Archive for the ‘General’ Category
According to Marshall– May 2012 Edition
May 8th, 2012 | 
Author: 
Welcome to the May issue of According to Marshall…
This months issue is in tribute to my dad, who passed away last week at the age of 97. He was a simple man who was blessed with 3 loving kids–my 2 sisters and me, 6 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren.
At his celebration of life, we talked about his love for family and friends, his appreciation for every new day and his great sense of humor. So in memory and honor of my dad, we’ve injected a bit of humor! With love to you, dad, from Marshall.
In this edition you’re getting a funny video that contains a bit of humor (in honor of my dad) tossed in with some job hunting tips, strategies for nurturing relationships at work, and networking tips.
If you’re a new subscriber I’d like to welcome you to my monthly email update. The purpose of this message is to share just a quick summary of some of the topics that I think are relevant to your personal and professional success.
If there are particular subjects that you would like to receive more information on from me, reach out and let me know. I also welcome any relevant information that you have produced or found that I can share with my readers.
Funny Job Hunting Tips
This amusing video has some real career search ideas with a few laughs along the way.
Want a promotion? Make friends at work.
“If you’re not reaching out to make and nurture friendships at work, you’re probably hurting your career.
By Katherine Reynolds Lewis
FORTUNE – Are you too busy to stop by your colleague’s office to chat or go to lunch? Or are you someone who keeps work relationships strictly business? Be warned: If you’re not reaching out to make and nurture friendships at work, you’re probably hurting your career.
Recent research finds that people who initiate office friendships, pick up slack for their co-workers, and organize workplace social activities are 40% more likely to get a promotion in the subsequent two years. “How much you give at work directly affects how much you get at work,” says Shawn Achor, author of, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.”
Click here to read the full story. . .
Why You Don’t Need Charisma to Have Presence
By Kristi Hedges
“Whether you call it leadership presence or executive presence, it’s a term that’s being discussed widely at companies. One recruiting professional I know said presence is the second-most-sought-after characteristic on his evaluation scorecard for candidates. It’s a business “it” factor, equally powerful whether you’re a CEO, a company employee or a small-business owner. In fact, companies are routinely hiring experts to cultivate presence in their executives, wrote Joann Lublin of The Wall Street Journal.
But what exactly is it? And how on earth does one get it?”
Click here to read the full story. . .
8 Handy Sites for Finding Networking Events
By Ritika Trikha
“When career experts talk about job searching, the term “networking” is guaranteed to make an appearance in the conversation. Experts love to drill this into your head: The more you put yourself out there, the better chance you’ll have of connecting with the right person who can help advance your career.
Meeting new professionals gives you the chance to talk about where you’ve been and where you want to go in your career, plus it affords you the chance to learn about. . .”
Click here to read the full story. . .
Tips from Guy Kawasaki for using Google+ to share your passions
By Jesse Stanchak
“Google+ is often misunderstood, Guy Kawasaki said during a recent webinar with SmartBrief. People sign up for it and expect it to be like Facebook, full of friends and family. And when it turns out that Google+ isn’t full of people they already know, they get discouraged and wander off. But the very thing that turns some people off of Google+ is what makes it so worthwhile for people who know how to use it correctly.
Facebook is like a very big party, where you know everyone already. But Google+ is a smaller, more intimate party filled with people you don’t know yet — but who have interesting things to say on a variety of topics. If Facebook is for friends and family, Twitter is for sharing thoughts and opinions and LinkedIn is for self-promotion — then Google+ is for. . .”
Click here to read the full story. . .
Clear Expectations
By Marshall Brown
Ask the Coach
“Q: I have recently been promoted and will be managing a staff. I would like to develop some clear expectations for them. Any tips would be appreciated.”
A: Too often, managers seem to lead through mental telepathy. Rather than set and communicate clear expectations—the milestones against which we test our progress—they assume their employees know what to do and how to do it. What results is hesitation, indecision and uncertainty. Healthy teamwork, initiative and productivity go out the window.
Properly setting expectations for employees or team members is a critical dimension in quality workplaces, according to a study of managers undertaken in the 1990s by The Gallup Organization. Below are some tips on setting clear expectations that will set standards for excellence and results.
1. Start with a vision of what you want the end result to look like. Not just what you want done, but the results you want to achieve when the project is completed.
Click to hear the full story. . .
Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter. See you in June.
I also invite you to forward this to a friend.
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© Copyright – Marshall Brown & Associates 2012 – all rights reserved
Guest Post: How to Curate Your Own Personal Job Feed
By Lindsey Pollak
Remember the days when looking for a new job involved the Sunday newspaper classified section and a black magic marker? Thanks to technology, looking for a job today seems to require an advanced degree in data analysis. There are millions of positions posted online across an ever-changing landscape of job boards, company websites, social networks, apps, and more.
What’s a job seeker to do? You have to become a curator of your own personal job feed, narrowing down all of the various websites and listings to a truly personalized stream of opportunities. The best way to do this is to set up a select group of bookmarked websites and email alerts that you view every day. Here’s how:
1. Get specific. If you were searching for a pair of shoes online, it wouldn’t be a very good strategy to go to Google or another search engine and type in “shoes.” You’d more likely visit the website of a retailer that caters to your specific style and budget, then search for the type of shoes you want — the style, the price range and perhaps the color or heel height. The same goes for job hunting. A common mistake among job seekers using the biggest job boards — such as CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, Indeed.com, and SimplyHired.com — is to search too broadly.
Your first step in cultivating a personal job feed is to get clear on the exact terms that best match the jobs you want. If you cast too wide a net, such as searching on “marketing” or “Atlanta” or “writing skills,” you’ll receive too many results that waste your time and energy.
Always use the Advanced Search page for any job board you visit, which allows you to enter multiple search criteria (such as marketing jobs in Atlanta that require excellent writing skills), and be as specific as possible in terms of industry, location, experience level and other factors (such as specifying “online marketing” or “copywriting skills.” Yes, you may occasionally miss out on a listing here or there, but you’ll make up for it in the time saved culling through hundreds of postings that don’t fit your needs.
2. Increase your niche know-how. The term “hyper-local” doesn’t just apply to news; it also applies to jobs. Many employers want to weed out unqualified candidates, so they only post jobs on dedicated job boards for their industries. One of your tasks as a job seeker is to find the niche job boards for your field.
The easiest way to do this is to perform a Google search on the name of your industry and the word “jobs.” Examples of niche industry job boards include Mediabistro.com, Insurancejobs.com, HRJobs.com, and Idealist.org (for nonprofit positions).
Industry jobs can also be found on the websites of the professional or trade associations that serve that field. For instance, the Society for Human Resource Management has a job board, as does the American Marketing Association. If you’re not sure of the association(s) that serve your industry, check out the American Society of Association Executives’ Gateway to Associations Directory, then visit the websites of the associations to see if they offer job postings.
Industry is not the only niche, of course. If you want to work at a company specifically seeking diverse job candidates, a Google search on “diversity jobs” yields sites such as DiversityJobs.com. If telecommuting or having a flexible schedule is of utmost importance, a Google search on the term “flexibility jobs” delivers FlexJobs.com. Typing in the phrase “executive jobs” results in sites such as 6figurejobs.com and TheLadders.com.
Once you find the job boards in your desired niches, bookmark those sites for easy daily reference and, when available, also sign up for daily email alerts that you will receive when new jobs are posted that fit your search criteria.
3. Take social media seriously. Contrary to popular opinion, social media is not all about viral videos, Lady Gaga, and cats. Many top companies take social media very seriously as a recruiting tool. You have to do the same, specifically when it comes to Twitter and LinkedIn.
The most effective way to use Twitter for your job search is to keep your job search-related activity separate from your other Twitter activity, such as following the tweets of your friends or breaking news tweets.
First, create a list called “Jobs” on your Twitter.com profile page (you can opt for your list to be private so only you can access it) or by using a third party application such as Tweetdeck.com or Hootsuite.com. Once you’ve set this up, go to Twitter’s Advanced Search to find the kinds of job postings you’re looking for based on keywords, location, and other factors. Doing a sample search on “online marketing jobs Atlanta,” for instance, I came across over twenty positions tweeted out in the past week. Each tweet includes a link to find the full job listing on a website, which is another good way to discover niche sites in your industry.
Next, scan down the list of tweets that show up in your results and “follow” the Twitter feeds that provide the best job postings. In the above example, I found LinkedIn Jobs, Atlanta Jobs, and MBA Highway, among others, so if I were looking for an online marketing job in Atlanta I would start following those Twitter feeds.
Bookmark your “Jobs” list on Twitter and the page of your Advanced Twitter Search. Visit both of these bookmarks every day and continue to click “follow” on the Twitter feeds that post the best jobs for you.
LinkedIn, unlike Twitter, is entirely focused on professional networking so there is no need to separate your job hunting activity. Your starting point for finding listings on LinkedIn is under the “Jobs” tab in the top navigation. At first glance, LinkedIn’s Jobs feature appears similar to other job boards in your ability to search by various criteria, but it offers another important element: the ability to search jobs based on how connected you are to the employer. After filling out your criteria on LinkedIn’s Advanced Search page, you’ll receive a list of results along with, on the left side of your screen, a list of ways to refine your search. When you refine by “relationship,” you can see job postings based on whether you have first, second, or third degree LinkedIn connections into that organization. This is crucial information for determining whether you might be able to ask someone in your network to personally introduce you to the hiring manager or recruiter at that organization.
In addition to searching LinkedIn’s job listings, check out LinkedIn Groups, which also feature job posting areas. Go to LinkedIn’s Group Directory and seek out groups for your industry or other niches. Then, for each group you join, click on the “Jobs” tab within that group. If the group is private, these postings won’t appear in a general Google search, so you may find opportunities that aren’t posted elsewhere.
To add these LinkedIn opportunities to your daily “rounds,” opt in to receive daily job alerts (available from LinkedIn’s main Jobs page) and to receive daily group digest emails from each group to which you belong.
Once you have all of the above alerts and bookmarks set up (a process that could take an hour or two), I recommend scheduling a specific time in your calendar every day to check your websites and email alerts all at once. If you’re not finding the opportunities you want, go back and tweak your keywords or search criteria until you feel you are receiving a truly personalized feed of opportunities.
Good luck!
Lindsey Pollak is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and internationally recognized expert on next generation career trends. She is a global spokesperson for LinkedIn and the author of Getting from College to Career: Your Essential Guide to Succeeding in the Real World (HarperBusiness, 2012) Source: http://bit.ly/GGGXUT
Posted in Career Coaching, General, Internet Tips, Job Search, Job Search Strategies, Networking | 
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5 Tips for Effective Team Building
Teams are an integral part of many companies today. The Businessdirectory.com website defines a team in this way:
“A group of people with a full set of complementary skills required to complete a task, job, or project.”
Team building and team leadership are vital skills in the workplace. Since it’s highly likely most people who are working in a corporate environment will find themselves working on a team, developing effective team building skills is a valuable asset.
Let’s take a look at five tips that can help teams work more effectively together:
1. Communicate goals clearly
Teams are generally formed to facilitate a group of individuals working together to achieve a common goal. However, if the goal is not clearly defined and communicated, you can end up with people working at cross purposes and not making progress.
The team leader must define the teams main goal and then define each team member’s role and responsibility for doing the work to meet the team’s objectives.
2. Commitment to the team’s mission
In order to get any number of individuals working together on one accord with one another, each individual must be committed at some level to the team’s mission and goals. Each member must have the desire to be a part of the team’s success because everyone knows that a team is only as strong as it’s weakest member.
The team leader should encourage relationships among team members and lead exercises or games that will encourage people to open up and communicate with one another.
3. Empower team members
Responsibility without authority is meaningless. It can be pretty challenging to be placed on a team, given the responsibility to accomplish a specific objective, but then you are not given the requisite authority to carry out those orders? The team will accomplish nothing. When you empower team members with the authority they need to complete the task at hand, they can become far more motivated and optimistic about the prospect of achieving success.
4. Create an action plan
When the team members all contribute to the creation of the action plan, it helps achieve a higher level of commitment from each member. A solid action plan with assigned tasks for each team member can inspire the team’s progress.
5. Offer Feedback
Did you ever get a gold star for doing good work when you were in grade school? Any kind of reward for a job well done makes you feel good and motivates you to want to keep doing good work. Positive feedback is more valuable in some cases than money.
Constructive criticism is also necessary to help team members course correct when they are headed in the wrong direction.
If you are part of a team, or a team leader, try putting these tips into practice and see if they help your team work in a more effective way. If you’ve got a team building tip please feel free to share it in the comments.
The Voice of the Inner Critic
Photo: Getty Images
By Marshall Brown
Chattering away inside the heads of most human beings is an internal monologue that goes on and on at about 45,000 words per day. It consists of a variety of voices—the cheerleader, the worrier, the taskmaster and a whole gallery of others, some uplifting and cheery, others nagging and mean. Sadly, for many people, chief among this cast of characters is the Inner Critic.
The Inner Critic’s voice may be loud or hushed, shrill or whiney. Its primary characteristic, however, is the negative quality of its messages. You’re not good enough. Who do you think you are? You can’t do that. And, oh, the name calling: You’re stupid, you’re lazy, you’re dumb. On and on, in a litany of criticism and judgments that can cause shame, anxiety, depression and sheer exhaustion. If we heard someone talking to another person the way our Inner Critic talks to us, we might be tempted to intervene.
The Inner Critic never lets a mistake go by unnoticed and, like the celebrated elephant, it never forgets. With never-ending commentary, the Critic has an opinion about nearly everything we do, think, feel and say.
The Inner Critic is the chider that drives us to perfectionism. It is the compulsive comparer that constantly judges and measures us against images in magazines, on television and in movies, our friends and co-workers, even strangers on the street. It is also the collector of negative comments about us by others. The flawless editor, marking out any compliments, and holding onto only the criticisms which it reiterates in a “see, I told you so” voice.
Hal and Sidra Stone, co-authors of, Embracing Your Inner Critic, compare the noisome voice to a radio station playing inside your head that broadcasts a running monologue of self-critical statements.
The Voice of the Inner Critic didn’t spring up overnight. Like weeds in a garden, it’s been insinuating itself over a period of time. Its roots go deep. There is no quick fix or magical cure for silencing this voice or retraining its purposes to serve us in healthy ways. Like all good and solid change, it takes time, patience, persistence, and sometimes outside help.
We may never eliminate or please the Inner Critic, but we can learn how to avoid or minimize major critical attacks and make this voice our ally, even our protector. Here are some strategies for taming the Inner Critic:
• Become aware of the voice of the Inner Critic. Often negative self-talk has become so much a part of the ongoing chatter in our mind we don’t even hear it. Pay attention to the messages you give yourself.
• Identify the voice of the Inner Critic. Who does it sound most like? Parent, grandparent, teacher, husband, wife? A little bit of all of them? Tracing back some of the messages the Inner Critic grabbed onto and magnified will depersonalize the voice and help you understand that it is a voice in your head and not truly you.
• Notice when your Critic attacks come. Is the voice stronger at certain times of the day or night? When you perform a certain task or engage in a particular activity? Do you hear more criticisms and comparisons when you’re with certain people? When you identify these Critical times, you’ll be able to manage your Critic more effectively.
• Change negative messages to affirming messages. Write down the messages your Inner Critic gives you and turn them around. If your Critic says “You’re clumsy and awkward,” write “I’m graceful and balanced.” Make a list of these negative-to-positive messages in your journal. Tape the positive ones you like most to your bathroom mirror. Affirmations work!
• Examine the evidence. When the Inner Critic says, “You never do anything right,” challenge it by making a list of things you do right. Be specific. Don’t be modest. Let your list be as long as you want.
• List your assets. Make a list of your good traits. Put down everything you like about yourself that is good. The entries don’t have to be grand; list simple things: “I care for my family; I’m loving and giving.” Can’t think of any assets? Ask people who know and love you—they’ll have suggestions.
• Don’t let the Critic have the last word. Be still and let something more authentic come through. When we listen beyond the first, loud critical words, we may hear the calm and quiet voice of our inner wisdom.
Originally published on Self Growth.com: http://bit.ly/wKv7fI
Marshall Brown: Career Coaching & Leadership Development Video
I have created a new video that speaks to my passion for what I do and how I work with people. Please take a look and leave a comment:
Posted in Branding, Career, Career Coaching, Coaching, Executive Coaching, General, Passion, business, vision |
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Do You Know Your Leadership Style?
Every manager has a leadership style. Just ask the staff. Great bosses understand they need to adapt their style to fit the situation.
This video lesson will help you understand the variety of leadership styles a manager can use and how they can adapt those styles in response to specific situations.
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According to Marshall–December 2011 Edition
Welcome to the December issue of According to Marshall…
The purpose of this message is to share just a quick summary of some of the topics that I think are relevant to your personal and professional success.
I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for your readership and your feedback over the course of this year. I wish you good health, happiness and success in 2012. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can support your success in any way in the New Year.
If you have trouble reading this or seeing graphics click here for the online version.
Lessons in Leadership from Andy Bernard of ‘The Office’
By Julie Rains
“Underdogs inspire us. That’s the lesson Robert California, the fictional owner of the fictional paper vendor Dunder Mifflin, teaches us when he promotes Andy Bernard to branch manager of the Scranton sales office (aka The Office). Despite his Ivy League credentials, Andy is an unlikely choice to replace the departing Michael Scott. Watching Andy navigate his new accountabilities in the episode entitled “The Incentive” prompted me to consider how a less-than-perfect leader can inspire people.”
Click here to read the full story. . .
Best Gifts for Employees
By Helen Zhang
“During the holidays, giving the perfect gift is always a challenge. With tons of friends and family members on your shopping list, it’s easy for employees to get left behind. And let’s face it, it’s easy to dole out generic and thoughtless knick-knacks to your staff.
This year, take advantage of the holiday season to show genuine employee appreciation. We’ve talked about how important this is to your office morale, productivity and, ultimately, your bottom line. So why not use this time to show your employees how much you care? Here are 10 easy gifts, from affordable to high-end, for every type of employee.”
Click here to read the full story. . .
10 Innovative Ways to Reward Your Employees
By Kentin Waits
We often think that rewarding employees means big bonuses, which can affect the bottom line. But recognition for a job well-done can come in all shapes and sizes.
Small tokens of appreciation given at the right moment not only provide well-deserved acknowledgement—they can keep your employees motivated. Let’s explore the art of saying “thank you” in new and innovative ways.
Click here to read the full story. . .
Companies Hiring in Large Volume
By John Smith
“December often becomes a transition month for job seekers. As the busy holiday season approaches, calendars get filled with parties. Relatives come into town for a visit. Children have a few weeks off from school and need to be entertained. Plus, there’s probably shopping to be done.
In addition to this jam-packed schedule, many job seekers believe the myth that employers aren’t hiring new workers until next year. As a result, some job seekers decide to take a step back from sending out résumés and attending networking events and instead focus on how they will revise and improve their job search in 2012. You should always be thinking about how to tweak your job search, but don’t put everything on hold until next year. Employers aren’t.”
Click here to read the full story. . .
Focus on Others to Keep Social-Network Posts Professional
By Michael Crom
”Question: I work at a large financial company.
I have always maintained very professional behavior at work, and I believe this has led to respect from my co-workers. But like many of young professionals I enjoy social networking and I have built my profile on these sites. I recently started receiving requests from some of my younger co-workers, clients, and even higher-level professionals to add them as Facebook friends. Since I really want to maintain my professional image moving forward, I need some tips on how I can keep my profile on these sites as professional as possible.”
Click here to read the full story. . .
I also invite you to forward this to a friend.
Success Tip: The Importance of Follow-Through
Whether you’re learning to swing a golf club, baseball bat or tennis racquet, coaches always emphasize the importance of follow-through. It’s not just hitting the ball that matters, it’s how you continue your swing once contact is made.
The same thing applies in job interviews, networking, sales and almost any work situation: without purposeful follow-through on your actions and interactions with others, you won’t really be able to reach your professional potential.
“Failure to meet deadlines, honor commitments, monitor staff, return calls and keep track of long-term projects is the most underrated cause of chaos and failure in business life,” writes Stephanie Winston in Organized for Success.
So often we feel we’ve completed a task because the action of it is “done,” but we underemphasize how powerful it is to continue developing, tracking and monitoring operations and relationships even after they’ve been set in place. As Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan note in Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, “Follow-through is the cornerstone of execution, and every leader who’s good at executing follows through religiously. Following through ensures that people are doing the things they committed to do, according to the agreed timetable.”
It’s Not Just What, But How
When we think of follow-through, we tend to think of taking action. But a large part of follow-through is about first figuring out how things will be done. Once you define your goals, set aside some time to decide just how you will reach them. What steps will be needed to accomplish them? Who will do which steps and when? What is the desired timeline? If a strategy does not address the how, it is almost certainly doomed to failure.
Take meetings, for instance. A plan for follow-through should be detailed at the end of every meeting. “Never finish a meeting without clarifying what the follow through will be, who will do it, what resources they will use, and how and when the next review will take place and with whom,” Bossidy and Charan suggest.
Organizing and Delegating
A good organizational system will support follow-through more than almost anything. If you are among the organizationally challenged, do one of two things:
1. Make a vow, buy an organization book or two, reserve a weekend or a week, and just do it. Get organized once and for all. You’re not likely to follow through well, if at all, when the disorganization gremlin has hold of you. Getting organized is one of the biggest keys to success; not doing so is an extremely common and most unfortunate form of self-sabotage.
2. Hire someone to organize you and keep you that way. The investment will pay for itself when you begin following through more consistently.
Delegating should also be part of an organizational system. “Getting things done through others is a fundamental leadership skill,” according to Bossidy and Charan. “Indeed, if you can’t do it, you’re not leading.” Delegating is an efficient way to ensure that the greatest number of tasks, including follow-up tasks, get done in the shortest amount of time. In other words, if you want to be successful, don’t be afraid to dole out the workload to others. The key is to always think in terms of the big picture instead of focusing only on whatever task is in front of your face at the moment.
Pro-activity and Integrity
Following through means taking action and keeping your word. Below are some additional considerations regarding follow-through.
• When you say you’ll do something, be scrupulous in meeting your commitment, whether to a client, supervisor, customer or direct-report. If you can’t deliver it, don’t promise it.
• In job interviews and networking, rapid follow-up can mean the difference between landing the job and/or client. Hiring decisions are often made very quickly after interviews. And getting in contact with people soon after meeting them means they will remember you, increasing the likelihood they will eventually buy from you.
• Be sure to send a thank you note after you close a sale or receive any courtesy. This will make you stand out from the others, inviting an ongoing relationship to develop, or continue to develop. Also, a short thank-you note gives you a great excuse to add anything you forgot to say in a meeting or interview, or to highlight details you only glossed over.
• All top salespeople are masters at follow-through. Lack of follow-through is the primary element missing when sales are not keeping pace with leads generated. You may have hundreds of leads with a great deal of potential. But unless you follow through and actively market/sell to these leads, they will not turn into sales.
• Following through after sales have been made also makes good financial sense. Getting business from new customers costs significantly more than securing additional business from existing customers.
When it comes to follow-through, something is better than nothing. It doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing thing. The best is to follow-up as frequently and best as you can, a practice that can even affect productivity positively.
“On a day-to-day basis, consistent, automatic follow-through can deflect a lot of the firefighting that can push your day off course,” Winston writes.
If you’d like some support in honing your ‘follow-through’ skills, contact me today and let’s talk about how coaching can help you to achieve the life you desire.
5 Ways to Break the Ice at Networking Events
Guest Blog Post By, Don Goodman
Networking is not about how many resumes or business cards you hand out, but how you establish rapport and build a relationship that can lead to opportunities.
Attending a networking event is only the beginning of the networking process. Effective networking takes time and builds lasting relationships where both parties can help one another.
Many job seekers I often speak with are intimidated by networking events. It’s not that they do not want to network; it’s that they don’t know how to approach people they don’t know.
As much as we all want to know how others can help us, when networking, it’s not recommended for you to go straight into pitching. It’s a turnoff to many people, especially when you don’t know the person.
So, how does a job seeker tackle breaking the ice at networking events and approach people in a way that later affords relationships where they can help one another?
1. Change your mindset: Think of networking as a chance to get to know others and as a place where you can seek advice from someone who may come with a different point of view. As you show interest in others and ask for advice, the conversation will naturally redirect itself in a manner where others will be more willing to help you or connect you to people who can help.
2. Mind your appearance: Walk in to a networking event with the appropriate attitude. Appear approachable and be willing to approach others. The simplest things you can do is offer a smile to people you come in eye contact with and avoid poor body language such as crossing your arms or keeping your head down.
3. Ask a mutual acquaintance for help: Asking a mutual friend or acquaintance to help with an introduction is one of the easiest ways to help get a conversation started between two people who don’t know one another. After the introduction, it’s up to you to build rapport and find out possible commonalities that will help both of you establish a relationship.
4. Directly introduce yourself: If there is a contact you know something about, you may want to approach them directly with an introduction. Introduce yourself by full name and appropriately ask a question or make a comment. For example, the person may have just given a presentation, so you may ask a question or comment related to what was discussed. As the conversation between the two of you becomes more comfortable, steer the conversation toward a direction where you may ask for advice.
5. Ask a general question or provide comment: You are not the only one who may be feeling awkward at the networking event. If you see someone simply standing there or sitting at a table by themselves, be willing to approach them and simply ask a question or provide a comment they could relate to. It can be a simple statement such as, “Wow, this event has a big attendance turnout!” This opens the door for conversation. After two or three more questions or comments, you can go in and say, “By the way, my name is… what’s yours?” From there, your conversation can change focus where you learn more about the other individual and share information about yourself.
A key to breaking the ice during networking is to establish a relationship where the other individual grows to feel comfortable speaking with you. Keep all questions open-ended and leave comments that allow others to probe. A question or comment that leaves one to simply have room to say “yes” or “no” will not help build a conversation.
To succeed at networking events, leave people you meet with a good impression. You want people to feel your positive energy and to see you are willing to help others, as well as have a special area of expertise they will potentially want your advice and counsel on in the future. This will help ensure the relationship and conversation you have continues to grow after you leave the event.
Don Goodman, president of Resume Writing Service – About Jobs is a nationally recognized career expert.
Source: http://www.careerealism.com/tips-networking-events/
Posted in Career Coaching, General, Job Search, Job Search Strategies, Networking, Personal Branding, Skills |
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According to Marshall–November 2011 Special Steve Jobs Tribute
This is a special edition dedicated to honoring the memory of Steven P. Jobs, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO, Apple Inc. who passed away on October 5, 2011. Love him or hate him, Steve Jobs was a force of nature, and technology, our lives and our culture would not be the same without the ideas and influence of this legendary entrepreneur. In this special edition we will share articles that highlight the many contributions Jobs made in the area of entrepreneurship, technology and being a visionary leader.
If you have trouble reading this or seeing graphics click here for the online version.
Steve Jobs: An Extraordinary Career
By, Senior online editor Jason Fell, Entrepreneur Magazine
“Steve Jobs’ vision of a “computer for the rest of us” sparked the PC revolution and made Apple an icon of American business. But somewhere along the way, Jobs’ vision got clouded — some say by his ego — and he was ousted from the company he helped found. Few will disagree that Jobs did indeed impede Apple’s growth, yet without him, the company lost its sense of direction and pioneering spirit. After nearly 10 years of plummeting sales, Apple turned to its visionary founder for help, and a little older, little wiser Jobs engineered one of the most amazing turnarounds of the 20th century.”
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A Lesson From Steve Jobs: Branding Strategy Insider
By: Eric Tsytsylin
“Throughout his tenure as Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs would often send personal messages directly to his customers. Whether he was expressing admiration towards a nine-year-old girl who used her iPad to combat a vision disorder or defending himself against a harsh critic, the message was always honest, clear, and humorously succinct. To a 300-word diatribe on a new app that measures mobile radiation levels, he responds: ‘No interest.’”
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Notes on Leadership: Be Like Steve Jobs. . .
“The ability to articulate the vision—The Steve Jobs Attribute
Can the leader articulate a vision that’s interesting, dynamic, and compelling? More importantly, can the leader do this when things fall apart? More specifically, when the company gets to a point when it does not make objective financial sense for any employee to continue working there, will the leader be able to articulate a vision that’s compelling enough that the people stay out of curiosity?”
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Steve Jobs: How to live before you die
Video by: Stanford University
At his Stanford University commencement speech, Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple and Pixar, urges us to pursue our dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself.
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Apple’s Tribute to Steve Jobs
This is a website that captures the personal thoughts and tributes of a grateful public for Steve Job’s legacy.
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