Social media has given us many outlets to network with others, but it’s become such a convenience to  network online, that many are neglecting the face-to-face networking that is so vital in career management. Liz Lynch has written a great book on Networking called Smart Networking: Attract a Following in Person and Online. Keith Ferrazzi has written two books on networking: Never Eat Alone and Who’s Got Your Back.

So, who comprises a network? Everyone you know, so in essence, you are networking everyday. But, how about networking events? Find out which events and meetings that your network attends to find networking events that might be helpful in your career transition. Ideally, you want to find out where your target audience hangs out. Have a clear cut strategy for these events and remember networking’s golden rule: GIVE.

I’ll share a few tips for networking:

1. Do have a business card to hand out. Make sure it includes your contact information, your job title, URL (could be your LinkedIn profile, VisualCV, web portfolio, blog, etc.). Create a short tagline that shows your unique promise of value / personal brand.
2. Create your elevator pitch. A great resource can be found at http://www.15secondpitch.com. The feature I appreciate is that they only give you 500 characters total to write your pitch. The Pitch Wizard asks you a series of questions to help you formulate your statement. Memorize this as a way to introduce yourself quickly, so you can focus on how you can give.
3. Find out how you can help others at these events. It could be as simple as sending them an article link to a resource you know about that would help them solve a challenge.
4. Do let people know you are in a career transition and are interested in networking opportunities with companies. Ask if they know anyone in your targeted companies.
5. Collect their business cards. Before you leave, make notes on the back of their business card of who they know, how you might help them, etc. Email or write a follow-up note after the networking event to let them know how much you enjoyed meeting them and be sure to include a line or two where you comment on something you discussed.

Finding networking events seems to be a challenge for most, so I’ll share a few tips here on how to find local events in your industry:

• Your local newspaper will generally list upcoming networking events with dates, times, and locations.
• If you are a member of Facebook, then type in your industry (i.e. marketing). At the bottom of the drop-down box, you will find “See more results for marketing.” You will click on this hyperlink to see the results for business pages and groups. You can further hone your search by adding a location such as your state or city/state. Many times, these geographic-specific groups will host live, networking events and give you a chance to meet your fellow group members.
• On LinkedIn, you will see “Groups” on the toolbar. When you click “Groups,” you will see a dropdown of choices. Click “Groups Directory” and search for industry-specific groups and you can narrow your search by including geographic location. Like Facebook, belonging to these groups may provide you with opportunities to have in-person, networking events.
• TweetUps are organized through Twitter and can be industry-specific groups as well. You can use a service like Twtvite (http://twtvite.com/) to organize a TweetUp or to create your own networking group.
• If you are interested in online networking, Twitter has lots of different chats, including #HireFriday, #JobHuntChat, and more. You can find a growing list of chats at this website link: http://tinyurl.com/TwitterChatList.

Again, your network includes everyone you know, so make sure to remember them on important dates. When you read something that they might enjoy or benefit, send them the article or blog link. Keep them top of mind, so you will stay top of mind with them.

Your network needs to grow. If you stay in a comfort zone with the same people, you may be missing critical relationships that could facilitate new opportunities, whether it be career advancement, the potential to work on a coveted project, and much more.

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

One of the exercises I use to help a person uncover their personal brand is for the person to define their  vision, passion, values, and purpose. Whether you leverage your personal brand as an entrepreneur or as an employee in the work environment to support the corporate brand, knowing these areas will ensure alignment with the place where you work.

Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos.com, Inc. recently wrote a book, “Delivering Happiness.” As I read the book, I saw how he utilized this same process to catapult a struggling company into a $1 billion plus online retailer.

Vision

Zappos’ vision is that, in the future, 30% of all retail transactions in the U.S. will be online and people will want to purchase products from the company with the best customer service and outstanding selection. Zappos.com will become that one-stop online store.

Passion

Zappos’ passion is to deliver extraordinary customer service. Customer service is such a focal point in their brand that all new employees, regardless of their role (including legal, accounting, and more) are required to go through the four-week customer service training. At the end of the first week, new employees are offered $2,000 to quit (plus being paid for the training time) and the offer is made each week until training is completed.

Values

Zappos developed these 10 core values with input from the entire company, making sure that the values were committable – on which they were willing to hire or fire. The recruiting department has even developed questions around each core value.

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventerous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

For someone who has gone through the process of unearthing their personal brand, h/she would know if h/her personal values aligned with the corporate values and could leverage these values in an interview. Additionally, knowing your own values helps you to know whether or not the corporate values align with your own, thus facilitating a good fit for you and the employer.

Purpose

Zappos purpose is to build a lifestyle that delivers happiness to everyone, including themselves. As you can see, the vision, passion, and values are intertwined, each supporting the other. When you define your vision for yourself, what fingerprint do you want to leave as your legacy and are you passionate about reaching this goal? What are your core values that will help you achieve that vision?

Conclusion

In 2009, Amazon and Zappos created what they called a marriage in which Amazon purchased Zappos for $1 billion, however they each remained as a separate company. Within a year, Zappos had grown so much that it restructured into 10 separate companies under the Zappos umbrella.

I believe the Zappos story outlines key components of branding philosophy. The story also illustrates how they have hired personnel who know their own personal brand and leverage their own unique value proposition to support the overall corporate brand. Most call centers focus key performance indicators on timeliness of resolving customer concerns that are often scripted. Zappos lets its personnel leverage their personal brand and unique market strengths to deal with customer concerns how they deem appropriate – in fact, the longest recorded call in Zappos history was five hours.

The benefits to knowing your personal brand and how it fits within a corporation’s brand are enhanced job satisfaction and greater personal fulfillment.

This article first appeared in the Personal Branding Magazine by Dan Schawbel

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

I did a six-part series on goal setting and strategies for goals.  What happens if you set goals for yourself and work hard, but something happens that keeps you from reaching a goal?  What should you do?  Reassess, look ahead, and dream a new goal to help you reach your ultimate vision.  Sometimes we have a goal that for some reason or another doesn’t work and is not achieved.  Should we give up?  No!  See if there are other ways to reach that goal or ascertain if that goal was attainable.  At times, we have visions that may not work quite the way we thought they might, but actually are reached in a different way.For example, I heard a speaker tell the story of Mary McLeod Bethune.  She was born in 1875 in South Carolina and was African American.  She was the fifteenth of seventeen children born to Samuel and Patsy McLeod, who were both former slaves.  Many of her siblings were born into slavery.  She demonstrated a desire to learn to read and write and attended a one-room schoolhouse, Trinity Missions School.  Her vision was to be a missionary in Africa and teach school.  She worked very hard to reach this goal, but was told after years of hard study that her application was not accepted because missionaries who were African American were not needed.

Did she stop?  Not a chance!  She re-evaluated and decided a different way to reach her vision of teaching.  If she couldn’t teach in Africa, she could still reach her dream and teach in the U.S.  She opened a school in Daytona Beach, FL for girls in 1904 and had six students.  She made desks out of crates and obtained supplies from charity.  Bethune, parents, and church members raised money by making sweet
potato pies, ice cream, and fried fish and selling them to construction crews. Pencils were made from burned wood.  She also recruited wealthy business people to sit on the board including James Gamble of Procter and Gamble and Thomas White of White Sewing Machines.  She also raised funds for the school by talking to people like John D. Rockfeller who gave her a $62,000 donation in 1905.

By 1910, six short years later, the enrollment had risen to 102.  By 1920, the school’s value was appraised at $100,000 and the enrollment had risen to 351 students.  In 1923, the school merged with the Cookman Institute for Men and became co-educational.  In 2004, Bethune-Cookman University celebrated its 100-year anniversary.

When obstacles appear, don’t give up  hope – dream another way to fulfill your ultimate vision.

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

The last topic in my series (but certainly there is more on the subject) is about your vision. What is it and how has it changed while you have been working? Think back to when you were in school. What did you want to become and why? Is your vision still the same?

I once heard a speaker talk about a teacher that hated her job. He asked her why and she retorted that she was merely a babysitter, disciplinarian, etc. Not the choice of words that are going to motivate someone, right? He asked her to go back to the time when she made the decision to become a teacher. What drove her to make that choice? She answered that she chose it to make a difference in children’s minds and that she wanted to inspire learning. He asked her if she thought she was fulfilling that vision and she answered that she was not. He then challenged her to list the goals she must achieve to make her vision a reality. She began excitedly talking about hands-on experiments, centers, field trips, etc. that would inspire her students to learn.

Have you let everyday challenges replace what was once your vision for your life? Revisit that vision, plan SMART goals, evaluate the often, and keep reaching beyond to achieve your dreams! Happy New Year 2012!

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve covered some material that may be new to you, while some material may just be a refresher for you.  In any case, I hope that you are beginning to see the importance of setting goals.  William Arruda says, “Goals give your brand direction.”  Strong personal brands set goals for themselves and follow through.

Several coaches will use different tools to help you set goals for yourself in different aspects of your life such as financial, professional, physical, family, etc.  In my coach training program through Mentor Coach , Ben Dean created “The Pillars of a Balanced Life.”  Basically, in each of the 10 areas, you rated yourself from 0 – 10 (of course, 0 being the lowest).  We were then trained to take someone through it and find out how a ranking of a “2″ might become a “4″.  We take baby steps instead of saying, “How can you take this from a “2″ to a “10″?”–that might be overwhelming to most.

Goals are not something you do once a year, like on New Year’s Eve.  Studies have shown that less than 2% of people keep their New Year’s Resolutions!  Instead, you want to be evaluating at certain times if you’ve achieved your goals and if so, what is next?

I was a vocational rehabilitation counselor for many years and we used to help our clients write out Individualized Written Rehabilitation Programs.  We state the goal / objective, the resources to help attain that goal, the start date, the date to re-evaluate, the approximate end date, and the evaluation criterion.  I have helped over 500 people write these plans.  Contained in this plan are the components to writing your own goals.  Here’s an example to jump start your goal planning this year:

Objective / Goal:

Purpose of Goal:  by the way, make sure this is juicy enough to propel you forward in its’ achievement!

Resources that can help:

Start Date:

Evaluation Date:  this might be daily, weekly, monthly, etc.–determine what’s best for you.

End Date:

Evaluation Criterion:  i.e. how are you going to MEASURE your success!

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

Today, look at who you have chosen to help you achieve your goals.  Are they the type of people who will make you stretch to reach further and further or are they enablers?  By enablers, I mean are they people that will say, “Oh, it’s okay if you eat one more piece of chocolate–it’s not going to hurt you”, etc.  Surround yourself with people who will be your cheerleaders and share in your success, but also, will hold you accountable to your goals.

One reason coaching is so effective for people is because during coaching, you set the agenda for the goals you want to attain and your coach helps you to come up with actionable items to achieve these goals.  Most coaches will end the session by asking you for what you will be accountable for the following session.  If you don’t succeed in accomplishing those actionable items, your coach helps you to determine what obstacles occurred to prevent you from accomplishing these actionable items and will help you brainstorm ways to not let these road bumps get in your way again.  If you are successful, your coach will celebrate your success with you through supportive words, a card, etc.

To become a certified coach, I was required to be a client with a certified coach.  I look back on the experience as very valuable and hope to work with a coach in the future.  It was during this time that I achieved more goals and followed through on actionable items because I had someone for whom I was accountable on a weekly basis.

To whom are you accountable?  I wish you all the very best in achieving your 2012 goals and having a prosperous year!

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

To recap, we’ve talked about goals being S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Frame Specific) and how you need to know the reasons / purposes behind your goals as well as the belief system you need to create to attain those goals.  Today, I wanted to focus on attainable goals.

Simply put, you want write your goals and understand that learning a new behavior to reach that goal (i.e. exercise) is going to take practice before you reach the level you are seeking.  If you haven’t exercised in a long time and the first day you over-do it by exercising 2 hours, then guess what?  You will be sore and your BELIEF system will unconsciously send the message that exercise=pain.  You want to take mini-steps to achieving the eventual goals.

I injured my ankle several months ago and have been unable to exercise due to surgery.  My goal is to workout for at least 30 minutes per day, 5 days per week.  However, I will probably start off exercising 10-15 minutes and giving myself permission to be okay with that amount of time.  As a former ballet dancer, my value is to be in good shape, so right now, I’m having to re-learn how to get into good shape and maintain it.

So many people give up on their goals because they mess up one or two days and they resonate the message that “I can’t do it–I always mess up–why even try?”  Be accountable to someone for your goals and remember that we all fall short from time to time.  Persevere and realize that you are going to have a bad day from time to time.  Look at what got in your way that day and what supports you can put in place to keep that obstacle from re-appearing.  Mine is simply having the treadmill set up and my pilates machine out.  I get up and workout in my PJs first thing in the morning.

Today, write out the mini-steps you will need to achieve your goal.  Make sure that they also follow the S.M.A.R.T. principles and that you reward yourself for a job well done.  Remember, practice makes perfect!

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

I did a post last week on goal setting, but wanted to follow-up with some strategies to employ when setting your goals.  Most people make New Year’s Resolutions and fail to follow through.  We discussed making your goals S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-frame specific).  If you have written your goals to match the S.M.A.R.T. rules, then you’ve done half the work.

What’s the other half?  Knowing the reason and purpose of WHY you have set these goals.  Are the reasons and purposes enough to propel you forward to achieve these goals? Furthermore, how many times have you set these goals for yourself only to not achieve them?

First, you must take a look at the underlying belief you have established about accomplishing these goals.  For example, if you achieve X then Y will happen.  Does Y contain the elements to make you want to commit to your goal?  If no, why not?

An example might be exercise.  If your underlying belief is that exercise equals pain, then what motivates you to go exercise?  Probably nothing and so the resolution or goal of exercising everyday goes out the window.

Now, if these underlying beliefs are what have prevented you from being successful in the past, what changes in your belief system can you make to achieve your goals?  If you changed the belief that exercise equals pain to one that exercise will energize you and make you feel better about yourself, are you motivated now?  You know it will, but  changing the BELIEF system from unconsciously associating it with pain to associating it with energy, vitality, etc. is what will propel you forward.

Are your goals S.M.A.R.T.?  What are your beliefs about your goals? Do you need to change any of your unconscious beliefs to achieve the goals of the past that have been broken repeatedly?  Write down your reasons, any associated beliefs, and the beliefs you MUST have to be truly successful this year!

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

It’s that time of year again–have you written your New Year’s resolutions / goals?  Let this be your year for success!  When you decide upon your goals, write them down, and post them in a place where you can see them everyday.  Make sure that they follow the S.M.A.R.T. rule of thumb:

S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Attainable
R – Realistic
T – Timeframe Specific

A favorite quote is “It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal
beyond it.”  – Arnold Toynbee

I have some ambitious goals for Career Design Coach for 2012 that
includes Job Search and Social Media Toolkit membership center, contributing to a book published by Wiley Publishing, and doing at least 12 keynotes and/or workshops live this year.  I have them written and saved as my screensaver so I can see them each and every day to be reminded of my goals.  I am additionally writing out the mini-steps I will need to do each day to complete these goals in 2012.

For example, here is how I’ve broken down writing a book:

Contact publisher(s) to pitch idea

Secure contract

Goal for book length is more than 20,000 words

Write at least 200 words everyday for 100 days

Send draft to the editor by my deadline

It is specific because I know my title and the ideas I want included.  It is measurable because I have broken down how many words I will write per day.  It is attainable and realistic because I have many blog posts, reference files, e-mail answers that I can pull together to serve as resource material for the book.  It is timeframe specific as I have set a goal to have the first draft to the editor by a certain date.

What goals have you set for 2012?  Share them with us!

This information about SMART and the quote are included in the Reach Branding Club Entrepreneur Module.

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

In December 2009, research commissioned by Microsoft found that 79% of U.S. hiring managers and job recruiters reviewed online information about potential job candidates. If someone Googled you, are they likely to find information that supports that personal brand for which you want to be known or not? Consider this – in this same study, they found that 70% of U.S. hiring managers have rejected candidates based on what they found online about that person.

Not only are we finding that employers and recruiters are utilizing Google as a background check, but also post-secondary institutions. Kaplan found in their research that 9% of business schools, 15% of law schools, and 14% of medical schools are already using social networking sites to facilitate evaluation of students during the admissions process.

Three Tips for Building and Monitoring Your Online Identity

1. Google Yourself – Place your name in quotation marks (i.e. “Kristen Jacoway”) in the search box on Google. What shows up in the first three pages? iProspect conducted a study that found that 92% of people survey only view the first three pages of results. Does Google reflect your unique promise of value that you can offer to a potential employer?
2. Are You Digitally Distinct, Disguised, Dissed, or Dabbling? – You can use a tool called the Online Identity Calculator (http://www.onlineidcalculator.com) to discover how you compare with people at your professional level. The tool helps you to make sense of your Google results. Knowing what Google says about you is a critical piece of your career management.
3. Know Your Personal Brand – Before you begin to build Google results, you must know your personal brand attributes and how to convey how you are unique and different from everyone else who has the same job title as you (you can start a free, 15-day personal brand assessment at www.reachcc.com/360v4register).

What if you have a common name, like Bob Smith? A relatively new tool, called Vizibility (http://www.vizibility.com) launched in 2009 raises your visibility with the Google results that are only applicable to you and best demonstrates your skills and abilities.

To join Vizibility, you simply enter your first and last name, companies where you’ve work, and click “Get Vizibility.” The next page will show you the Google results found on your name. The feature I love is that you can remove listings that are not about you – and you can rank order up to five results to show up on your “Google Me” badge that Vizibility will generate.

Once you’ve selected your top 5 results, then click “Save and Get Button.” You will then create your Search Me account where you customize your Vizibility URL (e.g http://www.vizibility.com/KristenJacoway). You can use your Vizibility vanity URL on your LinkedIn profile, your Twitter profile, and more.

Tips to Protect Your Online Reputation

• Be mindful of what you tweet or comment on Facebook: Companies have employed the utilization of social media listening tools like Radian6, TweetBeep, Google Alerts, Company Buzz, and more. The majority will “hear” if you use their name.  Likewise, be careful of what you say in general. I had a client that made a negative comment on a Facebook Fan Page and the comment ended up being on page 1 of her Google results. If you wouldn’t want a potential employer to read it, then don’t type it!
• Set Your Privacy Settings: Most social networking sites offer privacy settings. If you are using a social network strictly for personal use, then set high privacy controls. Think about your objective for using the site—is it to establish your thought leadership and expertise? If so, you will not want high privacy settings so that you can be found.
• Be careful of what you are doing AT ALL TIMES: Not to increase paranoia, but be mindful of what you are doing. With the rise of people having cameras and video cameras on their phones, all it takes is a couple of clicks for a compromising picture or video to be uploaded to the Internet with your name tagged (making it a searchable result). The very nature of the Internet is viral and can be spread very quickly causing it to be difficult to remove.
• Sign-up for Google Alerts for Your Name: Go to Google.com/alerts and sign-up to receive an email when your name appears on the Internet. Again, put your name in quotation marks to receive clean results. Monitor your online brand so that you can be proactive in managing your reputation.

If you have digital dirt (i.e. anything that is unflattering about you on the Internet), be proactive and take steps to remove or push down the dirt in your results. Contact the owner of the website or administrator of the page and ask nicely for the content to be removed. Contract with a company such as Reputation.com if your attempts to get content removed are not successful. In conclusion, monitor your brand online and offline and make sure it’s consistent for how you want to be known.

Additional Information

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.