Why Information Interviews are Essential to Any Successful Job Search (Pt. 2) Building Your Future Now

Why Information Interviews are Essential to Any Successful Job Search (Pt. 2) Building Your Future Now Gathering information in your job search is vital to landing a job. Uncovering info about companies, key people, market trends, and continuing to grow your network needs to happen before you can truly get a job you deserve. And all it takes is a phone call. An email. A message on LinkedIn. Or a Hello Facebook. It is all about connecting with people to learn about what they do and what is the key to their success. Listen. Learn. Apply. Compiling this information gives you more confidence and a chance to make better choices. Imagine trying to land a job without learning about the companies you are applying for? Or having just adequate knowledge of your career direction? It is a recipe for disaster because going in blind is not the right way of conducting your job search. If you are shy and have trouble connecting with people think about your future. Do you find that its worth it to not to pick up the phone and acquire potential career advice that can get you on the right track? There are some great professionals out there willing to talk to youyou just have to pick up the phone or type an email to them to find out who will help you. Image: Fotorech

Details And Relationships Transform Small Sales Into Big Business - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Details And Relationships Transform Small Sales Into Big Business - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Salespeople and entrepreneurs alike frequently settle for small sales when in fact their sales could have been more frequent and larger in scale. Why does this happen and how may it be avoided? People buy from those they know, like and trust. Paying attention to details upfront establishes the quality of your relationships. A level of trust develops that ultimately determines your outcome. Let’s first take a look at some of the details normally overlooked. Instead of allowing the day to fade away without being productive, maintain a prioritized list of tasks to be completed each and every working day. Included in the list should be time allotted to work on completing your bigger projects. These minute tasks leading to the completion of your big projects may be regarded as your daily business vitamins. As you become established, requests begin to pour in for partnering on a variety of levels. With your prioritized list in mind, only commit to those with whom you know well and trust, the projects that put a smile on your face, and those of which you have time to give your full attention. Be of the mindset to not over-commit but instead over deliver on expectations. Prompt follow-up as promised is one of the more important details. Be aware, by not following up promptly, credibility and trust are lost. The tinier details include cleaning up email, making certain your database is up to date and that all links posted actually work. Make it a quarterly habit to double check that everything is working properly. The relationship building and selling technique that drives sales even further is the personal touch. For example, “Joe” proudly announced he sends out a blast of 200 e-mail each day. I asked what his response has been. Joe’s answer was, “minimal”. Even so, he proceeded to ask how he might send increased volumes of generic email. I then provided input on personalizing each and every email. Admittedly, personalizing communication online or in-person takes longer to get your momentum going, but then you accelerate past everyone else. Approaching everyone as a potential friend versus someone from whom you might make some money is another excellent element for building relationships. Take an active interest in who they are, what they do and what their dreams are. You will distinguish yourself from the others in your field, and begin to hear great appreciation expressed for your genuine interest and not just the pending sale. Does all of this really matter? Your attention to all of this will help you stand apart from everyone else. Trust builds easily and so will your sales. When others see you living up to your word and expertly delivering upon what you promised, your personal brand becomes well established. All of these tips will lead to repeat business, referrals and testimonials. Your sales will be more frequent and larger than ever before. As you begin to implement these steps in alignment with your personality, you will come to know the Smooth Sale! Author: Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC, (800) 704-1499, was honored by Open View Labs with inclusion in their international list of “Top 25 Sales Influencers for 2012.” Elinor authored the International Best-Selling book, “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship Building That Gets Results”, Sourcebooks and the best selling career book, “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself On Interviews”, Career Press. She provides team sales training, private coaching and highly acclaimed inspirational keynotes for conferences. Elinor is available for consultation.

5 Tips to Improve Your Relationship with Your Business Partner

5 Tips to Improve Your Relationship with Your Business Partner Todays post is by Maureen Page. Relationships with your business partner can be difficult. Or perhaps I should have started with relationships with your spouse can be difficult. Either relationship can prove to be challenging and when you combine them into one relationship the challenge can increase dramatically. Yet in many ways, the relationship you have with your boss and your spouse are very similar: you spend a lot of time with them, you depend on one another, and you have to work through difficult problems together. If it sounds like I know what Im talking about its because Ive been married to my business partner for several years. Following is a list of tips that you can use to improve your relationship with your partner in 2011. This list applies equally well to your business partner, your spouse, or both! Give the Respect They Deserve Your partner deserves respect. They have worked very hard alongside you to achieve your common goals. Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt as they say. Its human nature to lose a little respect for someone when you get to know all of their little quirks and flaws. Show your partner respect regardless as the respect that you show your partner will set the tone for how others will respect your partner too. Appreciate Their Gifts and Accept Their Flaws There is a reason that you joined with your partner to begin with. Recall what impressed you about your partner when you first met. Perhaps you were impressed by their intelligence, creativity, or sense of adventure. Those qualities are still there so look for them and encourage them. Conversely, dont get hung up on their flaws. Do your best to offset each others strengths and weaknesses and appreciate the fact that you have a special relationship that works. Be your partners biggest fan! Be Honest Being open and honest with your partner is critical to a good working relationship. Being honest with them first requires that you are completely honest with yourself. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What would you like to accomplish in 2011 and what do you see as your biggest challenges to those goals? Talk to your partner about their challenges and concerns as well. Be clear about what you will need from your partner and find out what you can do for them. Establish A Shared Vision Talk to your partner and establish a shared vision. What does success look like for you and your partner this year? Dont assume that your partners vision is exactly the same as yours. Talk about it in as much detail as possible. How does success look? How do you want to feel and behave? Working together towards a shared vision can have tremendous power. Enjoy the Little Things Success isnt all about accomplishing tasks, making money, or getting your child through school. Take time to enjoy your family and co-workers. Laugh often and have some fun. Whatever it is that makes you smile â€" make sure you have some of that in every day. Working with your spouse can be very challenging and equally rewarding. Make sure your partner knows that you appreciate and respect them, and work together in 2011 towards a shared goal. You can also get the legalities sorted out when you form the partnership to avoid disputes.Have some fun along the way and you are sure to have the best year ever. Good luck!

How to Find Your Career Happiness

How to Find Your Career Happiness Whenever we get into a new job or career, we always promise ourselves that it will get better, we will grow, make more money and eventually branch out to do our own thing. Sometimes, we chase that dream so much that we find ourselves feeling drained, settling and hating our jobs. This then leads to getting up and quitting our jobs. But the problem is that this move could either take us on the path of our dream jobs, or disappoint us and we begin to look for another job, and the cycle continues. This does not always have to be the case. There are a number of ways to finding your career happiness. To begin with, it has to be a job that enables you to use your top skills. You may be a great writer and have a way with words or you may be a techie who loves to play with high-tech toys. The idea is to look for a job that enables you to do something that you love. In that way, you will be able to build on these skills and even get the necessary tools to start your own business. Next, do not focus on the money or the title. Many a time, you will find someone who is only worried about the next paycheck or if they will get that coveted promotion. Yes, we do have to pay our bills and build our resumes, but sometimes we may not always get these things. This leads to job dissatisfaction and resentment for your work. Instead, focus on the journey and be the best that you can be. The pay raise and corner office will come at their own time. Another thing that ensures career happiness is the ability to have a work-life balance. This means that you should be able to balance your social or home life and your work life without making one or the other suffer. One of the things you can do is to avoid carrying your work home. This will take you away from spending time on family, friends and hobbies and can even make you more tired than you have to be. You would rather stay an extra hour in the office and get that work done or if it can wait till the next morning, then focus on it the next day. Your social life is what keeps you sane and well balanced to be able to be the best employee or business owner around. Finally, find out how you can put your skills into good use. While an office job will sharpen those skills, the ultimate goal for many of us is to be our own bosses and run our own ventures. In an instance, maybe you are about to head to your first business meeting conference room, it is alright to feel afraid but if you have absolute faith in your skills and abilities then your business and career will grow in the right direction â€" Up and forward. So remember, career happiness is not found in a bank account (although it helps), a corner office or a flashy title. It is found in doing that thing you love and see yourself excelling in.

Tips For a Good Resume Outline

Tips For a Good Resume OutlineIf you haven't read this before, then you have to read the following info in order to understand it properly. You should understand that a resume outline consists of a keyword rich resume and a paragraph describing the position or work experience. The goal is to be able to customize your resume by putting the most important features in the top section and the least important features in the bottom section. But in order to do that, you need to make a good resume outline, which is an essential skill to have in your resume writing.In order to make a successful resume, you need to know which keywords to use. An effective resume outline will include these keywords in it. So that's why you should know the difference between a strong resume outline and a good one. Knowing what to put in your resume outline is not the same as knowing what to put in your resume itself.A wordy resume outline is usually a waste of time because it doesn't give you the proper keyword s to put in your resume. An outline is not a guidebook. You can use a resume outline and write your resume any way you want. The purpose of the resume outline is to inform the reader about what to expect from you and what information they should see in the first section. The details in the first section of the resume are what attracts people.So if you use a longer resume outline, it will make the first section dry and just look like another resume. This makes your resume look less professional and will give your reader a negative impression of you as a professional writer.Make sure that your resume outline is clear, concise and to the point. Remember that most of the information you will include in your resume must be related to the job you are applying for. So that you will not waste valuable space on extraneous information.For newbie writers, the more information they have to fill in, the better. And to accomplish this, they will resort to writing a lot of irrelevant information. This will lessen their chances of getting a job because they were not prepared with the proper keywords and resume format.When you get tired of writing and looking for a good resume outline, look for a good business-to-business website that offers good resume outlines. These are often free to download or you can make them yourself for less than $20. As you get better at writing resumes, you may decide to include other components, such as company profiles, which will help you to make a great resume.Whatever resume format you choose, it should include the key information you want to include in your resume. You should avoid using resume outlines to make up a resume as this will not help you in getting a job.

10 great ways to make your company happier - Will McInnes - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

10 great ways to make your company happier - Will McInnes - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Will McInnes is the founder and former CEO of NixonMcInnes, a consulting company in Brighton, England and the author of the excellent book Culture Shock A Handbook for 21st Century Business. Will has spearheaded the drive to make NixonMcInnes a happy and successful workplace and in this speech from our 2012 conference he shares their best tips and techniques. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Preparing Yourself for a Career Change - CareerAlley

Preparing Yourself for a Career Change - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. If youve been working at your job for a long time and youre experiencing some doubt, then perhaps its time for a career change. Theres really no such thing as a calling in life, and its common for people to spend years preparing for a job or career and then ultimately switching off it. There are various reasons for this, but in most cases, its because they simply dont enjoy it anymore. If you think youre at a crossroads in life and you want to switch your career, then here are a couple of tips to help you make a smooth transition over. Learn what makes you happy in life Heres a simple exercise: take a piece of paper and write down what you used to love as a child. Perhaps you loved watching cartoons, playing video games, or even playing sports. When you write these hobbies down, do a brainstorm and figure out what careers you can take with those subjects. For instance, if you loved video games, then perhaps you can become a programmer, designer or even an indie game developer. If you loved sports, you could perhaps train to become an athlete. However, if you feel like youre past your prime, then perhaps a job coaching or managing a team would be more suitable. Do you have enough savings? Something that everyone thinks of when making a career switch is financial stability. If you dont have a lot of savings or multiple sources of income, then chances are you wont be able to support yourself if you start studying or reduce your working hours. Make sure you have plenty of savings or try to establish another form of income so that you can pay for living expenses while you study or look for a new job. Image Source Find resources to help you learn Theres no shame in attending university at a later age, and there are college courses available for almost anyone. Services like Find Your Context can help you locate the best courses and map a path for you to success. There are also online communities that can help you study for your new career path and they might even give you advice on what courses to take, universities to apply for and even employers to look out for. Considering making it on your own Although finding a job is the typical route to success, there is nothing wrong with becoming a freelancer or starting up a business. There are many different paths to take in life and a career change doesnt just mean a change in job. For instance, if you have a passion for art or music, then you dont have to find an employer that will hire you to draw or produce music for them. Instead, you could become a freelance artist that focuses solely on commission artwork, or you could become a music producer that works on a freelance basis with various clients. You could even create your own music studio, hire artists to work with or even start up your own label. We are always eager to hear from our readers. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding CareerAlley content. Good luck in your search,Joey Google+