Innovation and Growth in Work and Business Love a Vacuum (Breakdown)

My husband Joel's business, The Best Framing Company, celebrates its 18-year anniversary this month.

The Best Framing Company was conceived early in 1994 when the owner (Joel's boss at the time) of the local Deck-the-Walls franchise decided not to renew his 10-year franchise. Before he closed the store down, the franchise owner offered Joel and me the opportunity to renew the franchise for $350,000, at a 6% interest rate. The franchise owner offered to hold the 10-year note, and we would make the astronomical and discouraging monthly payments to him, with little hope of making any profit. No, thank you. Joel had had enough of mall working life. And we had just purchased our first home, so our savings account was a bit thin and our bills were much more substantial. Joel and his boss proceeded to make arrangements to close the store by April 1994, and Joel commenced his job search, a bit discouraged at the thought of working for one of the competitors.  

That offer from Joel's boss sparked an idea. Why not open our own store, in a small strip mall, and Joel could make his own hours? As a skilled custom picture-framer, Joel had a healthy client list of happy customers. Armed with that unique selling proposition and our respective skill sets and smarts, Joel and I proceeded to complete the four months of research and legwork to build a business plan to obtain a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan to open The Best Framing Company's bricks-and-mortar storefront.

By the time Joel was laid off, we completed the business plan. Joel continued his job search and fixed up our new 1944 house while I shopped our 40-plus-page business plan around to SBA loan providers.

One of the local nonprofits at the time ran an SBA loan program: I sent the business plan to the nonprofit, and the 21 year-old pisher loan coordinator said that 1) our business plan was great; and 2) we were a shoe-in to get our loan. The Pisher assured us we would be on the May 1994 loan review committee agenda. Armed with that information, I made arrangements to lease a store space effective June 1, 1994 and order the materials Joel would need to open the store, using a $6,000 credit union line-of-credit.

The day before the loan review meeting, I called the Pisher to ask when we would appear. "Oh," he said, rightfully embarrassed. "I forgot to put your loan review on the agenda. He heard me choke. "But don't worry," he hurriedly said, hoping to avoid my expected outburst. "We can get you on the July agenda. I was deadly and sadly, calm. "You've just put my husband and me into financial jeopardy," I carefully said. "What are you going to do to fix this?" The Pisher did not man up. "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do," he said. "But let me give you the phone number of Manny Choi at Fleet Bank, who is on our loan committee. He may be able to help you." I hung up the phone and cursed loudly, dropping F-bombs for 15 minutes straight. When I was done, and calm again, I called Manny Choi.

 He agreed to meet me the next morning. I did not sleep at all that night. And while I'm not normally a crier, I cried bitter tears all night long. Joel tried to console me, but I was inconsolable. "Who the hell do I think I am," I wailed to Joel. "What business do I have thinking that I can put together a business plan?" Now I've pushed us deeper into debt. $6,000 will not cover all of the initial carrying costs. I'm so sorry I've gotten us into this!"

Joel knew better. "It's a great plan, and we'll get a loan somewhere else, I know we will," he said, 110% solid in his belief in my abilities, and his own. "We can definitely do this." I took a much-need break from the tears, sniffling. "You're just saying that because you love me," I said, whimpering a bit around the edges - also unlike me. Joel hugged me. "No, I'm not," he said, firmly. "I would tell you if I thought we should quit. We haven't explored all of our options yet."

The next morning, calm from lack of sleep and all cried out, I donned my best blue navy suit and met with Manny Choi. I watched him for nearly 45 minutes as he read all 40 pages of our business plan, occasionally nodding. He closed the plan, and looked up at me. "What do you think?" I asked him. He smiled. "I think we can get you a loan. I'll just need current résumés for you and Joel. You have a good plan here." I exhaled. Joel was right. We got the loan.

As I learn and grow incrementally wiser from these wonderful adventures, I'm quicker to remember my Daddy's advice: if you make 30 calls and you get one sale, you're doing well. In order to start The Best Framing Company, we only needed to make two calls before we got the sale. Or as my friend Barb Wisnom would say: just try and collect 20 "no's." We were only able to collect one "no" before we got the "yes!"

Good hunting for your "yes's" this week, and every week. And savor the creativity and growth that you will produce when faced with the vacuum of a breakdown. For that - and you - are the gift and the breakthrough in the face of every breakdown.

 Happy Anniversary, hon!  

How Email Address Typos Cost You Jobs and Business

At the beginning of my HR career back in the early '90s (which seems much more recent than 20 years ago), I had just received my WARN layoff notice from GE Aerospace (which no longer exists, sold off in pieces to its rivals General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin), giving me 60 days before my last day at GE Aerospace to find another job, inside or outside of GE.

There were two GE jobs available locally at my level and function, both at GE Plastics (which no longer exists either; sold off in pieces to SABIC and Momentive, respectively); one at the Selkirk location; and the other at the Waterford location. My site HR Manager and mentor, Tom, ensured that I was a candidate for both jobs.

I interviewed at Selkirk first. I liked the team and the work they were doing. When I returned to my office at GE Aerospace from the interview that day, I wanted to send each of them a thank-you note. Since I had introduced using PROFS email to distribute a now-crude electronic version of the weekly employee newsletter at my site (a precursor to Microsoft Outlook, which my dying business could not afford to purchase), I wanted to walk the talk of my innovation. So I sent each member of the interview team a thank-you note via PROFS, which was unheard of back then. Interview etiquette firmly dictated hand-written snail-mail thank-you notes.

The site Recruiter responded within the hour, informing me that they had hired an internal candidate and thanked me for interviewing for the position. I was annoyed. Clearly, they had already made their hiring decision before my interview, and I was interviewed to merely fulfill their EEO requirements. I shared my frustration with my immediate supervisor, Chuck. "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword," he grinned. "That's the risk you take with email communication." While I was eventually hired by the Waterford site - less then one week before the end of my WARN period - Chuck's observation always stuck with me, even to present day.

Now, I have performed my English-major rant in prior posts about typos in emails, which invariably cost job candidates and vendors both potential jobs and new customers. Recently, however, the typos have achieved a new level of failure through imprecision.

In the last month, I have received 3 emails with typos in the email address itself. So when I referred back to an email and clicked on the email signature to send a fresh email in response, the recipient never received my return email due to the typos in their email address and I received a mail delivery failure message from their email system. I helped the first one out because the guy fired great on all of the rest of his cylinders; he had transposed letters in his own name in his email address. I gave up on the other two email address typos: basically, it was too much work and too annoying to compensate for someone else's lack of attention to detail. If their prospecting emails caused this much work and aggravation: how would it be to work with them every day?

Wondering why you may not have heard back from that job application or that new customer prospect? Proof your email address, please. And everything else you send out in the email, while you're at it. It can only help support your success.

  

 

How We Inspire and Teach Each Other at Work

My 10 year-old son Noah woke up at 3 AM Saturday morning with only the second earache of his life and recurring bouts of nausea that really need no further detail.  What a blessing.  I fully attribute it to being hooked up to a breast pump machine like Elsie the cow for the first two months of his life during my maternity leave 11 years ago.  If two months of short-term aggravation have given Noah sterling immunity, it was a great gift all around.  Another blessing, in contrast to my childhood, were the emergency weekend hours at Noah's pediatrician's office.  He was dosed up with antibiotics by noon on Saturday.

As we caught up on our sleep yesterday and today, confined along with Noah to the house, I decided to tackle building my first WordPress website.  I had purchased the very cheap hosting and even cheaper themes at least a month ago, and the timing seemed opportune.  I previously built free Google websites for my husband Joel and my friend John, and this was my next personal challenge.  Some people hike higher and higher mountains; I geek-hike this way.  Viva la difference.  Given our earache quarantine, it was more stimulating than tackling our taxes:  next weekend's project.

As I wrestled the plugins, widgets, themes and other WordPress quirkiness, I thought of the chain of events that brought me to this WordPress weekend:

• My friend Deb recruited me to take her place as the Director of Publications at a lobbying firm, so she could start her own business.  Thanks to Deb, I learned how to use both an Apple computer and Adobe PageMaker.

• I proceeded to do freelance copy-writing work for Deb on my own time, introducing me to contract / consulting work.  I purchased my first fax machine 20 years ago, as Deb and I worked collaboratively via fax and floppy disk. That fax machine (which burns the images on paper) still works, and we just moth-balled it last month due to the purchase of our HP wireless all-in-one printer. 

• Thanks in part to my PageMaker knowledge, I got my first job at GE in Human Resources / Employee Communications, where one of my responsibilities was writing and developing the weekly plant newsletter  (Graphic layout, BTW, is not my strong suit.  Dammit Jim, I'm a writer, not a graphic designer). We had PROFS email back then, which was an IBM green-screen email client.   We were only permitted to email each other internally, and we were able to send TXT extension files as attachments.  The fax machine was still the main communications channel.  I loved email, and started sending shorter version of the plant newsletter via PROFS email.

•  My brother Rob got a job with Prodigy and kept handing me down his outdated computer equipment. He suggested that Joel and I join America Online (AOL).  We did.  Thanks to Rob, I was able to research and write the business plan for The Best Framing Company (Joel's custom picture-framing business) using AOL in 4 months without stepping foot once in the library.  That business plan got Joel the unsecured SBA loan to start the business.

• I suggested to Deb and Professional Women's Network, the group that Deb invited me to join, that we all get America Online accounts so that we could email each other rather than fax each other, as a time-saver.  Not well-received.  Too radical-geek.   However, they did all eventually get AOL accounts, and soon thereafter, work email took over.  I love how attached they all are to their smart phones today, remembering the AOL uproar all those years ago.

• On the weekends, I would design simple postcards in PageMaker to market The Best Framing Company. It helped grow Joel's business and reinforce his reputation as a great custom picture-framer.

• When I worked with my friend Ron, Palm Pilots were all the rage at work:  all the cool kids (e.g., Ron) had the color Palm Pilots.  For a number of years, before the advent of smart phones, my purse was weighted down by both my Palm Pilot and my cell phone.  No stinkin' planners for me.

• A few years ago, I started attending Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley.  As a LinkedIn geek, it caught my interest, particularly the panel on blogging.  I hadn't written anything for myself since I was a senior in college.  I put a pin in the blogging presentation for later use, maybe.

•  My friend and fellow writer Katie (we're both members of FUSS) kept talking about how she wanted to be paid to be a writer.  For 4 months, I joined Katie's husband and noodged her to set up a blog for free and start writing; I had just seen Julie & Julia and I was freshly inspired.  From my FUSS work with her, I knew that Katie was a talented writer, and frankly, I wanted to watch her swim in the blogging pool first before I gave it a try. She finally relented and started writing her WordPress blog, Capital District Fun.  Katie, by the way, is now a paid writer.  I watched Katie blog for 4 months, and then created my own blog, Deb Best Practices, when tweeting only 140 characters was no longer sufficient expression for me.  It's a Google Blogger blog, as my girlfriend Google is my BFF.

• My friend Keith is the Webmaster on our project, and because of the nature of the work we're currently doing, he needed to teach me how to use Interwoven to update our website in a pinch.  A frustrating and quirky program.  WordPress,  in comparison, is a dream.  However, thanks to my experience with Google Blogger and building Google websites, I'm able to stumble my way through Interwoven successfully.  Keith is building our new website in Joomla, and I'm looking forward to learning Joomla as well, as Keith tells me it's a lot like WordPress.

• My friend Linda, who I met when we were both PWN members, asked me to teach the opening course, Strategic Thinking and Leadership, at her organization's Leadership Institute.  This year will be my 6th year teaching the course, tweaking the presentation I developed in MS PowerPoint.  A few years ago, there was a student in the class;  a brilliant, young and up-and-coming lawyer:  my friend George.  The break-out exercise that I ask the students to do each year is the secret sauce that always sparks them to a new level in their professional development, even if it's just a small step.  In George's case, it was spontaneous combustion.   He manifested and later implemented his vision:  his growing firm, LaMarche Safranko Law.  He's still on fire, and it's great to see.  George has a great WordPress website.

Just a few of the wonderful family members, friends and colleagues who inspired my WordPress weekend; and really, so much more.

Plan for Success

As I prepare to teach the opening workshop,  Leadership and Strategic Thinking, at the Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce Leadership Institute this week, I look forward to the breakthroughs that I invariably will witness from the students.

I've been teaching versions of this workshop for a number of years. And I don't just teach and facilitate strategic planning:  I believe in it and I practice it myself.  Every goal that I've written down, shared and on my own, from personal goals (e.g., giving birth to my son Noah) to career and business goals, I've achieved.

Not that the act of planning makes the path any easier:  there are always struggles and setbacks.  At times, the plan's timing is out of your control, and/or you may be paralyzed by fear, self-doubt, or worse.  However, with plan in hand, I see the rockiness of the path as a series of tests of my commitment to my created path. Particularly where no path exists, and I bush-whack through the wilderness, living the journey as Frost articulated:  it has made all the difference in my well-lived life and career.  And then I begin to understand why some of the most successful businesses of the 20th century started with just such an idea during the Great Depression.

Even more satisfying is watching the students (up-and-coming promotable leaders:  managers in larger organizations and well as entrepreneurs / business owners) solidify their plans, dreams and goals by writing them down and then mustering the courage to walk through their deceptive fear of failure to share those plans with their classmates and hopefully those key individuals outside the class who can become part of the team to implement those plans.  The act of manifesting (writing down) your goals and plans, and then sharing those goals and plans with trusted colleagues and advisors, is a powerful act indeed.

Don't underestimate the creative power of this planning process.  Once the wheels are set in motion, amazing things can and will happen to you.  Some examples from my past students are:

• Becoming a judge;
• Promotion to your dream job (FYI:  most of the time, you just need to present your proposal and ask);
• Starting your own successful business;
• Defining your own work / life balance rather than expecting your employer to do it for you;
• Getting the education / degree you've always dreamed of, but never shared with anyone.

Create your plan and write it down:  start with at least one goal.  Share it with your own Board of Directors.  Build your commitment; never, never, never, never give in.  Implement your plan.  And don't be surprised:  expect success.

Have U Prufed Yr LinkedIn Profile to Suport Yr Sucess??

Gentle readers:

I know, it's annoying.  The English Major is at it again.  I'm reading a lot of your LinkedIn profiles and finding typos / errors.

Frankly, this is much worse than finding these typos / errors in your job applications:  please read my advice to you on this front in my earlier post, Thank You Fer Teh Job Oppertunity.  As a recruiter and a hiring authority, the audience for your errors as a job applicant is just me, theoretically.  The advice, however, is universal to all of your reputation management, online or not.

On your LinkedIn profile:  well, it's the entire online community worldwide, viewing your handiwork (or lack thereof) real-time on their Droids, iPads, and related hardware.  It's like a picture posted of you with clumps of spinach in your teeth, in full view of your potential customers / employers.  Hopefully you already know that your LinkedIn profile, unless you've changed your LinkedIn settings, shows up in Google among other search engine results when a hiring authority / potential customer conducts a simple Google check on you. 

So potential decision-makers in Melbourne (and everywhere else) are chuckling ruefully at your lack of precision and attention to detail, and clicking on the next LinkedIn profile in their search results for a vendor, a consultant, a Ruby-On-Rails Developer, an Online Reputation Manager, or a Controller.

And sadly, not calling you for potential career and business opportunities.

Now, intentional misspellings have been used since advertising has existed.  One of my favorite local examples is the beloved ice cream joint, Kurver Kreme.

The LinkedIn examples I've seen recently are clearly not intentional; and in fact, are actually in (ouch) current LinkedIn profile headlines (censored to protect the careless):

• Business Developement Manager at xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx  (a U.S. profile, FYI)

• Marketing anager at xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx

• Human Resoruce Manager at xxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx

• Here's a doozy - not just one but multiple misspellings at the top of this person's LinkedIn profile:

            HR Manger at xxxx xxxxxxxx

Xxxxxx xxxxxx  | Human Resources

328 connections

Current:

HR Manger at xxxx xxxxxxx

Past:

HR Buisness partner at xxxx xxxxxx

Manger at  xxxxxxx

                  Recruitment Manger at xxxx xxxxx

Now I know that after experiencing both an earthquake and a hurricane within the same week, we all need a little Christmas, right this very minute, with the serene visualization of a manger scene.  But please:  not in your LinkedIn profile, unintentionally!

By the way:  by entering misspelled words into the powerful LinkedIn search engine, I was able to generate a list of nearly one million LinkedIn users with potential misspellings in their LinkedIn profiles.  Yikes!

So, gentle readers:  get thee to Merriam-Webster Online and a trusted editing buddy and fix your LinkedIn profile typos, fast, to best support your online reputation as well your ongoing success.

Come In From The Margins

I'm challenging our property tax assessment again this year.  I just finished our complaint, due on Tuesday, chock full of new data and pictures.  I'm looking forward to talking to the Board of Assessors again later this week.

Joel and I watched in awe as the value of the house we bought nearly 18 years ago essentially doubled by 2008.  Yep, the same year our town decided to reassess all of our houses at full market value.  The housing market crashed just a few months after the new tax rolls were published.

No one taught me how to put together a property tax complaint.  But thanks to the experience of researching and writing discrimination complaint position statement responses and appearing at discovery hearings, that honed skill set, with a bit of help from my girlfriend Google, served us well last year, as I expect it will this year.  Rather than just complain (no pun intended!) about how outdated our 2008 property tax assessment was, I took the risk and completed work in an area I never imagined experiencing.  And saved us, at minimum, the cost of using someone else to represent us in an area we know so well:  our own house.

When Joel was laid off in 1994 because his boss decided not to renew the 10-year the Deck the Walls franchise (and we declined the offer to take on a new 10-year, $350,000 franchise agreement ourselves on a note that Joel's boss also offered to hold, a new level of their working relationship Joel and I simply did not want to explore), he spent 4 months on unemployment while I researched and wrote the business plan to get us a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan to start our own picture-framing store, The Best Framing Company.  No one taught me to put together a business plan.  However, I knew how to research (using AOL in its infancy); use MS Excel; and write a great story, factual or fictional.  Working at GE during that time was also a boon to this process, to this day a key and foundational career experience.  I doubted myself every day during the process, but Joel's faith in me and my abilities never wavered.  Long story short:  we got the loan.  Unsecured, based on our collective talent and experience.  It was a bit like a pregnancy and birth process:  our first joint creation, before our son Noah.  With some of the same pain, complaining and self-doubt:  but in the end, a great product.  And we created it ourselves, from scratch.  No stinkin' franchise for us.

What will you do this week to create something that you've never done before:  to create from scratch, your skills and experiences manifested in a new area; your own vision, realized?  With the sure knowledge that you can come in from the margins:  layoff; career and business set-backs; personal pain and crisis:  and start once again, with courage, creativity, renewed faith and irrepressible energy that comes from the best source:  you.

Keep Your Success Saw Sharp

Thanks to my regular attendance at Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley (SMBTV) since the summer of 2009, I have learned and implemented several new skills and initiatives:

• Setting up a blog site and writing a weekly blog post, exercising several skill and cognitive "muscles" in one fell swoop;  (I actually encouraged my friend Katie to follow her writing talent bliss and start her blog first - then, after watching her produce great work for a few months on her blog, I waded tentatively into the blogging pool and starting writing too);
• Setting up a website, Google Map and Facebook fan page for my husband Joel's custom-picture framing business, The Best Framing Company, which has generated new customers;
• Setting up an even better website for my dear friend and colleague John Crowe, promoting the great counseling work he does with male sexual abuse survivors and other trauma victims;
• Setting up a blog site for Joel's fiction writing and self-publishing;
• Linking (in a rudimentary fashion) the custom domains purchased for the above sites so they actually work;
• Complementing my LinkedIn SME (Subject Matter Expert) knowledge with related forays into Twitter and Facebook, and conducting workshops and one-on-one coaching thereof, particularly on LinkedIn;
• Experimenting with all three channels (LinkedIn, LinkedIn Groups, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to broaden the audience of my blog conversations as well as innovate my recruiting and marketing projects;
• Engaging in Twitter conversations during presentations at relevant meetups like SMBTV (the endorsement to do so is as much fun and much more interactive than passing surreptitious notes in class).

And except for LinkedIn, I'm a SME-in-Training on the rest of the above.  Clearly, there are SMEs in the SMBTV crowd who know much more than I do.  However, I always benefit from my insatiable desire to learn about subjects that interest me and expand upon my strengths, and for that I'm very grateful.  It keeps me engaged mentally, emotionally and spiritually, and as a by-product, it continues to broaden my skill set and my marketability, in whatever I choose to pursue, whether it's my next project, customer or career-enriching job.

I also endeavor to read at least two new books a month, as well as take the opportunity to participate in formal training and work opportunities to focus on and codify other strengths, e.g. Mediation Training or Project Management for Professionals.

It is one of the habits that sticks with me from Covey's timeless standard, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: 

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have--you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. Here are some examples of activities:

Physical:	Beneficial eating, exercising, and resting
Social/Emotional:	Making social and meaningful connections with others
Mental:	Learning, reading, writing, and teaching
Spiritual:	Spending time in nature, expanding spiritual self through meditation, music, art, prayer, or service

As you renew yourself in each of the four areas, you create growth and change in your life. Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practice the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and handle the challenges around you. Without this renewal, the body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit insensitive, and the person selfish. Not a pretty picture, is it?

Feeling good doesn't just happen. Living a life in balance means taking the necessary time to renew yourself. It's all up to you. You can renew yourself through relaxation. Or you can totally burn yourself out by overdoing everything. You can pamper yourself mentally and spiritually. Or you can go through life oblivious to your well-being. You can experience vibrant energy. Or you can procrastinate and miss out on the benefits of good health and exercise. You can revitalize yourself and face a new day in peace and harmony. Or you can wake up in the morning full of apathy because your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone. Just remember that every day provides a new opportunity for renewal--a new opportunity to recharge yourself instead of hitting the wall. All it takes is the desire, knowledge, and skill. 

What opportunity will you take this week to Sharpen Your Success Saw?

Thank You Fer Teh Job Oppertunity

Gentle reader:  whether you are looking for a new job, or you're looking to be retained and/or promoted in your current organization, I beseech you, I beg you, I implore you.  Please proof what you send to hiring authorities and decision-makers.  Emails, documents, etc.  It's so sad and tragic when you don't.  Repeatedly.  

Seriously, stop it.  You need a job.

Speaking of which:  I'm not going to repeat verbatim in today's blog post my blog post from last August, Write Your Life, Write Your Career.  Read my advice as a hiring authority and a decision-maker to you there.  Not learning to write and proof to minimal business standards is, at the very least, a career-killer.

Those of you who don't proof your work and are subsequently not hearing back from the job applications you submit:  I'm going to give you some brief yet poignant examples as to why:

• state university of ny, albany ny

(Hint: it's not proper grammar, and since I know for a fact that e.e. cummings is dead, you're definitely not hearing back from me);

• Shift Manger, Ruby Tuesday's

(I love mangers, especially at this time of the year:  what does this have to do with your management experience?);

• Sent From My Verizon Wireless mobile phone

(Not as impressive as it was a few years ago; now it's definitely just lazy.  Not a real signature.  You can change this default signature yourself, just check the Verizon Wireless website or ask Tech Support at your local Verizon Wireless store);

•  Subject:  Your Career Oppertunity

(Big ouch.  You misspelled the email subject line.  I don't even open up your email, I just move it from my email Inbox to the Candidate Regret folder); 

 

• Education:  Saratoga Springs High School        

(I know font formatting in emails can get messed up in web transit; that's why you should attach your C.V. as well as cut and paste your C.V. into the body of the email.  Otherwise, it's like receiving an anonymous ransom note from a serial killer with a lack of attention to detail);

•  Hi:  I'm interested in teh job.

 (Hi.  You don't know me, therefore "Hi" is inappropriately too familiar for a cover letter salutation.  And you misspelled "the."   As the hiring authority, two strikes against you as the candidate.  We won't be familiar any time soon).

Note: please consider any typos you find in this blog post as a pop quiz.

Happy education; happy hunting; and happy holidays to you and yours!      

I'd Like to Thank My Board of Directors

While I have served on several nonprofit Boards of Directors and have learned a great deal from those experiences, nothing compares to my personal Board of Directors.

In both entrepreneurial and career endeavors, and through the detours and roundabouts to follow my bliss, my personal Board of Directors has been both the sounding board and the crucible in which I've forged each phase of my vocational journey.   And it has truly been a wonderful journey.

In this season of Thanksgiving, I'd like to thank (in no particular order and certainly not inclusive of all who have shepherded and walked beside me on my career path):

• My dad, who brought me to his office when I was 4 years old, years before Take Our Children to Work Day, inspiring me to want to get a job on the spot;
• My college friend Portia, who suggested that I apply to the New York State Assembly Internship program, which led to my first job out of college as a writer;
• My first boss Nan, who first taught me how to network for fun and profit, sparking a lifelong passion which has also led me to some amazing career experiences, the equivalent of several master's degrees;
• Miss Lee, my 4th grade teacher:  she conducted monthly writing contests (poetry and prose), awarding the winner $1.00, teaching me that I could write for a living (I won a few times);
• My former boss Carol, whom I helped hire as our organization's first female VP and who insisted that I get my SPHR certification, supporting me with both time and funding to do so;
• My stepmother Judy, who as the formidable and competent head merchant of a successful clothing chain, made executive achievement accessible and real to me;
• Bob, my former boss who "saw" me and what I had to offer his organization, creating both a job and wonderful career experience for me as a result of a courtesy networking meeting;
• My former boss Bill, who tirelessly coached me on a daily basis because he believed in me and my talent; 
• My friend and colleague Judy, who recognized my Operations leadership potential and connected me to my first of several broadening experiences thereof;
• My friend and colleague Georgia, who recognized my CEO / President potential and named it when I could not;
• My husband and my son, who sustain me with the unwavering faith and belief in my talents and capabilities; 
• My friend and colleague Dale, who taught me everything he knew about loss prevention, retail and corporate life;
• My fellow writers:  Joel (my husband), Katie, Anne and Nancy - your talent inspires me;
• My friend and colleague Barry, who taught me distribution operations and to shake off setbacks;
• My friend and colleague / partner Ron, who has journeyed with me through the ebbs and flows of the economy in support of our mutual success;
• My former mentees, who taught me as much as I taught them, and who have equaled and /or exceeded my career achievements:  Jeff, Julie, Laurie, Melissa, Alison;
• My friends Anne, Cathy, Avon, Kathleen, Andrea and John, who work successfully for themselves and who encourage me to break free from the gilded cage of employment;
• My friend and colleague Concetta, who during an 8-hour lunch one snowy Saturday, urged me to use my native interest and skills and get trained and certified as a mediator;
• My former minister, Priscilla, who is a beacon of female leadership in her own discipline and who nurtures mine;
• My clients, for teaching me how to work for myself and that ultimately, I am the source of my income;
• My HR buddies Sue, Lisa, Lynn and Meg, whose professional calibrations are worth their weight in gold;
• My fellow GE alums Allen and Patty, and my friend and colleague Linda, whose love and support is mutual (and for encouraging me to pursue my bliss in teaching / leading workshops and seminars);
• My friend and colleague Alissa, who recognized my entrepreneurial spirit / potential and named it:  Deb Best Practices.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Do you have a personal Board of Directors?  If so, have you thanked them lately?

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Write Your Life: Write Your Career

Disclaimer up front: as a serial and life-long reader and writer, I tend to focus on writing quality more than the average hiring authority, business partner, customer, colleague, friend or relative. However, I do not believe that I'm in the minority of potential decision-makers. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I do not claim to be a perfect writer or editor, with my solid B in my college Grammar 101 course. However, please do read on before you hit the send button on your next job application.

Bottom line: I continue to consistently see unprofessional correspondence from job candidates. Cover emails and letters as well as job applications riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.

The C.V. attachment that arrived with nothing but "Sent from My Verizon Wireless Blackberry" in the body of the email with the word "sex" embedded in the job applicant's email address is the most recent and memorable.

Twice recently I have seen the mangled "oppertunity" (sic). Once in the email subject line. Ouch.

The immediacy of error-ridden electronic job applications is perhaps even more heart-breaking than the old-fashioned hard-copy cover letters and C.V.'s sent to prospective employers via snail mail. That fading process at least, in theory, baked in some more time to review and proof your correspondence before you stamped it and dropped it in the mailbox (the red, white and blue metal ones). As a recruiter, just for the record, I do not miss at all managing hard-copy job applications.

When a job candidate (or for that matter, anyone else who is writing with the intention of marketing a product) corresponds as carelessly as exemplified above, the telegraphed impact about you as a candidate on the hiring authority and / or decision-maker is deafening:

• No attention to detail, does not proof their work
  
• Makes frequent mistakes
• Cannot write, perhaps cannot speak professionally
• Poor judgment
  
• Might have been impaired when they sent their email application.

(Friends don't let friends email; text; dial; drunk.)

• (Insert your own assessment here.)
  

The 90-day performance review rated "unsatisfactory" writes itself in my head as I move the candidate's mangled application to the "regret" folder, as my experience in the dual role of inside Executive Recruiter and Director of Human Resources / Employee Relations guides me to manage the unsatisfactory performance in the hiring stage and not pursue such candidates any further.

Managing poor performance on the front end (e.g., the candidate hiring stage) saves me and my organization a great deal of work and money on the back end (Payroll time wasted training, disciplining and making available to industry a substandard performer.)

In other words, I had to clean up my own mess, HR-wise, if I inserted a candidate with the issues above into the hiring process and they were subsequently hired. Not to mention the poor reflection on my assessment skills. It certainly motivates the drive for quality candidates.

There is so much information out in both the media and social media channels about the importance of accurate business writing in both the job application process and in the workplace, I'm once again at a loss to understand the substandard writing and grammatical errors I continue to experience in the work of others, especially in this competitive economy.

And I'm not advocating that candidates with poor writing skills engage ghost writers to win the job. Because once you win the job, you still need to write at least emails. I had a manager who worked for me whose emails were borderline illiterate, and they had been in the workforce for almost 20 years. Intrigued, I checked their personnel file (I had not originally hired them). I was astonished to find a C.V. and cover letter better written than my own. Ghost-written. And, as I later found out, by their spouse. But their spouse wasn't there to help, post-hire, with their business email composition.

My intention is not to come off as a writing snob. My own career Achilles heel is MS Excel spreadsheets -- they make my head throb. I winced and squirmed through Intro to MS Excel and Intermediate MS Excel courses. After nearly 10 years of formal and on-the-job instruction, I can for the most part use MS Excel at a satisfactory level. My next frontier is pivot tables.

If writing is your Achilles hell (sic intended!), then please consider continuing education courses in business writing, and then please practice writing at every opportunity. In your volunteer work. Helping your children with their homework. Writing love letters. Facebook posts. If I can white-knuckle MS Excel, you can do the same with your writing for business.

Before I send any important piece of writing out - proposal, job application, blog post - I let the best writer I know proof my work: my husband Joel. He just edited out a repeated word and pointed out two of my signature marathon sentences in this blog post, as a matter of fact. (Thanks, Hon!)

If I'm at work: I read and re-read my work at least 4 times. And then I wait a while before I hit send, sometimes until the next morning. It's worked consistently for me.

Sending in a job application is not a speed competition; if you send in your job application within the first week a job is posted, that is considered an expedient response.

If yours is the first application I receive and it has multiple errors, I will continue to look at the other applications. Clearly, quality counts in this as well as other business writing scenarios.

I believe writing is one of the ultimate acts of human manifestation: you can literally write your life. I have. And I love witnessing that act of creation in others.

I have only one request: please don't write and send out crap. Because what's inside you is so much better than that. And decision-makers are waiting to discover and purchase the gifts you have to offer.

A prosperous week to you and yours!