| 21st Century Career Success |
| by: Michelle Casto |
| 21St Century Career Success When it comes to modern career development, one thing we can all count on is change. With the advent of technology, telecommuting, and E-commerce, how work is performed is in a state of reinvention. Self-employment and small business development will become more the norm than big business. And career changes will be more frequent due to rapidly changing organizations and industries. Finally, the line between one's personal and professional life will become even more blurred. Since the modern world of work is rapidly changing to keep up with the demands of our fast-paced lives and lifestyles, here are some characteristics of what the new work contract will look like: §Seeking more meaning from work. §Equating "career success" with personal satisfaction over paycheck or status. §Everyone will need their own "name-brand." §Increased use of technology. §Finding work that needs doing. §Changing in the way management and leadership is conducted (less arrogance at the top level, more power on lower levels). §Increased need for networking and self-marketing. §Lifelong "trying on" of various roles, jobs, and industries. §Creating a plan that is flexible, and continually assessing the "fit" of the work. §Increased representation of women and minorities in the workforce. §Changing career fields numerous times in a lifetime. §Self-responsibility: Everyone knowing they have to chart their own career direction. However, the 21st century career also offers many advantages: §More career opportunities for everyone. §Freedom to choose from a variety of jobs, tasks, and assignments. §More flexibility in how and where work is performed, i.e. working from home or telecommuting. §More control over your own time. §Greater opportunity to express yourself through your work. §Ability to shape and reshape your life's work in accordance with your values and interests. §Increased opportunity to develop other skills by working in various industries and environments. §Self-empowerment mindset. §Allows you to create situations or positions where you can fill a need in the world that is not being filled. §Opportunity to present yourself as an independent contractor or vendor with services to offer. How can you successfully navigate through the turbulent times of change and career uncertainty? By developing resiliency, exercising proactivity, creating excellent self-marketing tools, keeping your skills up-to-date, and finding your unique life balance. 1.Develop resiliency (the ability to bounce back). Having the right attitude about career change is imperative to your ability to bounce back from setbacks, sudden changes, and twists and turns along your career path. You will experience a lot of career change and transitions, so you may as well get comfortable feeling uncomfortable. 2.Take a proactive approach to your career development You must constantly be on the lookout for new ways to apply your gifts and talents in the new economy. This requires thinking creatively, actively promoting yourself/business, and being actively involved in how your career progresses. Staying involved in professional associations, and continuous networking are excellent ways to connect with other like-minded professionals. 3.Create first-rate marketing materials Always keep your resume current. You never know when you are going to want to share it with someone or pass it along. If you are in business for yourself, develop classy business cards and letterhead. Harness the power of the internet by developing an interactive website. 4.Commit to lifelong learning To keep earning, keep learning. Do not wait until you lose your job or want to look for another position to gain new skills or training. Recognize the need to be open to learning and attend classes related to your area of expertise to keep your skills sharp and marketable. Keep in mind the top skills needed for career success include:Communication, Computer-knowledge, Creativity, Customer Care 5.Find your unique life balance There are four dimensions to life: love, labor, leisure, learning. Remember that work is just one aspect of your life pie. Be sure to indulge in all of your areas. Because having an overall balanced life is what leads to the most fulfillment. ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
21st Century Career Success
5 Strategies for ADDed Effectiveness on the Job
| 5 Strategies for ADDed Effectiveness on the Job |
| by: ADD Coach Jennifer Koretsky |
| For many people with ADD, work life can be difficult. If your working environment is not ADD-friendly, then you may find yourself feeling chronically disorganized and stressed out at work. Whether or not you choose to share your diagnosis with your employer, the following strategies can help you become more effective at work. 1. Find a Career that You're Passionate About People with ADD have the most success when doing something that they are passionately interested in. If you are in a career or a job that you're not passionate about, chances are your ADD challenges will manifest themselves. The best way to avoid this is to find work that you truly enjoy and believe in. 2. Develop Structure It's no secret that ADDers work well with structure. If your job lacks structure, create some! If you're self-employed, set up a schedule for yourself. Determine what your working days will be, and what your days off will be. (And stick to them!) Also, schedule specific working hours for yourself. If you're employed by another person or company, ask for specific deadlines on projects you are assigned. Additionally, you can request a weekly meeting with your manager in which you update him or her on all the things you have going on. This will allow YOU to review your progress and stay aware of all the tasks you're juggling. 3. Delegate the Details I've never met an ADDer who enjoyed dealing with details! Typically, people with ADD are the problem-solvers, the creatives, and the strategizers. Most ADDers will be extremely effective when dealing with these exciting and challenging aspects of the job, and a lot less effective when dealing with administrative work. If you're self-employed, hire an assistant - even if you think you can't afford it! Imagine how much more effective - and profitable - you could be if you didn't have to worry about paperwork! If you're employed by another person or company, delegate work to administrative assistants and anyone whom you manage. If there is no one for you to delegate to, explain to your manager that you work best when you don't have to be bogged down with administrative tasks. Point out all your skills, strengths, and accomplishments. Tell your manager that you could be contributing even more if you had someone to help with the details. 4. Plan the Time to Plan It's not enough to plan your day, you must also plan the time to plan! Before you leave work at the end of the day, take 15 minutes to look at your to do list. See what you accomplished and what still needs to be done, and update the list. Also use this time to update your calendars, and break up outstanding projects into steps. Taking the time to do this every work day will have you feeling more in control, and will also help you transition out of work time and into personal time. 5. Get Over Perfectionism Perfectionism prevents progress. If you find something that could be improved every time you look at a paper or a report, it will never get off your desk. There's a big difference between "a good job" and "a perfect job." "A good job" is work well done; "a perfect job" doesn't exist! Nothing in this world is perfect, so do yourself a big favor and get over it! About the Author Jennifer Koretsky is an ADD Management Coach who helps adults learn how to manage their ADD and move forward in life. She offers individual and group coaching, workshops, and skill-building programs. Subscribe to Jennifer's free email newsletter, The ADD Management Guide, by visiting http://www.ADDmanagement.com/e-newsletter.htm |
6 Proven Steps To Internet Marketing Success
| 6 Proven Steps To Internet Marketing Success |
| by: Mal Keenan |
There is a misconception that you can come online set up a web business and be making $1000s within days. Let be put that myth to rest right away. This has not been my experience nor the experience of anyone I have come in contact with through my online endeavours.
You need to give yourself at least a year to make an online business work and budget your money accordingly. Too many times I see people ploughing a wad of cash into their businesses and again, expecting instant riches.
New marketers also make the mistake of thinking that one marketing strategy will do. Of course some avenues will produce more than others but I have found the best way is to adapt a broad based approach to your online marketing. That means spreading your time and resources over several different methods.
I will attempt to outline in this text everything I feel you need to be doing consistently to make a success of your online business.
Again I MUST point out that you need to persist is this strategy and spend your money wisely. It amazes me the amount of people who drop out after the first month or two. What do they expect, miracles? You wouldn't ditch an offline business after a month so why would you expect an online enterprise to be any different?
If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.
Bottom line is, targeted visitors = sales. This is definitely a numbers game and obviously the more targeted visitors you send to your website the more money you make. The concept is simple but you need to maintain a healthy focus to ensure that you stick this out for as long as it takes to make a profit, and progress to financial freedom online.
Here are the methods I use to send daily visitors to my sites:
1)Build Your List
It's true what they say that the money IS in the list. Most successful online marketers have large lists of targeted prospects that they can send their offers to on a regular basis. Anyone new to this business should begin to build this list immediately.
You have to start somewhere and it takes time but it is certainly worth your while to begin now and develop a lasting and trustful relationship with those list members who eventually will feel comfortable in purchasing your recommendations. When trust grows this targeted list will become a virtual money tree and make you cash at will. Some marketers are able to makes $1000s sending an email to their list, which takes little more than a few minutes to write. Can you see the power in this method?
I use a couple of different methods, online forms at all my websites encouraging prospects to add their name and email addresses plus I also purchase many of my addresses from other companies that can send me 1000s of emails for affordable prices. These addresses are spam free and can grow my list a lot quicker than I could ever do from my own websites.
I have set up some tutorials here for companies that will send you targeted visitors:
2)Pay Per Click search engines.
Over the years I have used PPCSEs to send 1000s of visitors to my sites. This is a fast track way to drive traffic to your sites. You can be up and running and getting hits in minutes.
I use http://www.overture.com, http://www.findwhat.com, and http://www.7search.com . These are three of the most popular but there are many others which you can find here:
I suggest you use Wordtracker (http://www.workathomebiz.info/wordtracker.html) to accumulate as many TARGETED keywords as you can. The more targeted keywords you collect the more visitors you get.
The idea is to ensure that you are paying less for visitors on a monthly basis than the sales you make.
3)Google Adwords (http://www.google.com/ads/)
Google adwords is similar in principle to PPCSEs in that you pay for your visitors. I suggest you use Wordtracker (http://www.workathomebiz.info/wordtracker.html) to accumlate 1000s of keyword phrases.
4)Article Submissions
Submitting topical articles is one of the most affordable and at the same time effective marketing strategies I know of. For more info and the resources to do this visit here:
5)Regular Search Engines
Yahoo, Google, and MSN send me as many visitors per day as any other strategy I use. It is highly recommended that you get started immediately to begin to build the online web presence of your website and thus your search engine rankings.
I have done this mostly through a reciprocal linking campaign which has had a greater effect on my search engine rankings than anything else. I employ the use of Linksmanager (http://www.workathomebiz.info/linksmanager.html) to automate my links campaign for which I pay a monthly fee or you can set up your own links manager at your own site using Kevin Ocasio's excellent Reciprocal Manager (http://www.freeadvertz.com/recipmanager.html).
For affordable search engine submission software try Web Position Gold (http://www.webpositiongolddownloads.com)
Please note: This is a long term strategy, so it will take at least a few months of persistent action to see any results at all.
6)Forum Posting
One of the greatest things that happened to me in my online career was being appointed moderator at one on the most popular online internet marketing forums. This has opened up more avenues and opportunities than any other strategy. I suggest you visit the popular, high traffic online forums daily and make it a point of sharing your experiences and giving your advice as often as possible. Get yourself seen!
The thing about this method too is that you can have a link pointing to your site in the signature of each post you make. Posting at forums will send daily traffic to your site AND the visitors will be highly targeted.
Here are two high traffic forums that I frequent:
This one isn't high traffic yet but I will be there to answer your questions:
In conclusion:
I have been marketing online since 1998 and have tried 100s of different ways to drive targeted traffic to my websites. The above six strategies work, so I suggest you print them out and make the methods part of your daily marketing plan for the foreseeable future.
If they can work for me then they WILL work for you.
I wish you every success in your efforts.
Copyright 2004 Mal Keenan
Mal Keenan is editor and publisher of Home Business Tips Newsletter: http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/ For A Home Business You Can Believe In, With Benefits, Click Below:
|
6 Tips To Create Your Own Fortune With "How To" eBooks
| 6 Tips To Create Your Own Fortune With "How To" eBooks |
| by: Jeff Smith |
| 6 Tips To Making Your Own Fortune Creating and Marketing Infoproducts! It's one of the biggest challenges to getting your business started. Finding products to sell online that you enjoy working at and that attract an ongoing stream of "hungry" buyers is THE most important success factor to doing business - period! For those of you that want to create their own infoproducts, it's even more important since you will be investing time, energy and your emotions into your products. Thousands of subscribers to my "Online Marketing Success Secrets Revealed" (http://www.infoproductcreator.com/ezine1.html) Newsletter, experts and aspiring infoproduct creators struggle with the same 6 questions... Do these questions keep you awake at night? 1. What do I like doing enough that I would spend a few weeks developing a product, and years marketing and supporting them? 2. How do I know if ENOUGH people will purchase my product to achieve my goals? 3. Will people pay for my knowledge - even if I'm not an expert? 4. How do I test for demand BEFORE I spend weeks or months developing my products? 5. Do I have to write a 150-page book to make money? 6. What topics sell - it seems like only "Making Money" type products are selling. Listen - you are NOT the first to wonder about these questions. In fact, your success depends on getting PAST these doubts - so let's take each one and work through them - OK? 1. DO I HAVE TO REALLY LOVE MY TOPIC? Two answers to this question - you CAN develop a winning product about a subject that you are not completely passionate about. Professional writers do it all the time. Here's the catch. A great deal of your success marketing infoproducts online will depend on MORE than just selling 1 product. It will depend on... a) Your ability to market additional products - yours and others. b) Your ability to create great publicity campaigns, partnerships, follow up sales campaigns, loyalty with your readers c) Your ability to support and ADD-VALUE to your prospective and existing customers d) Your ability to gain MOMENTUM in your business by tapping into your customer base and continuing to provide them high-value, back-end products Are you seeing it? Yes, you can develop an article, book, booklet, eBook or whatever infoproduct you favor about a topic you are less than thrilled about - BUT... You MUST be willing to live with that market for years to come! For that reason alone, it's worth finding a market and subject that both interests you AND has great potential. Here's a real-world example. Just over 1.5 years ago I developed my own eBook aimed at empowering product developers with proven ways to tap into a flood of market demand, test their ideas and quickly generate products that sell like wildfire. The original ebook - "The Ultimate Information Entrepreneur's Success Package" at: http://www.infoproductcreator.com took me 4 weeks to develop - start to finish. Not bad. It's because I knew my topic so well that I was able to produce a 110 page eBook and accompanying interviews within weeks. Since that time I have written well over 60 articles, published a regular ezine, updated my product 3 times, written several special reports, created hard-hitting websites, press releases, ads and added hundreds of pages of content to my websites. All of that is not including more than 40 interviews, reviews, publicity events and other projects I've been involved in - ALL ON THE SAME TOPIC. Add to that hundreds of hours of email and phone conversations with joint venture and affiliate partners who sell my product for me each and every week. Now - all of this activity has put tens of thousands into my hands, from this one single book, not to mention other products I sell. POINT IS: Marketing The Product YOu Create Will Mean Living With Your Product Each and Every Day As You BUild Your Business. You Can Make A Fortune, But It Takes Some Effort Each and Every Day. You MUST Be Passionate Enough About Your Topic To Stay Motivated and Focused - That's the Secret To Building Your Own Infoproduct Empire Online. 2. HOW DO YOU ESTIMATE DEMAND FOR YOUR INFOPRODUCT IDEA Now we're into the details that will skyrocket you into the top 5% of infoproduct developers online - that will set you aside from 95% of others who do NOT consider demand for their topic. Just for sake of argument - I'm going to use an example of a hobby that some of you may have, model airplanes. You know, those little scale airplanes that get so many hobbyists out of bed at ungodly times of the morning - addicting to the smell of Naptha gas. Here's a few ways you can can estimate demand for your proposed market... a) Use online tools to seek out demand. The three best tools (and they are completely free) to use are: - Overture keyword search tool: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ A search for model airplanes brings up some interesting information - - Over 55,000 searches on this topic in less than 1-month (Not Bad!) - Second most searched topic RELATED to model airplanes is Model Airplane News - OK, so people want information. - Several search categories include searches done on various products, evidence that this market is willing to spend money. b) Now if you had a tool such as Adword Analyzer -- http://www.infoproductcreator.com/part/adwanalyze Then you would see that the supply of websites that come up when searching for model airplanes is quite small - relative to other keyword searches. In addition, with this incredible tool, you would see that there are very few current Google Adwords or Overture.com campaigns being purchased. What's that mean? It means that you can use one or both of these tools to generate almost INSTANT high-quality traffic to your site for a fraction of what most other high-demand keywords would cost. All good signs that point to a strong market demand for your hobby and area of product interest. c)A third method you can use is to seek out what is already selling. A great way to do that is to look at http://www.amazon.com and http://www.zdnet.com top movers op sellers in various market niches. This will tell you ALLOT about what people are spending money on right now! 3. WHAT WILL PEOPLE PAY ME FOR? Now that you have picked a niche market and an area of focus, you need to find out what people want BADLY within that niche. Here are a few ways to find out... a) Search google for "model airplane discussion forums". You are looking for active and reasonably good quality forums to TAP INTO ongoig discussions - this will offer you a goldmine of information on what people are looking for. In a 5-minute search, here's what I found -- http://www.indiarc.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi http://www.rcorlando.com/modules.php?name=Forums http://www.flightlines.com/cgi- bin/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro&BypassCookie=true You will find TONS of active discussions that will lead to product ideas, allowing you to tap into what this market wants. b) Get involved in Chat's - many of the sites above also run live chat sessions periodically, another great way to find out pockets of demand c) Check offline - read RC Modeller magazines and books, find out consistent topics, gaps in information or ideas that you could expand into a different medium. For example, a common topic is flying techniques or flight patterns. Why not travel to your local model flying club and video tape both flight paths and techniques used by flyers, converting them into digital files and selling them on CD-ROM? You get the idea. d) Listen to your fellow model airplane buffs - find out what their frustrations are, what their spending patterns are and what else they are looking for, but can't find. 4. TESTING FOR DEMAND Here are 3 quick methods of testing for demand - BEFORE you spend days, weeks or months on creating your infoproduct. a) Surveys - using a free trial from http://www.surveymonkey.com you can find out whether your target market seems as passionate about your idea as you are. NOTE: Be sure to ask them IF and HOW MUCH they would be willing to cough up to get answers to their questions. b) Special Report - Use this often overlooked technique to put together a few pages (from 5-20 pages) that you can either give away or sell for a low price to test the popularity of your idea. You WILL need to market this report, so it will take some time BUT, it's a great way to setup your marketing channels ahead of time, preparing them for your full product which comes later. The best resource I've come across on writing Income-Generating Special Reports is "The Special Report Bible" - you will be amazed at what you can put together in a matter of hours or days. ANOTHER IDEA is to run an interview or teleseminar on your topic with a topic expert. Judge the popularity of the call can mean you will roll out new products later. An example of this strategy is Yanik Silver's recent Public Domain Riches teleseminar (http://www.infoproductcreator.com/part/pdomain) which turned out to be such a hit that he quickly put together a $1,000+ personal coaching course on the same topic. c) Articles - Write articles on your topic directly addressing the same desire you hope to fill with your full product. Submit your article to the various article directories on Yahoo and many others out there. Request a courtesy notification from publishers who publish your article so that you get a feel for how popular the article proves to be. Of course, you should also have a link to either a website or autoresponder email address at the end of your article. Clicks on your link following the article will also give you a sense of how popular the topic is. What should you expect? You don't need to have HUGE numbers, a few publications and approx a 1% clickthrough on any published articles tells you there is enough response to continue - or at least do additional testing. 5. eBOOKS AND WHAT ELSE? If you haven't asked the question - WHAT ELSE and you are considering writing a typical book or eBook then you may be missing out on product opportunities that will both make you more money AND take far less time to create. Here are just a few formats that many successful infoproduct developers use today... - Audio files (telseminars, interviews, commentary) - Special Reports (5-20 page treatments) - Videos (It's easier than you think) - Software (Software applications or scripts can be developed by starving professionals on Elance.com or Scriptlance.com for far less than you might imagine. - Physical booklets or courses/binders - Bundled products 6. THE INTERNET MARKETING MARKET FALLACY It has to be the biggest un-truth floating around the internet. Contrary to what most people say, developing products targeted only at the internet marketing crowd is NOT the only OR the most lucrative market out there. It IS the most competitive - so that's why you tend to see products everywhere, leading most people to believe those are the only products selling. In fact, there are products selling in many niches including... - health and wellness - hobbies (models, crafts, collectors, music, sports, etc...) - relationships - parenting - career and business - business opportunities (ie. home business) - technology - pets - and many, many others Each week I continue to be AMAZED at the incredible opportunities out there in niche markets - our society is more information hungry than ever. Don't make the common mistake of ignoring a market you are interested in because you don't THINK products will sell. Instead, test and find out what products will sell to a given market. With those obstacles out of your way - NOTHING stands in the way of you creating that lifestyle you've always wanted by creating and marketing information products. About the Author Jeff Smith is the author of the top-selling "Ultimate Information Entrepreneur's Success Package" helping thousands package their knowledge into profitable eBooks, special reports, ezines and audios. Visit his site here: |
6 Amazing Secrets To Work At Home Success
| 6 Amazing Secrets To Work At Home Success |
| by: Vernette Carbon |
| Are you a stay at home mom or dad who would like to work from home? Maybe you have a job outside the home, but you're tired of juggling your job and your kids, especially when your child is sick and needs you. You'd like to work from home, but it seems as though there are no legitimate jobs out there. You don't really want to start a home-based business from scratch, but would love to work from home. Well let me tell you a little secret, knowledge is power. And there are 15 strategies you must apply if you want to be successful in landing a work at home job or contract These 15 strategies will definitely help you beat out your competition. Let me share with you 6 of the 15 strategies I've used and continue to use to increase my chances of obtaining home-based jobs and contracts over and over again. •1. You Must Acquire A Specialized Skill The secret to landing a home-based job or independent contract and keeping it forever is to acquire a specialized skill, or start a career in a field that is completely recession proof and in high demand but has a low supply of skilled workers. For instance, people will always get sick. So therefore doctors will always need Medical transcriptionists. Another example; companies will always have quarterly meetings and will always need general transcriptionists to transcribe reports, minutes, etc. If you lose your home-based job today, you can apply for another one tomorrow and land another job within a week or two. How am I so sure about this? Well I've done it over and over again as a general transcriptionist, and Cyber Agent (Call Center Customer Service Rep) for the past five and a half years. The jobs and independent contracts in these fields are in abundance. As an example, let's look at Medical Transcriptionist. Just go to your search engine and type in the keywords, "Medical Transcription Companies." You will see hundreds of medical transcription companies listed. Just visit a few of the web sites and check to see if there's an "employment," "Career," "Join us," "Contact," etc., tab on the web site. I'm sure you'll find several job openings. •2. Don't work at home for the wrong reasons. Too many people want to work at home for the wrong reasons. Never tell an employer that you want to work at home because you need to spend more time with your children. That will certainly seem selfish to an employer, and you would never get hired. Most employers don't care whether you want to stay at home with your children or not. Wanting to work from home to spend more time with your children is not really a wrong reason, but in an employer's mind it is. Why not look at it this way; working from home would enable you to be more productive in the sense that you would not miss work when your children are sick. Also if some other family issues arise you can take care of it without calling in sick. Wouldn't this be more beneficial to the employer instead of saying you want to work at home to spend more time with the kids? •3. Be Professional At All Times When applying for a home-based job, never respond to an ad via email stating, "I'm interested in the work-at-home (data entry) position." This is quite unprofessional. Once you find a home-based job vacancy, apply by sending your cover letter and resume, or fill out an online application. If the employer didn't ask for a cover letter in the job vacancy ad, please send one anyway. Never send a resume without a cover letter. It will get thrown in the trash. Please customize each cover letter with information tailored to that specific job advertisement. •4. Never Send Your Resume As An Attachment Unless The ad States That You Can Do So The hiring manager might never open the attachment. Also, never copy and paste your resume into the body of your email and send it to an employer. It will change format by the time it reaches to the employer, and will look like a jumbled mess. You must create an ASCII/Plain Text resume and cover letter. For more information on how to do this please visit the following web sites, http://resume.monster.com/dosanddonts/email/Index.asp or http://www.eresumeiq.com/ABC.html. •5. Follow Instructions When responding to a job vacancy announcement please make sure you follow the ad instructions. If the ad asks for specific information please do exactly as it says. For instance, if the ad says, please describe home office equipment, make sure you mention in your cover letter exactly what equipment you have in your home office. I was once commended by an employer for being the only job applicant, out of hundreds to actually follow the specific instructions in the job ad. I was hired for this home-based job mainly because I followed instructions, not because I was more qualified than all the other applicants. •6. Reduce Your Job Search Time Finding a job using the Internet can be a frustrating, time-consuming endeavor because there are literally 1000's of job boards and work at home resources. And don't forget the Job newsgroups and the regional newspapers. To be current on this information is essential. Let YourJobSearcher do the work for you. This software is not only for 9-5 job searches. You can use it to find telecommuting jobs also. All you have to do is download and install your Job Search Program, enter your job description (home-based job title you desire), click and begin the search. It's that easy. About the Author Vernette Carbon is the owner-publisher of AmazingWorkatHomeSecrets.com, and a |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)