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Seth makes an interesting point here around unemployment and what you do with all that spare time. We can’t avoid it, redundancies are happening and if you are unfortunate enough to be one of those people how do you become more than just another statistic?
Seth talks about freelancers with more time on their hands but what about people who were actually employed by somebody, what do they do?
The effect of being made redundant is harsh and can be incredibly debilitating. For years of your life someone or something has given you something to do for at least 7 hours of the day, now if you don’t motivate yourself nobody is going to find another job for you.
Is finding a job full time work in itself? It can be, initially at least but then gaps start to appear in the day and you find yourself watching TV shows you wouldn’t normally know even existed. This is wasted time, time we’ve never had before and time we don’t automatically know how to use so it is easy to unknowingly treat it as leisure time.
Seth suggests to the freelancers to increase their reputation and visibility. As a former employee you may not even have a reputation outside of your own workplace so maybe it is time you began to build one. What are you good at? Think about both in and out of the workplace. Think about anything and everything.
For example maybe you were employed as an accountant and maybe you are an expert in a piece of accounting software such as Sage. It’s time to promote this ability by helping others and offering support on the most popular forums. Start a Sage for Dummies blog where you give simple plain advice every day. Talk to your local newspaper about writing a tax column. After as little as a year doing this your reputation and visibility will be so high you could probably start your own business and the best thing is your customer base will be already waiting – they are your fans, followers and readers with whom you have built the utmost confidence.
Alternatively maybe you have an interest outside of work that could turn a profit if you put your mind to it. That star seller rating you earned by accident on eBay could give you a head start on becoming a reseller for a product or range of products or maybe your love of the kitchen could give you a good base for a culinary qualification or even starting your own bistro. Believe it or not you don’t even need a store front to do such a thing, a local couple here in Bournemouth run a successful ding venture whereby people pay to be their dinner guests in their own home.
It is time to think on your feet. Next time you find yourself sitting in the void find a way to fill it. It could just turn things around.
Leadership and life guru Clay Lowe has just sent me an incredible email which challenges leadership (or lack thereof), within the business world. So as the business week comes to an end I’ll leave you with Clay’s thoughts for the weekend.
“Treat people right. Show them that you care. And they will do anything for you.”In the army, I have had the privilege of working for some great inspirational leaders; leaders whom I had no qualms about following into combat, not just because it was my job, but because I trusted and respected these officers and believed in their ability to keep a clear head and make sound judgements and decisions that would get us home safely once the smoke had cleared from the battlefield.
I have looked for this calibre of leader in the companies I have worked for since I left the army. I have had the privilege of working for some great managers, but sadly I have not found many leaders in the corporate world. In the 11 years I have been working in the civilian sector, I can think of only two individuals that I have worked for who were great leaders; leaders whom I would do anything for, not because they were paying me, but because I trusted and respected them and believed in their ability to lead and would have happily worked for them for free.
Why are there so few exceptional leaders in the corporate world? I think it is because there is a lack of effective leadership development. Yes there are leadership workshops out there and managers get sent on these workshops for a day or two and then they go right back to managing and not leading. My theory is that it is easier to measure management, and managers don’t have to engage with people at the same emotional depth, as a true leader is required to do.
The U.S. Army spends 4 years training its future leaders before they ever step in front of troops to lead them. How does that compare to a 2-day workshop on leadership that is so common among leadership training in industry? Some might say that military leadership is different. I would argue that difference is only in degree, not in kind. The fundamentals of leadership are the same. How a leader applies those fundamental is the same regardless of industry or sector, or whether it is military, political, religious, or commercial leadership.
Major General John Hendrix flew down to Fort Bening, Georgia to speak to new group of new captains. I was among them. He gave us a big pep talk on how important the role we were about to assume was to the army and to the nation. He reminded us that America was entrusting the lives of its sons and daughters to us as future company commanders. And God forbid if we should fail them or betray that trust. He ended his speech by saying: “Treat soldiers with dignity and respect and show them that you care, and they will do anything for you.”
I wrote these words of his in my journal and have carried them around in my heart ever since and every time I find myself leading a group of people in whatever capacity, I unfold these words and reflect on them.
My first day on the job at General Electric, an old-timer pulled me aside and said: “General Electric might sign these peoples’ pay-check, but they work for you. Treat them right and they will do anything for you.”
The common theme these two leaders shared was not lost on me.
Treat people right. Show them that you care. And they will do anything for you.
Veteran blogger, successful leader, Marton House friend and all round good egg Clayton Lowe kindly sent us this article he found in the Times at the weekend.
Clicking on it will bring up a full size version but if you are still feeling a little blind you can read the full article on Times Online.
Well the captains of industry wrote an open letter and took a full page out in The Times to tell everyone to work on their skills and to get behind some serious training. And we agree.
Full page ad from The Times and The Platform
A conversation with someone you don’t know very well can be extremely difficult. From the beginning it’s a brief slippery slide down the slope of small talk before the conversation runs dry.
There is a simple trick though that everybody can pull off and it doesn’t take a genius to execute it either. It involves 3 little words – “Tell me more”.
The simple fact is this, you can’t just talk at somebody for a conversation to work, in fact if you really want to engage a person you need to dig deeper to find out some common ground.
For example I went to a christening at the weekend and even though I knew a few people there it certainly wasn’t enough to pass for 4 hours of entertaining conversation, so an extra effort had to be made. I got chatting to a guy and during the usual small talk about the weather he let drop that he got caught in a shower out on his bicycle. A-ha, some common ground there as I like cycling too. ”Tell me more.” He cycles to work everyday and then goes off for an extra bit of exercise after that. ”Tell me more.” He finds that cycling is really good for keeping the legs in shape but doesn’t help with the belly at all. ”Wow, I wondered why I wasn’t getting rid of my gut. Tell me more”… and so on. Before you know it you’re gassing like old friends.
This technique also works extremely well in business too. Building a relationship with somebody before you hand out your business cards is really important. Dig deep, find out what your potential customers might be looking for before offering them a solution.
Let them express themselves, discover common ground, share a vision.
Repeat until successful.
Image courtesy of http://www.lhsdrama.com
After visiting the old Portobello Market at the weekend and suffering the crowds of tourists I was feeling a little drained and tired when suddenly I heard some sweet sixties melodies getting closer and closer. Then trundling up the road came this:
As it states on the side of the van he really was a singing handyman, multitasking too as he was singing into a microphone and driving at the same time. Even better was the fact that he was in tune and sounded pretty good really. If singing wasn’t enough his van also blew bubbles!
Talk about getting yourself noticed and increasing your reputation. With so many other handymen/women out there how on earth do you get yourself noticed? Is singing the answer? Would you hire this guy just because he drive by and sung at you? I would probably give him a go.
The point is he got me thinking, as a business what do we do differently to attract new customers? Currently we are struggling to get our heads around just this point exactly with Google Ads – the most popular keywords being “training and development”, which is exactly what we do. If we wanted our ad to be visible though with that keyword it would cost us £3.20 a click which is far too much money.
Maybe we should rebrand ourselves as the only singing training and development company?
What does your business do differently that can really get you noticed?
On my daily visit to Shorpy’s Blog I found this image of an Oldsmobile shop window taken in 1922:
How often in today’s world do you see such an interesting display for a car showroom?
Though surely in a modern society where we are seeing more competition, fewer customers and tighter purse strings we all need to be doing that one little extra thing that makes us stand out from the crowd.
Putting your product on a podium is no longer enough, it’s the bling you display around it that gets the customers through the door.
This could be a psychological memory recall which links back to childhood feelings of the toy in the shop window that was just out of reach but you’d still go and look at it every day nonetheless.
Reminding your punters of the good things is the oldest trick in the book but it still works. Did you manage to ignore the smell and walk past the bakers this morning without going in to buy?
image courtesy of www.shorpy.com
When talking with many of our customers the answer would appear to be a resounding yes. Employees of companies that have adopted Blackberry technology tend to feel trapped, on one hand they hate their Blackberries but on the other feel they can’t live without them.
The big question is why?
I personally see a Blackberry as a more advanced version of a pager. They feel more like a way of the company communicating to/at you rather than a tool to help you do your job better and more efficiently.
We’ve had so many reports of people not even able to get a full nights sleep because an email or a message will come through and they can’t resist reading it and responding to it.
So how do companies make a Blackberry more attractive to its employees? How could it be more of a useful tool?
As an employee how would you feel if instead of a Blackberry you were offered a learning device which would not only send you corporate communications but also offer you a complete multimedia training solution? Maybe a tool that could help you perform research for that important meeting you are on your way to? A tool that is constantly connected to the company and the world at large but also has the ability to disconnect from work out of hours and offer social entertainment?
When the iPhone was first launched in late 2007 it was just a small object of desire, a phone with entertainment and web browsing as standard. The problem was it had limited business use. That has changed with version 2 though and Apple are now tackling Blackberry head-on with full support for Microsoft Exchange and push emails.
Blackberries would appear to be optimised for email first, iPhone for web. In this information hungry world surely a phone that is optimised for the internet has far greater potential as a business tool?
Now that Apple have included 3rd party application support it has opened up a whole new world of possibility for the iPhone and its users. Apps like Salesforce Mobile, a tool for organising and referencing prospect information and data or Lion Clock, an app that lets you keep track of project billing on the go.
As a company you also have the benefit with the iPhone of rolling out training to each and every handset no matter of the end users location. Whether it’s a video message from the CEO or a Flash-based training exercise the iPhone can handle it no problem and report back to base when the results from the training are in.
This morning over on Jay Cross’s Informal Learning blog there is a video he filmed yesterday at the Future of Media Summit ‘08 featuring Robert Scoble talking about where he feels learning will be in the immediate future. For me the interesting point he made around his baby boy growing up in the world that is always connected seemed completely logical. The ability to research absolutely anything right now is going to be vital going forwards, not just for businesses but also for individuals and life in general. You can watch the whole video below.
So how would you feel if your company was to give you an iPhone instead of Blackberry? Would it inspire you, motivate you or still weigh you down?
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