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A Simple 5-Step Program to Land Your Dream Job in 2010

0 comments // In Career

If you fall in the mud puddle, check your pockets for fish.  ~ Unknown

Here are four pieces of advice to those who are in transition in their jobs or careers. My wish is that 2010 is full of wonderful transitions – and that more of them are voluntary!

1.    You may have heard people say, “If you can think up the question, you can think up the answer.” Your mind and your character are up to any challenge. So focus on answering this question: “How do I make this change the best thing that has ever happened to me?”

2.    Reach out to the real relationships in your life. What better time to figure out who they truly are?  No one is better positioned to help you consider what’s next – and how to get it. Also have someone really close help you brainstorm around your greatest strengths and weaknesses; these can provide clues and spark ideas. Read more →

29 comments // In Career

Are you doing all you can to build relationships with the people who can help you execute on your dreams?

If not, join me for a special series on the blog this week! Each day, 6 weekdays running, I’ll give you an action challenge to move your most important relationships to the next level.

Why now? On March 4th of 2010, we’re launching the next Relationship Masters Academy class in New York. This is my way of introducing a very small part of the system I teach there to all of you – in hopes, of course, that you’ll join us in March!

Now, onto today's challenge: Create your Top 100 list, today!

Get out a sheet of paper and ask yourself:

Who are the 100 people who are most important to your success and joy? This is the barest essential of the Relationship Action Plan. The list - which may or may not be as many as a hundred, depending on your goals and field - should be some combination of people you already know, and those you need to get to know.

Start writing! If you run out of names, start thinking about the types of people you need to know – what I call “constituencies” – and then work backward from those constituencies to add names to your list, or knock ones off as your list grows and you need to prioritize. For example: If your goal is self-publish online, one constituency might be “Successful online self-publishers.” Then all you need is some internet research to help fill in the blanks.

Use this list to help ensure that your outreach is not just fun and rewarding in itself, but also purposeful. If you’ve done it before, it’s time to update it – an incredibly important habit as time passes and goals change.

14 comments // In Career

When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog that is news.  - Charles Anderson Dana

You must manage your own media. Yes, a PR firm can help you generate those contacts, but early in your career you won’t need them and you probably won’t be able to afford them.

Who better than you to tell your story with credibility and passion? Start making calls to the reporters who cover your industry. Have lunch with them. Create and send press releases. Remember, media folks need you as much as you need them. They may not need your exact story at the exact time you want, but with a little stick-to-itiveness, they’ll come around.

Here are 10 tips to help you break a big story – yours!

1. Know the Media Landscape
Nothing infuriates reporters and editors more, I’m told, than to get a pitch from someone who clearly has no idea what their publication is about or who their audience is.  So spend time reading their articles, figuring out what they cover, and what kinds of stories their publications like to run. Read more →

10 comments // In Career, Personal Branding

As a follow up to last week’s post on making yourself indispensible to employers, here are some great tips from Frances Cole Jones, whose book The Wow Factor is all about finding ways to surprise and delight clients, colleagues, and customers at every turn.

3 Ways to Create Career-Catapulting Competitive Edge
By Frances Cole Jones

If you’ve been laid off - or want to ensure you won’t be;
If you just graduated and can’t land your first job;
If you want to position yourself for promotion;
You need The Wow Factor - that special something that sets you apart from the crowd.

To get you started, here's one new habit, one piece of vital information, and one thing you can do today to wow tomorrow.

One Habit to Practice: Actively Create Camaraderie
While it may seem a bit pedantic, it’s often helpful to think through three potential topics for small talk prior to your arrival at a meeting, a lunch, or a job interview. In my experience it’s best to choose from a fairly broad range of possibilities: say, local sports, current movies, and—depending on the crowd—nearby restaurants or attractions that you have researched. What this does is smooth over transitional moments such as waiting for the last meeting participant to arrive, for the waiter to bring your menus, or for the elevator when you’re ready to leave—all of which can be awkward if silent, or potentially deal-breaking if the topic you choose at random lands badly with your listeners.

One Piece of Information to Know: The Art of Interrupting
Most of us have a few tactics for what to do when we’re interrupted. We’re less confident, however, when it comes to interrupting others—though this can be necessary if you’re running a meeting that’s gone off track, or are overseeing a team that’s gotten into a wrangle. Given this, here are a few pointers:

The difficulty begins when many of us interject, “May I interrupt you?”  The trouble with this particular choice is that it doesn’t carry the necessary heft to stop the person in their tracks. Consequently, I’d ask you to begin by saying, “I’m going to interrupt you.” – a choice which ensures your control of the remainder of the conversation.

After that, you might go on to say, “This sounds like an important idea, but I don’t know that everyone here needs to be in on the discussion—can you and I set another time to discuss it?” Or, “I don’t know that that level of detail is quite required here, but maybe you can follow up with Jane tomorrow?” (Throughout, your physicality and tone are going to matter a lot: my request is that you sound both firm and encouraging.)

One Action Step to Take: Bypass Bureaucracy
We all know the frustration of listening to a pre-recorded voice telling us to “Press or say one for sales; press or say two for technical support…” Similarly, we’ve all had the experience of being told, “No, I’m afraid he’s not available this week. May I take another message?”

Here how to bypass this bureaucracy: If you are dealing with an automated system, regardless of the situation, the best choice to make if you want to speak to a human being is to press the button that mentions sales as I guarantee they will have staffed the section that’s in charge of taking your money. Once you have a person on the phone, introduce yourself and ask him or her their name. Then explain the situation you’re trying to resolve and ask how they would suggest you move forward. When they say you need to call another number, request both that they perform the transfer and that they stay on the line until there is an actual third person on the phone.

If you are trying to resolve a situation via the web, and have sent emails to their suggested customer service mailbox to no avail, check around on the site for the contact information for their public relations or press office.  At this point, I don’t recommend sending them an email, as that’s too easy to ignore, but giving them a call. Again, I guarantee this is one area of the company that will be staffed with living, breathing people, as maintaining their public image is likely a priority. Once you have someone on the phone, the same procedures apply: introduce yourself, get his or her name, explain your situation and ask how best to proceed.

So whether you’re starting out, starting over – or starting to think you’re ready for a bigger piece of the pie-- I guarantee implementing these three tools will help ensure your wow factor.

Media manager and trainer Frances Cole Jones is the author of The Wow Factor - check her out!

3 comments // In Career, Personal Branding

Forget your job title (for the moment, at least). The way to become indispensable at work is to add value beyond your job description. Starting today, you’ve got to figure out what exceptional expertise you’re going to master that will provide real value to your network and your company.

Here are ten tips to help you on your way toward becoming an expert:

1.Get out in front and analyze cutting-edge trends and opportunities.
Identify the people in your industries who always seem to be out in front, and use all the relationship skills you’ve acquired to connect with them. Also, read, read, read. Eventually, you’ll start making connections others aren’t.

2.Ask seemingly stupid questions.
If you ask questions that are like no other, you get results that are unlike any that the world has seen. How many people have the courage to ask those questions? The answer: all the people responsible for the greatest innovations.

3.Know yourself and your talents.
Overcome weaknesses by developing an expertise that highlights your strengths. The trick is not to work obsessively on the skills and talents you lack, but to focus and cultivate your strengths so that your weaknesses matter less.

4.Always learn.
You have to learn more to earn more. Your program of self-development should include reading books and magazines, listening to educational tapes, attending three to five conferences a year, taking a course or two, and developing relationships with the leaders in your field.

5.Stay healthy.
Research has discovered that at midafternoon, due to sleep deprivation, the average corporate executive today has the alertness level of a seventy-year-old. You think that executive is being creative or connecting the dots? Not a chance. You have to take care of yourself—your body, mind, and spirit—to be at your best.

6.Expose yourself to unusual experiences.
Knowing one’s own industry and one’s native markets is not enough to compete in the future. Take a deep and boundless curiosity about things outside your own profession and comfort zone.

7.Don’t get discouraged.
Guess what—when you’re rockin’ the boat, there will always be people who will try and push you off. There will be continual changes and challenges requiring you to be persistent and committed. Focus on the results and keep your eyes open for what is happening on the edges of your industry.

8.Know the new technology.
You don’t need to be a “techno geek,” but you do need to understand the impact of technology on your business and be able to leverage it to your benefit. Adopt a techno geek, or at least hire or sire one.

9.Develop a niche.
Successful small businesses that gain renown establish themselves within a carefully selected market niche that they can realistically hope to dominate. Individuals can do the same thing. Think of several areas where your company underperforms and choose to focus on the one area that is least attended to.

10.Follow the money.
Creativity is worthless if it can’t be applied. The bottom line for your content has to be: This will make us more money. Great ideas are meaningless in business until someone pays for it.

Question: What are you doing at work today to make yourself indispensable?

18 comments // In Career