This question came from a busy professional.
How Can We Get an Interview When We’re Under-Qualified?
Some people may be interested in a job, but they don’t apply for the job because they don’t meet all the qualifications or have the specified experience. Why should they apply anyway?
If a candidate is under-qualified–as per the job requirements–what are three things he or she can do to still stand out on his or her application and snag an interview
anyway?
This question came from a busy professional.
I’m searching for career experts who can tell me the biggest mistakes people make
when making a presentation at work.
Most everyone has heard of the more common mistakes of not making eye contact with the audience and relying too heavily on note cards. But here are some of the bigger mistakes that you may not be aware you are making.
We will go through each in detail, explain why it’s such a big
mistake and then give advice on how a presenter can avoid making the mistake.
This question came from a busy professional.
What are career path options in the digital marketing industry?
There are several career options in digital marketing because there are several outlets within digital marketing.
A busy professional asks a question regarding Company Culture:
I am the Recreation and Events Golf Manager for a course in Orlando. Part of my responsibility is overseeing the Clubhouse’s food and beverage team. We have always offered our staff 50% off a meal if they are working that day, and 20% off a meal if they come in to eat on their own time. We only staff about 20 people (including both back of the house and front of the house) in the clubhouse. With the spotlight on “company culture”, should we be providing additional benefits like free meals to our employees?
I think it’s very generous that you offer your staff discounts on meals. In regards to “what staff number”, I think it should be directly proportional with your revenue/income. You are still in the business to make money. My recommendation is to continue your current method as long as it feels good to you and is still profitable to do so.
As for “additional benefits” – consider rewarding performance versus just being “present”.
Some ideas are:
Whatever you decide, keep in mind your employee’s advancement and career goals. Then continue to provide additional assistance to help your employees develop and advance in their chosen career.
See what you think about those ideas.
Today’s question comes from a busy professional:
Is it possible to switch directions in my career, from digital marketing to business analysis?
I am currently in digital marketing but I want to build a career in business analysis. Is that possible?
Yes. It is possible to switch directions in your career from digital marketing to business analysis. But you don’t need to leave one to become the other. You can easily use one to transition into the other, without a huge leap.
These steps can be executed to switch to most positions.
Digital marketing and business analysis have many of the same transferable skills. They are also dependent upon each other. Adding market research and brand monitoring to your current digital marketing offerings will lead you nicely into a well-balanced digital marketing offering. Instead of limiting your digital marketing position to posting content and building a following on social media (as do most digital marketers), make sure to analyze your results (collect metrics and illustrate your efforts ROI).
Show digital marketing increases client sales and revenue. Since business revenue growth is part of business analytics, use business analysis to illustrate how your digital marketing services affects the company revenue.
Business analysis is also important to developing quality, relevant and interesting content — for your target market. The more aligned your digital marketing messaging is to your target client – the more potential clients you attract and the better the ROI. Business Analysis is the way to better align your digital marketing messaging.
Next – start reviewing the competitor’s social media results and their digital marketing results. Identify your client’s competitors’ messaging (digital marketing and branding messages). Study how effective the competitors are and use those business analytics to evaluate and modify your current digital marketing strategies. Run competitive analysis – but reviewing how your client’s competitor are doing their digital marketing (something you already know all about).
Start researching marketing data, demographics, qualitative and quantitative client feedback data – regarding your client’s industry – in order to better sculpt your digital marketing content to attract the right target market/client. Use your marketing data to find more interesting and quality content for your digital marketing business.
Start showcasing your business analysis directly into your digital marketing business.
Collect your metrics over time and analyze the trends. Start offering trend data to your digital marketing clientele – and help build their next level marketing strategy. Helping clients with their B2B or B2C strategies is another piece of business analysis.
Finally, start business networking yourself as a Business Analysts. Surround yourself with the people that will provide you the right opportunities as a Business Analysts.
As you continue to showcase more and more business analytics in your current digital marketing offerings, the more you will be recognized as a business analyst.
I know your situation is different. If you would like additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info
I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally. It’s easy to sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ
With enough notice, it would be my honor to guest-speak at no cost to your group organization.
Today we are very fortunate to have a TV program to emulate regarding the perfect pitch deck. If you haven’t already watched ABC’s the Shark Tank, make the time to watch and take notes.
It gives you a very good illustration of pitching to investors. Even though the ABC’s reality show “Shark Tank” is available for all to learn from, I am always surprised when an entrepreneur shows up unprepared.
If you are interested, I have a list of the most frequently asked Shark Tank questions in a separate article Things we can learn from Shark Tank
For now, below is a list of 6 big pitch deck mistakes that you may be making:
We will cover each mistake separately.
Many entrepreneurs are so focused on their own product, their own needs, and their own wants – that they forget the true goal of this presentation. Your goal is to adequately interest the investors such that they will want to do business with you.
People do business with people they know, like and trust. And the quickest way to earn trust is to show the investors that you already know them, what their needs and wants are, and how your product or service can help them reach their goals.
In other words, why should they care about you and your products or services?
Use Stephen Covey’s 5 Habit from his top-selling 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: “Seek first to understand, and then be understood”
Spend time researching your investors. Find out what excites them. Find out how they make their investment money back.
Your prepared pitch should be no longer than 5-8 minute in length. So you really need to get your investor’s attention quickly. If they are interested, they will ask additional questions and will get to know you better. Your pitch needs to interest them quickly.
Once you have a better understanding of your audience, make sure you get to the important stuff as quickly and succinctly as possible. What is the “important stuff”? The important stuff is the stuff that the investors care about (and not necessarily what you care about).
This is where watching the Shark Tank will help. Here are some of the typical questions you need to cover, and a fuller list is available at: Things we can learn from Shark Tank
A pitch presentation falls into the category of a training presentation: “Tell them what you are going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you have told them”. But many forget the summary or “tell them what you have told them” part. Your summary should end with a CALL TO ACTION.
Investors are interested in a quick return on their investment; therefore, make sure you understand your numbers. And just knowing the dollar figure isn’t enough. You need to be able to articulate where these numbers are coming from, on what platform, are they driven by promotions, and what sort of partners are you working with? Is the marketing working? What does it cost to produce? What are your expenses?
Know your sales information inside and out.
You won’t have much time; therefore, make the best use of that time. Incorporating the investor’s terminology and experience into your pitch will not only eliminate miscommunication but lead them to feel that you already speak the same language. That you are connected.
Don’t fall into the trap of creating 1-perfect-pitch-deck. Consider having a “perfect-pitch-deck template”. By understanding your audience, their terminology, and their unique interest in your products or services, you can tweak and quickly customize your single-perfect-pitch-deck template to win-over each unique investor.
Now that we’ve discussed mistakes to avoid, below is a quick list of things to think about when preparing your “pitch”.
At the end of the day, there are various Do’s and Don’ts to keep in mind. The best recommendation is to run your pitch deck past a “mock Shark Tank”. One such “mock Shark Tank” panel are the experts at Crowdsourcia. You can’t go wrong with this set of experts.
Today’s comment came from a busy professional and an entrepreneur:
Recently, there has been miscommunication between my team members and management on the best practices for our company and where our resources should be spent. I don’t want to waste any more time and am looking for innovative ways to get my employees focused. Please advise, thank you.
Communication can be both the problem and the solution to most team and management issues. Your attitude of “I don’t want to waste any more time” – may be part of the problem. Taking additional time properly communicating with your employees will save team and department time. But it may seem to you that it’s taking more of “your time”. My recommendation is to invest your time in communicating more often – to help your employees stay focused.
Here are some quick tips to turn the problem into the solution:
Switch your goal from “I don’t want to waste any more time” – to “I want to better communicate with my employees” and you will accomplish both goals.
For help on leading a more effective staff meeting, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info
Or sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ
Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose – author of TimePeace: Making peace with time – and I am a business and efficiency coach that specializes in time management, project management and work-life balance strategies. I help busy professionals and entrepreneurs create effective systems so that they can comfortably delegate to others, be more profitable and have time to enjoy life even if they don’t have time to learn new technology or train their staff. I have a knack for taking big ideas and converting them into smart, sound, and actionable ideas.
At the end of the day, I transform the way you run your business into a business you love to run.
Today’s comment came from a busy entrepreneur:
I have been trying to get feedback from my ideal target audience but I am finding the group hard to reach. There is another target audience that could benefit from my service. I am not as passionate about that group but I think they may be easier to get feedback as I build out my business. Should I focus on both or only one?
I recommend that you focus on one target audience. But I also want to caution on your method of reaching those people. If your method of reaching “people” is ineffective or flawed – then it doesn’t matter how many target audience you go after. Maybe it’s not that the group is hard to reach. Maybe it’s the way you are going about it. If the ladder is true – then you will have the same difficulties with the second group.
My recommendation would be to study up on the most effective methods to reach your target market. Find other business owners that are successfully marketing to that same target – and find out how they are doing it. Start partnering with complimentary business that shares the same target audience. Business network with those who are already successful in marketing to your target audience. Learn from those that have achieved what you want to achieve.
Be watchful on who is attracted to your products and services. There may be other groups interested in your products or services. For example, Chris owned a Curves Club for women. She wanted to have her club hours during the day (9am-1:30pm and 3:30pm-7:00pm). This makes it difficult for younger, working women use her club. She didn’t want to extend the hour, so she mostly marketed it toward retired women.
But if Chris takes a second look at her niche, she could expand it to include:
Keep the end in mind that your products and services will evolve. Therefore, your target clients will also evolve and change. Review your product funnel strategy to see if different product levels will attract different clients.
For more information or help on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info
Or sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ
Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose. I am a speaker and author. I am an expert in time and project management.
Today’s comment came from a busy professional:
Who are the people who are important to your career? Who are the people who can help you be happy at work? Who are the ones who can help you or be someone you can rely on? We are looking for tips on how to identify these people as well as how to know what level of friendship you should have with your co-workers.
Best advice is to clearly know where you want to be, do and have. If you can clearly articulate your career goals and professional path – then it’s easy to understand “who to make friends with at work”. Statistics show that we typically hang-out with people in our same social-economical standing. If we want to advance, get promoted, make more money, be more affluent – we need to start meeting and networking with those people that have already achieved what we want to achieve. This means that we need to define our own career goals and take full ownership of our own professional growth. Once you have that clearly defined, you can start networking (making friends) with the right people at work (i.e. the people who can help you achieve your goals).
I have a workbook called the Individual Network System or INS. This workbook outlines the who, what, where, when and how of corporate and business networking. It helps you identify the right people to meet and how to keep you on their radar. If you would like a complimentary copy of that workbook, please setup an appointment.
The intent of creating a business networking is to build relationships with the right people that will help you find the positions and roles that you really want. If that is what you really want, then take the 20 minutes to chat about it with me.
Consider finding mentors in various areas of your professional development:
1) How to better market yourself within your professions
2) Help you with promoting your ideas and innovations.
3) How to write and publish your articles, presentations, and white papers
4) How to present to the exec
5) How to get other managers from sibling departments recognize your value to your company (If your manager is the only person that knows your value – you are doing yourself a disservice).
I know your situation is different. Why don’t we schedule an appointment, where I get to know more about your unique situation? And then I will be happy to make recommendations on what your best steps are moving forward. To schedule an appointment, book it HERE.
With enough notice, it would be my honor to guest-speak at no cost to your group organization.
I have a presentation on “3 Keys to saying YES to everything but on your own terms”. To sign up for the complimentary course, go to www.lauraleerose.com/Say-Yes
Today’s question came from a busy professional regarding working with contractors.
What are your best tips for collaborating with team members who are available only on a part-time basis or who work remotely? Please share concrete tactics instead of tools.
One of the best tips is to explicitly state your expectations with any contractor, consultant and remote workers. This can be in the form of a contract, an understanding of service, and even your employee Personal Business Commitment (PBC) in which your performance is evaluated against.
Understanding how your contractor or consultant works best will alleviate lots of problems and miscommunications.
These are some of the things you need to discuss with your contractor, consultant or remote employees:
The bottom line is to outline everything that you feel is important to you, and understand (up front) how your team is going to accomplish those items. Get it in writing AND include the consequences of not meeting the agreement.
For example – if they do not meet the agreed upon schedule:
I know your situation is different. Why don’t we schedule an appointment, where I get to know more about your unique situation? And then I will be happy to make recommendations on what your best steps are moving forward. To schedule an appointment, book it HERE.