Category Archives: Taking the Leap

How to capture that hiring manager’s attention

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Your work history is solid.  Your experience is exceptional.  Yet you are not getting the job offers that you want.  How can you get your resume out in front?

One thing that would make your resume more powerful and therefore, stand ahead of the others, is to quantify your achievements toward “what it means to the company” (money wise).

Remember that companies are in the business of making money.

Add a section of Professional Skills — that quickly lists all your technical and transferable skills.

Then ….

Rethink your great achievements (and qualifications) and voice them in “what it really means to the company” – or “what did the company get out of it” in regards to (but not limited to):

  • Increased customer satisfaction
  • Retention of customers in migration process
  •  Brought in new customers/clients
  • Speediness of customer to find->see->purchase and repurchase
  • Increased referral of new customers by previous clients (referrals increase revenue without additional marketing costs. It’s expensive to find new clients because of a large lead-to-sales conversion rate. Getting referrals from previous customers is a Win/Win/Win).
  •  Reduction of lead-to-sales conversion rate (it may take 100 leads to make one sale….if you can show how you reduced this conversion rate….)
  •  Increased revenue into a new market or client base
  •  Conversion of customers from competitors to your product
  • Use of affiliates and even competitors to gain a market advantage
  • On-time delivery into the market
  • Reduced time to market to gain the sweet spot of the market window – and gain a competitive edge
  • Reduced technical support and maintenance costs which increased customer loyalty
  • Reduced the number of maintenance cycles or eliminated them altogether – which reduced costs and increased client satisfaction.

Do the same with your performance evaluation summaries as well.

If you can put some tangible $$ or % numbers to your accomplishments that explicitly quantifies your value to the company’s bottom line – I think that would be a show-stopper.

Made up examples – just to give you the idea:

Things like:

  •  Initiated a referral program that allowed us to track the number of clients getting referred to us, but also allowed us to devise an improvement program to increase (and forecast) the number of referrals in the future.
  • Increased customer satisfaction by 50%, which resulted in a 30% rise in client referrals.
  • RE-introduced ProductX into a totally different market. By slightly re-engineering the product, we were able to launch our solution into an unsaturated market with little overhead. This resulted in an additional $100,000.00 in revenue the first quarter and forecast to double in the next.
  • Redesigned the e-commerce site for more visibility that resulted in 50% more traffic to our sights, and an increase of $100,000 in sales per month
  • Initiated 2 affiliation partnership with complimentary companies/products. These partnerships increased our advertisement exposure by 75% with no increase our marketing budget. It also resulted in $100,000.00 additional sales per quarter.
  • Wrote monthly whitepapers on hot-topics in the industry. This free subscription added approximately 200 new sales leads a month, which resulted in 100 new clients a quarter (resulting in additional $50,000 in sales a quarter).
  • Implemented various shopping cart optimization routines that made it more efficient for clients to view, select, and purchase the products. This reduce their shopping-to-purchase time by 10% and increase customer satisfaction by 30%. Because of these changes, “Returning customer numbers” increased by 45%. And referrals (by previous customers) increased by 30%.
  • Achieved 100% on-time delivery of 7 of YYY products and services which resulted in 100% client retention between releases.
  • Incorporated Early Product Release to certain high-profile clients – to assure these million dollar clients stayed with the company.
  •  Initiated a loyalty reward program that resulted in 30% increase retention rates of clients
  • 100% retention of our client base through the migration of Product X to Product y. Typical migrations lose up to 7% of our customer base in addition to bad reviews. This migration not only accomplished our 100% retention rate, but gained us an 5% bump in referrals.
  • Increased company revenue by $1,000,000.00 by converting a competitor’s client to our product line.
  • Consistently pulled in the release dates on <list the products> – which enabled the company to hit the market early and before competitors. Early release allowed the company a greater lead time and resulted in a million dollars of new market shares. Our current 100% rate was written in the XXX Technical Journal, giving us free advertisement and contributed to a 30% bump in sales leads.

Think like the owner.   What is he/she most interested in knowing?   Quantify your accomplishments in those terms.   Don’t get rid of your other resumes … just see how this new version of your resume feels to you.

5 mistakes new entrepreneurs make

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This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and efficiency coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my Professional Development Toolkit package , I go into professional development and real-world IT topics in detail. If you are interested in more training in these areas, get signed up
It takes courage to take that first leap into entrepreneurship.  As you dive into that brave new world, be aware of some of the top 5 mistakes new entrepreneurs encounter.
A few bad habits an entrepreneur can make:
1) Not thinking like the owner
Because they are small business owners, they spend much of their time doing ‘worker-bee’ type tasks instead of ‘owner’ tasks. They they feel they don’t have enough money, they don’t invest in supporting staff and assistants that would offload the tedious activities that someone else can do — to allow them to focus on activities that ONLY THEY (as the owner) should be doing.
2) Not having a succinct, branding message.
Most new entrepreneurs don’t take the time to create a succinct, branding message and explicit target market. They tend to go throw out too large of a net, in hope of attracting a large number of clients. The results is a confused audience. No one actually understand the entrepreneurs true expertise or niche.
3) Not spending the appropriate and continuous cycles on marketing and sales.
People getting into entrepreneurship because they love doing what they are doing. Often times that ‘passion’ isn’t sales and marketing. But ‘Sales drive the bus’. As an entrepreneur, if you don’t sell – you don’t eat.
4) They don’t know or understand their numbers.
Beginning entrepreneurs often don’t understand their numbers:
  • what yearly income they want to make
  • how much their business needs to make to pay them that year income
  • how many sales they need to make to generate that business revenue
  • what their leads-to-sales ratio is (i.e. how many doors do they need to knock on, to get 1 sale)
  • how many leads do they need to get – to achieve the number of sales they need to get to generate that business revenue
  • what are the start-up costs of the business
  • how many years are they planning to get in the black
5) They don’t keep their business plan up-to-date
Entrepreneurs may create a start-up business plan; but they don’t see it as a living document. They don’t continually review or revamp with their financial adviser, investors and business coaches.
In my “Thinking Like An Owner: Taking the Leap into Entrepreneurship” I do into the who, what, where, when and how of all of the above.  For more information about this toolkit, get signed up:
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Use Change Management to create an impeccable reputation

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This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into professional development and real-world IT topics in detail.

If you are interested in more training in these areas, please sign-up for the continuing online coaching series.
If you are enjoying these tips, please refer and pass along to others.

My mother very much enjoys the daily judge programs. When I was growing up, soap operas was the prominent daytime TV.  Today, it seems to be the judge programs.  programs.  Majority of the conflicts stem from miscommunication or lack of communication.   Many times one person is suing the other for “not doing what they promised they would do”.  Other times, they are in court because one person doesn’t feel that the other is taking responsibility for their own actions.Most of these cases can be eliminated and avoided with some simple Change Management steps.
Although organizational change management processes can vary (and are often more extensive);  following these minimum steps in both your working and personal relationships, you will avoid much grief and regret.

1) Clearly state, document, and sign the agreement of action.  Have all stakeholders agree and sign the agreement.  Include communication plans in this agreement).
2) Verify that all parties understand the issues.  Get individuals to paraphrase the agreement in their own words, so that you can validate that they really understand the expectations on both sides.
3) Agree upon communication plan.  Define how parties are going to provide status, communicate problems, and discuss deviations/consequences from above agreement.
4) Immediate communicate any deviations from the signed agreement. Expect change and be totally transparent on the progress and status of the activities
5) Collaborate, document and sign the agreed change to the original plans.  Have all stakeholders agree and sign the agreement.

Taking the time to do these simple steps keeps everyone in the loop and protects both working and personal relationships.

Try it and let me know what you think.
In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into this in detail.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly professional tips newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1)      Time management
2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

Hiring interns for the first time

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Most new business owners don’t have much budget for staffing.  So we experiment with interns or inexperienced new hires. The success or failure of any new-hire (intern or paid) depends on how well we prepare.
Below are some tips:
1) Don’t underestimate the value of an orientation program
All new employees need to go through a documented and repeatable orientation program. In this program, you cover important policies, procedures, daily administrative expectations, code-of-conduct, company hierarchy;organization flowchart, and company mission and vision statement
2) All origination material should be available 24-7
Place all learning material on-line on your website – for future reference.
3) Pair new employee with a buddy or mentor
The buddy system reduces multiple people getting interrupted by the new-employees questions and issues. Having an assigned buddy or mentor enables the manager to manage the training load. The training curve isn’t limited to the new-employee’s learning curve — but expands to everyone they interrupt to ask questions.
4) Have documented procedural manuals for all significant tasks
If you don’t have documented procedures, have the new-employee be responsible for create (or correct). Having the new-employee document the procedures keep the living documents relevant and accurate.
5) Conduct frequent one-on-one meetings with the new-employee as well as with others
During your regular one-on-one meetings with yoru employees, explicitly ask how the new intern is coming along. Have specific SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound) goals for them to accomplish in a timely fashion. If they are consistently not meeting those metrics, then it’s prudent to release and find someone else better suited.
This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into professional development and real-world IT topics in detail.If you are interested in more training in these areas, please sign-up for the continuing online coaching series.

How to do things that scare us.

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This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into professional development and real-world IT topics in detail.

If you are interested in more training in these areas, please sign-up for the continuing online coaching series.
If you are enjoying these tips, please refer and pass along to others.

 

There are things in our professional careers that naturally scare us, but are required for advancement and continued growth.  If we get complacent and too comfortable, we are actually stagnant.  Fear is actually a sign of growth and development.  We are rarely afraid of things we have already done before.  We are normally afraid of places we haven’t been before, things we haven’t tried before or subject matter that we know nothing about.  If fear is a sign that we are pushing our envelop, then conquering that fear is a sign of real personal and professional growth.  In essence, fear is an indicator that we’re ready for that next level.

So, how do we gather enough courage to take that next step?  And transition to that next level?  One of the most effective tools to conquering fears (and how to do things that scare you) is to focus on the advantages that conquering that fear will provide.
For instance: If you are afraid of public speaking, but it’s required for that job promotion — focus on all the doors that your presentation skills will open.
1) Ability to persuade and present your proposals to high-level executives
2) Ability to be seen as the thought-leader in your field by your executives, clients, and other experts
3) Ability to get bonuses for your work, publications, and speaking engagements
4) Ability to have company-paid vacation/travel as you promote the company technology to different technical conferences and trade-shows
5) Possibility of being interviewed on radio, TV, and technical journals as a thought-leader in your field. 

Try it and let me know what you think.
In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into this in detail.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly professional tips newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1)      Time management
2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

How can a career vision help me with my career

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How can a career vision help me with my career

 Professional Development Series

This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into professional development and  real-world IT topics in detail.

If you are interested in more training in these areas, please sign-up for the continuing online coaching series.

There is a saying that “If you don’t know where you are going, then anywhere is fine.”

Steve Wynkoop and I were talking a lot about designing and managing our professional careers on a weekly interview on SSWUG.org.  This episode was about what steps to change your position in the your current company.

The most important step is to clarify what you really want.  As in any success strategy, clarifying your goals (in any endeavor) is extremely critical.

Visualize yourself in 5 or 10 years into the future.  What are you doing?  What is your yearly income? What type of people are surrounding and supporting you? Where are you living?  What type of neighborhood, town, and leisurely activities are you enjoying?

For example:  What if you see yourself campaigning for a senate seat in 10 years?  Or you see yourself a partner and VP of Research and Development at your own company?  Or you own a company with 100 employees in 10 years?

After you clarify your career vision and goals (5 and even 10 years into the future), do the following:

1) Clarify your career vision and goals. [For a dream sculpting worksheet to help clarify your career vision– check out the Worksheets for Success page]
2) Do a self assessment on the skills, attributes, and education required to achieve those career goals
3) Identify the skills and education gaps between where you are today and where you want to be.
4) Put together a 1, 3, 5, 10 year Individual Development Plan designed to achieve those goals and start filling in those gaps. [For a copy of a IDP worksheet – check out the Worksheets for Success page]
5) Include reasonable forcing functions, accountability partners and manager/mentors/coaches to assist you on your journey.
In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into each step in more detail

For more worksheets (like the individual development plan) check out my Worksheets for Success at https://www.lauraleerose.com/worksheets-for-success/

Links:

Try it and let me know what you think.
If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly professional tips newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1)      Time management
2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

 

Keeping a job offer alive

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Keeping a job offer alive

 This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into professional development and real-world IT topics in detail.

If you are interested in more training in these areas, please sign-up for the continuing online coaching series.

It’s usually bad news when your job offer is put on hold. Sometimes the offer disappears. So what strategies can you employ to make sure you keep that offer alive even if the employer has to suspend plans for bringing you on board?

Today we are talking about our careers and things we can do to keep moving forward.  Steve and I were talking about when people are pushing their careers forward; and find themselves applying for positions and then waiting; applying and waiting; almost an unending cycle.  Sometimes the jobs can go ahead, placed on hold, temporary hiring freeze, or reorganization issues that suspend our momentum.  What are some of the things we can do to stay on the short list or field of vision?

 

One important acknowledgement is that others will not be as diligent about your career as you.  You are totally responsible for your own career and professional path.  Others can be helpful; but you have to drive that bus.  Some things you can do to increase your chances are:

 

Especially in these economic times, hiring managers, HR and recruiters have hundreds of applicants and resumes in front of them every day.  It’s unlikely that your resume will continually stand-out as time goes by, without some effort on your side.

 

Some things to try with internal job postings:

 

People do business with folks they like, know and trust.

  • Be proactive in staying on their radar
  • Recognize that others are not responsible for your career.
  • Schedule monthly lunch dates, phone call, email an article that they (the recruiting department or team) may be interested in, or an update on one of your current projects that they are interested in.  This level of “touching-base” doesn’t have to be frequent or elaborate.  Just something to remind them that you are still out there and are interested in working with them in the future.
  • Add them to your regular LinkedIn.com professional network and stay on-top of what their department is doing.
  • Make friends and build relationships with the other team members of that group or project area.
  • Invite and escort them to any speaking engagements, seminars or professional association gathering that they might be interested in attending.  By attending the event with them, gives you additional relationship-building time.
  • Clarify the essence of what you are looking for – versus a specific ‘job title’.  Many positions share transferable skills, projects, high-profile results, functions and environments – but they may not have the same ‘job title’.  For instance, a Project Manager, Program Manager and Operational Manager all provide essentially the same functions – but at different scope and level.  Usability Lead, Customer Advocacy Agent, Quality Assurance and Beta Program lead all provide similar functions – but in departments.  You may find an equivalent match in a different area under a different job title.
  • Be open to creating your own position.  If you know want to stay in development but want more hands-on with clients – pitch your own position as a Technical Support Designer that works with high-profile clients to create one-off utilities that are specifically customizes to fit their needs.  Once that client is satisfied – you program manage how to safely implement it into the regular maintenance stream.  This single position combines: Tech Support, Business Requirement Design, Change Management and Program Management skill sets.

Continually demonstrate your worth and value to the company and department

  • The fact that they had to place their hiring on hold because of budget or organizational issues; doesn’t negate their need for resources and help.  It only suspended the “HOW”, not the “WHY” or reason for hiring.  Let them know that you realize that they are currently understaffed and offer assistance (especially in the area or position that you are interested).
  • Keep them updated on what you are working on to see if they can re-use or share your code/libraries with them.
  • Offer to facilitate any code review meetings or document results of those meetings for them – as a way to help them with the tedious documentation compliance aspects of design and development (while at the same time getting the birds-eye view of how they internally work).
  • Facilitate Brown Bag Lunch learning series on topics they are interested in and continually invite them (especially in the area or position that you are interested).

Use this time to become the perfect match

  • Use this time to fill in your skills gap. For instance, if your top competitor for this position has better presentation skills or marketing/sells savvy – use this time to join Toastmasters.org, or some relevant professional organization.  Start networking to bring in potential new clients and sales leads.
  • Report your achievements in those gap areas, such that they see your commitment to continuous improvement.

 

If you are interested in something outside your company – do the above items AND add the following:

 Add technical recruiters to your list of resources.

  • Technical recruiters can skim and filter an abundance of positions for you, without having your resume out there for everyone to see
  • Create a video or Youtube video resume for external recruiters to make use of.

Use your social media contacts

  • Use your social media like LinkedIn.com or other professional pages.  Keep your resume and profiles are accurate and relevant to the position that you are interested in
  • Social media pages (such as Linkedin.com) have Job-Postings.  Take the extra step to look up who actually posted that job and build a relationship with that person through that social media.
  • Start conversations and discussions on your social media pages to be recognized as an expert in this area.
  • Make use of Youtube.com to video your presentations, blogs, articles on relevant technical issues.

Create your own networking opportunities.

  • See what types of networking or speaking engagements others in your ‘dream position’ will be attending in the future – and arrange to bump into them there.
  • Post your speaking engagements and networking meetings on your professional media pages and invite your social network to those events.
  • Post your articles, blogs and vlogs about this field – and follow-up with webinars and chats, to be recognized as an expert in this area.

Try it and let me know what you think.

In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into this in detail.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly professional tips newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1)      Time management
2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

 

Even if we are a team-member, we should “think like the owner” to get ahead.

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Changing from thinking like a “Worker Bee” to thinking like an Owner.

This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into office etiquette on various real-world IT topics in detail.
If you are interested in more training in these areas, please sign-up for the continuing online coaching series.Whether we a member of the staff or the owner of our own business, thinking like an owner provides additional solutions that we otherwise would never consider.

For instance:  Thinking like a Worker Bee

  • I need to acquire certain course credits to keep my my certifications active and relevant, but I don’t have time to schedule the courses.
  • There is a upcoming technical conference that will easily complete my course credits, but I don’t have the funds or time to attend.
  • If I present at the conference, my tuition and registration fees will be waived AND my credits will be accomplished; but I don’t have time to develop any presentation materials or required whitepaper.

Thinking like the Owner:

  • Various certification delineate me from others.  This is a non-negotiable in my Career Management Strategy.  This certification isn’t separate from my profession.  The certification is my work.  As such, the certification becomes a part of my Personal Business Commitment, my Independent Develop Plans, and my yearly Performance Review/Evaluations.  Making the certification part of my performance evaluation and commitments makes my manager a co-conspirator in this goal.  Therefore, my manager is co-responsible for making this happen.
  • Outline “what are you going to do with this knowledge” to your manager.  Line up specific projects or prototype demos that forces you to use this knowledge immediately.
  • To increase possibility of getting the needed time and funds to attend the conference, I ‘think like the owner’ to visualize company advantages to your attendance such as:
    • bring back sales leads from the conference – and include marketing, sales and business analysts in your plans
    • speaking at the conference to illustrate your company being the thought leader in this space;
    • assisting at the company sales booth – and include your marketing and sales team in your plans
    • visiting customer in that area – and include Technical Support and Business Analysts in your plans
    • holding a client forum or user group meeting during your visit – and include Technical Support and Business Analysts team in your plans.
    • hold follow-up learning sessions with your department to share the information that you learned at the conference.  This way your entire department benefits from your trip.
  • Include your manager and co-workers in your presentation and whitepaper development.  By including your manager, he/she is in-tune with the required time to prepare.  Schedule practice sessions in front of your co-workers and other managers to help prepare for the conference AS WELL AS train others in your area of expertise.  Be open to others’ advice and acknowledgments in your presentation..
  • Review my Individual Networking Strategy plans to see if there is any one else I want to be aware of my plans.  The more people that can benefit from my trip, the more likely I will be given the time and resources to accomplish my goals.
  • Review my LinkedIn.com, Facebook and client contacts (from a professional viewpoint) to see who else will be attending the conference.  Make plans to create face-to-face networking opportunities with these people.

Homework:  Review the items that you are currently doing.  What would change if you actually ‘thought like the owner’.

For more worksheets (like the individual development plan,and the individual network strategy worksheet) check out my Worksheets for Success at https://www.lauraleerose.com/worksheets-for-success/

Links:

Try it and let me know what you think.

 

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly professional tips newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1)      Time management
2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

15 Etiquette Tips to Get Ahead

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This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into office methods on various real-world IT topics in detail.
If you are interested in more training in these areas, please sign-up for the continuing online coaching series.

Yvette Maurice (http://blog.opencolleges.edu.au/perfect-office-manners-check-list-30-rate/) wrote an interesting article regarding Do You Have Perfect Office Manners? Check This List of 30 To See How You Rate!

I liked it very much.  There are great tips for getting comfortable in your current position.  I then took some of hersame tips (just 15) and modified them for the 15 Etiquette Tips to Get Ahead.

They are strictly based on Yvette’s tips with a twist.

Here are some of the things Yvette listed – but with a small twist to get ahead.  For her unmodified advise, read http://blog.opencolleges.edu.au/perfect-office-manners-check-list-30-rate/

1. Don’t “Blame-storm”  – Get the team to immediately focus on the solutions.

When you see the Blame-storm start, initiation the focus on the solution by saying, “Great, we know what we need to fix.  How do you want this to work from this point forward?”  Focusing on how and why something occurred only keeps you in the same ‘thinking state’ as when the problem was created.  Visualizing how you really want the “entity” to work is really where you want your ‘thinking power’ to be focused.

2. Chewing Gum and other ticks

Everyone has a nervous tick or activity.  Some it’s chewing gum, others it’s twirling their hair or tapping their fingers.  When you see yourself doing your “nervous tick”, use it as a trigger to let you know something is not exactly right.  Then ask yourself these questions:

  • Am I bored? If so, start another project on my todo list.
  • Am I nervous?  If so, do something positive and productive to reduce that nervousness
  • Am I angry or frustrated? If so, think about what you can do right now to reduce those negative feelings.

3. Dressing with Respect BUT FOR SUCCESS

Dress like the person you want to be.  Dress more like the next level up then your peers.  If the managers are dressing in more business attire and your co-workers dress very casual – I recommend dressing more like the managers (or the group that you want to be).  Surround yourself with the type of people you want to emulate.

4. Don’t take Personal Hygiene to extremes

Don’t over-do cologne or perfume.  Many people are allergic to scents in deodorants, soaps and perfumes.  Also be careful with scented candles, if you are in a shared working space.  It’s more of a health and safety issue at this point.

5. Cover Your Mouth and Say Excuse Me

In Yvette’s article, she was commenting on how to handle coughing and sneezing.  My recommendation is to stay home when you are ill.  Often people feel that they are being tough when they come into the office – but actually you are costing the company money.  And no co-worker around you appreciates it either.  Think of it this way.  You come in and work with (infect) 5 people.  Now instead of losing 1 day of work from you, the company is losing 5 people the next few days.  You are also only 40% productive while you are there; and others are also distracted with the thought that they will become sick as well.  With today’s ability to work from home – the best solution is to stay home and help out from home.  You’re get better faster and will be able to produce at 100% then you do arrive in the office.

6. Keep Interruptions to a Minimum

In Yvette’s article, she recommends keeping personal calls to a minimum as to not interrupt your co-workers.  If you work in a cube environment, reserve a conference or team room for those important personal calls.  With the advent of text and on-line instant messaging, many can carry on a quick communiqué from their desk.  And then take the longer (necessary)  conversations to a small conference room (or schedule those at lunch or during outside breaks).

7. If Someone Does Something Nice, be Appreciative AND RECIPROCATE

In Yvette’s articles, she mentions saying thank you for these nice things.  If you want to get ahead, actually reciprocate beyond what they did for you.  If they helped you with a project, send a thank you note to them and copy their managers.  If they mentioned you in their presentation, mention them in yours and ask them to stand up when you give your presentation.  Reciprocate one step beyond what most people would be expecting.  And make sure their manager (and your manager) knows they are helping you.

8. Be Helpful and Cooperate with Your Colleagues to a point

In Yvette’s article, she correctly recommends helping others.  If someone needs help with a copy machine or directions to someplace, please be courteous.  But don’t take too much time helping others.  Don’t take on others people’s problems as your own.  You lose time and momentum on your items.  If your colleague’s problem is aligned with your goals, take the time to assist.  If their issues distract and derail you from your tasks, schedule and goals give them your consult and move on.  Call-in and delegate their problem to the appropriate person.  Remember, your colleague is currently stuck and is just asking for assistance to get to the next step (to get unstuck).  They aren’t necessarily asking you to do their work.  Advising them or calling in the right person for the job is helping.  It doesn’t have to be you doing the actual work; just advise them to their next step so that they are no longer stuck.

Also – be careful you are not training people to continually come to you with their issues.  Teach them to fish.

10. Look After New Employees to a point

The only thing I would add is that – if you are taking much time with a new employee; make your manager aware.   The new employee should already have a ‘helper’ assigned to them.  Get the “helper” involved in orientating the new employee.  If you company doesn’t have an orientation program for the new folks, then make your manager aware that you are helping a new person.  As long as your manager understands where your time is going, your manager can assist with the issue.  Don’t be afraid to talk to your manager about your project progress, your interruptions, and your challenges.  It’s your manager’s job to manage the normal ebb and flows of a project.  Keep them in the loop at all times.

12. Instead of Wait Your Turn to Speak in a Meeting – Create Your Turn

My only recommendation is to get your topics on the meeting agenda.  Meet with the meeting facilitator to add your issues to the agenda.  Tell the facilitator that you will need to leave the meeting at a certain time and ask him/her to put your agenda toward the front end of the meeting.  This way, you can relax and really listen to what’s going on in the meeting, without being worried that you won’t get a turn to speak.  If you want to get ahead, you will want to participate in meetings.  But, as Yvette mentioned, you don’t want to unnecessarily interrupt.  Showing initiative to place your topic on the agenda will allow you to calmly have your turn.

13. Respect not only Your Elders

The only thing I would add is to RESPECT EVERYONE.  You never know who these people will be next year or even next month.  Your co-worker may become the next manager of a sibling department or your department.  You may find that – in order to be on your dream project – you will have to work alongside someone that you don’t normally associate.  You may find out that in order to complete your task; you will need to ask a favor of a sister-department.

14. Manners at All Times but with balance

Although I agree with the general thought of “mind your manners”; don’t be a doormat either.  Take respectful initiative in everything you do.  Be considerate but selective where you put your time.  Keep your own business commitment in mind at all times.  Don’t risk not completing your tasks to assist others with their jobs.  If someone is having a lot of computer problems, call IT for them.   If someone needs a lot of help, advise them to seek their manager.  It’s their manager’s job to make sure his/her employees are running smoothly (not yours).  Make sure your manager is aware of what’s going on with your project – so that he/she may help manager some external distractions that you are encountering.  Keep external interruptions to a minimum, to allow yourself to stay on track.

Keep the airplane rule in mind:  “Put on your oxygen mask before helping others.”

30. And Don’t Nit – Pick!

I’m just skipping to tip 30.  My general rule is to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.  Everyone is actually doing the best that they can with the information and expertise that they currently have.  Everyone wants to do a good job.  Everyone wants to do the right thing.  If you have that attitude, things will look differently to you.

 

Try it and let me know what you think.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly professional tips newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
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2)      Career maintenance
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If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

Leveraging Links

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This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into office etiquette on various real-world IT topics in detail.

If you are interested in more training in these areas, please sign-up for the continuing online coaching series.
Most professionals have a LinkedIn.com account and profile.    They accept requests from friends, coworkers and family members that they already know. Then they stop there.

  • Is your social media connections assisting you in your professional and career goals?
  • Are you using your social media contacts smartly?
  • Are you connecting only with people you already know instead of the people that can help
  • you in your development?

We typically associate with folks of the same socioeconomic circles.  Studies show that your salary and income are typically within 20% of the group of people you regularly hang around with.  So, if you want to jump to a different salary or professional level, we may need to change who we hang around with.  If you want to leap to the next professional rung, we may want to find ways to network with people that are of that next desired level.  In other words, surround ourselves with the success we want to achieve.

We can use our social networking profiles to do this.

For a quick review of the steps, watch the video  and  purchase the Leveraging Links Zipinar Ebook.

To create your individual networking strategy, sign up for our free workbook at: http://eepurl.com/njCWz

Make a quarterly goal of increasing your networking circle by 10% in the right direction.

Other things to consider:

1) Invite the authors of your favorite technical journal articles to your LinkedIn.com network
2) Socialize at the cafeteria and create intellectual discussion groups.  Add them to your LinkedIn.com network
3) Conduct Brown Bag Lunch series on important topics to your industry.  Offer to send the presentation and whitepaper to those that connect with your on LinkedIn.com
4) Work on white-papers with your manager on items that can be shared and published.  Invite your readers to link with you on LinkedIn.com
5) Select a side-hobby and invite those folks to your linkedin.com network.

Try it and let me know what you think.