Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Everyone Can Have Good Brand Positioning

Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management professor Philip Kotler made a career breaking down brand management into its component parts. His 2003 book Marketing Management defines brand positioning as the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market. Brand positioning is at the intersection of brand and product, and business owners must focus on both.

Why Companies Should Lead With Brand Positioning 

Simply changing an offering or releasing a new one may not be enough to affect purchase behavior because the customer has no reason to trust you. “Many companies put the product at the center of their organization. They lead with a laundry list of product features, and if the company has more than one category or wishes to expand, it can be tough to get customers to shop the whole brand,” says Sunny Bonnell, co-founder of branding agency Motto and co-author of Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous and Different.

"Plus," Bonnell continues, "when product overshadows brand, the company is always at the mercy of the market.” By also considering the mark a brand’s image makes on a customer’s heart, effective brand positioning primes customers to view new and improved products as favorable and credible choices. “A better bet is to put your brand’s point of view at the center of the business. The brand is the emotional hook that ties everything together, superseding the product," she adds. 

“Brand positioning is essential because it captures your unique proposition, value statement, essence, aesthetics and appeal,” says Liem Le, CEO and founder of virtual community Little Lion. “Often, it may be your first interaction with the customer, and you want to make an ‘amazing, I can't look away and want to hear more’ first impression. It may be your only chance to ‘pitch’ your audience, so you can’t skimp.”

“Brand positioning that means something special and appeals to your audience creates tremendous value and can work wonders for your bottom line, employee morale and customer loyalty,” says Bonnell. “Strong brands are like a magnetic force. They draw people in and become revenue-generating machines, yielding benefits like ability to charge a premium.”

When they feel connected and close to a brand, customers are also more likely to accept product mishaps and foibles. This is why some argue that you perfect your brand positioning before you adjust an existing product or experiment with a new one.

For the rest of the piece, head over to the AMEX Business site.

How Working Parents Can Hack Their Professional Development

Considering the average working parent's schedule, most don't have time to pursue an additional degree or attend lengthy onsite trainings while parenting and working full time. 

However, keeping skills current is essential to gainful employment through the automation age. Let's have a look at six alternate ways working parents can upskill without drowning in additional commitments.

1. Read a book on your phone.

In my home office, I have a stack of business books I've been meaning to (at least) skim, but the idea of sitting down with 250 pages overwhelms me. 

Instead, working parents should consider downloading a relevant professional development book onto their smartphones, and stealing a few minutes to read while waiting in line at the grocery store or sitting in the doctor's waiting room. 

You'd be surprised how the time adds up! Employing this strategy, I went from reading a book a quarter to a book a month.

2. Listen to podcasts on your commute.

On a related point, commuting by car, train or foot involves at least an hour a day for most working parents. You can stay entertained and learning about your field by searching podcast directories, such as Apple's Podcast app, Google Play Music and Spotify, and choosing one that appeals to your sensibilities and development goals. 

Usually spanning 30 to 60 minutes, podcast episodes are the perfect size to consume while making your way to and from work.

3. Take an online course during lunch or after bedtime.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are free, short or long-form courses provided by established universities like Stanford and Yale, as well as specialized sites like Coursera, EdX and Udemy. These offerings include a mix of learning modalities including filmed lectures, readings, quizzes and online community interaction. 

The good news is working parents can sign in whenever they have time. You might also consider standalone webinars from third-party associations or companies in your space. For example, I regularly attend webinars sponsored by the American Management Association and the Human Capital Institute. If I can't make the live events, I'll listen to the recordings after my kids are in bed.

For more where this came from, head over to the AMEX Business site.

The Real Story Behind Stretch Assignments

Stretch opportunities are all the rage in the workplace. But as popular as they are, it’s unclear why some people decide to accept a stretch assignment or role – and others step aside. It’s also unclear why women haven’t benefited from stretches as much as men.

Selena Rezvani is Be Leaderly’s VP of consulting and research and a recognized speaker on women and leadership. She recently led Be Leaderly’s original research on how both genders decide if they are ready for a stretch, and how they make that decision. The report also explores how employers can create a workplace that supports employees who step out of their comfort zones. Based on a survey of 1,549 U.S.- based professionals, the research uncovered the following:

• Men (48%) and women (52%) are equally interested in ultimately advancing into senior vice president or C-suite roles.
• However, the largest portion of women (45%) don’t feel their employers make it easy to gauge if they are ready for a promotion, while the largest portion of men (40%) think their employers help them know whether they are prepared to advance.
• Women are less engaged in and passionate (67%) about their jobs than men (77%), another possible explanation for why fewer women take on stretch opportunities. A strong correlation exists between employees who feel engaged and passionate about their work and those who perceive that their employer makes it easy to assess their readiness to advance.
• In order to apply for a job, both women and men feel that they need to meet, on average, 75% of the qualifications for the role – a surprising difference from accepted thinking about gender attitudes toward the qualifications people feel they need to try for a new position.
• Women may hold back from taking stretches because when assessing how ready they are for a new job, they are less likely than men to overestimate or “round up” their skills, and more likely to underestimate or “round down” what they know or can do. (73% of women disagree that they round up their skills while 60% of men disagree).
• For both men and women, the top criteria for deciding whether to take a stretch assignment are having the influence to create a positive outcome (40% women/43% men), and getting an assignment that lines up with their career goals (33% women/33% men). Both genders say office politics is the biggest practical challenge to taking a stretch assignment (38% women/33% men), with lack of time a close second (34% women, 31% men).
• Money matters. Men are 3.5 times more likely than women to cite pay as an important factor in evaluating the appeal of a new assignment, job or level.

So what do we make of this? Well, if the workplace is being disrupted by sweeping, large-scale trends, employees must have the opportunity to continually redefine and hone their skills. One way employers can offer that is through stretch assignments that provide intrapreneurial short-term “gig economy” type work with minimal risk and disruption, all within the organization’s dominion. Employees, especially millennials, want to “job-craft” their roles. Offering an internal gig economy – or stretch marketplace – delivers big.

Hot Career Change: From Finance to Technology

A few years ago, if a financial professional said they were abandoning the world of money for the world of software, they might have been laughed out of the room. But recent examples (including a banker who went to work for Google, a Barclay’s exec who joined a tech firm, and an economist who launched a healthcare technology venture capital firm) illustrate that financial prowess is exactly the sort of expertise that tech companies desperately need.

Wall Streeter takes Google by storm

A recent Business Insider article described the journey of Sameer Syed, a JP Morgan investment banker who took a position working in strategic partnerships at Google. According to Syed, financial training requires the development of a tremendous work ethic, communication, and a fresh perspective that traditional technology workers sometimes don’t have.

Attention to detail and flexibility are two other traits that often aren’t represented as strongly in tech firms. For instance, Syed’s colleagues have commented on his emails and presentations. “They were like, ‘Oh wow, this is very clean and professional. It looks like we hired a bank to do it,'” he told Business Insider. “Working in banking, you can’t have mistakes or errors, and sharpening this skill is super valuable.”

Despite the stereotypes about stiff bankers, Syed said that financial professionals are taught to adapt to changes and learn on the job quickly. Tech startups want to know that a prospective employee can pick up a new concept and get it immediately. Financial pros can do this because they’ve been in the position of having to rapidly pick up new regulations and products.

For more on this intriguing career path, check out the full post on the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Want to Do Something Important? Stop Procrastinating

At the New York Times, I had the privilege of working with Phyllis Korkki, an assignment editor for the business section. In addition to her new role as executive editor of Hooked, an app that tells fictional stories in the form of text messages, Phyllis has written the new book The Big Thing, which is about how to pursue meaningful, creative projects amidst a hectic schedule and a pull to put them off. I recently interviewed Phyllis about how she found time for her own "Big Thing" while keeping up with a busy, stressful job. 

 

Phyllis, how did you plan your own "Big Thing" while working an editorial job at the New York Times?

 

When I was at the Times, I did work hard but I rarely worked more than 40 hours a week. And here's the truth: When I wasn't working I wasn't that busy!  If only I hadn't been so lazy in my off time I could have written plenty of books. I finally realized that the only way to finish my first book would be to create conditions that were similar to those in a newsroom. I found people to hold me accountable for various stages in the project and to give me deadlines at crucial stages. I even paid someone to call me every morning for a week and hector me to wor

 

What are some of the biggest challenges people face in their pursuit of a creative dream?

 

Creative people must break their Big Things into manageable increments. If they don't, their projects will remain big and vague and impossible to start. In fact, some people deliberately (if unconsciously) never start their projects so that their creations can remain grandiosely perfect in their heads. Rather than leading a person toward a more fulfilling and meaningful life, the Big Thing feeds into an unhealthy narcissism. People need to be honest with  themselves about why they are pursuing a project. If its main purpose is to boost their ego, then giving up on it may be the best option. A big creative project should be compelling for its own sake. Accept that it will be imperfect and involve psychic struggles. Know that satisfaction and joy will (eventually) emerge from those struggles. Perfectionism is one of the biggest obstacles to completion. 

 

You describe yourself as a procrastinator. How have you overcome this to achieve such remarkable career goals? 

 

Many journalists will tell you that they went into the field because they are procrastinators who must have deadlines. The great thing about working in a newsroom is that people are constantly breathing down your neck to hand in your story. I would never have gotten as far as I have without urgent deadlines emanating from my colleagues. 

 

If a reader has their own idea for  Big Thing, what are the first 2-3 things they should do to get started tomorrow?

 

1. Commit the idea to paper, and be as specific as possible about what it is. And I mean literally write it down on a piece of paper, with a pen. Tear that piece of paper out of your notebook and tape it to your refrigerator. Write at the bottom of the paper in big capital letters: DO IT!

2. Look at that piece of paper and say to yourself, what is one tiny thing I could do today to achieve this goal. It could be writing just one sentence (c'mon -- you can do it, and I'm giving you permission for it to be a really bad sentence). It could involve sending an email to one person, or buying one paintbrush, or clearing off all the papers your desk, or  ... whatever it is, you can do that one thing. 

3. Announce to your spouse or your bestie  that you plan to do this thing. Say something like: I plan to write a paragraph of my novel by tomorrow. Will you check in with me to make sure I did it? (Offer to do the same for them too, of course!).

 

And that is how a Big Thing begins. It won't ever get done unless you start small.  

 

I know you want to hear more! Check out The Big Thing on Amazon.

How to Be a Standout in Your Field

Brand strategist Scott James of publishing firm Greenleaf Book Group knows something about making a name for yourself in a field where everyone is smart and at the top of their game. He’s come up with the four questions that separate experts from pretenders.

Scott James believes there’s a clear line between experts who have built a platform and brand around their expertise and experts who are great at their work but haven’t figured out how to do this. What does this line look like? James says it’s the ability to answer the following four questions off the cuff. It shows that experts with big ideas think about specific, high level gauges of success, progress and growth all the time and guide their actions and initiative accordingly.

What’s Working? 

Experts know the answer to this because they measure everything. Those who build a business around their expertise know which email approach adds the most to their bottom line and they know if flying to a certain city for a meeting is the right move. They have a system in place to keep track of such things, and they take the time to assess and understand their data. Every successful expert can rattle off the two or three things they do that drives their business and expands their audience—and they can do so without thinking about it too hard.

What is Making You Stand Out?

Experts with strong personal brands know that they are swimming in a crowded ocean, and they can pinpoint what it is about what they do that other people get excited about, and they know how to talk about what they do in a way that honors their uniqueness and targets the specific needs of the people they want to influence.

What’s Next?

Experts think several steps ahead. The ability to be deeply in the project that is happening now and already be thinking at 50,000 feet (and how today is laying a foundation for three years from now) is a difficult mental tightrope to walk. But whereas some people get buried in the details of their current project and let everything else go, experts can walk that tightrope because they know it’s critical. Experts can’t afford to wait until after their current project is finished to think about what’s next.

For the rest of my tips, have a look at the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

How to Prepare for a Career While You're in College

n a research study this year, IBM set out to uncover what’s wrong with higher education. In collaboration with the Economist Intelligence Unit, the IBM Institute for Business Value surveyed more than 900 academic industry leaders from private and public colleges and universities, vocational programs, community colleges, education service providers and corporations throughout the world.

The survey revealed concerns regarding the higher education system’s abilities to address consumer requirements. Less than half of respondents believe the system meets the needs of students (49 percent), industry (41 percent) and society (47 percent).

Why? As job preparedness studies indicate, the very skills needed for workforce success are the same skills exiting students often lack, including analysis and problem-solving; collaboration and team work; business-context communication; and flexibility, agility and adaptability. IBM reported that 70 percent of corporate recruiters experience challenges finding college-aged applicants with sufficient practical experience.

In terms of economic value, only 51 percent of industry and academic leaders believe higher education is providing value for money, and just 49 percent view it as contributing to economic growth and competitiveness.

Nevertheless, the institution of higher education isn’t going away, and it is unlikely to be significantly reformed any time soon. For this reason, it’s up to students to determine how to best use educational resources so they are fully prepared for the work world upon graduation.

Take advantage of experience-based learning. Put away your textbooks and look for real-world learning experiences like internships and apprenticeships that will allow you to practice the skills you’ve heard about in the classroom. Select professors and courses that practice “flip” teaching, where students learn basic content outside class and do homework and problem-solve in class. Work with mentors to establish metrics that objectively evaluate the impact of these programs on your skill acquisition.

Partner with potential employers. Develop relationships with corporate recruiters early in your university tenure. Inquire about on-site shadowing and job opportunities and get their input on the course work and concentrations that will be most helpful in securing and thriving in an entry-level role in their organizations. Understand their needs and acquire the right combination of skills to properly address those needs. Study their businesses and note how, where and why they’re successful and unsuccessful.

For the rest of my tips, check out the full article at U.S. News and World Report.

Saying No to CEO

Even if you’re not intimately familiar with the bond market, you’ve probably heard of powerhouse bond house Pimco and its founder Bill Gross.

Gross, known internationally as the “Bond King,” made headlines in late 2014 when he quit the house he founded over 40 years ago for a far less lucrative position managing a new fund at Janus Capital. Allegedly, he tired of the constant clashes with other members of the Pimco management team.

Good riddance!

One might expect that Gross would be devastated, his ego battered and bruised. But instead, the creator of a $200 billion fund told Barrons that he was thrilled to give up his management responsibilities.

“I was always an investment guy, and the other stuff – hiring, paying people, planning, and so on – became a problem for me,” he said.  “I am uniquely exuberant about clearing all that stuff off my dish. I’ll still be intense, but the intensity and decibel level drop a bit in a smaller place. Also, common sense suggests that it will be easier to implement ideas in a $100 million portfolio than in a fund with more than $200 billion.”

Leaders come in all shapes and sizes

This is, without a doubt, one of my favorite quotes this year. It illustrates that Bill Gross knows himself, and also recognizes that leadership and contribution don’t require a CEO title. Not everyone is cut out for – or enjoys – the tremendous challenges and pace associated with running a large organization. Not everyone wants to lose the day-to-day participation in the projects they love in favor of becoming a generalist removed to the boardroom.

Some, depending on their personalities and work styles, will be far happier and more effective operating on a smaller scale, or even as individual contributors with no direct reports.

We’ve been taught since birth that we should always be climbing – trying to get from A to B to C – when in fact that’s a very personal choice. Career paths in the 21st century are highly individualized, and what is right for your neighbor or your mentor might not be right for you.

For more, have a look at the full post at Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Do You Know What You Do Really Well?

At the SilkRoad annual Connections conference, I heard a great session on driving a purpose-driven culture by Stacie Mallen.

Stacie is a VP of HR for Ulthera, Inc., a manufacturer of a device that is used for non-invasive, non-surgical lifting and tightening of the skin.

Stacie started the session by handing out hedgehogs (stuffed, not real).  She wanted us audience members to think about our purpose in work and life, illustrating what is known as the Hedgehog Concept in Jim Collins’ Good to Great.

Collins told the story of the clever, devious fox and the simple hedgehog.  The wily fox keeps coming up with new ideas to eat the hedgehog, but the hedgehog beats the fox every time by doing his one trick: curling up into a thorny ball. The hedgehog knows what it does really, really well.  It keeps doing it and keeps winning.

I earned a toy hedgehog in the session when I expressed my true purpose as providing concrete guidance to others based on my own work experiences.  I do this well, and I’m most successful when I don’t stray too far from it.

Finding Your True Purpose

Your true purpose is found at the intersection of three things:

• What you are deeply passionate about
• What you can be the best in the world at
• What drives your economic engine

In instructing us how to find purpose – both for ourselves and our organizations – Stacie cited the work of Roy Spence, author of the bestselling book, It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What Your Stand For.  Spence has helped organizations such as Southwest Airlines, BMW, the University of Texas, Wal-Mart, and the Clinton Global Initiative achieve greatness by obsessing about purpose. Southwest Airlines, for example, worked hard not just to lure customers away from older airlines but to also offer affordable air travel, democratizing the skies. Likewise, Wal-Mart brought goods that were once distant luxuries to rural families.

Spence wrote:  “Purpose is a reason for being that goes beyond making money, and it almost always results in making more money than you ever thought possible.  Especially during times of great economic uncertainty, purpose is the key to creating and maintaining a high- performing organization, deserving just as much attention as strategy, execution, and innovation.”

For advice from Stacey on taking action on the organization side, check out the rest of the post at the SilkRoad blog.

How Do I Find a Career I'm Passionate About?

Today's reader question from DailyWorth.com:

“I have been in my field for over two decades and I’m ready to start my dream career, but I’m not sure what that looks like exactly. I’m obsessed with organization and budgeting, but without a hardcore financial background, I’m unsure what type of job this would be. I want to look forward to going to work every day. What do you suggest?”

The first thing I’d like to do is help you adjust your expectations about finding your passion and making money at it. Hobbies are generally unprofitable as businesses, and even if you do manage to earn a living at one of them, having to spend every minute of every day on it often kills the passion. 
 
As for having a “dream career,” there’s a reason “work” is not called “fun.” When I was writing the book “How’d You Score THAT Gig?” I found that even people with the coolest of jobs don’t bounce out of bed with enthusiasm every day. There are aspects of their gigs that they love, and those they could do without. 
 
Society puts so much pressure on us to find a singular passion that we can’t be happy without. But your job is not the only path to personal fulfillment, and I am fond of saying that a more realistic goal is to love what you do rather than do what you love.  

Have you taken advantage of every development opportunity your current organization has to offer? Can you move laterally or use your expertise to launch a new initiative?
 
What made you choose this career in the first place? And is there anything you can do to rekindle that feeling? Can you use your company as a means to give back to the community and people who are less fortunate? All of these things are likely to reinvigorate your daily sense of satisfaction.
 
In the event that you’re genuinely ready for a major change, I’ll recommend a potential career based on your email. Professional organizers teach clients simple techniques to reduce waste, make everyday processes easier and streamline daily responsibilities. They also help to change behaviors that cause disorganization, such as procrastination, an inability to focus and the accumulation of unnecessary “stuff.”  
 
To assess whether a career as a professional organizer is for you, I recommend getting involved with the National Association of Professional Organizers, which offers educational events and resources, networking opportunities and a certification program via numerous local chapters.