Ok, let’s say it takes more than positive energy to get a new job.  In my last post I discussed the importance of being positive when searching for a job.  This time I want to get back to basics and combine this positive energy with a simple presentation about oneself.  Most resumes and job applications use work history and experience to determine if you are the right person for the job.  Most of us craft cover letters to personalize our experience to the job we are seeking.

I have another thought.  Instead of a cover letter, why not tell the hiring company what you expect to accomplish your first 90 or 120 days.  For example you can create a 4-slide presentation like the one below:

Slide 1: Who you are and what you want

·      About Me (background, experience)

·      Why Me (align their mission and vision with your own)

·      The Plan: What you will be offering, 30/60/90 day breakdown

·      What It’s Worth: Your compensation proposal

Slide 2: First 30 days

·      Familiarize and evaluate relevant aspects of the organization

·      Meet clients, partners and team that you will be working with

·      Localize list of all contacts and map established connections

·      Establish work environment/communication systems

·      Present findings and recommendations to management

Slide 3: 60 days

·      Templatize project management documents

·      Create and centralize proposal and presentation document templates

·      Review new process with team

Slide 4: 90 days

·      Transition clients to new project management workflow where applicable

·      Document areas of opportunity and review first 90 days with management

·      Propose efficiency improvements to cut cost

·      Streamline processes to enhance customer experience  

Take the initiative and make yourself stand out.  Present yourself!

I have been getting more and more calls from friends and colleagues who have found themselves out of work.  It is a very difficult job market with few decent positions and a massive number of qualified and over-qualified applicants.  The answer lies in what keeps you in a job while others are dropped.

If you have a job, the best way to keep it is not always being the smartest or most gifted employee. What could keep you in your position is a positive attitude and positive energy.  Giving off positive energy is infectious, very similar to a virus.  How many times have you seen the demeanor in an office take a down turn when someone complains constantly or panics when things don’t go right?  How good does it feel when things go right?  Your entire being changes.  You reflect it in the energy you give off.   It’s infectious and others around you will catch it as well.

I tell my friends that the lesson in all of this is to behave like things are going well.  Not just well, great!  When you are looking for a job, the first offensive move is the way you express yourself in writing.  Most employers will require some type of written application that will be screened against many others.  The ones that are most intriguing will win out.  The second offensive move comes in the interview.  In both, the message must be the same; it must convey positive energy about your entire being.  Even the experience of being fired must be conveyed as a tremendous learning experience that can be turned into a positive outcome. 

So check yourself out in the mirror.  Do you look happy?  Are you giving off the right energy?  If you do, you’ll have a much better chance at landing your next job.  Forget being serious and just be happy.  Everyone else wants to be.  

If you’ve compared any popular “Goals” books  recently, you probably noticed some striking similarities between them – up to three hundred pages at a pop, with the general message of “Plan the Work, then Work the Plan,” while advising you to keep your goals manageable and motivating. Whether your day consists of building a backyard deck or building a company from the ground up, setting goals – and then working to achieve them – instantly improves your likelihood of success.

But setting goals (and then achieving them) gives you something else, too – something worth its weight in gold to sales leaders and entrepreneurs. Setting Goals gives you confidence.

Think about it. Confidence is defined as “full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing”. When you’re confident in someone else, chances are they’ve earned the right to both your confidence, and your trust. Self-confidence is no different. You’ve got to earn it – and you earn it by doing.

It’s so simple, and yet, it’s not always easy. Sometimes, even the smallest task can seem daunting, particularly if we’re moving into new territory for ourselves or our business. But there are a few simple tips you can follow to help keep you on track with your goals.

- Know Your Goal. Clarify the type of goal you need to set for yourself – whether it’s business, personal, or financial.  Then visualize its achievement. Having a clear vision for your goal’s outcome will help drive your passion for achieving it.

-Hold yourself accountable. Write down your goal where you can see it every day.  Tell people about it, blog about it, etc. You want constant reminders of your goal, so that you always know what is truly important in your day.  Tell your friends about it.  They will ask questions about your progress and that will keep you motivated and make it harder for you to give up.  Who wants to tell anyone that they quit?

-Give yourself a deadline. Even the most well-intentioned of leaders can procrastinate in the face of a difficult task. So don’t give yourself a chance to overthink your goal—set a date for its completion. Be realistic, but push yourself.

-Break out the goal into sub goals.  This makes it much less intimidating.  Subgoals should also follow the “SMART” rule:  like any goal, they should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. If you’ve set a goal that doesn’t qualify in one of these areas, you’re setting yourself up for failure

-Reward yourself. Remember that you’re a human being, not an automaton. The occasional “job well done” or pat on the back—especially if it’s your own back you’re patting!—can keep you motivated for the next big push.

-Re-evaluate periodically to see how you are doing. This is key. The best goals imaginable become useless if you are off track and headed in the wrong direction. Build in regular “status checks” on all of your key goals to ensure that you remain on your path to success.

The process is elegantly simple—but it still takes work to succeed.  If you get discouraged, make a list of past goals you have achieved and don’t forget what others have achieved with odds stacked against them (Helen Keller, etc.).

When the U.S. became the first country to land a man on the moon and safely return him home, Robert Kennedy stated, “We chose to go to the moon not because it was easy, but because it was hard.”  To me, that says it all.  Accomplishing a goal should feel like a great achievement.  Feel proud of yourself!

It drives me absolutely crazy when I have to work with sales people that haven’t figured out that we are not in the 21^st century.   Hey, you think the information age was big a few years ago? Now technology changes every few months.  Companies have to operate at lightning speed in order to keep up much less be successful.  Employees live by their blackberries, crackberries, iphones and storms. They are multi-tasking like never before.  Companies are required to do more with less, from the executive leadership team to the front lines.  The pace never seems to let up.  If it does, unfortunately, the company is probably going down the tubes.

So how do you sell to companies in this ADHD business world?  It’s not as complicated as you might think, but I can promise you that if you use 20^th century tactics, you aren’t going to be successful.  You can’t expect your lightning fast target to sit around and read your full-page email that outlines every product you have, along with features and benefits of each one.  Instead, try these tips for sales excellence:

–Talk in sound bites. If your marketing piece or solicitation takes more than 30 seconds to read and understand, you’re going to lose your prospect.  Focus on the one thing that you are trying to sell. 

–Keep the high touch in high tech. In our fast-paced selling environment, it’s easy to forget that the quickest sale is the emotional one. Appeal to your clients “soft” needs as much as their business needs, and don’t ignore the value of building rapport.

– Know your goal. Whether you’re texting or emailing or messaging, leave your sales pitch for real conversation. Your goal should be to get that conversation, nothing more.  Don’t waste your prospect’s time by misusing technology—instead, use the best tool for each of your contacts.    

It’s the 21^st century!  By showing your mastery of the communication tools technology has to offer—and your understanding of the value of your prospect’s time and needs—you’ll position yourself as a savvy, thoughtful business partner. Exactly what all of us need in today’s time-starved world. 

Times are certainly more difficult now then they were a year ago.  People just don’t have the same level of confidence in our country’s ability to quickly recover from the economic recession we’re experiencing.   It probably holds true for your business as well.  In order to be successful in this economy you will need to get more out of each employee and each employee will need more out of you, the employer.

The ability to motivate others is a critical leadership skill. Any leader who tries to bully people into doing more is sure to fail.  People are simply not going to give their best if they hate what they do and for whom they are doing it.  If you sense this attitude in your employees, it’s time to undertake a business transformation.

The only way to get out of this recession is to act with confidence.  They only way your business is going to survive is if you make decisions with confidence.  The only way to do that is lead with confidence.  Get out of your office and spend more time with the ranks.  Host brown bag lunches and get to know how your team is doing at home.  Empathizing with your staff may do more than a raise.  Make them part of your recovery, part of your business transformation plan.  Take 10 percent of your company, create some stock and hand it out.  Detail your plans for sales innovation, and solicit ideas from all departments on new and surprising ways to make revenue. In one of my past companies, one of our most successful marketing innovations came not from the marketing and sales departments—but from our chief financial officer. Never underestimate your team. In good times and in bad, they will define you and your organization. And if you can get them to believe like you believe, they will lead your business to success.  

Every day I read about a company laying off employees because sales are lagging, profits are eroding and the company is losing money.  The most commonly used option is to lay off employees.  How many talented, well-trained people are laid off—particularly those who contribute to the leadership and sales excellence of the organization?  Almost too many to count.  If you own or run the company, you better know what it costs to train an employee and make them productive.   It’s going to cost you just as much, if not more, when you begin to hire again and the folks you laid off are gone. 

 What’s a better strategy, you ask?

Restructure yourself to a business transformation. How?  Ask everyone to take a pay cut.  Sounds inconceivable right? Maybe not.  No one wants to lose his or her job, and most savvy employees understand that thinking creatively during this economy—engaging in the principles of intrapraneurialism—is the key to long-term success.  If you are paying them above the unemployment rate, they will probably stay.  Perhaps a loyalty incentive can be part of the restructuring/ retention package.  Look, professional sports teams do this every year. 

The economy is not going to be ugly forever.  As it begins to come back, your employees’ salaries will begin to increase. You keep talent, you avoid wasting money on future hiring and training efforts, and you build incredible loyalty…all while developing the leadership skills your company needs.  And the icing on the cake?  While you are fully ramped up, your competition is falling behind since they are stuck in hiring and training mode.  

Take my advice: offer this form of restructure.  You’ll be surprised at the outcome.  

I was having dinner recently at one of my favorite steak restaurants in Carlsbad, CA.  It was easy to recognize the effects of our current economic recession, as it was only half full on a normally bustling evening.  Just last summer, you couldn’t get a table in this place.  I really wasn’t that hungry; so as my guests ordered from the excellent house specials, I asked for the filet mignon sliders that I have had on several occasions at the bar, but which are not included on the dining room menu. 

Since I am a frequent customer, I had good rapport with our server.  She quietly informed me that the sliders were considered “bar food” and could not be served in the dining room. 

“Are you kidding me?”  I asked as I looked around.  “Now is not the time to enforce rules because of some ambiance you are trying to preserve.”  I asked to speak to the manager who communicated, through the server no less, that he stood by the rule.  I let the server know my disappointment, and I bid them farewell for the last time.

Consider my new favorite restaurant Via Italia in Encinitas, California.  It’s run by a vibrant Italiano named Paolo who completely understands who the customer is, and a master at business transformation.  His margins are shrinking so what does he do?  He gives more away to his customers.  Upon entering his establishment, you are handed a glass of chilled Prosseco. When you are seated, he brings you some thinly sliced Prosciutto di Parma.  The best part is that you still haven’t spent a nickel.   His place is packed – even mid-week!  People appreciate value not uppity attitudes, and sales excellence is often preceded by excellence of character. 

If you run a business in this economy, be flexible, be generous when you can, take less and make more, and consider sales innovation techniques to bring your customers back time after time.  You don’t have to own a restaurant to learn from Paolo.

Our new American culture has ingrained in most of us that smoking is bad; if you smoke you can be labeled unfavorably.  This is not the case in many cultures; and if you are doing business in Asia, the label may well apply to you, the non-smoker. 

When doing business in Asia, it is not uncommon to be offered a cigarette.  I remember my first experiences, telling these well-intentioned potential business partners, “No, thank you.  I don’t smoke.”  Although I sensed they felt I was rejecting their gracious gesture, I don’t smoke; and I wasn’t about to start.

It was a short time later that I learned a valuable lesson not only in leadership, but in respecting business diversity.  We were negotiating a fairly large and complex manufacturing deal in China.  The company that we were meeting with had never done business with Americans.  It was quite evident that posturing and delaying tactics were the primary strategies employed by our eventual business partner.  It felt as though there was little trust in the room and we ran into impasse after impasse. 

At the point that I was about to concede (16 hour jetlag can wear you down), my business partner, who also doesn’t smoke, got up from his seat at the table, walked to the Chinese side and instructed the interpreter to tell our host that he would like to smoke with him.  The gesture had an immediate effect.  As they enjoyed their cigarettes, the energy and demeanor in the room changed.  They spoke of America, Obama and family.  Within three hours we were at a banquet celebrating our partnership.

To simplify, when you’re out of your culture, get out of your culture!