Finding the Jobs

How can we speak up and impress our clients, our customers, our would-be clients and customers, or anyone else?

It starts with clarity and a little detective work.  When I first began working as a consultant, the idea of presenting myself to prospective clients was probably the most unnerving thing I’d ever been asked to do.   Like many new business owners, I didn’t have the right amount of confidence in my own abilities.  But more importantly, I didn’t know that my ability to present had everything to do with being able to ask these three important questions:

What is it that I want to let a prospective client know about my product or service?

Who exactly is my client?

What problem can I can solve for them, to make it worth their while?

One of the best ways to incorporate these questions (and answers) is by developing a brief, 30-60 second business pitch.

Need some help in crafting it?

Follow these suggestions from the folks at THECASHFLOW, Business Essentials for Urban Entrepreneurs. They offer these four steps to achieve the ultimate plan of action:

1. Explain, right away, what your business does. Always, always keep it simple and focused. We want to understand what your customers will experience, and why your product or service will be a good thing for them.

2. Tell us a simple story — convince your audience, whoever it is, that you’re solving an important problem better than just about anyone else can.

3. Show us the opportunity. if you can’t supply hard data about your product or idea, then tell an intriguing story that showcases why it’s needed. What’s the problem you’re trying to solve? How big is your potential market?

4. Finally — and this is crucial — sell us on you. We look for persistence, determination, boldness. Be the authority on your idea, and frame the conversation around your expertise. Control the discussion at all times.

What’s the key to your successful business pitch?  A story? statistics? Your charm? Let us know by leaving a comment below to share with other Money Matters and More readers.

Can your business really be a success without the right combination of team players?

And can one business leader alone possess all the necessary qualities?

Not really, on either count, according to Paul Maritz, CEO of VMware, a software company.  In an interview for the Sunday’s New York Times business section, Maritz makes the case that few leaders possess more than one or two of the strengths they need to perform at the highest level.

To get the most out your company, Maritz advises that a company’s leadership team members should consist of the  following four types:

The strategist or visionary, “who sets the goals for where the organization needs to go”;

The classic manager, “who takes care of the organization, in terms of making sure that everybody knows what they need to do” and how the work performed will be measured;

The customer champion, “who empathizes and understands how customers will see [the product or service]“;

The enforcer, who says, “We’ve stared at this issue long enough.  We’re going to deal with whatever conflict we have.”

How does your team measure up, based on Maritz’s approach?  Did Maritz miss other essential types that a successful business needs?

(To read the interview, check out nytimes.com/businessday.)

What should a leader do when business appears to be heading off a cliff?

A valuable bit of advice on this subject arrived this Thursday from an unlikely source:  John C. Lechleiter, CEO of the embattled megadrug company Eli Lilly.   In just a few years, Eli Lilly is expected to lose its patent protection on drugs that make up nearly 75% of its 2009 sales.  It’s had other setbacks as well, and it may have to cut more jobs.  The company desperately needs to turn things around and it won’t be easy.

So what does the 31 year veteran of Eli Lilly suggest about how on handling his tough situation

“…Try to be realistic…while maintaining a sense of optimism.”

Between the recent bad news on women’s wages (still unequal to men’s wages, in nearly every industry category) and the research from business expert Sharon Hadary in The Wall Street Journal this summer that found that women’s businesses are far smaller than men’s overall, the following news out of  the White House suggests that the Executive Branch is trying to turn things around on that score:

The White House Women’s Entrepreneurship Conference is being held on Monday, October 4th and “will bring together a mix of business owners, leaders from the women’s community, administration officials, academics and lenders to discuss the critical challenges, opportunities and solutions needed to move the women’s business agenda to the next level.”  Participants include Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and Bobbi Brown, Founder of the cosmetics company, Bobbi Brown.

The White House will be broadcasting the Conference live at www.whitehouse.gov/live from 12:30 -1:30 p.m., for the opening panel and 3:30 p.m. for the closing remarks.

Are you invited to attend?  If so, please let Money Matters and More readers know what you thought of the event, by commenting below.

Why would customers pay more for your company’s product or service when they can find it cheaper elsewhere?

Answer:  Because they think it’s worth it.  They’re willing to pay more because they recognize that your product or service is something of value.

That’s the argument being made by The Boston Globe newspaper.  Yesterday, its owner, The New York Times  announced that sometime next year it will begin offering a fee-based subscription website, and limit the content it provides on the free Boston.com website. 

The company’s wagering that its readers will value the content enough to require compensation for it.  The business model is being played out by other newspaper and print publishers around the country.  If it’s successful, maybe we can stop bemoaning the “death of the newspaper.”

And if it’s successful, it means that like other successful business leaders, he understands how to demonstrate value in the products and services it promotes. 

(If it isn’t, then maybe it’s time to head for Plan B.)

Few of us would willingly cross a busy intersection with blinders on, and yet plenty of new entrepreneurs do something just as crazy:  they enter the marketplace with lots of zeal and enthusiasm, but without first doing an honest self-assessment, a task key to success.

What’s an honest self-assessment?

That’s one of the questions I posed in an interview earlier this year with Colleen De Baise, the small business editor and author of The Wall Street Journal, Complete Small Business Guidebook. Here are five of the most important questions that De Baise thinks every entrepreneur needs to consider before launching a business:

–  Passion: How enthusiastic am I about my service or product? How I feel about it will affect your ability to promote it to customers and investors.

– Risk tolerance: Launching a business is inherently risky.  How well am I likely to handle the uncertainty I encounter along the way?

– Comfort level making decisions:  Am I decisive or indecisive in my decision-making? Am I self-confident, or do I second-guess once I’ve made a decision?

– Ability to multitask:  If I’m a company of one, a sole proprietor, I’ll be responsible for a whole host of duties, from sales to inventory.  Am I comfortable taking on each of those positions?

– Able to avoid burnout:  For many successful entrepreneurs, the tendency to work 24/7 can be irresistible.  Can I resist the workaholic urge, and maintain good health and good relationships with my family and friends?

The value of an honest self-assessment is indisputable:  it puts entrepreneurs in the strongest position possible to weather the uncertainties of the marketplace.

(Earlier this year, SCORE asked me to be a Guest Blogger.  This post is an excerpt of the June 2010 submission.   To learn more about how SCORE can help new entrepreneurs and small business owners, check out their website at score.org.)

On the outside looking in (the outside being the unemployment line, the inside being the paid workforce), as almost every job seeker knows, can be a very grim, depressing and even frightening place.

It’s especially so if you know that you’re doing what job experts tell you to do, like…

–tightening up the resume

–networking like crazy

–preparing that elevator pitch

But what if still no employer’s biting?

Correction:  What if no paying employer is biting?

That leaves a whole world of employers of the volunteer variety, who should be tapped. These are people you want to get to know, says Washington Post Jobs columnist and workingkind.com blogger, Vickie Elmer.   Her informative job hunting blog post from March 10th is entitled, “Volunteer Your Way to A New Job.”   Job seekers can often overlook volunteering, she says, when actually contributing time can be beneficial to the volunteer and to the organization where he or she is working.

Why volunteer when you need paid work?

– Volunteering can help us to develop new skills and/or maintain the skills we had in our previous job.

– Volunteering can pave the way to building valuable networks with people and organizations, sources that can open employment doors for us.

– Volunteering often helps people who are worse off than we are.  The reality check fact can put our own situation in perspective.

– Volunteering can boost our own self-confidence because we’re doing something of value that’s appreciated.

But perhaps the most important reason to volunteer when you need paid work, says Elmer, is the same reason to volunteer when you don’t need paid work:  because volunteering and other acts of kindness “enrich your career and your world.”

(To check out my September 21st radio interview with Vickie Elmer,  go to the media player to the right of this page, and click on the show “How to Find Work Faster:  Washington Post Jobs Column Tips.”)

How important are acts of kindness in your career and world?

Leave a comment below, or email me at heathertaylormedia@gmail.com.

(Photo: http://tinyurl.com/2fe9zof)

What 6 things do we have to do to be successful at business or our relationships, or hobbies or whatever?  Tony Schwartz provided a few answers in today’s Money Matters & More radio interview on Blogtalkradio.com.

To interview (or listen to) Tony Schwartz is alot like having your own personal business coach–part fact-based evidence (ie. the pilots’ study) with equal parts relevant personal story (how to play the best tennis ever).

(If you missed this morning’s airing of the Money Matters & More interview, be sure to click on the media player on the right column of this page, where it says “Listen to Money Matters & More…).

The best-selling author, CEO and President of The Energy Project exudes confidence in himself AND even more importantly, in the rest of us–that we really can succeed in whatever it is we’d like.  Of course, we’ll need to heed his six recommendations listed below:

1. Pursue what you love.

2. Do the hardest work first.

3. Practice intensely.

4. Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses.

5. Take regular renewal breaks.

6. Ritualize practice.

Be sure to check out his Harvard Business Review blog post from August 2010, for more details.

Are they other tips that have worked for you that should be added to this list?  Twitter me at moneyandmore or Facebook @heathertaylormedia.

(Photo: stmarys.brighton-hove.sch.uk)

Why  should companies insist that employees take naps?

It’s just one of the many questions to be answered by Tony Schwartz, President & CEO of The Energy Project tomorrow on Blogtalkradio.com’s Money Matters & More at 9:30 a.m.

The author of the best-selling book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working and a Harvard Business Review blogger, Schwartz recently wrote about the value of companies encouraging their employees to take naps as a way of increasing their productivity.  In the Money Matters & More interview tomorrow, Schwartz will explain how high-performing companies like Ritz-Carlton and Google understand how better meeting the needs of their employees ultimately improves the bottom line.  Schwartz presents compelling scientific evidence from recent studies on pilots and others about why aspects of the old corporate climate need to change.

To hear the Money Matters & More radio show, click onto Blogtalkradio.com/money-matters–more at 9:30 a.m. (Eastern) tomorrow, Tuesday, September 28, 2010.

In the meantime, want to get a sense of your own well-being?   Check out The Energy Project’s free “energy audit,” at theenergyproject.com.

Let me know what you learned, by commenting below, or by emailing me at heathertaylormedia@gmail.com with your results.

How can job seekers afford to be choosy in a tough employment market?

Be ruthlessly selective and deliberate in your job hunt, says Washington Post Jobs columnist, workingkind.com blogger and freelance writer, Vickie Elmer.

Elmer talked to me about her Fortune article, Why You Need a Career Curator on a recent Money Matters & More radio interview. (To hear it, click on the media player to the right of this page.)

In her article, Elmer included these two important recommendations drawn from her research:

- With more than 50,000 job-related websites(!), pay close attention only to sites that match your particular career and life goals

- On social media sites, spend time and energy following only those people who have meaningful content to offer, not just superfluous noise

Elmer also recommends “career information consolidators,” sources that can reduce the time spent finding the right sites for your particular needs. Among her choices:

The Riley Guide (rileyguide.com)

Quintessential Careers (quintcareers.com)

Harvard Business Review (blogs.hbr.org)

For more information on Elmer’s research and consolidator recommendations, be sure to check out her article in the July 5, 2010 issue of Fortune. To read her excellent new career and employment blog, check out workingkind.com

(Photo by Graur Razvan Ionut @http://tinyurl.com/2ffeug5)