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.
Today’s question comes from a busy professional:
What are the questions you should always ask your boss? What do you need to find out, or clarify? And why?
A company executive speaks with a woman during a business meeting.
Yes. It is not only “okay” to ask your boss questions, it’s very important to ask your boss questions. Questions show that you are taking control of your own career and professional development. You are not waiting to be told the information; you are initiating and guiding the conversation with your questions.
The reason it’s important to ask questions is that you want to be able to
While these are very good questions, another important aspect is “when” to ask these questions.
Today’s question comes from a busy professional:
I can’t seem to stay motive past a few weeks on my New Year’s Resolutions. How can I stay motivated in my New Year’s Resolutions?
You are not alone. Although many of us make resolutions, only 10% of us actually keep them.
Today’s question comes from a busy professional:
What are some things to avoid saying during a salary negotiation? Please respond with any top tips
for mid-career people looking to negotiate a higher salary.
It’s time to ask for a raise, what are some things to avoid saying during a salary negotiation?
Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose – author of the business and time management books TimePeace: Making peace with time – the The Book of Answers: 105 Career Critical Situations – and I am a business and efficiency coach that specializes in time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.
Today’s question comes from a busy professional:
When does marketing meet customer service?
If your marketing and customer service strategies do not meet somewhere, your customers will fall through the gap. Having an understanding of how these two departments come together for the customer experience is critical to delighting your customer throughout their relationship with your company. After all, the customer will look at these functions as coming from the company as a whole, and as independent departments.
With marketing’s job being the first contact with a customer and customer service happening much further down the customer life cycle, these two departments seemingly have no overlapping strategy. But, we know this is simply not true based on research which indicates that the customer expectations set by marketing in the beginning have a significant impact on customer service’s ability to please a customer later on.
Thank you so much for your well-thought out question. Although the answer may be slightly different depending upon the specific market or industry, a good market plan normally starts with two pieces:
The market plan begins with the target customer in mind.
So – in essence, the entire market campaign is centered on attracting that perfect client.
You also need to keep your product or service in mind while marketing. You very well cannot market an automobile when you are selling a cat. At the same time, some marketing campaigns over sell the product to get that signature on that dotted line.
This is the situation that sets the improper customer expectations. This is the situations that will impact your over customer satisfaction ratings and increase your customer service calls.
Customer and Company satisfaction occurs when customer and marketing expectations match.
If marketing consistently over-promises to make a “sell”, they run the risk of eventually:
Even if the sales and marketing teams do succeed in this client contract, it’s unlikely that the client will return.
To ensure balance, the marketing sales account manager work together with their production or creating services teams, from the start.
Once the contract or SOW is signed by the client, the product team can get started on the product or service.
It is also important to note that the account manager owns that customer relationship. Therefore, once the product or service is completed, the account manager meets with the client to deliver the product, review the changes, explain its usage, review the original contract to illustrate all commitments have been met and get a feel for the client’s satisfaction.
Keeping both the company and client expectations in mind – upfront – can lead you to a successful conclusion. A sell isn’t the main event. The company is in the business of making money. Therefore, you must always consider the cost of making that sell.
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.
What do you look for when you’re building an all-star team of employees?
Do you seek out those who fit into your company culture, focus on skill sets, or look for enthusiasm? (Or maybe all of the above!) We’re a small business and entrepreneurs looking for tips when hiring team players.
Executives discussing documents at meeting
What makes this a difficult situation is that you are a small business. You don’t have the time to invest in training someone green. At the same time, you may not have the money to match the salary requirements of the more experienced candidates.
I’ve met with several entrepreneurs that focused on enthusiasm and personalities, with the hope that the new hire would grow into the position. The problem is that as busy entrepreneurs and small business owners – you don’t have the time to train the new hire. What eventually happens is that the new hire never meets expectations, because they are never given the training that they were expecting.
There are a few ways to break this cycle.
The advantage of hiring contract or freelance talent is that you only hire when you need that particular talent or task completed. It depends on the task that is required, of course.
For simple administration and executive assistant duties, you can call upon Virtual Assistants services. This is great if your needs are a few hours or days a week.
There are also several freelance services for graphics, audio, video, copy-writing, social media and marketing.
The assumption with these contract services is that there is little training required, and if you are not satisfied with their work, you can change resources at the end of the short-term contract.
If you need full-time, in-house staff consider hiring a training consultant to create your orientation materials, your employee handbooks, document your desired procedures and then train your new hires.
This allows you to hire younger, less experienced staff (at lower rates), give them the training and orientation attention they deserve, without adding to your already overflowing plate.
The last possibility is to look at experienced but older candidates. Often times, older candidates have less expenses. Their children are grown; they own their own home with no mortgage; and they have little debt. They may even understand the difficult situation of the small business owner.
Therefore; they may be open to sliding salary scale (a lower starting salary with regular review for increases based on the success of the company).
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’s question comes from a busy entrepreneur:
How can we tackle multiple language issues within our portal?
I am currently involved in the management of a B2B platform, eWorldTrade. The problem is that we cannot hire thousands of customer service representatives to deal with the huge number of clients registering everyday belonging to different countries.
The problem with most of the countries is that they prefer to speak a language other than English and we cannot hire that many people to tackle this issue. How do you handle such a problem?
Congratulations for fully embracing the global trade environment. As you know, the language and time zone obstacles are just a few of the challengers you are experiencing. Staffing for every language is a daunting.
First – don’t assume that all customers need the same level of support.
Here are a few things to consider before hiring.
Find out exactly where your clients are, the language they speak, and their communication preference. Even though you may have a large percentage of clients in a specific country – many of those clients may prefer to communicate via email or “not at all”. They may prefer getting their information via whitepapers, videos, or other means.
You can log and track their preferences quickly through a registration form. A simple questionnaire on their communication and language preference will manage this piece. Also ask if they understand English (or whatever your primary language for your company will be).
Update your CRM (Customer Relationship Management system) with this information.
Update your List Management server to create groups or segment based on communication preferences.
With the above information, determine which will be your top 3 primary languages and staff a few multilingual customer support staff members. These multilingual employees should be placed as 2nd-line help support staff. The first-line help support staff will initially handle the customer calls, and will pass to the 2nd-line when they have hit an issue they cannot solve.
Placing the multilingual employees as the 2nd-line of help, allows you to handle many more language issues (versus placing the multilingual employee on the actual help line). These 2nd-line support employees will also be responsible for translating alternative support documents (more about this in the next section).
Create and translate a series of alternative customer support materials:
This method allows you to provide various customer solutions in multiple languages with limited resources. Since you have already employed multilingual 2nd-line support staff, you already have in-house translators.
Because your CRM will include your client’s language preference, you can forward the appropriate documents in the appropriate language to your clients. You will also understand which languages you need.
Because your List Management system is already segmented into client communication preferences, you can easily mail your newsletters/emails in different languages to the appropriate sub-lists, groups or segments.
Hope this helps a little.
Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose – author of the business and time management books TimePeace: Making peace with time – the The Book of Answers: 105 Career Critical Situations – and I am a business and efficiency coach that specializes in time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.
Today’s question comes from a busy professional:
I’m searching for career expert that will answer this question: “When someone has accepted another position and preparing to leave their current job, what is the best advice you’d give them?”
There are several ways or reasons to leave your current job:
In all cases, my best advice is to always remain professional. This means:
Regardless of why you leave, you want to be seen as a valuable contributor – even as you walk out the door. One way to illustrate your value is the handoff. This is where you outline all your tasks, procedures and assets used to do your role.
Unfortunately, more times than not, you will not have an actually “person” to train or prepare for your departure. Many employers fail to identify a replacement until you are long gone. This means you need to be document everything of significance. I recommend you document all the time, while you are in the current job. There may be times when you are on vacation, out sick, or considered for a larger position. Having your hand-off documentation always available allows you to either temporarily or permanently walk away with the confidence that everything will still run smoothly because of your preparedness.
Contacting your clients and introducing them to the “new person” is another hand-off item. Make sure to check with your supervisors before contacting your clients because some employees prefer to handle that piece differently. But you should always offer because it:
Giving 2 weeks’ notice is not as common as in the past. Depending upon the reason for your departure, your employer may choose to release you sooner. But I still recommend it. A 2-week’s notice gives you the time to execute a professional hand-off to co-workers, clients and other assets.
Life is full of twists and turns. You will never know when your paths are going to cross again. Therefore, you want to be professional at all times.
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.