Are you monetizing your minutes?

One of the biggest challenges executives in transition struggle with is turning their efforts into dollars. True, everyone is networking, linking in, twittering and creating elevator pitches but are these efforts getting results? Honestly, I have been on LinkedIn for years and I bet less than 10 people have ever cultivated my list and asked for referrals. As a career coach I have listened to hundreds of elevator pitches and sadly they are the same old thing… Here’s who I am, here’s what I did and here’s what I want. Employers don’t care! They want to know one thing… How will their life be different with you in it!

Let me ask you, what would happen if you did the basics in career search better than anyone else? What would happen if you made sure every activity was targeted to your success? Would you create more chances and close that dream career opportunity sooner then your competition? Being successful is about monetizing every minute of your search. Your intro needs to excite them, your stories need to impress them and most importantly your defining statement needs to demonstrate why they need you more then anyone else. This is a job market where being good just won’t cut it because there are too many good people competing against you!

Everyone in transition has tough decisions to make and you need to be making them. Is your resume strong enough to stand alone? If its not then you have to find ways that make the employer desire you long before they see your resume. You also need to ask whether you are communicating your expertise as best as you can? Experts build brand that attracts opportunity to them. For example, are you standing up in groups and presenting yourself as a compelling thought leader? As I have said to a number of execs, an effective career search is definitely a full contact sport

Execs in transition need to take a hard look at every activity they do and ask it’s effectively monetizing their time? One trap I see happening is people become support group addicts. They have their Monday session, their Tuesday evening session, their Wednesday coffee club and the list grows on! What if you decided to only go to one group a week and you took that extra time to attend another networking event where the people who can hire you go?

Let’s be clear there is a time to help and there is a time to ask for help! One of the biggest faults I have noticed that today people do all this helping but they are reluctant to ask for help in return. Keep in mind this is your life we are talking about and there are people out there who can help you if they simply know what you need.

Now this last tip may surprise you but I want you to take some of your time to play really hard. A career transition is stressful, its humbling, and for more than a few it can be devastating to the ego so you need to find a release. What do you think would happen if you really worked hard for three and a half days and then let loose doing something that rejuvenated your mind body spirit. You need to find balance or the stress will show through when you least needed it to.

Here’s to your success!

Curt Skene is a popular speaker across North America and a powerful career coach to over 40 people in career transition. His website is www.curtskene.com

How Can You Become The Expert?

In a crowded world where everybody is fighting to be noticed, what makes professionals stand out? Is it their looks, their personality or their expertise? I will admit I really do like good looking people and I do like people who are fun to be with but in the end the most important thing I need is people who can help me move my business forward. I mention this because I believe people have to become brilliant at branding their expertise more than anything else. This is especially true the more one moves up the corporate ladder.
When you face a glut in the market (i.e. lots of choice available) it really is a risky proposition to simply hope you will be perceived to be better over the matter of a few meetings. Sadly because of the glut there are lots of great people available to do what you do. In fact, in the last few months I have witnessed many situations where great people took home the silver medal because companies perceived there was someone else who was just a little better. I know it’s not fair but perception beats reality nine times out of ten.

So here’s something I want you to remember… “There is no exact definition for what makes someone the expert but there is a perception of who the experts are. Expertise is a brand that is created when you take deep knowledge and couple it with an industry reputation of knowing how to apply it. However, you don’t really have to be the expert but you do have to be perceived as the expert.

So what are you doing to create the perception that you are the expert that can make the difference?

First off, experts must stand for something because no one can be amazing at everything. Wayne Gretzky was amazing at putting the puck in the net. Technically he was a lousy skater, he sure wasn’t tough but when it came to scoring goals he was the expert. You need to look at your market and decide where your strengths need to be. While it may seem like a scary proposition the law of sacrifice says “you have to give up something to get something.” Once you have decided where your expertise lies set a plan to grow your skills every day. It doesn’t take a lot of time just 30-60 minutes each and every day and I guarantee you will be an expert in no time at all.

Once you have developed a body of knowledge you must then create a strategy to communicate your expertise to the world. You can create a website, write a blog, speak to groups, create audio/video clips or simply start asking brilliant questions that define you as an industry thought leader. The key is to do something every week that reaches out to others and builds up your brand as the expert. If you write a blog then invite people to read it. If you post audio/video clips then tag them with keywords and link them to your website. If you write articles make sure you place them where your target companies will read them.

Your goal is to create a pull strategy whereby companies are drawn to your expertise before you even know who they are. What you need is your brand to start pulling opportunities in like your recruiting efforts were in cruise control. Soon you should notice is that as your brand begins to distinguish you, companies will start to perceive you as the best one to solve their problems. Remember the Law of Perception says “it’s not a battle of skills but a battle of perception as to who offers more value that often wins.”

The Eyes Have It!

This article essentially mirrored what I was going to say so instead of re-inventing i have copied it and left all of the "credits" intact.

By Roger Ellerton Phd, ISP, CMC, Renewal Technologies Inc. www.renewal.ca

Have you ever noticed that people’s eyes move when they are thinking? This is valuable information that can provides us with clues as to whether they are thinking in pictures, sounds, feelings or talking to themselves. Or in other words, information about their lead and preferred representational systems.

William James (Principles of Psychology, 1890) first suggested that internal representations and eye movements may be related. This observation was not explored further until the 1970’s when Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Robert Dilts and others conducted further experimentation in this area.

According to neurological research, eye movement both laterally and vertically seems to be associated with activating different parts of the brain. In the neurological literature, these movements are called lateral eye movements (LEM) and in NLP we call them eye accessing cues because they give us insights as to how people are accessing information.

To get an idea how your eyes move, consider the following questions. For each question, as you think of the answer, notice the direction(s) your eyes move (up down or to the side) or if your eyes do not seem to move notice if you have a sense that you are looking in a certain direction (even if only for a fraction of a second).

1. What is the colour of your front door?


2. What will you look like in 15 years?


3. What does your favourite music sound like?


4. What would your voice sound like if you had marbles in your mouth?


5. When you talk to yourself, what type of voice do you use?


6. What does it feel like to be in a nice warm bath?

Did you notice your eyes had a tendency to look up for the first two questions, to the side for the next two questions and down for the last two questions? In general, if you are making a picture in your mind your eyes will tend to go up to the left or the right, for sounds laterally to the left or right, and down to the left or right for feelings or when you talk to yourself.

More specifically, if you are right-handed, you may have noticed the following (for people who are left handed, interchange left and right in the following text):

Question 1 - eyes up and to your left. This is a question about something you have seen before and hence you remembered it -- visual remembered (VR).

Question 2 - eyes up and to your right. This is a question about something that I assume you have not seen before and hence you constructed this picture - visual constructed (VC).

Question 3 - eyes on the horizontal plane to your left. This is a question about something you have heard before - auditory remembered (AR).

Question 4 - eyes on the horizontal plane to your right. This is a question about something you have not heard before - auditory constructed (AC).

Question 5 - eyes down and to the left. This is a question about your self talk - auditory digital (Ad).

Question 6 - eyes down and to the right. This is a question about your feelings- kinesthetic (K).
Note: The above eye patterns are how your eyes would move if you are right-handed. The following picture describes the eye patterns for a right-handed person as you look at them - please note this distinction. These patterns are fairly consistent across all races, with the possible exception of the Basques, who appear to have a number of exceptions to the rule. For many left-handed people, the chart is reversed i.e. mirror image.

Eye Pattern Chart Looking at the Other Person

If you would like to have some fun with your friends or family, here are some other questions you can take turns asking each other - or you can make up your own.

Visual Remembered - What is the colour of the shirt you wore yesterday? Which of your friends has the shortest hair?
Visual Constructed - What would your room look like if it were painted yellow with big purple circles? Can you imagine the top half of a tiger on the bottom half of an elephant?
Auditory Remembered - What does your best friend’s voice sound like? Which is louder, your door bell or your telephone?
Auditory Constructed - What will your voice sound like in 10 years? What would it sound like if you played your two favourite pieces of music at the same time?
Auditory Digital - What is something you continually tell yourself? What are your thoughts about this article?
Kinesthetic - What does it feel like to walk barefoot on a cool sandy beach? What does it feel like when you rub your fingers on sandpaper?

People’s Eyes do not Always Move
Sometimes people’s eyes do not move and this may be due to:
Look to talk rule: Some people have a look to talk rule. That is, when you are making eye contact with them, they will also look at you and their eyes will seem not to move or move very slightly and quickly. What may be happening in this situation, is that they are defocusing their eyes so that their ‘internal’ eye can look in the appropriate direction.
Near term memory. If the answer is something that is well-known to the person (i.e. What is their name?) or is a recent observation, then they do not need to search for the answer and their eyes will not move.

Using Eye Patterns to Assess Truthfulness or Congruence
If a person is describing something that they have seen or heard, then their eyes should primarily move to visual or auditory remembered. However if a person is making something up, then their eyes will tend to move to visual or auditory constructed, indicating that the person is constructing some part of the situation they are describing. This may indicate that the person is uncertain or untruthful about what they are thinking.

Be careful assuming someone is untruthful. For example, suppose you asked me a question about something that I had never thought about before. To formulate an answer, I may have to look at or hear one or more pieces of true information in a way that I had never done so before. In this situation, I would be constructing an answer and my eyes would most likely move to visual or auditory constructed.

Lead and Preferred Representational Systems
People have habitual eye movements related to their lead and preferred representational systems. I am right-handed and my lead system is auditory digital. If you were to ask me, what is the colour of my front door, my eyes would first go down to my left (auditory digital) before going up to my left (visual remembered). Why? Because the first thing I would do is repeat the question and make sense of it (auditory digital), and then get the answer (visual remembered).
In a similar manner, if your lead system is visual and I asked you what does it feel like to be in a nice warm bath, you would probably get a picture of being in the bath (visual remembered) before accessing the feeling.

Your preferred representational system is the sensory modality (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, auditory digital) you use to organize and understand some experience or situation. If I am speaking to someone or giving a presentation and I notice that their eyes keep going up to visual, even if I am not using visual words or pictures, then this is a clue that they may be forming visual internal representations and their preferred representational system is visual. On the other hand if their eyes are tracking on the horizontal plane, then they are processing in sounds and their preferred representational system is auditory. If their eyes are going down, then they may be processing kinesthetically or making sense if what I am saying (auditory digital). If in addition, their eyes are going down to the right and they are right-handed, then their preferred representational system is most likely kinesthetic.

Building Your Confidence in Reading Eye Accessing Cues
There are a number of ways to practice reading eye accessing cues, here are two:
Practice with your friends (with their permission): Watch their eye accessing cues and then verify your observations with them.
Watch talk shows on TV (make sure it is spontaneous and not rehearsed.). This is a great way to practice as you can stare at the people on the TV and it will not bother them at all. Notice if there is a relationship between where the person looks and the predicates they use i.e. if the person’s eyes are looking up, do they tend to use more visual words?

And NLP is Much more than that!
Author: Roger Ellerton is a certified NLP trainer, certified management consultant and the founder and managing partner of Renewal Technologies. He can be reached at Renewal Technologies http://www.renewal.ca/index.html. The above article is an extract from his book Live Your Dreams - Let Reality Catch Up: NLP and Common Sense for Coaches, Managers and You.
Copyright © 2004, Renewal Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.

Live Your Dreams Let Reality Catch Up: NLP and Common Sense for Coaches, Managers and You by Roger Ellerton is rapidly becoming the standard for introducing NLP and is a valuable resource of proven techniques and concepts for managers and coaches. Parents and those in the helping professions, indeed anyone looking for personal improvement or assisting others with personal change, are also finding great value in this book. Live Your Dreams Let Reality Catch Up is available from Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Chapters.indigo.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes and Noble and other fine book retailers.

What If You Planned For More Laughter?

Did you ever notice how positive laughter can be in our life? Strangers become friends because they share a joke. Old wounds heal because laughter makes one forget. That which ailed us disappears instantly because laughter really is the best form of medicine. Simply put, I think we all need more laughter in our life. If you think back through your life which moments stick out the most? I bet it’s the times where laughter got the best of you and you never forgot how great that felt.

So anyways there I was thinking to myself, if laughter is so great why the heck don’t we invite more of it into our lives and why don’t we make more of an effort to make others laugh?

Imagine, just for a moment… what if we did?

1. When you make fun of yourself, you disempower others.


2. Laughter dissolves tension, stress, anxiety, irritation, anger, grief, and depression. Like crying, laughter lowers inhibitions, allowing the release of pent-up emotions.


3. Medical researches have found that laughter boosts the immune system. If we know stress will kill us then laughter must keep us alive.


4. Laughter releases endorphins that make us feel great.


5. Laughter helps integrate both hemispheres of our brain, for the left hemisphere is used to decipher the verbal content of a joke while the right hemisphere interprets whether it is funny or not.


6. Laughter adds spice to life.


7. Develop your sense of laughter and you will find you are more productive, a better communicator, and a superior team player.


8. Everyone loves someone who can make them laugh. The more you share laughter the more friends you will have.


9. Laughter brings the balance we need to get through the turbulence of life comfortably.10. Laughter is even equivalent to a small amount of exercise. It massages all the organs of the body.


10. Laughter can help you accept the inevitable, rise to any challenge, handle the unexpected and come out of any difficulty smiling.

But here’s the clincher, the "piece de resistance" laughter helps our customer see us in a positive light. Not only will they like us more but they will like what we do. Just try to be critical when you are laughing and smiling it’s practically impossible to do.

Plain and simple people just see the world differently when they are in a happy place.

So this month ask yourself, where can I plan to include more laughter? Is there a funny story you can share? Is there a funny perspective you can offer? Just do something to make your customer laugh and I bet they will invite you to be a bigger part of their life!

Just to be clear because I know someone reading this is thinking it. Yes, there is a time and place for laugher. All I am saying is plan for more laughter, take more chances to make others laugh and you just may find that these grey days of a crappy economy may instantly get a little brighter.

What If You Did Something?

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION: If you are looking for a business coach who helps you work through your business or career challenges please call me. I have twice been recognized worldwide for my business development programs/strategies. The fact I am also a certified hypnotist just adds even more power to my program.

Have you ever noticed that some companies (or people) can be masters at doing nothing when it comes to the things they know they should be doing? Some are so good at doing nothing they can justify it to a point that it almost makes sense. I hear things like, we don’t have the time, we don’t have the resources, we can’t find the perfect person, we need to oversee everything, trust me when it comes to doing nothing I’ve heard every excuse in the book. But the bottom line is if you want to get ahead you gotta do something!

I share this with you because today I found myself listening to another myriad of excuses as to why doing something would be practically impossible. In listening I was wondering if these folks had so much money they could simply afford to do nothing but I knew that wasn’t true. Now I know these companies stuck with doing nothing are smart companies. I have a ton of respect for the leaders but for some reason they are stuck.

I think one thing that happens is we tend to get overwhelmed at the thought of doing something because we feel whatever we do must be perfect. But hold on… don’t we teach our kids its better to do something rather than nothing? As parents don’t we talk endlessly about the virtues of giving something a fair chance?

Of course there is also the infamous, “I don’t have the time to do something.” “Yes, I know I should do something but I am just too darned busy doing other things.” Now to a logical person I can imagine how that might make sense however when you dig deeper you often find that the things they are busy doing is not anywhere near as important as the things they are not doing. In reality, I think most of us, including me, could easily stop doing 20% of the things we are doing today and life would still go on and of course we could then do something we need to be doing with our new found time.

Quite honestly, I used to excel at doing nothing too but then I learned the simple secret of doing something, doing one thing each and every day that would move me forward. It’s much like the financial principal of paying yourself first. What do you think would happen if you found thirty minutes to do something every day? How long do you think it would take before the benefits would pay off? My bet is that in less than thirty days you would see a real tangible difference in your business.

Now another challenge I find stems from our perception that in order to do something we need 100% control because we all know no one can do something quite like we can. My simple advice is to simply get over it. So what if something isn’t perfect the first time it’s done. At least you took a step in the right direction. Giving up control was extremely hard for me because I really liked the way I did things. However, when I got over myself and started to look a little more objectively I realized that while things weren’t quite like I would have done it, the work was still good and more importantly it was something that would move me forward.

30 Questions To Help You Attract Your Dream Career Opportunity

NOTE: Feel free to contact me if you want help preparing yourself for a brilliant future. I have various career coaching programs available to fit any budget.

Attracting your dream career can be a real challenge for many reasons but with excellent preparation any "reasonable" opportunity can be well within your grasp.

When I counsel career seekers I offer a number of powerful ideas for standing out and making yourself the chosen one. Remember skills and experience are important but that only gets you in the door.

Below is a list of questions that should challenge your thinking and super boost your chances for success!

Feel free to contact me if you want help setting yourself up for a brilliant future. I have various coaching programs available to fit any budget.

1) How can you create WOW?
2) How can you make your value more visible?
3) What are the career search “basics” you need to do brilliantly?
4) What specifically does your dream career look like?
5) Where do the people you need to meet hang out?
6) What obstacles are currently standing in your way?
7) What business is your dream employer really in?
8) What are the three things they must know about you?
9) What great questions can you ask?
10) What is your 8-second elevator message?
11) Whose help do you need in order to be successful?
12) What is the “after photo” you can create in the employer’s mind?
13) What “else” do you have to offer this employer?
14) What career search activities do you need to keep track of and commit to?
15) How can you get their attention in this busy world?
16) How can you anticipate the employer’s needs better?
17) What would make your dream employer seek you out?
18) Who is your hero and what would they do in this situation?
19) How could you go against tradition?
20) What should you stop, start and do more of?
21) How can you be more personal in your approach?
22) How can you think inside the box?
23) What tough decisions do you have to make?
24) How can you be more fun?
25) How else might you be able to help?
26) What’s changed in the world and what might change?
27) How well do you know this employer?
28) What can you be better at?
29) What did you learn today and how can you apply it tomorrow?
30) How can you be more memorable?

What if you said things a little differently?

I am pretty sure you may have heard the expression, “if you keep doing the same thing you are going to keep getting the same result.” Well that is true for the things we say as well.

So what do you think would happen if you started saying things differently? Let me give you an example. In my speaking business I want people to know that I am a great speaker, easy to deal with, fun, exciting and affordable. Now I could run around and yell out to everyone but how many other speakers do you think are saying the exact same thing? If you said lots, my bet is you're right! So in reality my message would be lost in a crowd of same sayers, just like everyone else. So, if I ask you to think about your business, do you really think your competition is saying things much different than you? I doubt it.

So in order to be different in my message, here is one way I flipped things around to say it differently:

TOP 10 REASONS WHY MEETING PLANNERS MIGHT NOT HIRE CURT
10. They find the sound of audience laughter and clapping very annoying!

9. They really like the idea of spending twice as much on someone half as good!

8. They enjoy the thrill of not knowing how things will turn out!

7. They believe compliments, congratulations and accolades are overrated anyways!

6. They know learning new things should never be this fun and exciting!

5. They are hoping Brad Pitt or Jennifer Anniston will reconsider!

4. They want their audience to be extremely well rested after the session!

3. They don't believe hiring a great speaker should be this simple!

2. The last thing they need is to get a job promotion!

1. They just didn't know to call Curt first!

It you notice in almost every point I was implying the exact opposite. By simply flipping my message I can accomplish two important things:

1. because I am saying it differently I am offering a unique spin to my message (and people like unique).





2. because I am saying something indirectly it is often easier to be accepted by the subconscious mind of the listener.
   

If you read books on persuasion you will notice how much they talk about the power of indirect communication because the critical mind just doesn’t notice enough to object!

So this month try this exercise out. Think of something you would normally say to promote yourself or your business. Now think of how you could flip it by implying the opposite. Then ask how else could you say it? If you are feeling really brave try to write a paragraph that sounds unique but is essentially saying the same few things in many different ways.

Till next we speak!!