How to Market Your Business During Your Lunch Hour

As a publicist and marketing expert I’ve worked with a number of doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and authors in their marketing efforts. I’ve used practically every form of marketing method from public relations and advertising to internet marketing and direct mail. You name the medium; I’ve done it… that includes banner towing planes, hot air balloons and highway billboards. But when you’re the owner of a small business and captain of your own ship, money is tight and every minute counts so you need to maximize both time and money to the fullest. So, looking at an area that most people just slough off, I am here to tell you how to Market Your Business During Your Lunch Hour.

I’ve come up with a few things you can do over the lunch hour to promote your business. Here we go:

1. Never have lunch alone. Network with top execs, current clients, people who can influence others, everyone from the pastor at the church to the head of the Chamber of Commerce. Make a list and keep your lunch calendar full. Let’s face it, everyone has to eat lunch and if you’re buying most people would eat with anyone!

2. Write one article a week. Everyone has expertise on certain subjects related to their field. Write a 600-1000 word article about a focused topic. First come up with a list of topics you want to write about. Then set a goal to have them completed by a certain date; one a week works for me. If you don’t have time, hire a ghost writer (you still get to put your name on it). Where do you find a ghost writer? Check your local newspaper; chances are there’s a writer who’d like to pick up some extra cash. Can’t work with someone so close to home, go two towns away to that community’s newspaper. Or, check out this online resource at: http://www.writeittight.com. Then publish the articles on the internet using sites like [http://www.arrivenet.com]. Why should you go through all this trouble? It’s simple. People search online for the solution to their problem or for someone or something that can solve their problem. Once someone reads your article they are “pre-sold” on your ability to do the same for them, then they contact you.

3. Create or improve your web site. There’s a ton of business out there online, but if your website looks ancient, then there goes your credibility. So, make sure it’s up to date, has the new articles you just wrote and that you’ve optimized it so search engines can find you. Worse yet, if you don’t have a web site, better spend more than your lunch hour creating one. There’s really nothing more important than creating a web site for your business. Want a top notch site? Check out the web design services at http://www.marketingsuccess.com

4. Take an online marketing class. If you are eating a sandwich at your desk then sign up for Google’s Pay Per Click (PPC) tutorial and become a master at PPC. Go to Google PPC Tutorial and check out how you can generate new leads via your web site using Pay Per Click marketing. Few things you could do with your time will pay bigger rewards.

5. Speak at your local service clubs noon time meeting. Every service club i.e. Rotary, Kiwanis, Women’s Club etc, need a speaker. Even if you talk about your hobby, a charity you support or something outside your area of expertise people are getting to know you. People like to do business with someone they know and can trust. Personally I talk about my hot air balloon flights in Michigan and my exploits around the world. Most people find it very interesting and it allows people to get to know me better.

The Bottom Line: Your lunch hour is a terrible thing to waste. Put it to good use and watch your business grow and prosper.

One more thing. If you think working through your lunch is a little insane then you’ll find a sympathetic ear in a new book by Washington DC business coach Lisa Whaley. The title says it all: “Prisoners of Technology, Time to Get Unplugged!” Lisa says instead of making life easier, technology has introduced complexity. Instead of giving us more time with family, technology has pulled family members away from each other and toward their devices. Maybe she has a point! But, hey I am working through my lunch, how about you?

Working With Personnel Counselors and Recruiters

In the professional world, there are several basic ways you can get hired:

1. Personal initiative: You send your resume in response to an online job posting or newspaper ad or hand it to a corporate representative at a career fair.

2. Personal referral: A friend or relative alerts you to a job opening with their employer. Employers often reward the referring employee when you are hired so make certain that you fill in the application line, “Referred by____” completely.

3. Personnel Agency, Personnel Counselor or Staffing Services: A personnel counselor recruits a job order from a company and then either matches the job order to an existing candidate OR advertises online or in newspapers for that candidate. A personnel counselor does NOT call you at work to recruit you for a job-that is the principle difference between a personnel counselor and a recruiter. A counselor has to wait for you to make the first contact while a recruiter does not.

4. In most states, a personnel counselor is NOT allowed to take a fee from you (the candidate) but always verify that BEFORE you go on the interview. Until 1982 in California, a personnel agency could charge the candidate as well as the company a fee for the placement and thus split the fee between the two. That has changed. In 2009, many agencies state up front in their advertising and on their web sites that they are 100% employer paid.

5. Personnel agencies, such as Snelling Staffing, Abbott Staffing Group, and Apple One, usually have both a store front and an online corporate web site on which they post jobs. You can search for jobs next door or in the next state.

6. Recruiters and Headhunters: “Recruiter” and “headhunter” are interchangeable terms for a person who not only recruits job orders from companies but also actively recruits candidates through personal phone calls and e-mails. Recruiters are 95% paid by the corporate client, not by you, but it is always wise to verify.

The Ground Rules:

A personnel counselor waits for you to walk in the door. He or she matches you up with a job order that he or she already has or finds a job that fits your specifications. If the person does not understand what you do now or what you want to do in your next job, it will be very difficult to make a job match. Therefore, be willing to educate this personnel counselor on your career field, the intricacies of your job, and the type of company you would like to join.

A recruiter or headhunter is hired by a corporation to find exactly the person the company needs. Most recruiters are hired for their sales abilities. A few agencies hire someone with extensive experience in a field (e.g., electrical engineering) and teach him or her how to recruit and place candidates (like you). Because recruiters know the field, they can tell whether the candidate is “blowing sunshine up their skirts” or if the candidate actually knows the subject.

Rule 1: It is really OK to talk to a recruiter, even if he or she calls you at work — just don’t…

1. Exclaim joyfully that you are happy to be recruited.

2. Denigrate your current boss or organization in any way.

Do:

1. Give the headhunter your cell or pager number or your e-mail. If you have none of the above OR your only e-mail is corporate, then give your home phone number.

2. If you only have a work e-mail, get a personal e-mail at any of the free sites such as Yahoo. If your private e-mail address is not professional using a hotmail account with a funny name, then now is the time to register for an additional e-mail. Employers judge you on any number of levels and one is your e-mail address. Is it serious or flippant? Those who are perceived as flippant rarely get interviews.

3. The recruiter should ask for a good time to call you or may ask, “Is 7 PM a good time to call you?” You can answer by saying “earlier” or “later” until you agree on a time. The fact that this recruiter sought you out should be taken as a compliment.

4. A friend who has been placed by this recruiter may earn a referral fee of $200-1000 if they refer you to the recruiter and you are placed in a new job. If you like your recruiter, remember to ask after you are placed if there is a referral fee. If there is, refer your friends to the recruiter. Your friend will never know you referred them unless you give the recruiter permission to tell or you tell your friend.

Rule 2: Never assume that the recruiter actually knows what you do — let alone the nuances of what you do. Explain what you do in small words and slowly since this person is probably taking notes.

Here is an example of the process of informing the recruiter. In 1999 during an Internet-based job hunt, Jerry, who is a UNIX systems administrator posted his resume, responded to job postings, and investigated technical job hunting web sites (such as DICE) on weekends. During the weekdays, he had the glorious opportunity to return calls to headhunters. (Quick side note: While it’s cute having your 5-year-old twins tape the outgoing message on your home answering machine, that message is not what you want a recruiter or prospective new employer to hear first. Record a professional message on your home phone as well as your cell phone. Once you’re hired, the twins can come back and record another outgoing message.)

At least half of the recruiters presented jobs that had nothing to do with UNIX in any way, shape, or form. Another 48 percent assumed that a UNIX systems administrator with AIX working on an RS/6000 was also absolutely brilliant on Sun Solaris right now. He wasn’t.The last 2 percent were willing to actually listen to Jerry, find out what he knew and didn’t know, and then — lo and behold — actually present him to jobs for which he was qualified. However, Jerry had to spend time educating each interested recruiter. One way was to send an e-mail cover letter of Jerry’s career and education highlights. (Why? Recruiters and personnel counselors present you to the potential employer by using three bullet points of your accomplishments. If you give the recruiter this sales pitch, it makes it much easier to place you.) Jerry sent six bullet points and let the recruiter pick the three most applicable to that job posting. This effort paid off: the recruiter knew how to present Jerry to his best advantage, and Jerry eventually got the job at a 25 percent salary increase over his previous job.

Rule 3: The theory on what to put into the cover letter accompanying your Internet resume is:

1. Keep the cover letter as short as possible so that it fits on one screen of a computer monitor without having to scroll down.

2. Use bullets.

3. Care for your personnel counselor or headhunter by giving them short sentences about your education and accomplishments which they can use as a sales pitch when they present you to the company. The easier you make it for them, the more they will be willing to work for you!

Here’s an example:

My name is Jerry W——.

I am responding to your job posting for a UNIX Systems Administrator. Briefly my career includes, but is not limited to:

• M.S. Computer Information Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

• Ten years as a UNIX Systems Administrator in AIX, DG/UX, AT&T System.

• Rapid learning curve as demonstrated by becoming literate on AIX in one week based on my earlier experiences.

• Integrated an AIX UNIX system with an Ethernet TCP/IP Windows 95/NT network within 21 days of my hire.

• Converted to PCs, which emulated terminals, thereby eliminating dumb terminals and having two systems on each employee’s desk.

• Wrote and presented papers at international conferences on computer security issues.

Since I am employed, please call me at home at — — —- after 5 PM EDT or e-mail me at ———@—-. —–. My resume follows.

Respectfully,

Jerry W——

Rule 4: Realize how recruiters work and work with them, if at all possible. Similar to real estate in which you have a buyer and a seller, any placement process consists of the job order and the candidate. In real estate, the agents for the buyer and the seller split the commission. If one person represents both the buyer and the seller, that one agent gets the entire commission because they are splitting the fee with no one.

In personnel placement, the rules are the same: if one recruiter produces both the job order (a contract with Corporation A to find and hire Person B) and the candidate (the erudite individual taking the job), the recruiter keeps the entire fee. (The owner of the recruiting firm is probably retaining a huge percentage of this fee.) If you are represented by Recruiter A in Atlanta and the company is represented by Recruiter C in Concord, then the two recruiters split the fee paid by the company.

In a very few cases, the placement office may try to charge you a fee. If the recruiting firm plans on charging you, it has to alert you before your interview with the client company. Suggestion: run for the hills! You should not pay anyone a fee when thousands of headhunters are out there eager to do work for you for free.

Recruiter A will brief you before the interview and debrief you afterwords. Recruiter C will present your qualifications to the company and debrief the firm after the interview. Then the two recruiters will share notes and try to convince you to take the job and the company to give it to you. That’s in the best of all possible worlds. What can go wrong? Recruiter C may turn up his or her own candidate and, in an effort to keep the entire fee, sabotage you. Is there anything you can do to prevent this sabotage? Not really.

How does a recruiter finds a candidate? First, the recruiter gets a job order and a detailed description of the perfect candidate. The recruiter will look for companies performing the same type of work. A recruiter in El Paso, Texas had a job order for a person with experience in wireless communications. Knowing that Motorola developed garage-door openers (which need wireless communications to operate) and that the company was a bit vulnerable to imminent layoffs, he located a Motorola division in Arizona and the man who designed the communication system for garage-door openers. Quick as a flash, he was able to contact the man, present the job opportunity, arrange an interview, and the placement (hire) was made.

P.S. It’s not unusual for the job order to change after you are presented with the opportunity. If the recruiter doesn’t understand what the job requires, you may be presented for a job that does not exist. If you don’t fit the new and improved job description, don’t worry about it: there is a better job waiting for you.

Rule 5: Never send your resume to more than one person within an office or chain of headhunters (e.g., Management Recruiters, Inc.) Why? See #4. If you send your resume to Dave and Karen in the same office, and they both present you to Terry, who holds the job order, guess what happens out of your line of sight? A huge fight! Dave and Karen both want to represent you, the candidate. A recruiting fee usually runs 33-50% of your first year’s salary. Therefore, on a $60,000 salary, the fee is a minimum of $18,000. Can you see why they are fighting? What usually happens? One of three things:

1. If the boss is a Gandhi of the recruitment world, then Karen and Dave may split half of the fee, each getting 25% of the fee.

2. A neutral fourth person will check the incoming e-mails to see to whom you sent your resume first. The person to whom you sent your resume first will collect the fee when you are placed.

3. Most likely, if you don’t get the job, no one in the office will work with you. Why? To avoid another fight. Recruiters often snub candidates who appear to be so unconscious that they send their resume twice to the same office.

Rule 6: Recruiters often trawl for resumes by placing job postings on web sites for very interesting jobs which may or may not be open at that moment. It could be that the recruiter already has someone lined up for the job and is taking this opportunity to collect qualified resumes. By law, a recruiter cannot post a job which does not exist, so you don’t have to worry about that.

Remember: the recruiter who presents the candidate gets half the fee when the placement is made so it behooves the recruiter to have as many resumes as possible. If this is the case, that is fine. Send your resume. You never know if this is an open job order or not. If it is, get in line. If it isn’t, then convince this recruiter of how exceptional you are and the recruiter will be motivated to find you a great job.

Rule 7: The recruiter or the personnel counselor may ask you where you have interviewed and/or sent your resume already OR where another placement professional has sent you to interview. Why?

1. The recruiter does not want to present you for jobs where your resume is already “in play.” For one thing, it makes the recruiter appear unprofessional to the hiring authority because they did not have enough candidate control that they garnered this piece of information ahead of time (or that the recruiter is greedily out to get a piece of the fee).

2. The recruiter seeks to contact those companies to which you have applied, obtain a job order, and make a placement.

What should you do? It is easier to tell the recruiter where you have interviewed than to have them embarrassed later on by the company. If the recruiter finds out that you are under consideration by the company, the recruiter is likely to stop working with you to prevent this from happening again. Keep an accurate, up-to-date list of where you have sent your resume and where you have interviewed, whether the initiating contact was by you or a recruiter. Even if it is to a different division of the same company, ONLY reapply if YOU sent your resume in the first place.

If a recruiter or personnel counselor presented you for IBM Finance, then you cannot apply for any other division of IBM anywhere in the world. The recruiter may have a vested interest in you (and in collecting a fee), even if you are hired by a division to which the recruiter did not present you. Recruiters have successfully collected a fee from an employer when the candidate was hired not for the job for which they were presented but for another job somewhere else in the company.

If Recruiter Z presents you for a job at KPMG but doesn’t tell you who the hiring authority is, you are not responsible later on if Recruiter Y presents you to the same company. In that case, tell Y that you did not know. Recruiters often do not say who the hiring authority is. In this case, you are not at fault and both recruiters should continue to work with you. If the recruiter contacts the companies you have interviewed with, that is fine. Even if the recruiter gets one job order out of this, it is not a problem. You will find the right job for you.

Rule 8: Keep in contact with the headhunter. If he or she thinks you want to work with him or her, the recruiter is more likely to make an effort to place you. E-mail any recruiter who contacts you at least once a week – unless the recruiter has an IQ less than 90.

Rule 9: Keep putting your resume out there. The right job is looking for you right now. You just have to be willing to look and keep looking until you find it.

If you care for your recruiter by feeding him or her easy bites of information (information that may be passed on by the recruiter to the client company with no modification, thus making the recruiter’s job that much easier), you have just increased your chances of getting hired.

Translating Online Advertising Material Into Other Languages

If your business is heavily web-based, then you’re surely already aware of the Internet’s potential for reaching an international audience and for reaching it quickly via on-line advertising. To cater for your international customers, you’ll probably have your web site translated into the major languages spoken in the markets you are targeting. For many people, this part is relatively straightforward: you submit your copy to the translator, who will provide you a quote based on the volume of text and any other special requirements you may have, such as checking the translated text of web forms once they’re on line. But have you considered how you’re going to handle the translation of your on-line advertising material?

If done properly, translating on-line advertising material differs from ordinary translation in some important ways. Firstly, a significant part of the material to be translated will actually be the keywords that you bid on or purchase rather than the ad copy itself. Translating keywords effectively is somewhat different to translating paragraphs of text for reasons we’ll see below. A good ad translator must also work differently to a colleague dealing with ordinary text when it comes to the ad text itself.

The latter point may seem the more obvious but is worth expanding on. The advertising scheme that you are using will generally have restrictions imposed on them such as the maximum lengths of titles and other lines of the ad. The text of your ads was probably chosen to sound catchy rather than because a particular literal meaning was important. So to translate an on-line ad, it may be more effective to use an approximate translation that sounds catchy and adheres to the length restrictions. As an example of the kind of decisions the translator can make, there is a word in Spanish that can be used to translate “summer holidays” (“veraneo”) which is actually shorter than the general word for “holidays” (“vacaciones”). If the translator knows that your business or campaign is specifically dealing with summer holidays (and a good translator will always take the time to understand your business), they can use the shorter word which may be crucial when translating an ad title with a 25-character limit.

The problems involved in translating advertising keywords may be less obvious. But think first about the process you went through to choose your keywords. You probably starting by picking some phrases that characterize your business. You may then have expanded this list by considering synonyms, possibly using a tool such as Google Trends to find the most likely synonyms that a user would search for. You would also have considered which combinations of these synonyms were most likely in English. For example, in British English, the words “hire”, “rent” and “let” have similar meanings, but “hire” is often associated with vehicles or industrial machines, “rent” with residential property and “let” with commercial property. Subconsciously, your choice of possible keywords was probably influenced by the grammar of English and the grammar of web searches. For example, you would probably chose “van hire” rather than “vans hire” or “van hires”, neither of which are usually grammatical in English. If you were running a holiday company, you might choose “minibreaks Paris” rather than “minibreaks in Paris”, because you know people tend to omit short function words like ‘in’ in web searches.

When it comes to translating these keywords, you might naively think that you can look up translations of each individual word and do a search and replace on the list of keywords. Unfortunately, this will usually not be effective for several reasons. Where there are synonyms such as “hire”, “rent”, “let” in English, the foreign language probably won’t have exactly the same number of synonyms with a direct mapping between them. (In Spanish, for example, the two verbs “alquilar” and “rentar” can both apply to either vehicles or property.) So in the foreign language, you may need to consider combinations of words that you didn’t consider in English, and some combinations may not be viable.

Some of the grammatical restrictions that affected your keyword selection in English may not apply in the foreign language. For example, in English the phrase “vans hire” is generally ungrammatical. But in French, Italian and Spanish (and indeed many other languages), the phrase would be common and grammatical with either singular or plural, leading to more keyword combinations to consider bidding on. And in these and other Latin-based languages, compounds are usually formed by inserting the word for “of” between the content words (e.g. “de” in Spanish and French, “di” in Italian). But in web searches, this word may optionally be omitted, so that in Spanish, for example, a Spaniard looking for “car hire” may search (among other things) for either “alquiler DE coches” or simply “alquiler coches”.

Most subtly of all, the grammar of web searches actually differs from language to language. Some of my own research suggests, for example, that Spanish speakers are more likely to include the word “de” between content words than French speakers, and that Spanish speakers are more likely to pluralize words in their searches.

Finally, recall that some on-line advertising systems offer a keyword tool which will suggest alternatives for you to bid on giving a starting list. You should also speak to your translator to see if they can assist you in choosing between the list of suggestions and advising you on their meanings where necessary.

Review – From Prison to Paycheck

From Prison to Paycheck: What No One Ever Tells You About Getting a Job, Pam Hogan, 2007, ISBN 9780979429491

Among the many challenges faced by those just released from prison is that of getting a job. Those with a job are much more likely to stay out of prison than those without one. This book attempts to make that challenge less challenging.

Think of a resume as equivalent to a business card. It’s required; the book exactly how to write it. For those whose work history is spotty or non-existent, register with a temporary employment agency. Going on a variety of jobs will help to narrow down the type of jobs that you do (or do not) want, they will provide experience to put on a resume, and the paycheck does not hurt. Volunteering is another way to get experience to put on a resume. Target your resume for different types of positions. A resume that highlights your experience as a landscape gardener will be of little help in applying for a security guard position.

Treat your job search as a full-time job. Carefully read the on-line or newspaper ads. If it says, for instance, “no phone calls” or “apply in person,” then follow it. If your qualifications don’t exactly match the requirements, apply and go for an interview, anyway. The more job interview experience you can get, the better off you will be. You need to be out there every day, filling out applications and leaving off resumes.

The book goes through the job interview process, including a list of questions the interviewer will ask. Practice the answers to these questions ahead of time, so that you will sound confident and “with it,” instead of hesitating and unsure of yourself.

At some point, the question will be asked: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Do not lie, because the truth will eventually be discovered, but there is no need to include every detail. If that part of your life is, honestly, never to return, find a way to say so. The book gives some suggested responses.

This book does a fine job at making the job search process as painless as possible. It is not just good for those just out of prison, but also for those whose work history is less than stellar.

The Best Way To Use An Online Classified Ad Posting Site

Business is no longer conducted in the manner it used to be a few decades ago. Today, the Internet is at the centre of all major and minor business operations including product planning, promotion and marketing and sales. This change in business models has necessitated a change in the methods and mediums of advertising. Online advertising has come to complement traditional methods of promotion and in many cases has overshadowed it completely.

Classified Ads are an attractive and cost-effective deal for small and home businesses that are restricted because of their stringent budgets. Most classified sites offer the posting service free of charge. This way, you can convey your message to a larger target audience without having to bother about the overhead expenses. Contrast this to placing an advertisement in a newspaper or magazine. Charged by the word or line, the longer the advertisement, the more you should expect to pay.

Online classifieds are similar in structure and layout to a classified section featuring in a newspaper or magazine; the difference is only of the medium. Advertisements are organized under categorical listings. It dispenses with the need of having to scan long lists; buyers can simply click the category they are interested and look for the product they want. A few sites allow you to post two ads at a time. The form format further increases convenience to customers. Individuals are provided with a ready-form when it comes to creating ads.

In addition to sites dedicated to posting classified ads, there are other private websites that rent ad space to business owners. It could be free of charge or for a reasonable cost. Business owners should consider posting advertisements to such sites as it garners a good amount of traffic. One should post ads to sites that are associated with the business. For example, if you offer auto services, you should consider sites that deal in automobiles. In this way, you will be able to reach your target audience faster.

A Link between Customers and Vendors

When we speak about a classified section, we only tend to look at it from the perspective of a vendor and rarely bother to trace it down the other end. A customer can benefit from using a classified ad too. A customer or a buyer considering the purchase of a product or service can create a “wanted ad” in a similar manner that a vendor or business owner would do.

The Best Way to Use an Online Classified

Irrespective of whether you are vendor or a buyer, there are few tips that will help you make the best use of an online classified.

  • You should customize it to a specific geographical location.
  • Your ad must contain a description of the product or service you want to buy or sell.
  • It should be of a suitable length.
  • It should be too the point.
  • It should include popular keywords; the right keywords will keep your ad from getting lost in the fray.
  • It should be well formatted providing necessary details at a glance.
  • An attractive catch-phrase will earn brownie points for your ad and your business.
  • You should provide accurate and up-to-date contact information.

If you’re looking for a network of free classified ads, there are plenty out there. A Google search will display all of them to you in minutes. To save you time, we’ve listed 9. There is Craigslist, Quikr, Gumtree, OLX, eBayclassifieds, Adsglobe, Oodle, Classifiedads, Sell and Look Classifieds.

How To Get More Interviews In Your Job Search

Richard Bolles, job search guru and author of What Color Is Your Parachute? predicts that you can expect to search for work 1-2 months for every $10,000 you hope to earn. So, if you’re looking for a $40,000 a year position, you may search for 4-8 months to land it. Back when the economy sizzled, that job search length would have seemed outrageous, but now, many people would be thrilled to only search for 4-8 months.

Now the question is: How can you limit your job search length regardless of what’s happening with the local economy?

The answer to that question depends on the strength of your job search campaign. Take a look at these common job search problems. If your campaign is suffering from any of these symptoms, try one or more of the tips suggested for each.

If you’re mailing resumes but aren’t getting interviews:

o Your campaign may not be intense enough. Remember that searching for a job is a full-time job. Increase your employer contacts by phone, fax, mail and email to 10-20 per week. Gather job leads from a greater variety of sources than you have been using, such as networking, newspaper ads and Internet sites. But most important of all, tap the hidden job market.

Bottom line: Getting interviews from resumes is in part a numbers game. Contact more employers to increase the odds in your favor.

o Your resume may reveal that you do not possess the skills sets employers want. Get them! A tight economy means employers can command whatever skills, credentials and experience they want, so why argue with them? Volunteer, take a class or create a self-study program to learn what you need to learn. Or, take a lower-level position that will prepare you for advancement to the job you really want.

Bottom line: It’s up to you to qualify yourself for the job you want. Demonstrate your initiative and enroll in that class now, then be sure to claim your new skills on your resume.

o You may not be contacting the employers who are buying the skills you’re selling. First, identify the three skills you possess that you most want to market to employers. Second, match those skills to three different kinds of positions that commonly use your preferred skills. Next, tie each of the positions you identify to specific local industries and employers who hire people with the skills you’re marketing. Then create different resume versions for each of the types of positions you intend to seek. Make sure each version highlights and documents your ability to do what you claim you can do.

Bottom line: Different employers need different things from their employees. Know what you have to sell and sell it to the companies that want it. At all costs, avoid genericizing your resume with clichés and vague statements.

o Your resume may poorly communicate what you have to offer. If you have weaknesses in your employment chronology or if you are changing careers, you will need to take great care in structuring your résumé’s content to overcome any perceived deficiencies. Create a powerful career summary statement which emphasizes your primary skills, qualities, credentials, experience and goals. Group your most marketable skills into an achievements section and showcase those using numbers, concrete nouns and clear indications of the results you accomplished. Use company research and the employer’s job description to focus your revised resume on the company’s needs.

Bottom line: The person who decides whether or not to interview you will make that decision in a mere 15 to 25 seconds. Be clear, organized and achievement-focused to use those seconds to convince the employer to interview you. If you’re getting interviews but no job offers:

o You may have the basic skills the employer needs but not the advanced skills they prefer. Review the second bullet above and act on the suggestions presented. Once you have updated or expanded your skills through additional education, experience or self-study, begin building a career success portfolio to prove your success to prospective employers. This will also help you respond to those behavior-based interview questions that are the rage these days.

Bottom line: It is up to you to advance your career. Figure out what you lack, then learn the skill or develop the ability.

o You lack strong self-marketing skills and this is showing in your interviews. To improve the quality of your interpersonal communications and interview responses, take a class. Invite someone to role play an interview with you. Practice answering behavior-based interview questions. Arrange to participate in a videotaped mock interview. To project your personality positively: Select three to five about yourself that you want the employer to know about you by the end of your interview. Brainstorm ways to weave those things into your responses to common interview questions. Learn about personalities different from your own. Smile and relax! Make strong but not excessive eye contact. Go into the interview armed with 5-8 words or phrases that positively describe your workplace personality and use those words or phrases throughout the interview. Match your communication style to the interviewer’s questioning style. Know your resume and defend it. Keep your responses brief and always to the point.

Bottom line: Your interviewing performance serves as a preview of your on-the-job performance, so project your best. Research, practice, and sell! To job search is to make mistakes. Question is, are you learning from the job search mistakes you’ve made?

Evaluate your search every two to three months so you can fine tune your campaign on a regular basis. You probably get your car tuned up regularly. Why not do the same for your job search? With the right knowledge and proper tools in place, there will be no stopping you!

Secretarial Services and Typing Services – Start-Up Cost

Here’s what you’ll need to start a secretarial business and provide typing services and what the estimated start-up cost is.

You can start your secretarial business and provide typing services with just a computer, printer, a few business cards, and a pack of paper. You can get additional equipment and supplies later.

  • A computer. Any computer will get you started. You don’t need a high-end computer for word processing. However, if you want to provide graphic design or web design services, then you’ll want to get the best computer you can afford. Cost: From $200 for a used computer to $300-$2500 for a new computer. You can find used computers in your local newspaper and specialized local computer publications.
  • Software: Most computers come with a word processing program. I recommend using Microsoft Word as soon as you can afford it because that’s what most of your clients will have. Cost: Check Microsoft.com for current prices.
  • A printer: I recommend a laser printer but many secretarial service operators and typists use an inexpensive inkjet printer. Cost: From $10 for a used inkjet printer or $400-$2000 for a laser printer. Get more information at Best Buy, Fry’s and other computer stores. Check websites of HP, Cannon and Samsung.
  • A desk. You can get a small computer desk or use a table. Cost: $30 and up. You have many choices for $100-$200.
  • A computer chair. Choose one that feels comfortable to you. The more expensive chairs are not necessarily the most comfortable ones. Check some office supply stores. Cost: $30-$200.
  • Office supplies. Supplies you may need include paper to print your clients’ work, printer cartridge, pens, paper clips, envelopes, a filing system, and a stapler. Cost: Check local office supply stores such as Office Depot, OfficeMax, and Staples. Or order their catalogs.
  • A telephone: I recommend getting a separate phone line from the beginning. Cost: Check with your local phone company.
  • Business cards: Printed business cards will look more professional than cards you print on your own printer one sheet at the time. Cost: $20-$200 for a set of 500 to 1000 business cards.
  • A business license. Cost: $20-$100 depending on the city and county.

If you already have a computer, a word processing program and a printer, your start-up cost is minimal. You can start your secretarial business and provide typing work with some basic office supplies and buy additional equipment or software later when a project requires it.

All the best success with your secretarial business!

Merger or Acquisition Failing? The Solution Lies in Your Strategic Focus

The evidence is unmistakable. Mergers and acquisitions fail somewhere between 50% and 75% of the time (see Footnote). There are two main reasons: culture clash and leadership clash.

Culture Clash

For understandable reasons, leaders discount the impact of corporate culture when they merge and/or acquire. They have other factors to consider at the time of the merger or acquisition – market opportunities; operational and business process synergies; financial analysis; and potential cost savings. These factors are obviously important. In addition, “culture” is not only an amorphous concept, it is believed to be immeasurable and inherently unmanageable. Most leaders probably just assume that culture will ‘iron itself out’ over time. However, culture is too important to be left up to hope and natural evolution and here is why.

Culture means how we do things around here in order to succeed. It has everything to do with implementation and identity. Culture is our way and who we are. Every day that an organization succeeds is another day that that organization’s culture is reinforced. In 1992, Kotter and Heskett (Corporate Culture and Performance. NY: The Free Press. 1992) researched 207 firms from 22 industries to determine whether culture impacted the bottom line. They measured the economic performance of these firms between the years 1977 and 1988. They discovered that the organizations with strong cultures that fit the organization’s strategy improved their net incomes by a factor of 756% versus 1% for the organizations that did not have strong cultures and did not fit the organization’s strategy. They concluded that, when it comes to impacting the bottom line, culture’s influence is “more powerful than anything else,” including strategy, structure, leadership, financial analysis, and management systems.

The essential reason that culture has such a powerful impact in mergers and acquisitions is that one or both successful organizations are implicitly being asked to change how they do things in order to succeed. It is historical success that creates the tremendous power of culture. So, if our way of accomplishing success has been so effective, why are you trying to change it? Both organizations in a merger or acquisition are, certainly, thinking this.

Given the power of culture, it is almost inevitable that cultures will clash. The key issues are what is the exact nature of the two cultures and how do leaders manage those cultural differences.

Leadership Clash

If culture is our way, leadership is my way. The same issues come into play regarding leadership. Each dominant coalition of leaders in each organization has been centrally responsible for the historical success of their organization. After all, these leaders have set strategic direction, mobilized commitment, and established organizational capability to accomplish strategic objectives. If the two organizations were losers, neither organization would be interested in the other. Successful leaders want to ally with other successful leaders.

Again, nothing succeeds like success! Therefore, leaders get their noses out of joint when other leaders question how they are doing things. Given the nature and inherent accountability of leadership, it is almost inevitable that leaders will clash. The key issues are, again, what is the exact nature of the two leadership approaches and how do we manage leadership differences.

If you leave the resolution of these two critical differences, culture clash and leadership clash, up to the very same people who are in the middle of the clash, we think it is fairly safe to predict that, most of the time, such resolution will not occur. It is very unlikely that the very same cultures and leaders that got into the clash in the first place will know how to resolve those same clashes. If they did, they would not have gotten into the clashes, to start with. So, what is the solution?

With one very big proviso, the solution is strategic focus.

By strategic focus, we mean the fundamental focus for action that an organization adopts in order to add value to its customers. Each of the two organizations came into the merger or acquisition with its own historical strategic focus. To some considerable extent, each organization had been successful in accomplishing its own strategic focus or neither organization would have any interest in the other.

The first question, then, is: what has been the strategic focus for each organization? If both organizations come in with identical strategic foci, the likelihood of a complete integration is high. The more divergent the strategic foci of the two organizations, the more incomplete the integration will be. The key message here is: let strategic focus drive decision making about what should remain and what should be changed. Culture and leadership are all about how. Strategic focus is all about historical and future outcomes. Projected outcomes are the source of resolution of culture and leadership clash. If leaders try to resolve their differences by insisting that their respective hows are better than the other’s, the resolution will never occur. The solution is to agree on future strategic focus and then decide on the implications for how to get there.

However, you say: “what how is right for what strategic focus?” This is where the proviso comes in. In order for this to work, you must be able to objectively make the connection between the desired strategic focus and the culture and leadership required to accomplish that strategic focus.

We have made these links and we have developed a way to measure them. There are four fundamental strategic foci: certainty, synergy, superiority and enrichment. There are four fundamental leadership approaches: directive, participative, standard-setter and charismatic. In addition, there are four fundamental cultures: control, collaboration, competence and cultivation.

Once strategic focus is established, the roadmap for integration can be built.

Here is an example. In early 1999, a local newspaper acquired a target marketing company that was operating within the newspaper’s circulation base. The basic rationale for the acquisition was ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’ The target marketing company was taking advertising dollars away from the paper. Why not join forces, capitalize on one another’s unique competencies, and garner even more total advertising dollars in the long run?

Well, the alliance started falling apart, almost from day one. The newspaper had a long-standing, established routine for doing things. The target marketing company was constantly coming up with new ideas and wanting to run with them right away. The newspaper wanted to plan things out, to build slowly and to carefully track every move made and every dollar spent. The target marketing company, on the other hand, was coming up with clever target marketing tactics that no customer was asking for, but had considerable potential for revenue generation if the right customer base(s) were identified. Leadership in the newspaper was systematic, careful, and thorough. Leadership in the target marketing company was fast moving, speculative and challenging.

Our measurement system revealed that the newspaper had a strategic focus of certainty, a core culture of control and a directive leadership approach. The target marketing company, on the other hand, had a strategic focus of superiority, a core culture of competence and a standard-setter leadership approach. Our measurement system revealed that both organizations had a fundamentally similar method for making decisions, a strength to build upon. It also revealed that the two organizations essentially differed around what each was paying attention to. The newspaper was primarily attending to day-to-day realities. The target marketing company was primarily attending to possibilities.

The leaders of both organizations determined that the common strategic focus for both organizations was certainty. They could have determined to keep two strategic foci, but they chose to concentrate on one. Given this decision, the solution quickly fell into place. The leaders of the newspaper relaxed and determined with the leaders of the target marketing organization what was an acceptable risk for the latter to take. Rather than operate entirely as a separate entity, the target marketing company became, in effect, a unique department of the newspaper. All of the routine, regularized business processes of the target marketing company were melded into the appropriate functions of the newspaper. The research and development part of the target marketing organization was carefully preserved and actively enabled by newspaper leadership. The target marketing “department” was immediately provided with an expensive information technology upgrade, an advance that greatly enhanced the “department’s” ability to create and generate new, one-of-a-kind initiatives.

One year later, the combined organization was thriving.

The leaders of both organizations could have chosen a combined strategic focus of superiority or they could have chosen to keep two separate strategic foci. In either case, the solution regarding how to put the two organizations together and how to lead the two organizations would have been drastically different than the solution described above.

In the end, the best solution comes from two factors: the agreed-upon strategic focus and the ability to objectively and measurably link the required culture and leadership to it.

Footnote: The Evidence

o Michael Porter analyzed 2,700 mergers and acquisitions by 33 major US companies over a 36-year period (1950 to 1986). Results: Failure rates between 50 and 75 percent. Major cause: culture and leadership clash

o Dutch study in the prestigious journal Economisch-Statistische Berichten found failure rates of up to 60 percent in similar situations. Major cause: culture and leadership clash

o In a 1992 study by Coopers & Lybrand of 100 companies with failed or troubled mergers, 85 percent of the executives polled said that differences in management style and practices (culture) were the major problem

o In 1995, Business Week reviewed studies covering 30 years of mergers and acquisitions and concluded that a negative correlation exists between merger activity and profitability. Business Week’s own analysis revealed that stock prices of acquiring companies fell an average of 4 percent.

o In 1996, the British Institute of Management surveyed executives involved in a number of acquisitions and concluded that “the major factor in failure was the underestimation of difficulties of merging two cultures.”

o P. T. Bangsberg in the 1998 Journal of Commerce (p 2A) concluded that the key to the success of mergers and acquisitions was full consideration of employee and culture.

o In 1996, the Bureau of Business Research at American International College surveyed the CFOs and other top financial executives of 45 Forbes 500 companies. Conclusion: the number one reason that mergers and acquisitions fail is “incompatible corporate cultures.” According to Ira Smolowitz, dean of the Bureau of Business Research: “I knew culture was important, but I didn’t think it would be most important.”

o Hewitt, Inc., 1998. Hewitt Associates conducted a global study of HR implications of mergers and acquisitions. Almost 500 companies responded. When asked to identify the top challenges they encountered while implementing the transaction (i.e., merger or acquisition), HR Directors from every region overwhelmingly cited difficulties integrating the two organizational cultures. 75% of respondents cited culture integration as the most difficult issue they had to deal with.

o Pratap Parameswaran in Business Times, 1999. Cites research that merger integration success rates in the financial services industry is low with only a paltry 17 percent of mergers able to create substantial returns. The main cause of the problem is culture clash.

o Right Management Consultants research report, 1999. According to the Conference Board, the success of a merger “ultimately depends on the effective use of people.” Indeed, the Board bluntly states that people issues are “capable of derailing alliances.”

o Right Management Consultants research report, 1999. Surveyed 179 organizations. Found that the number one reason that mergers and acquisitions failed was “lack of culture integration.” They also found that managing culture “is clearly tied to success in reaching business objectives.”

o Mercer Management Consulting research study, 1997. Found that poor culture integration was the major failure responsible for the fact that, in deals worth more than $500 million, only 43 percent of some three hundred merged companies outperformed their peers in total returns for shareholders.

o A. T. Kearney Consulting research study, 1997. Reviewed 155 M&A deals in multiple industries and determined most failures to be “people-related.”

o Research shows that a majority of deals have not created significant shareholder value. In the 1980s, the average shareholder return three years after the merger was – 16 percent (Sirower, 2000)

o In the 1990s, a survey by Andersen Consulting of 150 large deals said only 17 percent created substantial returns, and some 50 percent of the transaction actually eroded value. Quoted in Bloomer and Shafer.

o 1999 J P Morgan study. Over 1/2 of M&As, worldwide, failed to reach their promised strategic and financial goals. Totaling $1.6 TRILLION in bad investments

Become a Scholar – Learn the Technique of Newspaper Reading

Most of us would go without the morning coffee than the morning newspaper. But, how many of us get the most from the newspaper? We read without a plan merely as a habit. We read for the diversion or relaxation and not for the educative values or informative ideas it provides.

News terms describing everyday happenings like accidents, crimes, tit-bits, comic strips, weather reports, shopping guides, radio and TV programs belong to the first group. News stories reporting on the visit of foreign dignitaries, the question-hour of the parliament, important inventions and innovations around the globe, sports events, book and film reviews, short-stories and articles in the society page come under the second category. The richest from the viewpoint of education consists of the editorial, the business page, special articles, interviews, biographical sketches and the ‘letters to the editor’ column.

One of the prerequisites is the allocation of time according to the kind of material read. Find the items that require more time and concentration, and that can be read in a lighter vein. Of course, we must skim through the whole paper once to arrange the items according to the priority. You may be wondering how to select the items quickly. Every newspaper report begins with head line and brief information about the story. So, after reading the headline and the first few paragraphs we can choose the items we require. Moreover, there are supplements along with the main issue of the newspaper those pertaining to education, entertainment, science and technology, matrimonial, employment, property, literary reviews and the like. We can mark those items pertaining to the different branches of knowledge like science, history, philosophy, biography, technology etc., and later cut out and file these clippings. When these clippings accumulate and are orderly classified we would have compiled an exciting informative mini-encyclopedia itself.

Although our interests guide the reading, yet the absence of substantial vocabulary may act as an impediment to our reading speed and comprehension. But, though the difficult words hinder our smooth reading and understanding, they also give us a wonderful opportunity to improve our word-power. We can enter such words in a scrapbook and get their meaning using the context with a dictionary. This will help build language skill, use of the correct syntax, spellings and learn how to narrate an event.

Newspapers, therefore, become the best teachers when they are read and understood systematically. “The careful reader of a few good newspapers can learn more in a year than most scholars do in their great libraries,” said American author, Franklin B.Sanborn.

10 Ways for Unknown Musicians to Get the Word Out

When Clear Channel controls the radio and the monopoly newspaper doesn’t like you, how do you win over new audiences?

The good news: there are many, many ways. Here are ten of my favorites.

1. Approach a local college or alternative radio station or community access cable TV station with a programming idea, like a live songwriter showcase. Other musicians will want to be a part of your show, and you’ll build an audience for your own music–and theirs.

2. Write CD or concert reviews for a local alternative (or mainstream) paper.

3. Give copies of your CD away to public radio and TV stations for their fund drive premiums.

4. Organize, publicize, and perform at charity events for your favorite causes.

5. Lead songwriting or performing workshops in the schools (these are usually paying gigs, and all the parents hear your name). Invite some of the kids to perform with you; they’re sure to bring a bunch of relatives along who will pay for their tickets and maybe buy a CD.

6. Announce your gigs in every community calendar. Newspapers, magazines, radio stations, community web sites, cable TV stations–they all run event listings. Type out one paragraph that includes a tag line about what you do, such as “Sandy Songwriter, River City’s ‘Homegrown Bono,’ will perform labor songs and love ballads at The Trombone Shop, 444 4th Street in Downtown River City, Wednesday, January 15, 7 p.m.” If admission is free or there’s a charity connection, say so. Include contact phone number and e-mail.

7. Find Internet discussion groups related to your cause. Whether it’s immigration, voting reform, peace, safe energy, the right to choose…there will be discussion groups online. Post responses and include a “sig”–a short on-line business card. Use different sigs for different purposes. Here’s one of mine (in a real e-mail, it would be single-spaced):

8. Set up a simple low-cost website. Include a couple of sound clips, pictures of you performing, a place for people to sign up for your fan newsletter, a link to your favorite musicians, and, of course, your tour schedule and gig availability.

9. Get exposure on other people’s websites. Write CD reviews, endorse their music with a blurb, submit articles on the local music scene…and always include your contact information and a statement that encourages people to visit your site.

10. Use the letters columns. Call in to talk shows. Post messages to Web forums…in short, use every feedback tool you have to spread the word.

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