Threshold Consulting: It's Your Life, Own It!

Engine for Job Growth: YOU!

You’re probably familiar with the idea that small business is the engine of job growth. While this may well be true generally, today’s economic reality makes it difficult to wait for those new jobs to materialize. Increasingly, it now looks like the engine of job growth needs to be the individual.

In fact, in the job search strategy sessions I lead, a regular theme is the need to develop an entrepreneurial mind set in managing one’s career. For many people, this mostly means starting one’s own business. Yet, being entrepreneurial can also mean managing a portfolio of work as a contractor or part-timer.

Lately, it seems the experiences people are having at the hands of large employers support “a radical rethink of the hiring game” – according to a recent BusinessWeek article, “Winning Back a Wary Workforce.” The article states that “Many people have come to the conclusion that they don't want to work for ‘the man’ anymore.” It goes on to say that to win workers back after the current recession, “Teams will need to be smaller, organizations flatter, and the values of candor, informality, and innovation must be baked into the culture. People will need to feel that what they say matters…”

Indeed, a work climate that is built on entrepreneurial values is what has long driven people to want to work for themselves. And according to Pam Slim, author of Escape From Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur, breaking out is easier than you might think – provided you’re able to identify and build on your passions, and to create value that people will actually pay for.

Easy? Maybe. Working in a “comfort zone” provided by an employer can be a big barrier to making the leap. Even if your company has given you a push with a forced separation, your instinct is probably to find another job as soon as possible – and you’ll probably rely on a standard approach to job search to do so. Yet, we’re seeing that traditional methods of finding a job are increasingly limited in the results they produce. Yes, it is time to rethink – and you would do well to start that process for yourself.

To start driving job creation for you, start managing Brand You. Make sure you offer unique value, determine the customers you serve, and identify what sets you apart in their minds. Then, rely less on your resume and more on implementing a media plan that helps you become visible, conveying your passion and the results you can drive for your customers in the future.

Cross-posted at The Personal Branding Blog

You: Rock Star!

Do you typically think of your self as a rock star? Neither do I. Sure, we all have those exhilarating moments; and some of us even play Guitar Hero. Yet, when things settle down, we return to our own status quo – whatever that may be.

Imagine though, that the very concept of rock star were to be reinvented, allowing us to be a rock star in whatever career we pursue. Well, this is precisely the premise behind a recent television ad for Intel. It features Intel Fellow Ajay V. Bhatt who is identified as co-inventor of Universal Serial Bus (USB), and “The Real USB Rock Star.” The commercial, which makes an event of Ajay grabbing a cup of coffee, ends with this point: “Our Rock Stars Aren’t Like Your Rock Stars.”

We know this intuitively.  We know and acknowledge accomplished people who “rock.” Still, in one deft and creative move, Intel has elevated this cultural association and clearly redefined rock stardom. And yet, there is also a critical distinction here. Ajay Bhatt has attained his celebrity through achievements that reflect a strong commitment to and passion for what he does. Read his bio and you realize his work is more than simply a job – it is the reflection of a strong personal brand.

So, what does this mean to you? Simply this: By taking the time to understand who you are, what you excel at doing, and how you engage the world, you can attain the kind of clarity that can make you a rock star – no matter what your field of endeavor.

Cross-posted at The Personal Branding Blog

If I Could Make the World a Better Place, I’d…

Ah, beauty pageants! From Miss America to Miss Universe, we’re all familiar with these annual contests aimed at capturing the ever-changing face of beauty and intelligence. Yes, intelligence. Least we forget, despite the heavy emphasis on physical beauty, there is the interview wherein finalists get to answer questions that show they’re more than just a pretty face.

While there are actually lots of questions with the actual ones varying from contestant to contestant and from year to year, most of us tend to think of the Miss America/Universe question as some version of: If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?

Fundamentally, this is not a frivolous question, and answering it for ourselves can be pivotal in giving direction to our careers and lives. Indeed, in my roles as a facilitator and coach of personal branding and of life planning, one of the central exercises I ask clients to do is to develop their vision for the world. The questions I use may vary slightly, but the aim is the same: articulate a meaningful change you would make to create a better world. 

For most people, as soon as they can articulate a genuine vision for the world, they’re able to develop greater clarity about their purpose and how their values and passions come together to give direction to their careers and lives.  Yes, working with a coach adds to this discovery process.

Still…

…don’t wait for coaching. You’d be surprised at the clarity you can develop by asking this seemingly simple question of yourself.

Cross-posted at The Personal Branding Blog

Maybe it's you – redux

In my last entry, I referenced Lisa Barone’s terrific post, It’s Not the Recession, You Just Suck. After admitting that I sometimes want to say to people “maybe it is you,” I provided my own career transition reality check with a list of five common short falls.

As promised, in this post, I give you five ideas, with links to resources which can help you exercise more personal responsibility for your career. Here they are:

Take an entrepreneurial mindset to managing your career.  It’s always been the case that successful people are proactive in managing their careers – and today that’s more important than ever. If you’re not sure about how to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, start with Lisa’s post. There is plenty of career management advice here; and of course, there are plenty of career management books.

Invest some time figuring out what differentiates you. You need to have a clear idea of your unique promise of value; that is, your personal brand. If you’re not sure how to discern your personal brand, a good place to start is with Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson. You can also find a wide array of personal branding information on the web here, here, and here. Or, just google it!

Figure out who needs to know about you and connect with them. From a personal branding perspective, you can’t stand out if you don’t know among whom you need to stand out. Your success is ultimately supported by the people you serve and their key influencers. To cultivate mutually beneficial relationships, get involved with a professional group, community of practice, or even a brand community. As a community member you can gain access to information, help others, become known, and earn the kind of trust that can lead to opportunities.

Develop your online presence. Start with a strong LinkedIn profile – and then build a profile at other sites such as ZoomInfo, Spoke, Ziggs, and others. You can also put up a dynamic resume at VisualCV. And with great clarity about your area of expertise, you may also consider blogging, commenting on blogs, or writing book reviews. You can find more than 50 tactics for branding yourself on line here.

Work on polishing your networking skills. There is no lack of great information on networking – and all you have to do is google it. Still, if you want to learn how to network in a way that is efficient and effective you would do well to buy and read Smart Networking: Attract a Following In Person and Online by my friend Liz Lynch; and visit her blog for a wealth of information. You can also learn a great deal about networking and building relationships and community from my friend Carol Ross at A Bigger Voice and at Ordinary Life, Extraordinary Living.

I’m hoping that you’re inspired to work on your skills in these areas – and that you have a sincere desire to get even better at taking the steps that will have a long-term impact on your career and your life.

Cross-posted at The Personal Branding Blog

Maybe it's you

Although I can be pretty direct, I enjoy a reputation for being a nice guy. Generally speaking, I’m pretty positive and optimistic in working with folks in career transition; and I’m especially sensitive and encouraging with people who were displaced from their companies. For most, being displaced is an outcome beyond their control and has nothing to do with performance. Sadly, there are occasionally individuals about whom I feel performance might have been an issue; nonetheless, I do all I can to set them off on a new path toward achievement.  

Still, there are times when I really want to say, “Maybe it’s you!”

Well, seems like I’m not the only one thinking that. I just read a post by Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media. Her post is clearly titled: It’s Not the Recession, You Just Suck. To provide just a small idea of the tone, Lisa says: “You couldn’t pay your mortgage and your house was foreclosed on? Don’t worry, it wasn’t you, it was the recession. You lost your job and now you’re stuck at home cruising Twitter ‘looking for a new one’ all day? Don’t fret. It wasn’t you, it’s the recession…. Actually, it’s probably not the recession. It’s probably you.”

She then goes on to point out “Entrepreneurs are ruling this recession,” and to give six things you can do to survive. Still, the tips she gives don’t provide quite the wake-up call that seeing where you’re falling short does. So, here’s a reality check. Maybe it’s you, if:

You believe there really isn’t much you can do until the economy improves. Still, just in case, you keep cranking out resumes and attend the occasional networking event, but you aren’t getting invited to interviews. 

You lack clarity about what sets you apart professionally. You keep believing that you have the skills to be effective in a new position, and you even know others have those skills too. What you don’t know is what makes you stand out from all those others.

You haven’t clearly defined a target audience. Like lots of other people you believe the right thing to do in this economy is to be open to any opportunity. As a consequence, you lack a clear idea of who you should be talking with, and you're networking randomly.

You have no clear plan for gaining visibility online. You scurry from meeting to meeting handing out business cards or resumes, but when people google you, they find little or nothing about you – and in today’s online–oriented world that means you lack  credibility.

You’re reluctant to truly polish your networking skills. Whether you’re an extrovert who believes you’re a natural at connecting, or you’re an introvert who believes it’s hard to be outgoing, you simply don’t work to polish your relationship building skills. You may even believe that networking is simply about getting a new job and approach it on transactional basis.

Yes, it’s tough out there. In fact, I know people who face real barriers that are industry and specialty specific – yet, they’re still taking proactive steps in each of these areas. And while they still may face a longer than expected job search, they’re building a solid basis for long-term career success.

So, what are some positive steps you can take? In the second part of "Maybe it’s you," I’ll give you five ideas, with links to resources, which can help you exercise more personal responsibility for your career.

Cross-posted at The Personal Branding Blog

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

In my last post, I discussed the importance of building community for career success. I’ve continued to think about this and to discuss it in my seminars on self-marketing and networking. So, I believe it’s worth spending just a bit more time on the immense value in building community.

Just about anyone working to improve their career or business success, knows networking is important. At its most pragmatic level, we know that growing a network creates access to information and to the connections of members of our network. And while we give a passing acknowledgement that “relationships matter,” many of us focus almost exclusively on making ever more connections to increase the span of our networks. 

Yet, too often, it’s the pursuit of opportunities that drives connection in the first place – e.g., sales people want qualified prospects and job seekers want job leads. In short, networking becomes transactional, leading to shallow connections lacking in heart. In reality, though, linking with people with whom you have only passing acquaintance, doesn’t often generate the kind of knowing, liking, and trusting that can lead to quality information and referrals. In fact, it often leads to frustration and circumvents the benefits that can come from deepening relationships.

So, what’s the remedy?

Well, if you get the idea that love has something to do with it, you’re right. But what is love in this context? Simply this: that you take the time to develop deeper and more caring relationships with the people in your network.

Traditionally, people have developed bonds via coffee, meals, and other shared activities. These are still important. Yet, we now have technology tools that enable us to add depth to our relationships by increasing our ambient awareness and supporting brief interactions over time – provided we follow basic off-line social niceties. You know, paying attention to the little things in folk's lives, like acknowledging their successes, sharing links to articles and photos, learning more about them both professionally and personally. And of course, communicating authentically about your own passions, interests and activities.

Over time, genuine sharing leads to genuine caring.

As you build more caring with more people, you develop a shared sense of community. Done well, you can build community with a diverse array of people. As well, and more pertinent to career and business success, you can create stronger bonds with people who are, or become, part of your professional or brand community.

Sure it takes effort, but there are clearly benefits. Not only do people in a community more freely share information and opportunities, but they also tend to thrive based on the very nature of the friendships they form. In short, love has every thing to do with it. In The End, it seems to me, The Beatles make the best argument for adding heart to your relationships: "And, in the end, the love you take/ Is equal to the love you make."

Cross-posted at The Personal Branding Blog

Building Community for Career Success

Recently, I met with a guy who has never looked for a job; and although displaced for barely a month, he already has three offers. Of course, I also met with people who say they’re frustrated that their job seeking efforts aren’t paying off after “weeks!”

So, what’s the difference?

Generally, people who seem to expend minimal effort in landing a new position are people who have established a great professional reputation, and have nurtured their networks. Said another way, they have clear and powerful personal brands and strong brand communities. People who have the toughest time in career transition, generally do not.

Let’s face it, getting displaced prompts a pretty immediate sense of panic and drives most folks to find a new position as quickly as possible. So, the focus becomes the job. Indeed, a common view was pointedly stated by a job seeker in one of my recent self-marketing and networking seminars; she said: “Why do we need to beat around the bush with all this relationship building, when what we really need is job leads?”

My answer is that opportunities come through people; and when people know, like, and trust you, they’ll be more willing to help. Indeed, not only do relationships add richness to all parts of your life but they’re essential to career success. Nearly all accomplishments are driven by communities of people working together to achieve common objectives.

So, whether you are currently in a paid position or not, it’s critical for you to build community by identifying and engaging others with shared interests, expertise, mutual concerns, and a common desire for specific outcomes. How to do that? Certainly, networking will help you make connections – but it’s the subsequent conversations that sow the seeds of community.

In an interview with Dan Schawbel, Seth Kahan makes the point that communities are “beehives” and that in meeting organizational needs, “managers need to cultivate relationships built on trust and healthy growth.” The same applies to you as manager of your own career. Done well, you can benefit others while gaining increased visiblity for the value you bring – visibiliy which can stimulate new opportunities.

Cross-posted at The Personal Branding Blog.

Escape the Tyranny of Dead Ideas

As a nation, we’ve long been fascinated and driven by change; from its certainty to its acceleration, we see it as the tide that sweeps in promise as well as challenge. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the mantra of change that captured the hearts and minds of enough Americans to catapult Barack Obama to the White House. And with his victory come high expectations for the realization of new possibilities.

Still, it’s said that the more things change, the more they remain the same. This is also part of our cultural experience and as familiar as the lyrics to a classic song by The Who, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”  So, even as there is change in leadership, we don’t always have the satisfaction of seeing the dramatic solutions we may crave. Yet, at this point in history, we can ill afford solutions that don’t work. According to Matt Miller, author of The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity,  dubious ideas about how a modern economy should work make our leaders ill prepared to craft workable solutions to our problems.

So, what about you? Are you caught in the grip of dead ideas that leave you ill prepared to effectively manage your life and your career in the challenging times ahead? And how do you know if you are?

From my perspective, any idea that is self-limiting or self-defeating is a dead idea. When it comes to career and life choices, there are many. For example, you have a dead idea, if you believe:

• it will be impossible to find a new position because we are in the midst of record job loss;

• by simply handing out resumes people will come up with a job for you;
• there is such a thing as an “American” job and you’re entitled to one;
• personal branding is all about creating an image and relentlessly promoting it at every opportunity.

You get the idea.

Fortunately, you can escape the grip of dead ideas by seeking out and applying the many vibrant ideas that can spark success, satisfaction, and prosperity in your career and life. For example if you believe your own happiness is tied to the happiness you bring to others, you sow the seeds of wonderful new possibilities.

So, as you start this New Year, find and apply vibrant ideas that work for you. Real change can only happen when you do.  

Cross-posted at The Personal Branding Blog.

Making Networking Work: More Great Ideas from Liz Lynch

Wouldn’t it be great if you knew the secret of networking and could use it to get the help you need when you need it? And wouldn’t it be great if the whole process didn’t feel so … well, awkward?

For many people, though, it seems like networking is just that. Awkward. Especially when they need to ramp up their efforts due to a job search or to meet some other business need. Frequently, people already know folks who could help them, but have lost touch over the years. In other cases, people don’t know how to get the help they need, or how to make networking mutually beneficial; so, they may feel frustrated. Others, determined to make networking work, may find it challenging to deal with issues like quantity versus quality of relationships – especially online. Finally, there are those professionals who see networking as an opportunity to build their reputation, or personal brand, but want to approach it correctly.

Fortunately, there are ways to make networking work.

So, in the last part of my virtual interview with Liz Lynch, author of the newly released Smart Networking: Attract a Following In Person and Online, I asked for her perspectives on these concerns. Here’s the interview:

It seems that a lot of people let relationships slide and then want to reconnect with people when there is a need, such as job search. What are your recommendations for reconnecting with people from the past?

It's best to start with the people with whom you had the closest relationships since those are typically the easiest to rekindle without a lot of fanfare. For example, I may not be in touch with my best friend from junior high school on a regular basis, but because we were close enough at one point in our lives, if she were to call me up for career advice, I wouldn't hesitate to put in the time to help her.

It seems like some people are naturals at quickly connecting with others and getting the help they need. Yet for a lot of people, it seems like they can never get anyone to help them. What do you think makes the difference?

There is definitely an art to the "ask" and smart networkers have to master it because what's the point of putting in the time to build your network if you can't get the help you need when you need it? There's a whole strategy for figuring out who to ask, what to ask for and how to ask. For example, one of the most important things to consider is to make the level of your request appropriate to the level of your relationship. Something your best friend might go out of their way to do for you, a distant connection or a new contact may not be so willing. Your request also has to be something that is specific and reasonable. Asking for a job is specific, but since few people have a job in their back pocket to give you, it's unreasonable to ask for one. Instead, asking for advice on positioning yourself or help in reviewing your resume or marketing materials are both reasonable and specific.

Smart Networking: More of My Virtual Interview with Liz Lynch

Just this week, I facilitated a seminar on self marketing and networking for folks in career transition. As usual, people’s eyes started to glaze over and their questions focused on the short-term need to network for job leads. Nonetheless, I moved the conversation in direction of networking as central to long-term career management and business strategy.

Happily, people many people are beginning to get that networking needs to be an ongoing activity. I suspect you do too. 

Still, you'll want to figure out networking strategies that work best for you. This week, as I continued my virtual interview with Liz Lynch, author of the newly released Smart Networking: Attract a Following In Person and Online, one of the first questions I asked was about her own efforts to make networking work for her. From there I went on to ask about relationship building, dealing with pushy people, building rich relationships on line, and strategies for making networking easier by attracting a following. Here’s the interview:

Liz, you've described yourself as "not a born networker" and yet you've become a leading authority on networking. What motivated you to become such an avid networker, and what keeps you motivated?

I learned to network out of necessity when I left Corporate America in 2000 to start my own consulting business. With my business background in strategy and a natural tendency to want to streamline every process I work with, I developed the "Smart Networking" approach mainly for myself, the time-starved solopreneur who didn't want to be out there all the time and, therefore, had to be highly effective when she was. Shortly after, people started asking me about my strategies, and soon I was writing articles, speaking and blogging about networking in a way that seemed to connect with people all over the world. I love thinking up different ways to explain concepts and seeing each person reach an "aha" moment where he/she gets inspired to take action.

Many people get caught up in the mechanics of how to begin and end interactions with new people, and also aren't sure how to set up the next conversation to move the relationship forward. What are some ideas for managing relationship building?

It's not necessary to have every step in the relationship planned out in advance. You can lose some of the spontaneity and the organic quality of relationship building. Plus since we're talking about individuals, everyone will have different reactions and different needs. The general principle for smart networking is to make sure that every interaction you have with someone is a positive one. Be likeable, be interested in them, and make them feel at ease so that whatever happens next, they're willing to go along for the ride, or at least, willing to hear you out.