Nance Rosen Blog

If I had one wish that could be fulfilled by every job candidate I see, it’s that he or she would want to earn a million dollars a year, plus bonuses. I’ve asked lots of other business owners and they seem to agree that there’s one quality sorely missing from job seekers. That quality is ambition.

Given that my company is based in the US and specifically in Southern California, once home to the most ambitious people in the world – people who rode to the Western frontier with nothing more than a cow and a shotgun (okay, maybe they had some pots and salted pork rinds) – the paucity of ambition is particularly puzzling.

Not to say all job candidates are slackers, although a slacker often comes cloaked in a job seeker’s persona. This is typically a person who’s not all that uncomfortable living in the suburban ranch style home of now ancient parental Yuppies, and occupying a twin bed below a shelf littered with beanie babies, a Rubik’s cube and a Game Boy.

But, slackers aren’t the real problem. After all like most executives I still have enough papers to scan to fill up a terabyte or two of data storage and a number of other mind-numbing tasks perfect for a worker who is mysteriously satisfied if ear buds can be worn on the job.

The job candidates who confound me are people who expect to work for the majority of their lives. These are the student loan burdened and club going, or those with two kids, a bad marriage, mortgage and a master’s degree in something vaguely therapeutic. Meaning, these people all have debts to pay and modest Ketel One or kettle bell dreams to fulfill.

Why do they see the finish line so near? Why is it enough to end their run with the middle of the pack in a 5K? Why are we seeing so few people who are the type to claim the top podium spot in the Ironman world championship – or at least to die or cry trying?

Is it all those “special someone” days in elementary school? Is it the T-ball “tournaments” when everyone got a trophy for showing up?

Is it the legion of greedy, secretive corporate and investment fiends who haven’t just purloined our country’s wealth but made it all but impossible to believe there are still roads to success unblocked by the divine rights of the 1%?

Are pub-crawls and outlet malls setting a new low for what people aspire to have and to hold?

Tell me you expect to earn a million dollars, and I will eagerly ask you not only how, but also how I can help you. Business owners everywhere need big thinkers, heavy hitters, people who play through pain and know there’s gore in glory.

Ambition. It’s the other way to work.

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

There is one word that will undoubtedly get you on the way to that job interview, or a meeting with a prospect or referral source – even a potential investor.  This magical word will work for you when you use it in person, on the phone, in an email subject line, a text or a social media message. It’s that good.

There’s a caveat of course. You can’t just hurl this magic word or use it disingenuously. You can’t demand, cajole, nag or otherwise be irksome. You have to really mean what you’re asking for, with all your heart.

The magic word is “guidance.”

The caveat is that you must have honest curiosity about the subject – and no tinge of entitlement, irritation, or frustration. When you approach someone with a request for guidance, you may be expressing a bit of self-doubt, concern or just feeling unsettled by something you have experienced. You might even have a smidgen of hope or optimism in your tone. But, you can’t have or express any intention of taking advantage of the resource (the person you’re asking) or take a hard turn toward asking for anything more than guidance (for which you might prepare a number of questions that you really want answered).

Guidance – even more than advice – implies that you have specific questions or a problem that you can describe but can’t overcome on your own. Guidance means you have an ardent desire to sit with someone more experienced or with a broader reach than you could possibly have on your own.

Think of guidance, as mentoring’s little brother. What’s particularly amazing is that you can ask for guidance from complete strangers. And even more fantastic? It’s nearly impossible to get turned down. Of course, being humble, patient and grateful would be the winning trifecta.

It really is that simple. Here are some examples.

“Would you be able to give me some guidance on solving a problem I’m having?”

“I’m kind of stuck right now, and I’m hoping you might be able to give me some guidance about my job search.”

“There’s something that’s a bit of a mystery to me about working in this industry, and I wonder if you could give me some guidance on what I might be missing.”

“I’ve taken a class in your field of expertise, and I’d like to ask you for some guidance about how I could begin to approach a career like yours.”

“I hope you won’t mind my asking for some guidance from you.”

So this magic word “guidance” is a huge door opener. It can be a game changer for you because it’s so respectful and deferential; the object of your request might go way beyond answering your question. You may get a whole lot more. By that I mean, they might take you on as a cause, get you introductions and land you exactly where you were most hoping to go.

So use the word guidance with all due respect, and get the yes that can change your life.

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Mistakes even the smartest people make when they blog or produce email blasts are related to how they think about content.

1. “Every post must be the same or similar length – because my audience expects consistency”
2. “Every post must deliver my own original material”
3. “I must post on a regular, predictable schedule”

I publish and publicize up-and-coming experts and business authors who produce blog posts and email newsletters. Plus, everyday they show up on social media with a pretty huge number of tweets, status updates and other posts.

Plus, most of them work in consulting and coaching or are keeping a “day job” until their writing or speaking revenue streams become too large to manage part-time.

I assure them that with some planning and practice, content production can take about 15 minutes each day.

I know their pain and fear about producing all that content. I am an author, too. I wrote Speak Up! & Succeed: How to get everything you want in meetings, presentations and conversations. Despite my greatest fears about getting my material out in the world, the results shouldn’t have been such a surprise. It’s the best thing I did in my career.

In getting out my book – and bestsellers I produced for my clients, I pretty much use everything I knew about selling real products. I am a former marketing executive at The Coca-Cola Company and director of marketing in the Fortune 500 technology sector. I sold syrup and micrographic retrieval systems – selling content is surprisingly the exact same thing.

The path to success begins by attracting an audience and creating a relationship with high value people (people who have a problem you solve and a nice-sized budget to remedy it).

Whether you want to write a book, offer consulting services or do group coaching, or get asked to speak at associations meetings and conferences (or all of the above): your success is completely dependent on your delivering useful, entertaining and compelling content to people who can use it.

You will totally enjoy being a content machine if you think Willy Wonka, not “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap.

How to easily and constantly produce great content

This is the right mindset: you are developing a relationship with your audience. Like a friendship, this will take time to grow. And, you can’t make friends if you do all the talking – or if every time to talk you harp on the same thing, in the same way!

Variety and satisfaction are the keys to your success – and not coincidentally, it’s those two factors that are the keys to happiness, according the latest literature on positive psychology.

Variety

Vary the size of your posts. A few sentences and a photo on your blog will delight people with a highly visual, bite-sized treat. Two posts in a day or a long piece you write on a rainy Sunday will mix things up.

Yes: you can choose which days your audience will receive posts (if it’s once a week, then it’s once a week). Yes, you can take a theme like romance on Valentine’s Day and somehow apply to a serious topic like IT services. Do a Q&A once in a while. Get a guest blogger – pick up the phone, sending an email or direct message someone in the business you want to meet! Maybe a potential client, association executive director or another thought leader?

Create some categories: like “Leadership Commandments” or “Leadership Quotations” (or whatever your topic lends itself to). Then, stock up on those when you’re browsing the web, so you can simply put a category title and 3-5 bullet points in a post when you want to write something super fast and easy.

Satisfaction

Focus on what your audience wants – or wants to avoid. Seek to serve their needs with your own work and others’. Give examples of how someone is doing exactly what you believe. Tell stories about something you observed.

Develop simple formulas they can follow. Then ask them to tell you how those worked out – and share their experiences. Bring to light other thought leaders’ work – give them credit and ask for permission to re-post some of their material. Put in links to news stories, features, YouTube videos and the like.

This is the right mindset: neither you nor any other individual can produce enough content to satisfy one person even on one subject, much less an entire audience’s set of needs. You have some portion of 7 billion people to attract and engage AND leverage for their contributions.

As the author Michael Luckman says, when you overpower the fear that you are alone in your quest, you are filled with the capacity to attract what you want. With a collaborative approach to producing a cornucopia of content, you manifest a tribe of followers, contributors and customers who are delighted to buy what you most want to deliver.

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Consider you almost always have an audience. I use the term “audience” to reference any person who receives your messages. That could be spoken, written, live or archived words. They may be accompanied by sound, video, photos, graphics, slides, and links (or not).

I use the term audience with reverence and respect, because all around you are people who have the power to give you exactly what you want. That could be the ideal job or the go-ahead for the biggest deal of your life. Whether your audience is one person – a colleague, investor, prospect, hiring manager, client, boss or a guy sitting on a bus with you, or a crowd of 2 people to 7 billion: this life is your show and we are your audience. If you choose to live it that way: fully actualized, empowered and rewarded.

What’s the purpose of calling other people your audience, when it comes to your conduct, and daresay your performance and success?

The concept that we are your audience helps you erect a positive and powerful framework of your role in our lives. When you take each of us on as your audience, you take responsibility for our experience of you.  And, thus you control it.

For example, Oprah doesn’t leave home to get on stage or screen and wonder what she’ll talk about. She’s got all her talking points arranged in an arc that her audience will likely find compelling. She knows or she’s been briefed about who we are, what we’re interested in, what our hot buttons are, what we find entertaining and what we find meaningful.

She’s clear about what gaps in our lives we are hoping to fill by tuning her in or attending a function where she’ll be.

Ask yourself now:

1. Do you know anything important about your audiences?
2. Do you know why we are here and what matters to us?
3. Do you know what gaps in our lives we are hoping to fill by tuning you in or attending a function where you’ll be?

Oprah sees herself as a star. But that’s not enough. She recognizes her audiences have needs she can fulfill, and she chooses to think she can fulfill them uniquely. With those expectations of herself on behalf of people she’ll be with,  she prepares to succeed. That conceptual framework gives her a tremendous advantage in thinking over almost everyone, even some other broadcasters who are largely talking to themselves.

Before she crafts her program and before she says one word (written by someone else or not), she shoulders the one-sided responsibility for our believing the “meeting” with her was a success in our minds. Note where the success meter is: our minds, not her mind.

She fully embraces a motive before going into every encounter. Her motive is almost always to create a transformation of some kind in our minds, bodies or spirits – because that’s her personal brand promise.  That personal motive is why she’ll do more than pass along information. She’ll do everything to help us experience what she wants us to know and do. She’ll reduce our resistance by admitting there’s both upsides and downsides. She’ll keep it lively when it should be amusing or solemn when it should be consternating. She’ll plan a great opening, streamlined content and a great closing so we come away feeling completely served.

Even in her latest role, Oprah takes responsibility for her relationship with her audiences. It’s how she continues to build her reputation every day – and attract endlessly engaging, productive and prosperous opportunities. So can you.

Are you seeking to prove up your personal brand promise when you’re speaking or typing, showing us pictures or sending us links?  Are you intentionally building your reputation with your audiences?

Here’s how to start:

1. Make a list of the number of encounters, planned and unplanned, that you’ll likely have this week.
2. Who is likely going to be in your audiences?
3. How well do you know them – do you have to read up on them to know them better?
4. What are their hot buttons or their pains, fears and burning, unfulfilled desires?
5. Can you help them see the consequences of not taking action?
6. Do you know what emotional transformation you’ll need to activate – and how to do just that?
7. What content and approach can you create so they’ll be in the state of mind to do what you want them to do – exactly as you want them to do it?
8. How will you help them take action?
9. What time do you need – perhaps more than one encounter?
10. Will you be prepared to set up the next link so that they come back to move further with you?

Starting today consider yourself a star. Take responsibility for our experience of you. No matter how minor or major your role is during any interaction: you’ll see signs of success. And as you get used to the spotlight, it only gets bigger, better and easier each time you meet.

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

This year is about discovery, and complete recovery from what kills my drive

I allow impatience to test relationships to learn who’s stealing my time

I accurately judge who’s robbing me of what’s mine

I jettison people who are boring or ignoring me or angry that I am soaring

People who cast doubt, or those who need to learn what friendship is about

And suddenly I find space and suddenly I am free

This year I find the person whom I most wanted to be

I find me!

And with that comes a flurry of folks who know what life is about

I allow them to teach me, reach me, nourish me and treat me

I drop the baggage, the lead weight, old memories of what I wasn’t

I heal from the large wounds of life, the paper cuts and concussions

I find freedom and joy in uncovering my soul

I master the meaning of life and love what I come to know

I find happiness and optimism in the real person I am

Effortlessly eager, enthusiastic and encouraged by my passions

I see my destiny, I see success and I see that I am the plan

And for the first time I understand

I want nothing more and nothing less than the best for myself

And I want to share, I want to care, to be grateful and of service

I can do that this year because I am filled with my true purpose

I’m in my prime, I feel fine and I am who I define myself to be

This is my year; this is the best time in the world to be me

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

The upcoming days might include holiday parties and getting stuck in the elevator with a group of strangers. Of course, strangers are just suspects – people with whom you may do business or who might refer you to the opportunity you’re seeking.

You can’t stand quietly next to the person who holds the key to your dreams. You must connect, someone once called that networking – which is an unlovely term for meeting people and getting to know them (and vice versa).

So, given the tenets of your personal brand, consider saying:

“I read this blog on personal branding, and here’s the kind of questions it posed the day before I took off for the holidays. They’re fun to answer. Want to play?”

• If you had to spend all your vacations in the same place for the rest of your life, where would you go?
• If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would do?
• If you could change one thing in your life, what would that be?
• If you could have one superpower, what would you choose?
• If you could change one thing to make life easier for your own gender, what would you change?
• If you could do one job in the world for one day, what would you pick to do?

With that last question, you’ve created an opening for you to talk about what you would do. Make it realistic – so start with “Actually, I’m kinda glad you asked.” Then tell your best rendition of what you really, really want. Thank them for listening. Ask if they know anyone who does that – or who needs someone to do that.

So now’s the time to laugh, over-imbibe, overeat, under-exercise, finish off Santa’s leftover cookies and all the things you do when you are recovering from your holidays hangover.

Just keep mind, someone is always a sentence away or maybe a click away from doing what Santa might not have accomplished.

Getting you everything you want for yourself!

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

The seven deadly sins of career building:

Laziness

Carelessness

Lying

Stealing

Arrogance

Cynicism

Self-pity

There’s more of course, but that list is a really good start.

Here’s the thing. You never intended for those sins to show up in your personal brand, but those exact things may be popping up before our eyes.

How? We see you!

On laziness and carelessness

We see what you are doing and what you are not doing. Believe me, on behalf of your boss and clients: we know how many hours are in a day. We know if more could be accomplished. And if what’s been accomplished could be done better.

For example, my organization has a mantra: First draft, best draft.

That’s right. Intend on writing only one draft – and make it a really good one. Not something that shows you took a stab at it.  Not something that says: “I know I promised to get something out by today so I got to it, didn’t I?”

If you deliver the best draft possible, someone else can polish it – and we are golden! If instead, you throw up whatever you’ve got, we are in receipt of your carelessness and laziness. And all those excuses that get thrown in? Throw them out. All we learn is that we can’t rely on you.

You can’t be a great personal brand when your work betrays you.

On lying and stealing

That happens every day you take more than you give. Like when you are sent to a trade show and don’t get on the floor first thing. Or you get paid tuition and rather than do the work to earn an A, you don’t study but hope you’ll get a passing grade.

This everyday kind of lying and stealing is much less sensational than pulling a Bernie Madoff. But these small crimes of opportunity are much more likely to kill your reputation.

On arrogance and cynicism

When you say, “I don’t see the point in that.” Or, “that isn’t what I would do.” Well, that’s useful if you have the education, experience and insight to provide that business acumen.

But, if you have that kind of acumen, you probably aren’t saying anything like that.

On self-pity

When the weight of your decisions or the actions of others trips you up: don’t spend much time feeling sorry for yourself. Charge your batteries before they run out. Check the fuel gauge and traffic before either makes you late for an interview. Take responsibility for what you could have done better and journal the rest in a chapter titled: Life Isn’t Fair. Don’t read it aloud; we know it by heart.

On hope and change

Consider there’s a whole lot of people who never have a chance – even the smallest chance, to make something of themselves.

Consider what you must do to start a new path in the new year. Confess your sins – even if it’s just to yourself. Cleanse your soul. Heal yourself. Because there’s only two good times for you to be the best representative of your personal brand: 1) any day before today, and 2) today.

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

You succeed through speed in today’s business environment. Patience is no virtue. It’s a relationship killer, deal killer and career killer.

If patience is a leg of your personal brand triad, rethink your goals. Laying in wait for a response to your resume, proposal or request? Might as well try to send a telegram offering your congratulations to your competition.

Treasure goes to the assertive, relentless and even (fairly) sneaky people who go full throttle in pursuit of immediate gratification of their needs – or at least feedback.

We’ve documented this in marketing for the last three decades. Companies that wait to perfect a new product before going to market will lose out on the lucrative first mover advantage – because a competitor is going to lead the charge with a buggy iteration the market may embrace warts and all.

Job seekers lose out when they lag in the aggressive pursuit of the positions they desire to fill or create. No one thinks you’re polite because you fail to “show up” multiple times in our inboxes, while you’re waiting for us to remember to call you in or call you back.

Consider that to us – the people with whom you would like to do business – you are essentially a missing person, if you are not fighting for our attention. If you are waiting patiently for us to return your emails and phone calls, you are playing hide and seek with the wrong people.  This is true even when you know us and you know we like you. Even if you’re well recommended or even related.

Good things don’t come to those who wait.

Watch crime shows? Then you might know that the odds of finding a missing person drop by 50% at 48 hours. After that, the odds drop by 2% per hour until at 72 hours, the odds plummet to about zero.

This treacherous slope of failure mirrors the half-life of job openings, making a sale after a presentation or getting asked to do or be paid for whatever it is that’s on the table.

Sure, if the race is long enough, the turtle will win. But today’s business opportunities are sprints and high hurdles. The rabbit has a very good chance of enjoying the rewards that the turtle crept toward even as the crowd was long gone.

There is no virtue in missing opportunity. Not returning phone calls, emails, texts, or lagging your “liking” a comment on your thread by a very important person, kills the chances of your developing a relationship as each minute goes by.

Leap on each job announcement or tip about a business opportunities – and ride like a cowboy on a bull in a rodeo. Stay on it.

The odds are you are missing opportunity right now, simply because you are too patient.

Your parents were wrong. Patience is no virtue. You should be seen AND heard. And, you MUST talk to strangers.

Do it now!

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter