Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Are Experience and Skills Overrated?

I was talking to the CEO of a management consulting firm the other day and was surprised to hear him say that he doesn’t require new consultants to have – or plan on getting – an MBA.  He feels that it’s more important that recruits are able to work effectively on the teams he’s put in place.

And he's not alone.

According to new research by Right Management, the talent and career management arm of Manpower, organizations prefer to hire employees who are a good motivational fit with the team and the organization’s culture. During the first quarter of 2010, Right Management surveyed more than 800 senior human resource professionals and other business leaders throughout North America to learn what contributes most to accelerated performance. The results?

• Organizational culture/motivational fit: 31%
• Interpersonal behaviors: 26%
• Critical reasoning/judgment: 21%
• Technical skills: 12%
• Relevant experience: 11%

“Immediate, on-the-job performance is so essential these days,” said Michael Haid, Senior Vice President of Global Solutions at Right Management. “New hires need to get up to speed fast and make a smooth transition into the new environment.”

Greatness is subjective, not objective.

Even so, these findings were amazing to me.  The data proves that you could be the most qualified employee with the most impressive resume in the world, but if you’re unable to get along with your co-workers and perform well under pressure and in a way that the organization considers meaningful, it won’t matter.

Your first priority: reputation management.

If you want to assure your managers of your potential, you shouldn’t stop doing good work and mastering new skills.  But you should also place an emphasis on developing deep and positive relationships and looking for opportunities to show that your values are aligned with those of your organization.  Actively manage your reputation and don’t shy away from challenges, since apparently, the mere act of using good judgment to address a problem may be more impactful than the result.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

How to Develop a Social Media Policy

Social media use by employees can actually be a good thing, for employees are often your organization's most loyal and vocal advocates in public, the very individuals who strengthen an organization's ties to and place within the community. However, they MUST be educated about what is appropriate to say about the organization in social media, and what is not.  Otherwise, it is a very real possibility that they could unintentionally reveal confidential information or get you into legal hot water.  Every organization should have a written social media policy that includes the following points:

• Define what you mean by social media - for most, social media means an online forum for two-way communication - and list examples of the various types of forums (profile sites like Facebook, micro-conversation sites like Twitter, video sites like YouTube, blogs like Huffington Post).
• Clarify who will own work product created on social media sites
• Spell out the type of information considered proprietary or confidential (customer details, company financial data, etc.), and say that it should never be shared on these sites.
• Spell out the type of potentially damaging information that should never be shared on these sites (offensive comments, libelous statements, illegal activity, etc.)
• Determine which employees should be contributing to social media sites on behalf of the company and what activities these individuals should be engaged in. You should to have someone - or multiple someones - in the communications department monitoring what is being said in social media - both from an internal and external perspective.  It is the same thing as having a staff member monitor what is said in the press.  The conversation will take place with or without you and it's always best to be informed.  It's not as easy to dictate your image as it used to be, but strategic social media monitoring and participation can help you shape it.

Many organizations are providing organized training to ensure that employees not only understand these guidelines, but also comprehend the consequences of not following the guidelines (for example, they could create serious negative publicity for the company, their job could be in jeopardy). 

You don't want to talk down to your employees, but you should ensure that they are aware of the instantaneous nature of social media - once something is said, it can't be taken back - so usage related to work and the company must be thoughtful and carefully considered ahead of time.

Impressions from DeVry University's Career Conference

I arrived in New York City last week for what would become one of the most exciting events of my career as a business and workplace author and speaker.  On August 19th, DeVry University brought together 10 influential members of the online media, as well as a panel of career experts from the academic, corporate, and think-tank sides, to discuss the challenges job seekers face in the current economic climate and strategies they can utilize to build successful careers in the twenty-first century.

After a brief networking breakfast, we launched the morning with some remarks – grounded in research – about the fastest growing fields in the U.S: healthcare management and technology, accounting, and information security.  I shared with the audience what the careers entail as well as action steps people can take to transition into them.  I explored how additional education at a flexible, online/offline university like DeVry can facilitate a career change in a way that is manageable for the average busy American.

We then proceeded to the highlight of the morning – a panel discussion led by DeVry’s Michelle Mercutio, the National Associate Dean for Career Services.  Through an engaging discussion with the audience, panel members Lindsay Lindstrom of Microsoft, Erica Orange of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc (leading futurist firm), Kathleen Frawley of DeVry, and I touched on a diverse range of career-related topics from “on the side” entrepreneurship and mid-career internships to generational differences and the new language of technology. 

After the panel reluctantly concluded, audience members filmed one-on-one interviews with panelists, viewed a smartphone career assessment and an online course demonstration, and networked with one another.  The event was so inspiring that the attendees agreed to meet as a group on a regular basis to continue the discussion. 

When I was speaking to audience members prior to the event, few were aware of just how far DeVry has come in recent years.  They certainly left with the perception that DeVry is a thought-leader in career and workplace education that is front and center in helping people of all ages find and succeed in their dream careers. 

 

Earn More Money Today

According to Steve Kaufmann of LingQ, a company that provides web-based language tutoring, the most accurate predictor of earning power is literacy.  Literacy is not just being able to read – it also refers to your command of written language.  By improving yours, you can increase both your IQ and the amount of cash in your pocket.

How can you do it without single-handedly raising Kaplan’s stock price? Kaufmann suggests copying a sample page from a source or article that interests you and pasting it into Google Documents.  You can find several readability indicators under File/Word Count, including the Automated Reader Index, which indicates the number of years of schooling required to understand a text.  The beauty of the web is that you can keep challenging yourself with harder and harder material until you are comfortable with content that is at an index of 12 or 15 or higher. 

You should also measure the richness of your vocabulary.  Cut and paste a sample article into a web-based Vocabulary Profiler.  Using this kind of tool, you can see how many of the piece’s words are within the 1000 most frequently used words, how many are “academic” (AWL), and how many are “off-list.”  Kaufmann recommends getting to the point where you are comfortable reading material that has 10 percent or more words in the AWL and the off-list categories.  

Don’t forget that you can use online dictionaries and word learning programs to increase your vocabulary.  When you come across a word that you don’t know, get into the habit of looking it up immediately, and also check out the related words in man’s other best friend – the thesaurus!

How to Launch Your Own Business (Part II)

This is the second post in a two part series on concrete steps you can take to make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality.

Develop Your Business Plan

No matter what type of independent business you’re contemplating, putting together a comprehensive business plan will help you to clarify and research your new offering, will provide a framework for growth over the first three to five years, and will be an important tool in your conversations with potential partners and investors.  Typical business plans include a vision statement – or your beliefs about what the business should be and what you see it becoming – a mission statement, or what your business will provide and to whom – and a situation analysis, or the current status of the market.

It should also incorporate an operations section – where you’ll detail how you’ll run the business – a marketing section, where you’ll detail how you’ll let people know about your business – and a sales section – where you’ll detail how you’ll recruit new customers and retain existing ones.  You’ll conclude with a finances section that will include your budgeted costs and how your business will turn a profit.

Secure Funding

Many fledgling businesses fail due to a lack of startup capital.   However, you don’t have to have a trust fund or a rich relative to get money for your new venture.  There are many types of grants offered to new entrepreneurs, including individual grants, business grants, and government grants.  State development agencies and community banks, for instance, frequently provide financial assistance to new business owners.

If you have a solid business plan and excellent negotiation skills, you can also try to interest an angel investor, or a high net-worth individual who invests in new companies, usually at an early stage.  Like institutional venture capital firms, many angel investors provide cash to young companies and take equity in return.

Seek Experienced Counsel

As a new entrepreneur, it’s essential that you recruit a more established mentor to offer wisdom, advice, connections, and moral support.  A good mentor might be in your industry, or another entrepreneur with a different type of business.  Once you find someone appropriate, read his written materials and Google him to learn as much as you can about his career.  Get in touch by e-mail to start, and then outline your expectations for engagement.  These should involve getting together at least once a quarter to discuss your business and to challenge your assumptions on how things should be done.

You might also want to join a support group or third-party industry association so that you have the opportunity to brainstorm with your peers and compare notes on what’s working and what isn’t.  Keep in touch by subscribing to their listservs and newsletters.  As a new inventor, for example, you can hook up with your local Chamber of Commerce or your local branch of organizations such as the Alliance for American Innovation or the United Inventors Association.

Build Your Team

According to Jeff and Rich Sloan, the founders of StartupNation.com, the best way to do this is to create a superstar list.  Write down the names of 12 people who have special gifts and with whom you would like to work, without limiting yourself to people who could fit a current need on your team.  Look for people with potential, people with proven skills, and people who are power brokers.  Hiring people with potential is less expensive and will allow for growth into a position.  Hiring people with proven skills will quickly fill in areas where your business is weak.  Power brokers wield a great deal of influence in your community or industry.

If creating a superstar list from your existing network doesn’t meet all your needs, meet viable candidates cheaply through third-party association events, competitors, or social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Manage the Business Side

The United States Small Business Administration is a terrific resource for logistical information – such as how to acquire health and other types of insurance, licenses, and discounts on supplies like business cards and services such as web programming – that is involved with starting your new independent career.  You should also enlist the services of a good accountant and lawyer.  Your accountant will be responsible for reviewing your business’ books and accurately recording its financial details, preparing tax returns, and overseeing your budgeting and future projections.

Your lawyer should help you establish your new venture as a legal entity (sole-proprietorship, corporation, etc.), determine how equity is issued in your new company, create an ownership structure, outline how employees, consultants, and advisors will be integrated into the business, and prepare for future legal issues involving investment and operations.

Incorporate your budget for these professionals into your cash flow analysis, and hire those who have experience working with entrepreneurs and who have been referred by trusted colleagues and verified by client references.  Once they’re on board, establish a protocol for regular communication and a timeline for reaching agreed-upon goals.

Get the Word Out

New entrepreneurs usually don’t have the budget for splashy advertising campaigns or high-priced publicists. Therefore, you’ll need to get a little more creative when it comes to marketing your business.  Low cost suggestions include making alliances with related community groups or local companies, sending out a monthly e-mail newsletter, teaching adult education classes, and speaking at nonprofit organization meetings in your industry.

Build a professional website on which you feature core information about your business and promote your expertise via articles you’ve written or been quoted in.  Make your site search-engine friendly by having domain names, page titles, and copy that are relevant to your trade, and link to similar sites with good reputations and high traffic.  Finally, identify online communities where your target customers gather.  Get a feel for each and then offer your educated opinion – sales pitch-free.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

How to Launch Your Own Business

Know you want to work for yourself but aren’t sure where to start?  This is the first post in a two part series on concrete steps you can take to make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality.

Brainstorm Ideas

Sitting down with a pen and paper – either by yourself or with a creative group of friends or colleagues – is a terrific way to generate a working list of potential new business ideas.  Steven Gold, author of Entrepreneur’s Notebook, advocates the following five-step brainstorming process:

• Develop a set of initial criteria by listing specific resources, expertise, limitations, and goals.
• Pick a starting point – an industry, interest, or problem you want to solve.  Create a list of ideas associated with that starting point, and then evaluate it according to your criteria, eliminating some ideas and focusing on others.
• Using your short list, write down as many problems associated with each item as you can think of.  Rate the problems and create a new, prioritized list.
• Generate a list of solutions.
• Based on these solutions to the problems, come up with a list of potential business opportunities.

Note that good ideas will be ones that you are passionate about and motivated by, but not necessarily 100 percent original.   In fact, some of the most successful new businesses take an already-established concept and make improvements to it, or simply target a new audience.

Write Yourself a Reality Check

Many of us have fun business ideas that we enjoy sharing with friends over cocktails, but before you start pouring money and resources into yours, take the time to consider if the idea is truly viable.  You will no doubt have eliminated some unrealistic propositions as part of the brainstorming process, but you should also perform a more in-depth cash-flow analysis to determine the exact resources that will be required.  If, for instance, you find that your idea will cost millions of dollars, will involve something illegal, or will require a level of expertise that you can’t easily obtain, then you probably want to go back to the brainstorming phase.

Test Your Concept

The next step is to tap the market to see if customers will buy what you’re selling.  Speak informally to key decision makers, read industry reports and publications, run focus groups, and sweep the Internet for news about potential competitors.  The bottom line, says Gold, is to confirm with some degree of certainty that your proposed new venture can deliver the goods, effectively compete for new customers, and make a profit.  You will need to design your product or service in a way that sets your business apart from the competition while also keeping costs under control.

Consider Invention

Before you begin, make sure someone else hasn’t thought of your idea already.  Hit the Internet and look for products similar to yours in indexes such as the Thomas Register and the Harris Directory.  Also, take a look at the companies that manufacture these products to see if your offering could compete effectively with theirs.  Your next step is to check out the United States Patent Trademark Office’s online database to find related patents that were recently filed.  If your research proves that your idea is unique, follow the process for obtaining a patent.  When this is complete, you’ll need to choose how you’re going to sell your product.  Your primary two options are licensing –getting an established manufacturer to buy your invention and pay you a royalty on those sales – and venturing – starting a business to manufacture and sell the product yourself.

Go Retail

Might your career change involve owning a high-end children’s clothing boutique or the Subway restaurant down the block?  An early decision will involve whether to start your business from the ground up, buy an existing operation, or purchase a franchise license.  Of the three options, starting from scratch is probably the most difficult, for an established business brings a built-in location, inventory, and a customer base, and a franchise license offers national name recognition and recognizable branding, pre-determined costs, and a set management model.  However, with existing businesses and franchises, you’ll have to give up decision making power and the freedom to shape the operation just so.

Regardless of whether you own a new or existing business, your retail operation should have a location that is relatively secure and accessible by public transportation.  Before you finalize the arrangements for your new space, obtain your business and resale licenses, a small business credit card, and insurance.  If securing product inventory is on your agenda, research local and online wholesalers and manufacturers who carry the items you’re interested in, and find out where and when you can attend trade shows and markets.

Employ An Online Only Model

eBay is only the beginning.  Online businesses are increasing in popularity as they provide ways to generate revenue beyond the sale of your products or services (for example, you can sell advertising space or recommend affiliate products on your site).  Here are a few tips if an online store is in your entrepreneurial future.  First, pick a name for your business that’s easy to spell and type into a web browser, create a site that’s easy to navigate and search, and, if you’re conducting financial transactions online, provide simple check-out, accept credit cards, and make it easy to find and contact live customer service.

If you don’t have substantial web design and programming expertise, your best bet is to go with a professional host like eBay ProStores or Yahoo! Merchant Solutions. These all-in-one solutions provide a mix of site-building tools, product catalog tools, shopping-cart technology, payment processing, shipping and inventory management, accounting tools, tracking and reporting capabilities, and domain registration.  Just make sure you test your site repeatedly before opening up for business, as you’ll want to be certain that you can handle heavy customer traffic and all types of transactions.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

Interviewing? Choose a Strong Company

Countless individuals were laid off or fired in the last two years due to their companies’ dire financial situations.  Whether you are currently unemployed or employed but thinking of working somewhere else, you should know how to avoid this scenario in the future. 

Your safest bet is to select a new company with a high profitability ratio.  In short, companies with high profitability ratios take in more income per unit sold than businesses with lower ratios.  Businesses that have stayed profitable over the long-term will continue to make money even in unfavorable conditions because they know how to limit costs and maximize profit potential. 

If a company of interest is public, monitor its stock price, forecasts, executive turnover, and paperwork submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  You can also do a Google search for recent financial news, and read the releases on the company’s investor relations website. 

Additionally, your organization should allow for rapid income growth, so determine whether it has profit-sharing and stock purchase plans for employees, whether you would be eligible for performance bonuses, and whether the company will match your contributions to your retirement fund.  Those of you who are startup-minded should not jump into a job situation without a healthy knowledge of the company’s business plans and the market demand for its products or services.

Finally, consider the geographic location of the company.  Organizations based in expensive urban cities like New York and Los Angeles are the hardest hit when the economy takes a nosedive.  If you are willing and able, work for a company in a more affordable area where skyrocketing rents and other forms of overhead won’t crush the bottom line.

Who Do You Follow on Twitter?

Who do YOU follow on Twitter?  Lately, this has been a quandary for me.  I know that having lots of Twitter followers is important to many people, and I don't want to insult people who follow me by not following them back.  However, the truth is that I am simply unable to read the tweets of tens of thousands of people, even if I use a service like Tweetdeck to organize them.  So here's how I personally make the decision:

1) I follow people who have a photo in their profile.  This assures me that they are serious about using Twitter as a personal branding tool.

2) I follow people who have a real person's name in their profile.  I prefer to communicate with an individual rather than a company or business.

3) I follow people who write in English.  This one pains me the most, but if I can't understand what you're writing, I can't be sure it's not spam or offensive content.  It's nothing personal!

4) I follow people who have tweeted in the last 24-48 hours.

5) I follow people who have re-tweeted me or engaged in a conversation with me.  Doing these things helps interesting followers get noticed, because unfortunately sometimes they get lost in the shuffle of spammers.

6) And last but not least, I follow people who aren't trying to sell me something directly, but are in my space (business and career advice) and have valuable insights and information to share.

Now, it's your turn, Twitter users.  How do you decide who to follow?  And for those not on Twitter, I'd love to know why you've chosen not to use it.

Think Before You Dial Your Next Con Call

Since I work at home and collaborate on projects with individuals all over the world, I participate in at least two conference calls a week.  It has become such a routine that I don’t even think about it.  But maybe I should, because how I conduct myself says a lot about dedication and attention to the work at hand. In fact, sometimes I never have the chance to meet a colleague in person, and our conference calls form the basis of the only impression he has of me! In case conference calls are a regular part of your day, here are some simple reminders to keep in mind:

Be Punctual

No one likes to sit on hold waiting for tardy attendees to show up so the meeting can begin.  Be considerate of other participants by marking each call on your calendar and dialing in a few minutes before start time in case your connection is delayed.  Once you are connected, announce yourself so the host can note your attendance.

Review the Agenda

Hopefully, your host will prepare the group for the call by providing context and sending out supporting documents in advance.  Do your part by looking over the materials and jotting down notes on the items about which you will be expected to contribute.

Prevent Background Noise

If you are in a noisy location, mute your phone when you are not speaking so that your colleagues’ voices aren’t drowned out.  Should another call come in, be careful of putting the call on hold as you could subject the whole conference to irritating elevator music.

Pay Attention

This is tough on long calls, especially those that may take place outside your normal business hours. But resist the urge to surf the Internet or type on your smartphone while your colleagues are talking.  Listen well and speak up at appropriate intervals so that your colleagues know you are actively engaged in the discussion.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.