, and being able to identify and set goals and objectives. Let’s go into each of these in depth.
Vision / Overview
Based upon what you have heard in the interview, you should know the vision / overview of the department or company. What impact will you make within your first 60/90 days that can be tied back to the company reaching its goals?
Consider the following when drafting your plan:
Know the Product
Establish a working knowledge of products or services to create long-term value in your employment.
Be Credible
Become a leader among your peers by spearheading initiatives, collaborating with the leadership team, or presenting to your department.
Establishing Trust with Clients and Colleagues
Establishing trust is essential for success in any role. What will you do to establish a high degree of trust within your piece of the company or amongst your peers
Make Introductions
Meet with key stakeholders in the company or department. This is beneficial on all fronts. It offers an opportunity for you to demonstrate your skills, but also allows you to get their perspectives on the company and projects.
Share Expectations
Understand the leadership team’s expectations. This is paramount to your success. Investigate revenue objectives, if possible, to set your personal goals. Think about setting “best practices” that may be beneficial to the company and your role. This will include understanding client needs and identifying what may have been learned from any mistakes along the way.
Create Buy-In and Set Priorities
Identify how you will partner with the leadership team to create attainable goals for success. Fully understand the company mission statement and be able to share it with others. This represents a degree of commitment and clarity on the corporate goals.
Goals and Objectives
Setting goals and objectives is simply good business practice. You need to fully understand your new role in order to be successful, and you must approach it as a business. In doing so, it’s critical that you identify your personal goals and objectives for success in this new capacity
Determine the Objectives
Educate yourself daily on a new aspect of the company, the expectations or the job. Establish product expertise within the first 30 days of employment. Build cross-departmental relationships with departments that are responsible for supporting your success.
Shape a Methodology
Identify the steps that you will take to accomplish your objectives. For every objective that is listed, you should have a supporting methodology for the accomplishment.
Reflect on Success
Identify how you will evaluate or measure the success of your contributions.
Setting yourself apart from the rest of the candidates is mission critical to having a lasting impact on the person or team that is interviewing you. No doubt, you’ve heard the phrase “raise the bar.” My perspective is that the candidate before and after you can raise the bar all they want. By entering into the second round interview prepared with a 60/90-Day Strategic Plan, you are sure to launch yourself over any bar that is set before you!
Dean Tracy is a Professional Recruiter, Public Speaker and Career Coach based in Northern California. He also serves on the Leadership Team for Job Connections.
Kevin Kelly is one of those guys I could listen to for a time and then have to walk away and ponder on all the implications of the information I have just received. He is one of a handful of people I greatly admire. At the “5000 Day” mark, Kevin talks about the next 5000 days of the Worldwide Web and makes some interesting predictions. The clip is about 20 minutes long, but well worth the time. Sit back and listen to what Kevin has to say.
In today’s competitive job market, those who know what you know can help you generate a competitive advantage. Over 70% of executive jobs are never advertised; most new opportunities are filled through recommendations and referrals. If you’re like most $100K+ executives, you are usually too busy getting things done to spend time cultivating new connections and maintaining your existing professional network.
So when the time comes to look for a new career challenge, chances are you understand the importance of contacts, but you don’t have a network of insider contacts to support your search. By strategically focusing on connections that help to access leads, you can network purposefully and make faster progress towards a great offer. Here’s how to jumpstart your campaign and build your network starting now.
Cold calling is a very effective method for initiating contact with hiring decision makers at target companies. Choose an individual who can appreciate your background and needs experienced help. Show them that you can deliver solutions and won’t be a drain on their resources. Commanding attention requires research into industry and company-specific challenges. Persevere until you finally get the chance to present your interest and demonstrate your strengths. If you don’t persist, another savvy prospective employee will get the job that you want. Communicating the right message to the right person at the right time is key to attracting attention and engaging the employer in a meaningful dialogue about hiring you for their team. Once you meet, keep in touch. It is a lot more difficult to connect the first time than to maintain a connection.
Increasing your visibility to hiring authorities will attract employers to you. You can orchestrate a place for yourself on decision makers’ radar screens by impressing them with your initiative, achievements, and extraordinary ability to deliver results. If you want employers to find you, first they need to know what you can do for their bottom line. One of the best ways to display your talents is to be involved in producing, not just attending, industry events. Volunteer to chair a section or organize a dinner. You can do this online by participating in forums and e-lists where your contributions are evidence of your expertise and knowledge. Get more mileage out of your publications and presentations by sharing citations and hand-outs with your connections. Don’t be afraid to give an interview (or seek one out).
Reaching out to industry leaders purposefully expands your network. By initiating contact and introducing yourself to authors, speakers, bloggers, academics and other key leaders in your field, your circle begins to grow. Then stay in touch via exchanges where you provide help as well as seek their assistance. Look for opportunities to meet others in your field, such as sending them a compliment, asking for their advice or sharing information and encouraging a conversation on a topic of mutual interest. Networking is not a transaction-oriented process but a series of mutually gratifying relationships that grow over time through shared experiences and common interests. Continually nourish, update and maintain your connections whether you are looking for a new job or happy where you are. Introduce your contacts that don’t already know each other – be the network’s spark.
Much of the hiring process is governed by referral relationships. Your network can plug you into unadvertised positions and deliver a competitive advantage in today’s job market. By keeping your contacts fresh and maintaining good relationships, it is more likely that new opportunities will find you even when you are not actively seeking a new challenge.
If you decide to launch a new job search, your network can produce the advice and leads you need to access a new challenge. Similarly, you can return the favor by providing assistance and offering recommendations to those you know. When everyone is contributing, everyone benefits. Be a pro-active connector who networks, keeps contacts and is sought out by others for inside information about new job leads.
Debra Feldman, an executive talent agent. Executives Network Purposefully™ establishing inside leads to unadvertised opportunities. Forbes praised her matchmaking talents as part sleuth, part networker.
As a reader of WeirdGuy blog I’d like to humbly ask you to help me. I have a short 10 question survey running from August 28 – September 7, 2008 on Zoomerang. The survey should take 2-3 minutes to run through. Your thoughtful responses will aid me in future developments for this blog.
I realize I am asking you to volunteer your time, but I value your opinion. Please follow the link provided today — the survey is only available for 10 days.
And, if the survey takes longer than 2-3 minutes then you can feel free to spam me with your hate mail.
Thank you for your patronage…can I say “patronage”?…whatever, you know what I mean.
By the way, I’ll reveal the findings here on WeirdGuy when the survey is up, so if you want your response to count, now is the time to act…now! If you do not care, then what are you doing here at WeirdGuy blog to begin with?
#1 Be able to describe what you do/what you are in one clear sentence.
Donald Trump is correct, that elevator speech is really important. Ask a friend or colleague to give you an honest evaluation of your description. Does it give the listener a basic understanding of what you do? If not, make it a priority to work on it. Before someone can decide if they may need your product or service they must first understand what you’re saying.
#2 Be UNIQUE in ALL that you do.
Don’t just give it lip service. If you’ve decided to adopt a unique approach to make your business memorable (tagline, business signature, giveaway, mascot, illustration, photo, color scheme, etc) be sure to use it consistently in your marketing efforts. It should become part of your brand.
#3 Use your mission statement as a filter for all that you do.
Once you’ve clearly decided what your marketing goals, strategies, targets and tactics ARE, it should be easy to identify those things that DON’T fit. For example, if you have identified the best marketing vehicles to reach your customer then it’s very easy to say “no” to those salespeople offering you marketing opportunities that don’t fit your plan.
#4 Don’t jump-process….Discover your target market and your points of difference before you start marketing.
Your printed collateral materials, Web site, and advertising will be much more effective and less expensive to produce if you have your marketing strategy established first. Then you’re simply following your plan in all that you do. Avoid the “shotgun” approach or “reactive” marketing.
#5 Give back to the community…strategically.
There are so many great causes and organizations out there and you can’t do everything. So, pick the ones that will best position you with your target market.
#6 Network efficiently and effectively.
If you don’t feel that you are a competent networker, now is the time to learn how to be or hire someone that is. Enough said.
#7 Remember that inconsistent advertising is wasted money.
A prospective customer must be exposed to the same message in the same way numerous times before they are ready to entertain a buying decision. Pick an advertising vehicle where you can afford to have an ongoing and consistent presence.
#8 If you do trade shows, have a plan and work the plan.
Companies participate in trade shows for a variety of reasons. Unless you have a success plan, you won’t know if it worked.
#9 Look for ways to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Speaking engagements, publication articles and volunteer leadership roles can all help label you as an expert in your field.
#10 Keep all marketing communications clear, brief and focused…
Did I mention brief? Enough said.
Source: Renea Myers is the owner of Renea Myers Marketing, a Greensboro firm offering businesses a complete outsourced marketing department or special project management. For more information, visit www.rmyersmarketing.com or email Renea at renea@rmyersmarketing.com.
Smart companies of all sizes are generating quality content equal to or better than what many media companies are producing. In so doing, they deliver tangible benefits to prospects and customers by providing relevant content that help provide solutions to some of the toughest problems their prospective buyers are facing.
Here are the seven most important lessons you can learn from smart marketers today:
1. Only content that is intrinsically valuable to your customers will work as a core component of your content marketing strategy.
2. You must have a thorough understanding of your customers and what is most important to them. If you do not understand the problems and challenges they face, you cannot hope to create content that is truly relevant to them. Without understanding their problems, you cannot provide solutions.
3. A comprehensive content marketing strategy may provide a complete or partial replacement of traditional advertising and marketing. Such a strategy can be both more effective and less expensive than doing things the old-fashioned way.
4. Print magazines can be a powerful weapon within your content marketing arsenal. They enable you to reach out with precision to your customers with carefully targeted messaging that is totally under your control.
5. Your best content marketing investment may be in the creation of a dedicated internal or external team who understand how to produce great content and who live and die by the success of your content marketing program.
6. Relevant and valuable content is just the first step in turning a prospect or visitor into a customer. You must then make it easy for them to buy.
7. Most of the best practices from larger companies can be emulated in whole or in part, even by very small organizations. It’s not the money. It’s the content marketing mindset that counts. Big ideas can trump big bucks.
Phil Cooke, Producer/Director, recently posted this on his blog. This applies to many areas of life and work. I thought it was interesting…very interesting. Where do you see application in your life?
When people ask me why I use a Mac, my usual response is that it’s more “intuitive.” A PC is logical, but a Mac’s interface and software is more like the way I think. I’ve also noticed it in how quickly young kids adapt to a Mac in contrast to a PC. They just seem to “get it.” It’s similar to the GPS systems on my car. A few years ago I had a Lexus and I loved the GPS. It just made sense. It thought the way I did. But now I have a Land Rover and I hate it. The Land Rover GPS is good, and it’s very logical – but I find it’s very difficult to use.
This article was put together by my friends over at 5Q Communications. This is a must read if you’re advertising on the Web.
By 5Q Staff
If you’ve ever set up an advertising agreement with some website, you’ve likely seen or heard the term “CPM”. This common term essentially stands for “Cost Per Thousand” impressions and is still widely used as a model of advertising on many web sites.
Unfortunately, many organizations don’t understand the pitfalls with the CPM model and end up wasting thousands of precious ad dollars. The CPM model typically affords you very little control, little forecasting ability and is more of a gamble than a solid method of building a list, developing site traffic or increasing revenue.
I am still not sold on the value of Twitter (See Twitter for the ADD Generation). Yet, Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, sees great worth in using the socila medium for spreading the word and getting feedback about his company.
Here is a brief piece from an interview with Inc. Magazine:
You have 5,681 “followers” signed up to read your Twitter updates — that’s not just employees. Who are they?
We have eight million customers. It’s been great for getting feedback. For example, we have a new website that’s still in beta. As we make improvements, I’ll send out a Twitter message asking people what they think.
And you additionally can track anyone who mentions Zappos on Twitter. Here’s an actual example: “Just bought boots on Zappos. Grt cust svc–sent an email last night asking about hiking boots for flat wide feet and had links this AM.” Are Twits a good focus group?
It’s been really useful, finding out what actual word-of-mouth conversations are out there.
Of course, all the Twitter updates from Zappos employees are public, too. Anyone can read about your employees finding good bars to meet at and drink at. You posted a message about your nipples being chafed from surfboard wax. Couldn’t that kind of candor scare customers or business partners or investors?
There may be some times when an individual Twitter message out of context can give a bad impression. But generally people on Twitter aren’t just looking at one single Tweet. They see what we do over time. For customers, I think it’s a way to get an inside glimpse of what our people are like and what our culture is like. Our belief is that your culture and your brand are, ultimately, the same thing. Your brand might lag your culture, but eventually it’s going to catch up. I think where companies are finding challenges now is they want to project this great brand, but if inside the company it’s not a great culture, then they’re going to be in trouble in the long term. For us, I just think it’s important to be real and authentic.
When designing and writing courses, descriptive and sensory language can often be lacking. Informational and factual verbiage is more the norm. Karon’s article relates to copywriting and should be heeded by marketing writers as well as instructional designers to create a truly immersive learning experience.
In its most basic form, copywriting is, among other things, the art of conveying a message in writing for the purpose of persuading someone to do something. This is especially true when writing descriptive copy.
Why? Because your customer’s five senses don’t work on paper, they only work in person. That’s why we, as copywriters, have to create a sensory experience for our customers through our words.
Have you ever stopped to consider copywriting as a sensory activity? You should. In order to see, hear, smell, taste, or feel a product, we have to be in the presence of that product. All too often, when copywriters create descriptions, they leave a lot to be desired. There is no excitement, no interaction, no experience.
Descriptions should be, well, descriptive.
Effective descriptions should fill the gap of what customers would see, hear, smell, taste, or feel if they were standing in the presence of the product. Effective descriptions should draw customers in and create an actual event… as if they were able to be right there with you.
Do you make cinnamon rolls? You wouldn’t want to describe them simply as “delicious” or say they “smell great.” Instead, you’d want to bring your customers into the experience of enjoying your cinnamon rolls. Think of which of their five senses would be most in tune with your product and write to those.
Try this…
Definitely NOT grandma’s cinnamon rolls! Bake them fresh right in your own oven. As the aroma of these gourmet rolls begins to waft through the air, your nose will start to tingle and you’ll immediately know they are worth the wait.
The scents of freshly ground cinnamon and yeast begin to merge as the dough rises and the cinnamon, sugar and butter begin to bubble. Open your oven door to reveal one of the largest sweets you’ve ever seen.
Drizzle the homemade frosting over the top to complete your warm, gooey treasure. Your taste buds will praise you with every bite!
Can you smell the cinnamon? Can you visualize the dough rising in the oven with the cinnamon and sugar bubbling on the top of each roll?
Are you remembering the times you’ve glazed cinnamon rolls in the past and, with sticky fingers, taken that first bite out of a freshly baked, warm, gooey pastry? This copy brings it all back, doesn’t it?
Do you rent private, Jamaican beachfront condos? Taking a basic route and falling back on the phrases “ocean view” and “sunsets are included” will leave your reader lacking a truly intriguing experience.
Something like this will work better…
As your day begins, enjoy a gourmet breakfast prepared by your own private staff who is at your disposal 24 hours a day. A gorgeous view overlooking your own crystal blue freshwater pool welcomes you to another exciting adventure in Jamaica.
A morning stroll along your private, white sand beach is the perfect way to welcome the day. A fun-filled outing can consist of splashing in the surf, sunning on the beach or napping in an authentic hand-woven hammock that cuddles every curve of your body. At the end of the day, you’ll have sun-kissed shoulders, a glowing bronze tan, and a phenomenal appetite.
Unwind at the poolside gazebo as you prepare for a world-class dinner that rivals any five-star restaurant. Refreshing after-dinner cocktails are especially enjoyable when sipped on the terrace as nature provides an amazing display of sunsets and a soft, caressing breeze you won’t soon forget.
Let’s go! “Splashing in the surf, sunning on the beach, or napping in an authentic hand-woven hammock that cuddles every curve of your body.” Can you just imagine? How about “sun-kissed shoulders, a glowing bronze tan”? That paints a picture, doesn’t it? Can you feel that warm tingling you always get after spending a day in the sun?
“Nature provides an amazing display of sunsets and a soft, caressing breeze.” I’m ready! Where do I sign up?
Are you beginning to see the importance of writing truly descriptive descriptions? Your customers aren’t there.
They can’t see, hear, feel, taste, or smell what you can. You have to do the next best thing and vividly depict what their sensory experiences will be like so they’ll want to buy what you have or do what you’ve done.
When you write descriptive copy, choose the senses that are most appropriate and focus on them. If you’re describing food, of course you’ll want to think about what you’re tasting but also what you smell and see. (Presentation is just as important as taste.) If you’re writing travel copy, you’ll want to focus on sights and sounds plus feelings (relaxation, enjoyment, excitement, etc.).
Your goal is to have your readers close their eyes and genuinely, vividly imagine they are in the midst of the same experience you are. When you accomplish that, you’ll find your sales increase as will your bank account balance!
Research the company and be prepared with a “good” level of knowledge. You don’t need to know gross margins in the South-western region for the past 8 years, but you should know enough to show the interviewer that you respect the opportunity and you respect her or his time.
Be on time, unflustered, with a clean, well-presented copy of your resume – I know this sounds simple (this is “101”, after all) but you would be surprised at how many people don’t leave 10 minutes early in order to get there 10 minutes early!
Dress the part – business-like and professional, no matter how groovy the company is.
Be kind to every employee you meet – the receptionist, yes, but also the parking lot attendant, the janitor, and the intern. You know, Southwest Airlines used to have the flight attendants on flights anonymously assess the candidates they were flying in for interviews – it just goes to show that you need to mind your manners all the time.
Think of JFK – ask not what the company can do for you, answer instead “what can I do for this company?”
This is not a filming of “Biography” on the A&E Channel, it is a sales presentation in which you are selling your capabilities to do a job for the company. Stick, mostly, to the business side and how you can solve problems. Don’t go into a half-hour long disquisition on the relative merits of Mozart and Beethoven, the reason you love/hate the Yankees, or the intricacies of your college rivalries. The interviewer does not want your life story, they want to know your business capabilities.
“Bad mouth thee, bad mouth me.” Whenever you trash-talk your former or current employer, guess what the interviewer thinks? “Oh boy, if we hire this guy, I’m next on his firing line!” Never, ever, say bad, mean, unkind, or even true things if it makes you look like a prospective ingrate, gossip, or ne’er-do’well.
Save the money talk for last. Focus on the job, your ability to contribute, and all the great things you can provide before reminding your future boss how much of the hiring budget you’re going to soak up.
Thank the interviewer for their time and ask questions – again, this shows good manners and good sense.
Send a follow-up e-mail – thank the interviewer again and reiterate (very briefly) what you discussed and how you can contribute. This serves as a good memory jog to the interviewer of your conversation and reminds them of the points you want them to make for you in the hiring meeting
I’ll be taking a week off to focus on closing out a project (July 28-August 1). More to come from the lessons learned during this engagement. It’s a really cool online course with custom hooks into a client app. The back-end was designed as “plug and play” so content can quickly and easily be swapped out while still being applicable to the course testing and grading scenarios.
I have questioned the value of Twitter in the past. Well, with a recent acquisition, there may be some value to using/adopting Twitter — especially if you’re in marketing, public relations, or customer service. See Mike Gunderloy’s post on Web Worker Daily:
If you’re a Twitter user you likely saw the news this morning: Twitter bought Summize. The deal, covered on the business level by our parent blog GigaOm, brings Twitter some more smart engineers and a potential route to monetization. But what does it mean to the average web worker?
There is a war going on within organizations: Marketing and Sales are at odds and fighting against one another. Marketing complains that Sales never follows up on all those leads they send. Sales grumbles that Marketing doesn’t bring them any qualified leads. It’s a battle that neither side can win. And the company as a whole loses unless the two sides wave the white flag and agree to work together as partners, rather than against each other as adversaries. The two sides should join together to fight the war against competitors who are conquering market share.
The truth is both functions are crucial for success. Marketing makes the phone ring and salespeople close deals. It’s a very close association between two functions, so why is there such a disconnect? Part of the problem is that Marketing suffers from a credibility crisis. Marketing is viewed as the people who throw parties and spend budgets, rather than as part of the machine that drives revenue and profits. There are companies where Sales holds weekly revenue calls, and nobody from Marketing is on the call. In order to work with Sales, Marketing must be viewed not as a cost center, but as a strategic asset that drives growth. How can marketers do their part to achieve success and end the war?
Prove Your Worth
CFOs make budgeting decisions and recommendations based on facts and figures. Marketing must present useful data that enables CFOs to understand the value of the Marketing department. Evidence of this issue is seen in a Marketing Sherpa study in which only 17% of B2B marketers queried were sure their CFOs understood the value of lead generation programs. To combat this, provide meaningful success metrics.
Collaborate
Traditionally, the Marketing and Sales departments operate in silos. Each department performs its function without interacting with the other. To end the war, the barriers must be broken down. Sales and Marketing should share common goals. Both should frequently meet to share information. Or, savvy organizations might take it a step further: Have Marketing go on a sales call along with salespeople, or invite salespeople to participate in Marketing meetings, so each side can see, first-person, the challenges the other department is up against.
Instill A Focus On The Customer
Instead of paying attention to divisive internal issues, devote your energy to focusing on the customer. Find reasons to work together to solve customer problems…and to focus on the “right” prospects.
Define Core Messaging
Along these same lines, make sure both departments have a clear understanding of the company’s competitive advantage and key sales differentiators. If Marketing is promoting a product based on price advantage, and Sales is touting customer service (but neither mentions the other) they present mixed messages to the marketplace. Agree on a value proposition, and stick to it. That means having coherent messaging coming from all parts of the organization. Make sure all ads, marketing materials and sales presentations communicate that value proposition to prospects.
Prove Them Wrong
When all else fails, prove them wrong. Make sure you’re generating not just large numbers of leads, but qualified prospects. Remember, in the BtoB world, quality is more important than quantity. You might have a big budget, but if you don’t use it effectively to generate quality leads, why bother?
Don’t Overlook The “No-brainers”
Too often, Marketing’s attempt to “prove them wrong” involves complex strategies and unconventional marketing tactics. But don’t overlook the obvious. One of the most effective forms of online advertising is an industry directory. It’s a small investment – often just a few hundred dollars for an entire year of advertising. And it produces quality prospects. Your ad is hitting prospects at the exact moment that they are actively searching for your company’s product or service. What better way to drive qualified leads than when you already know they’re looking for exactly what you provide?
Marketers who put these tips into action will be closer to ending the war: to being seen as an equal partner with Sales in the effort to deliver revenue for their organization. Marketing programs will be more successful, sales will increase, morale will improve, and customer satisfaction will go up. Peace, at last.
Do you talk to your reader in your sales letters? Are you using language that is too formal or stuffy? Worse yet, are you writing in a style that is too informal?
Formal Language
I talk to so many people that are confused about what is business appropriate in their written correspondence. Many are convinced that the company expects them to use the old formal language.
Let’s look at an example.
Pursuant to your inquiry of March 17, 2008, I am enclosing some literature regarding our XYZ products. Our organization is dedicated to providing the utmost quality and cost effectiveness. We are confident our products will meet and exceed your standards of excellence.
This is too formal and most likely will bore your reader. You should ask yourself if this is how you would speak to the customer in a face-to-face conversation.
Informal Language
Now let’s consider the opposite approach. We treat our customers as if they were one of our closest friends. We use slang, make up adjectives, and forget we have proper grammar and sentence structure to consider. We forget that email, when used for business correspondence must remain business appropriate.
Take another look at the above excerpt now written in a very informal style.
Hey, thanks for calling. I put some really cool stuff about our XYZ products in the package. Our company thinks quality is really important and our pricing is uber-low. You’ll be totally stoked by our super products.
This is too informal. It sounds like we are talking to a friend at a college party.
Business Appropriate
Let’s make our excerpt more conversational, while maintaining the appropriateness.
Thank you for your call. I have sent you some information about our XYZ products. You might have heard that our company values quality. We would like to show you how we can help you be most cost effective. Let’s talk some more about how we can help you and answer your questions. We want to be sure you feel good about your decision to buy our products.
Does the above example sound too stuffy? Is it too informal? Does it sound conversational and still maintain a business-like tone?
Try reading your sales and business letters out-loud before you send them. Make sure they are written in a conversational style that maintains a business tone. Give your customers the respect they deserve by communicating in a clear and concise manner. Choose strong, direct words to convey your message. Write in a style that encourages your reader to want to talk more with you.
Source: Valerie Kendrick is the President of Kendrick Resources LLC, specializing in communications skills training.
Posted by ebrown 
If you’ve ever set up an advertising agreement with some website, you’ve likely seen or heard the term “CPM”. This common term essentially stands for “Cost Per Thousand” impressions and is still widely used as a model of advertising on many web sites.
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