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Do You Apply Your Network As-Needed?

April 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I recently received an email from one of my LinkedIn Connections, asking me to refer work his way. He was very specific about the types of work he was interested in acquiring. At the end of his email to me, he noted that referrals work both ways, so he, of course, would be happy to return the favor.

I hadn’t heard from him in 10 months. Not a peep. Not since the last time he needed me to step up on his behalf since he was contemplating moving out of state and wanted me to hook him up with individuals who might help him find a senior position.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t act on his request. I didn’t feel obligated to come to his rescue. Again.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: , , , ,

2013 Sales & LinkedIn Survey Results. Konrath-Albee Study

March 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Hot off the presses! Jill Konrath and Ardath Albee published this important report this morning. Their survey research findings offer stunning insight into how usage of the LinkedIn social media platform impacts business and professional development.

There really is an Us versus Them effect in business development and revenue production, contingent on level of LinkedIn usage.

In late 2012, my colleague, Jill Konrath, contacted me about this survey. She asked me to participate. Then she inquired whether I would let my LinkedIn and social media / blog subscriber community know about the opportunity to participate as well. To those of you who chose to participate, our thanks and appreciation! Why? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Professional Development & Social Selling, Sales & Engineering Collaboration, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Who are you and why do you want to Connect with me?

February 5, 2013 By 4 Comments

How many of you receive invitations to connect on LinkedIn from folks you don’t know? How many of you validate the individual before you accept the relationship?

LinkedIn is a powerful business development tool, especially with many of the recent enhancements to personal branding and LinkedIn profile building. Yet many folks on LinkedIn under-utilize its features and create profiles and a set of LinkedIn Connections simply because they:

a)      heard that LinkedIn is the place to be found – yet their Profiles are incomplete and certainly don’t tell the story of what they can do for and with a prospective company (minimum viable profile);

b)      confuse network-building with hoarding (my list of Connections is bigger than yours), based on the assumption that their “importance” on LinkedIn is equated with the size of their networks; and [Read more...]

Filed Under: Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Professional Development & Social Selling, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: , , , ,

LinkedIn’s Impact on Sales and Engineering

October 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Wondering how to get more out of your LinkedIn profile?  You’re not alone.  Jill Konrath, a highly respected colleague of mine ,  thought leader and strategist, and a renown sales guru, is asking this same question.  Author of SNAP Selling and Selling to BIG Companies, Jill specifically asked me to invite you to participate in this survey. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling, Webinars and Special Events Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Recent College Graduates – LinkedIn. Be Found. Get A Job.

June 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Perhaps you just graduated and are still job-hunting.Perhaps you are a college senior and thinking about job hunting.

Jobs just don’t happen. I think you already know about this from talking to your friends.

There’s an art and a science to getting a job in today’s market. So here’s the scoop. I blog about engineering and technical professionals. I blog about technical entrepreneurs and startups. I blog about how you can provide relevant value to yourself, your employers and your customers. I’m more than a bit concerned about you. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling, Webinars and Special Events Tagged With: , , , ,

Do Thought Leaders Have Bad Hair Days?

September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Seriously, do they even worry about it? If you are a thought leader – which means you have put some serious work into building your personal brand equity and professional credibility within the marketplace – do you get to run around in sweats and still be a thought leader?

I’m publishing a book later this year and have been looking at my avatar (social media-speak for photo used in conjunction with my personal brand). There’s a hair or two out of place, so I’ve been told. Time for a glamour photo? You know, I really didn’t notice there was a hair or two out of place. And, quite frankly, my hair doesn’t look perfect every day, or even through a string of days. Especially in humid weather. But my brain still works pretty well, no matter what my hair looks like, even if my makeup isn’t perfect, or my clothing isn’t the “latest.”

I was looking at the artistic license often applied to blog avatars and comparing them to the photos posted on LinkedIn profiles (we won’t even get into Twitter). Take Seth Godin (OK, he doesn’t have to worry about having a bad hair day), Dan Waldschmidt, Jill Konrath, and compare their avatars with the business photos posted on LinkedIn.  No glamour shots there. Just real folks. The point is, what you see should equate with what you get. When you meet all of us in person, whether digital celebrities or LI professionals. When we open our mouths, when we blog, when we work directly with your team.

I guess it’s a matter of getting yourself beyond worrying about what it looks like to other people, you know, the “them” in your life, and focusing on what you deliver, consistently and passionately, to the marketplace day in and day out.  If you are always marketing yourself to public opinion of what you feel your market expects you to look like, talk like, dress like, tweet like, well, I hope it’s consistent with the fundamental “you”. Otherwise it’s like having a split personality or two or three.

It’s difficult in the sales arena, with shifting quotas and different managers wanting different deliverables from you. Do you feel there is no consistency to the business spiel and techo jargon you are dishing out, one thing to one person, another thing to another person, hoping it “catches” and that you close a sale, win a contract. After all, the close of the third quarter is upon us all and the pressure will be mounting to bring in revenue. Even if we close a sale prematurely or win a smaller contract because we didn’t have the time or patience or self-confidence or corporate support to go after the longer close.

Give yourself permission to have a bad hair day. Because it’s more important for you to focus on the fundamentals of what you bring to your profession, daily, because you enjoy what you are doing and you want to become better at it. And becoming better at your profession may not be the same thing as jumping through other people’s hoops or making their goals and deliverables into yours. There may be a disconnect.

If you focus on becoming more proficient at your profession, and honing your craft, you will focus more on how you apply your skills for the benefit of your customers. You become the artist, the true professional. It isn’t so much about what “they” think anymore as much as it is about how you perceive yourself, professionally and personally.

When you are able to talk the talk and walk the walk, it really doesn’t matter if you have a bad hair day or two or three. Because that stuff doesn’t matter as much as being the “real deal” to yourself first and foremost. Your customers and company will “get it” because they’ll be on the receiving end of “you”, not “them.”

Give yourself permission to have that bad hair day. And spend the time it takes to become that thought leader your customers and prospects are really looking for.

Think about it.

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Using, or Abusing, Your LinkedIn Network?

September 13, 2011 By 4 Comments

I recently in-mailed one of my LI contacts to ask him for a recommendation of snorkeling gear for an upcoming trip I am taking. I mean, he’s big in the swimming world, so when the question came up I knew just who I wanted to ask. No Googling around for me! I could go right to “my resource.” How cool is that!

Which got me to thinking about how I, and we, use our LI social media network. I’m not going to get into Facebook or Twitter or the other social venues. I could write a book. In fact, a lot of people already have. I don’t need do reinvent their wheels.

I’ve always viewed LinkedIn as my professional network. Sure I share some personal stuff. Lots of it. I mean, there are some LI connections of mine that are from Chicago, which is my hometown. So the first question has always been: Cubs or Sox? It’s an icebreaker when you are asking them to become part of your LI connections and it’s fun. I establish a common denominators across mutual interests with my connections.  (Oh, and I accept LI offers to connect even from Sox fans, too.)

When I first joined LI, I actually had a strategy!  I wanted to gradually build a network of intriguing individuals whose work (blogs, books, responses in discussion groups) I found provocative. Some of these connections were current and former customers. Others were/are colleagues of my colleagues who recommended that I reach out to them.  I consider my LI connections as my online Think Tank.  I ask them all sorts of questions, not all of them pertaining to business (hence the snorkeling gear question).  There is a comfort level that I have come to enjoy because there has been some sort of connection made as each of us became, well, “connected” with the other.

I’m not a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) by choice. Some folks like to collect a huge group of connections for whatever reason. I know one of my former colleagues built up a huge LI connections base almost immediately by going through her school’s PTO directory and signing everyone on. I don’t know about that one. First of all, it’s a fairly homogeneous base of contacts. And she told me she wanted her network of connections and their connections to be bigger than that of the other parents in her PTO. OK. So her strategy was competitive hoarding. Whatever. She’s happy and I am happy for her.

Another one of my former colleagues built up a huge list of connections from the extensive set of current and former employees of the company she worked for. Again, a homogeneous list and, from what I could read, everyone was chattering away with everyone else about in-gossip. I don’t know about that strategy, I mean, at least for me. I like to grow from exchanging ideas. Hybridization rather than commoditization. How can you think out of the box when your entire group of LI connections resides, quite firmly, inside that box! No, that strategy is not for me, either.

My network grows. People reach out to me to become connected to them. They read my blog posts and tweets. I read theirs. I read their books. If there is synergy, it makes sense for me. I’m comfortable with that. The point is, I have a tremendous group of connections, whose work and professionalism I respect and trust. I am in a position to ask them some very pointed business and philosophical questions from time to time, and we have tremendous idea exchanges.  My LI connections make me stretch my brain.

How do you interact with your LI connections? Excuse me, gotta order some snorkeling gear.

 

 

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling Tagged With: , ,

Personal Branding and The Technical Professional: An Interview with Dan Schawbel – Part 3

August 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Dan Schawbel is described by TIME Magazine as “a world renowned personal branding expert.” Tom Peters said of Dan Schawbel, “Dan has taken personal branding to a dimension a million miles beyond where I was.”  Dan is the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, LLC, which helps build successful online brands. He is the author of Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future,
and is the founder of the Personal Branding Blog®, an Advertising Age Top 50 Marketing Blog. Recently, Dan Schawbel was named to the prestigious Inc. Magazine 30 Under 30 list.

I caught up with Dan on August 23, 2011, post East Coast earthquake! The following post is a summary of take-aways 7 – 10 of the top 10 take-aways from our interview. To listen to the entire interview, right click on the link  and Save Target As to download the mp3 version of my Interview with Dan Schawbel, August 2011. Read my blog posts on Parts 1 and 2 of this interview, as well, to round out your perspective.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Take-away Seven

Babette: Overcoming the self-articulation barrier is perhaps the biggest conceptual hurdle technical professionals have to deal with, in general. What suggestions can you give these professionals in finding their “voice”?

Dan: The best way to find what you want to do in your career, and find your voice, is to keep writing, keep speaking… eventually it will just come to you, naturally… I think it’s just practice…. I had eight internships… I basically narrowed it down to what I wanted to do… But, if you’re lazy or if you just don’t want to put the effort in, it won’t happen…Practice filming yourself. You don’t have to publish it online [Dan initially filmed himself over 30 times before he found a clip he was satisfied with]… If you don’t look like you’re capable online, it’s not going to work for you… The perception of how many people you’ve connected with is important… The people who don’t take advantage of these tools now, are really at a huge disadvantage in the hiring process.

Take-away Eight

Babette: Technical professionals often feel reluctant to promote themselves, even a little bit. How can they overcome their reluctance and move forward in personal branding?

Dan: You just have to take it day by day. Do small things that will help grow your visibility at your job or online. Eventually you will get comfortable to do larger things. It could be just a Tweet, saying , “Hey, this is what I just accomplished,” etc., and that can lead into something bigger. So start small, and gain comfort that way.

You want your plan to be focused on where you want to go in life, not where you are…Brand strategy: what your buyer should look like, where you should be promoting and sharing and networking on social sites, your website, your blog, .. your overall marketing strategy, what companies – what people – do. You need to network… in order to make things happen, those are just some aspects.

I would say that everyone in the world needs their own website, so make sure that you have yours. Because if you don’t, it just looks bad at this point. In the technical field, and the technology field in general, it’s just a higher application for them to get involved with new technology and if they’re not, it looks really bad… They’ll have different pages, one with their resume, one with designs that they’ve done, the sky’s the limit. It’s all about how you’re contributing. .. You have to do all this [own your own name as a domain] before someone else does it. You only get one chance. And you don’t want to have to pay $10,000 in order to get your name back.

Take-away Nine

Babette: Social media sites: which one, or ones, do you recommend to start with? What makes this site(s) your top recommendation for technical professionals starting to build their personal brand platform? And what should a personal branding platform “look like”?

Dan: I’m going to have to say [start with] LinkedIn because it’s easy to start with and it doesn’t take a lot of work. There’s no expectation that you have to update your status on LinkedIn every day. I think that is pretty standard… I would say Facebook would be the last one. Because if you don’t already have a network, it’s really hard to build your presence on Facebook. It’s just a tough network to deal with. So I would say, maybe, Twitter would be next. Because Google+ , if I didn’t already have Connections on my other networks, Google+ wouldn’t really be that valuable. .. It’s a really tough one to use if you don’t already have a network. So I would say Twitter [second], because it doesn’t really put any strain on networking.

[On building your personal branding platform] It’s about getting a good education, refreshing your skills, reviewing everything that’s said about your company and your industry…online, so you keep up to date with what’s going on. That’s extremely important. Maybe reading books. Pushing yourself to get to different networking events. Getting on all these social profiles, getting a website, a blog, and using them to start conversations in your world. And showcasing some of your ideas and creating visibility. Basically doing all that. That’s where you really need to invest your time in, at this point.

[On participating on LinkedIn discussion groups] You need to develop an attitude that: I need to do this if I want to have a career in the future, if I want to be employable, I need to get my name out there… You just have to mentally push yourself. .. The key to LinkedIn is that it rounds you out as an individual… Companies and institutions are begging to find unique people. So if you can figure out what makes you unique and put it out there, you’re going to get through… That’s why I think video is so powerful. Before I meet someone, I watch a video of them online, so I know what I am getting myself into.  And people do the same with me… And when I meet with them, it’s like we already know each other.

Take-away Ten

Babette: If there is one key thought you would like to leave the technical, and other professionals with today, what would that be?

Dan: I think people need to spend more time doing more things, so they can narrow down what they really want to do. People need to put themselves out there, take a chance, get involved in different projects, even if they don’t pay, so you get enough experience to say, “Hey, this is something I want to pursue,” or it’s not something you want to pursue. If you don’t try something, you don’t know if it’s the right thing. So give it a chance.

Babette: We’ve completed this blog series, based on my August 23, 2011 interview with Dan Schawbel. If you’d like to listen to the interview in its entirety, you can download it at link at the top of the post.

We all get immersed in our jobs and in projects. Sometimes we get so focused on work-related activities that we become out-of-touch with what’s going on around us in this most competitive global economy. Dan Schawbel has issued a call to action to technology professionals specifically, and professionals in general, seeking to build a career. Start off your personal branding work by reading his book, Me 2.0. I know I did right after the first edition was published.

Times have, indeed, changed. It may not be sufficient to have the professional credentials to enter the workforce; to sustain your employment, you need to become aware of your marketplace and industry and their respective voices. You should understand the impact of other companies on your own and your industry as a whole. And practice until you develop your own “voice” as a means of providing feedback about your perceptions on these trends.

Personal branding is about carving out that niche that establishes your own voice as an influencer, or at least an astute observer, of your industry and your profession. Because if you don’t take the time to comment and participate in online discussions, someone else will. How many times have you read discussions or blog posts or the news and thought to yourself: “That’s just what I was thinking!” The digital millennium allows your thought to count and, perhaps, make a difference.

Hopefully, this blog series has given you something to think about and some tools for going about developing your personal brand. When achieved according to Dan Schawbel’s prudent and disciplined strategies and guidelines, it’s not narcissism or shameless self-promotion. Personal branding is simply a means of sharing thoughts, perceptions and asking questions of a network comprised of online colleagues who are thirsty for dialogue and idea exchange.

What are you waiting for?

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Power of your Personal Brand in Space-Time

March 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

For the past few months, I’ve been deliberating about relocating.   At the start, I went through this process objectively and systematically.  By the end, I couldn’t help but feel as though I was in a time travel movie.  You know, simultaneously being “here” and “there” while running a business, writing a book, blogging, growing my business base and basically having a life.  And the “here” and “there” were impacted more by  the “where” I had a physical location (quality of home base mindset) rather than the “what” needed to be accomplished business-wise.

The fulcrum of my  initiative, however,  remains my online personal brand.  For most of what I “do”, it doesn’t really matter where I “am.” I mean, I’ve published blog posts from Munich and had conference calls with Ohio while I was in San Diego.  I’ve closed US contracts while in the Canadian Rockies…. hiking, I must admit.  Probably just like you do. No revelation there.  Except,  I realized that my clients didn’t care so much “where” I was but that I was “there” when we needed to talk strategy. 

While I do miss “face time” with my clients, many of them are so busy that  it’s almost impossible to set a face time appointment that actually holds.  I was wasting a lot of time chasing folks around who didn’t have enough hours in the day to do their basic jobs let alone sit down and speak with me face to face. Hence the value of Skype and the iPod Face Time app for starters.

How about you? Have you developed your personal brand? Do you actively nurture and utilize your brand? Does your personal brand carry you, credibly, no matter where you are?

The internet and portals such as LinkedIn expand how you define your “neighborhood” to, well, the globe.   Yet many LI networking strategies continue to involve connecting with as many employees of your company as you can (e.g. “I’m connected to more folks at work than you are” social media strategy).  Why limit the size of your backyard?  Because you never know when you will need your network.

Are you confining your LinkedIn networking to your local space? How “local” is “local” for you?

When I was considering where to establish my business base,  I realized I needed to focus on maintaining my online personal brand and established business base “there”… because “there” had become cyberspace.  And I am very comfortable operating in cyberspace. Are you?

The new business development paradigm, as it morphs, will need to include evaluation of the value of virtual relationships. I’ve always had these types of relationships, starting from the days when I facilitated virtual national and international phone conference calls and online research for new product and concept development.  Perhaps this ability is the skill set of the “future” – except the future already started a number of years ago.

Certainly virtual work teams, and a contracted global work force, are “givens” in this competitive economy.  The location of one’s sales force, based on geographical physical territories, may become a thing of the past for business development. The ability to communicate across time zones and appreciate linguistic and cultural differences in doing so may become the norm pretty soon.

So what’s your personal brand? And how are you growing your brand beyond simply adding tons and tons of non-focused LI contacts? (Hint: that’s “collecting” rather than new market acquisition). What’s the size of your mental “backyard”? And are you limiting your opportunities by a conventional mindset?

Something to think about.  Your thoughts?

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling Tagged With: , , , ,

Are any of your thirsty horses drinking?

June 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

You don’t need to tell me that the sales cycle is getting longer and people are taking forever to make a decision.If they decide to decide at all.And most of the time they decide to NOT decide.

You know the expression “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.”Have you ever considered that the horses may not be thirsty for what you are offering them?

Have you considered your business development efforts are forcing the issue? Are you selling to customers who don’t want to buy what you are selling, let alone buy from you based on the way you are selling it?

What are your customers and prospects thirsty for?

No matter where you sit around the table, you can provide value to your employer and your clients by staying current with their (not your) area of expertise.

Understanding current industry-specific issues, including financial, sourcing, materials and materials management and legal factors, can provide you with a well-rounded perspective from which to make design and engineering recommendations.Staying current with your clients’ world view is your entire organization’s responsibility, not just the guys/gals at the top.

Because the buck stops everywhere these days.So it just may stop with you.

Triggering events can provide the fulcrum for differentiating your company to current and prospective customers. Triggering events are events that tip the scales and force change within an industry. Waiting around for “someone else” in your organization to identify triggering events and disperse this information to you is not an option. You are the “someone” who must prioritize information gathering to round out your project perspective.And where you get this information is just as important as the information itself.

Because customers who perceive vendors as commodities will always base their decisions on price. Let’s face it, in the absence of any other defining factor, what else is there?

So your ability to use triggering events to enhance the insights you provide for your customers becomes an all-or-nothing exercise in impacting their perception of the value you bring to their table.

And I’m not talking about bombarding your clients with constant tidbits from news feeds or industry magazines. I’m talking about your taking the time to review information from a variety of resources and PERCOLATE that information so it impacts how you synthesize your role to your customers.

You may just change your perspective in terms of how you express yourself to your customers, your co-workers and your employer. Which in turn impacts how you view your role as a client resource and solutions provider.

Not all customers call you because they have a problem that needs to be solved. Not all customers are anywhere near wanting to sign on the dotted line. They simply may want to run an idea by you that may have nothing to do with your area of design expertise. They may want you to act as a sounding board on a business decision they need to make.

Do you have the type of information in your professional toolkit to serve your customers in this manner? And I am addressing everyone up and down the corporate food chain. It’s that important.

At this point you may be asking: “OK, so I am now going to enhance my business acumen and perspective with all this great information. Just where do you suggest I find it?”Good question. And I think you probably know some really good answers.

Here are some non-traditional clue cards. And I welcome your suggestions for additional sources of information.

1.LinkedIn discussion groups are a tremendous way to keep your ear to the rail. Engineering discussion groups are the pulse of industry. There are so many technical, regulatory, financial and philosophical discussions going on within these groups that – at the very least – reading the discussion threads is an education in itself. So if you are not already a member of various LinkedIn groups, join them. If you are already a member, check out the sub groups and new engineering groups that are constantly forming.

2.And while you are participating in LinkedIn discussion threads, remember that your name and your company name are included in your signature with each thread post.Participating in LinkedIn discussions is a tremendous way of demonstrating expertise without “advertising” your company.Folks want to build their networks, especially with savvy people like you who provide great input to discussion threads. Don’t you think they will notice which company you work for, as well? And it works both ways.No matter where you sit around the table, you can provide your business development folks with the names of companies you feel may be prospective clients. I think they may find your input valuable.

3.Signing up for RSS news feeds on various topics allows you to receive industry-specific or topic-specific articles on your desktop.Discuss your findings at work or post your own discussion on LinkedIn. You may be surprised at who responds and what you learn from the interchange.

4.The Bureau of Labor Statistics is an additional resource that allows you to provide context to the financial environment of each state. This information is particularly relevant if you work for a company with out of state projects.This information also allows you to understand the issues that may be impacting subcontractors you may use for these out of state projects.

And don’t tell me you have no time to engage in these activities. The nature of what we call “work” and the context of where we gather and exchange information are in flux. The entire business development paradigm is changing.

Do you want to be on the outside looking in or an active participant in growing your value to your customers and your company?

Think about it.

Filed Under: Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: , , , ,
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