Who is the Decision-Maker?

Shortly after Joel and I got married, his lemon-of-a-junker car finally gave up the ghost:  a bad referral from his family's Manchester, Vermont network. Since we lived in North Chatham, Columbia County, and we worked in diametrically opposite directions (me in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires, at General Electric Aerospace and Joel in Albany, New York, at Crossgates Mall, as Manager / Head Picture-Framer at Deck the Walls), a new car purchase became a priority for our family, as car-pooling was clearly not an option.

After some quick and thorough research courtesy of Consumer Reports, that year's Mitsubishi mini-SUV became our purchase goal, as it more than met our reliability and functional needs.  We journeyed from our rural rental house into the outskirts of the Brunswick section of Troy, NY and paid a visit to the dealer on Route 7.

We entered the dealership, and examined the floor model of our intended car purchase.  An older, stouter gentlemen with glasses, salt-and-pepper hair (tie-less and blazer-less, a good sign for Joel) made eye contact with us, put down his book and approached us.  That is, he made eye contact with me:  Joel purposely kept his Ray-Bans on, looking like a cross between Elwood Blues and the sax player from The Blues Brothers.  His contribution to our purchase negotiations:  the silent and vaguely forbidding bad cop.  Joel took a quick glance at the cover of the salesman's book:  it was an Arthur C. Clarke book.  "That's a good sign," Joel noted softly to me.

I nodded, still a bit wary. Buying a car was always a Women's Studies 101 field trip for me.  At best, it usually started out with an obnoxious elevator visual evaluation of me from the aloof sales guy, and then the standard "Where's your father / boyfriend / husband to help you with this?"

The salesman extended his hand to both of us.  "Hi folks, what can I do for you today?"  I pointed at the mini-SUV.  "We're interested in this model, for the right price." I replied.  "Great! Let's sit down," he said, gesturing to the two chairs in front of his desk.  We settled in the chairs.

The salesman looked at both of us, and then asked a brilliant question:  "Please let me know who will be signing the loan paperwork:  both of you, or one of you?  I'd like to direct my discussion to the person who will actually buy the car."  Joel and I grinned at each other, and then at the salesman:  he had us at hello.  "It's me,"  I replied.  "Great," the salesman replied, pulling out the paperwork.  "Let's get started."  We got a great price, and they even took the dead lemon as a trade-in, towing it to the dealership for us.  The Mitsubishi lasted 11 years, a great buy.

Do you know who the decision-maker is when you:

• Interview for a job? (Hint:  unless you're interviewing for a job in the Human Resources Department, it's not HR);
• Make an appointment with a new company as a potential sales prospect?
• Refer contacts in your network to potential business?
• Refer mentees in your network to potential employers?
• Network for potential business, contract and employment referrals?
• Get an appointment with a company without posted job openings but who you know needs your skills and experience as an employee badly enough to hire you virtually on the spot?
• Are the customer and need your vendor to resolve an issue that is not clearly dictated by established policy?

And if you don't know:  do you take the extra step and ask who the decision-maker is?

As was the experience of our sage car salesman:  identifying the decision-maker makes the difference between closing (or losing) the sale.

How many decision-makers are on your call / meeting list this week?

Reputation Makes Recruiting, PR and Marketing Ring True (Or False)

One night earlier in my recruiting career, I was uncharacteristically awake past 10 PM.  When I'm up this late with nothing interesting to read or watch, I turn on the t.v. for background noise and catch up on my work email.

A new email pinged in at 10:25 PM, not from a colleague but from an executive-level candidate responding to a query email I had sent earlier that day.  Here's what it said:
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Good evening:

There's no amount of money you could pay me to come and work for your company.  The (hiring manager) is a flaming asshole and everyone in the industry knows it.  Good luck with your search, your (sic) going to need it.

Sent from my BlackBerry
Please forgive any typos
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It startled me.  My husband Joel heard me gasp and woke up.  "What's wrong?" he asked, startled himself.

"Look at this email!  I've never seen anything like it from a candidate before," I replied, offering the laptop screen for him to view.  Joel smirked.  "I'm sure he's drunk," he concluded. 

I shook my head, bewildered at the candidate's carelessness.  "Friends shouldn't let friends email drunk.  Doesn't this guy care about his reputation in the industry?"  Joel arched a sage eyebrow at me.  "Well, is the hiring manager an asshole?"  I smirked my reply back.  Joel went back to sleep.

Just a few weeks after the drunken candidate email, I was networking on the phone with another industry executive to solicit candidates for the same job.  He was coldly cordial and (I presume) soberly to the point.  "I hear nothing good about your leadership team.  Your company doesn't have a great reputation out in the market.  Your sales have sucked for the past few years, and I predict you'll be out of business in the next 3 - 5 years."  I thanked him for his time and hung up.

Now, I love recruiting.  However, I listened to these two poignant and juxtaposed data points and came to the conclusion that no matter how good a recruiter I am, including but not limited to how positive an ambassador I am for my organization, no amount of recruiting lipstick was going to make the organization's reputational pig pretty. 

As the job market and the overall economy continue to rev up in fits and spurts, it's important to engage in organizational listening, in social media and other channels, to understand what your customers, candidates, vendors, etc. are saying about your organization.  And more importantly, to incorporate that listening into both your external and internal customer interactions, to ensure that the communication is consistently authentic.

Have a lot of open positions to fill and not getting a lot of candidates?  What's the word on the market about you and/or your organization?  What does my girlfriend Google say?  Or surely, you should have some inkling:  could it be the 20% of your workforce that you shed during the worst of the recession?  Or the chronic complaints from your customers about your service?  Whatever the facts are for your organization, consider addressing them proactively, factually, productively and future-facing.  And ensure that the recruiting, public relations and marketing streams are integrated, singing the same authentic message about your people and your products.

What's the word on the market about you and your organization?  And what are you proactively doing to address the message authentically?

Resiliency Best Practice: Take a Break and Lend Japan a Hand - http://tinyurl.com/5v3kh4s

This link is to donate to the Japan Relief Fund on Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations website:

https://www.kintera.org/site/c.kkLRJ7MQKtH/b.5338473/k.7A23/UUA_Japan_Relief_Fund/apps/ka/sd/donor.asp?c=kkLRJ7MQKtH&b=5338473&en=dhIJJRNBLeKILROGKpKOJROELjLWLcMMKlKVIZOyGeJRKYNzFiL5H

What resonates for me at this writing are the reports that I have read of the resiliency and grace of some of the earthquake / tsunami survivors, while still in their moment of crisis, highlighted in the press:

• Despite the collapse of several interior walls, one family's gratitude that their house still stands;
• Another family's gratitude that the tsunami wave did not reach their home;
• And most importantly, the families who are grateful and know how lucky they are to have lived through the crisis together and to still have each other.

Wherever or however you give:  there but for the grace of God go you and I, this week and beyond:  with gratitude.

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?

How Full is Your Calendar Campaign?

I started working as a writer on political campaigns when I was a college senior.  In addition to writing promotional copy were the more mundane but necessary tasks of stuffing and labeling envelopes; cold-calling voters; and scheduling the candidate's events to ensure they were interacting with as many voters (read: decision-makers) as possible.

I remember poring over the morning newspaper on a daily basis with my supervisor Donna, searching for events for the candidate to attend which would expose them to the maximum number of voters.  Our job was to fill up the candidate's calendar every day, 7 days a week until Election Day.  "There's a pancake breakfast at the firehouse on Saturday, let's schedule the candidate for that event," Donna directed.  I stopped, pencil poised over the campaign calendar.  "Does the candidate know the folks at the firehouse?  Isn't that weird to just show up and start shaking hands with people you don't know?  What if the candidate tells us they don't want to do it?" I asked a bit anxiously.  Donna looked at me, arching an eyebrow.  "Weird or not, if the candidate can't do it, they shouldn't be running for office."

It was an expansion of the success practice my father instilled in me:  10 decision-maker prospect calls a day; at least one decision-maker prospect meeting a day.  Whether you're searching for jobs, customers or voters.  It's the same Zen practice.  Open up the newspaper, Business Review, Chamber of Commerce website, etc. and start filling in your calendar.  My particular angle on this best practice is to focus on decision-maker events where I can practice needs-based, win-win networking.  Another one of my colleagues combines donations and pro bono work to charity events near and dear to her heart with her networking:  another great win-win example.

If for some reason there's a dearth of decision-maker events on the calendar, I catch up with my Board of Directors. Or I sharpen the saw by attending events where I hone / expand my skills and horizons.  Or I stay home and catch up on my reading.  Unless you're running for political office, I certainly don't advocate the 7-day-a-week calendar practice.  It's a creative choice process, ripe with possibilities.

However you decide to plan your calendar campaign, one success statistic remains constant:  business owners / entrepreneurs must spend at least 50% of their time marketing for new business in order to sustain / grow their businesses.  A potential best practice is for all of us is to do the same, whether the marketing is internal to the organization (as an employee); or externally (job-seeker, networker, entrepreneur, business owner).  I love the implied potential of all of us working towards that growth goal.

How full is your calendar campaign this week?  And every week thereafter?

The Career Yente

When the national tour of Fiddler on the Roof was in town recently at Proctor's Theater, I attended one of the Sunday matinees.  It was a wonderful show.  During the performance of "Matchmaker," I was struck by how different our life goals are just 4 generations after late 19th-century Russian shtetl life.
Actually, not so different for the 3rd generation removed.  On the trip north to drop me off at SUNY Albany for my freshman year, I was asked why I wasn't getting married and getting a job rather than attending college.  It worked out fine, despite the 3rd generation's concerns.  I finished college, established a career, and to my surprise, got married, albeit a little later in life than the 3rd generation preferred.

Also, unlike some of my contemporaries, I have absolutely no talent for romantic matchmaking.  Seriously.  Don't ask me to find you a date, it will not work out.

I do, however, love vocational matchmaking.  And I'm great it.  My hit rate is about 98% or better matching up the right candidate for the right job.  Either via the phone or face-to-face.  For profit (in one of my SME career workstreams as a recruiter), or even better, for fun.  Connecting potential business partners; employers and employees; and mentors and mentees.  At work, at social events, at church, you name it.  I hear and/or intuit the needs, the matchmaking wheels start to turn, and I start doing my vocational / business connector thing.  A Career Yente, if you will.

However, unlike the slightly kvetching tone of Fiddler on the Roof's "Matchmaker," I don't sit on my tush waiting for the Matchmaker to make me a match; I'm the Matchmaker, connecting my network and building our mutual success and reputation. And fortunately for me and my network, there are a number of us out there, constantly connecting the dots to support our mutual success.

Who will you connect this week to create new career and business opportunities?

Sandbox Your Way to Success

I have been a member of Professional Women's Network in Albany, NY for almost 16 years.  Unlike other business, professional, leads and networking groups (such as Chambers of Commerce, etc., which are also important yet different), we support each other's success organically.  That is, among other benefits, we are each other's personal Board of Directors.

Our members are doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, business owners and executives.  Truly a marvelous talent resource.  The difference with our group is the smaller size and our guidelines, both of which engender and breed trust.  What's said in PWN, stays here.  We have each other's backs.

And not just from a business standpoint.  Anywhere from walking together through the crucible of  breast cancer with the unwavering support of our group's subject-matter experts (SMEs) to long-term warrior status (no stinkin' survivors' badges here), to marshaling the group's great minds and savvy to rally a virtual barn-raising to enhance and support the business or career strategic plan of any given member.

However, the greatest gift of PWN has been the sandbox space we create together.  That is, a safe space where we can experiment with new career and business ideas, and know that we will get a candid and expert, yet heartfelt response.  To be clear:  heartfelt is not candy-coated feedback, it is direct and authentic.  And if that experimentation is a failure:  no harm, no foul.  It has truly been freeing to take those necessary creative risks in order to move to the next level of business and career success in that sandbox.

From the beginning, PWN has used me as an HR and Career SME, both individually and as a group.  I talk to a member at least once a month, if not more frequently, asking for my guidance on the labyrinth that Human Resources / Employee Relations / Recruitment and Retention can be.  In my commitment to stand up for my fellow members as an HR SME, they, in the process and safety of our group sandbox, have taught me to truly become an HR Consultant, allowing me the great privilege to first serve them.  Thank you, good women:  another reason why you rock.

Yet PWN is not the only group like this:  there are many others like it.  For example, I've had the privilege to bear witness to a similar sandbox through the Rensselaer County Chamber of Commerce Leadership Institute.  Under the leadership of RCCC's President Linda Hillman, her talented staff and equally resourceful Board of Directors, the Leadership Institute has created a wonderful sandbox for its up-and-coming students to learn from SMEs, CEOs, and most and best of all, from each other.   They're stuck with each for the rest of their careers:  what a wonderful opportunity and resource.

Like a chicken in every pot, I wholeheartedly believe that everyone on a vocational / entrepreneurial path driven to success deserves a sandbox to play, grow and succeed in.  So much so, that I recently matched up a small group of entrepreneurs and job-seekers (who are becoming entrepreneurs) from my church (Who then invited some of their friends / colleagues, see how it catches on?), to create such a sandbox together.  They're supporting each other to develop and win proposals, whether they will become employees or business owners.  I love witnessing the discovery and growth of their own success in the new hothouse of their sandbox.

Looking for a sandbox?  There are lots of sandboxes to play in and join.  Or, if you build a sandbox, they will come.