If You Don’t Dig Your Job Leave it and Find Another

December 24, 2008 at 10:02 pm | In Career Development, Interview, People, Personal Branding, Success Strategies | 5 Comments

Today, I spoke with G.L. Hoffman, who is one of the louder voices in the career and job space. He is an entrepreneur and now author and is here to tell us how to dig our jobs. The main message here is that if you don’t like your job, get out of it and find one that you do enjoy. G.L. shares a few tips you might not have heard before as well.

G.L., what can a dog with a shovel teach us about digging our job?

It’s about attitude, and feeling confident enough in your abilities to show some humor even if the subject is of dire consequence. By showing some humor, you relax and are more yourself. Job seeking can be intimidating and awkward; mostly because we do it so infrequently. Then most advice givers don’t make us be ourselves, we get to the interview all tense and forget to make a friendly connection. The first step is they have to see you working there and then to get along with them.

Why do most people settle for a job they hate?

Inexperience, thinking too small and money. Mostly, they don’t work hard enough to discover the other options. Linkup.com is without question the best job site around. It only has jobs from company websites, and no job boards. It is findable online, but people are not searching on jobs that aren’t advertised. They go to where everyone else goes.

Disclaimer: My company owns and operates linkup.com.

Mostly it is money or they do not think it is actually possible to love what you do and it’s where you work. Some of us grew up with parents who hated it so they think that is how the world is.

Do you recommend that someone who was recently laid off settles for a job they don’t like? What if they have a family?

Sure you have to make sure you eat and provide. But resolve not to let this happen again. Prepare for the next time. Get better at something. Work harder. Figure out why don’t like it and fix that. Most make snap decisions about their job, (“I HATE this job”) when all it takes is a bit of thoughtful conversation with coworkers and bosses to find your way.

Why do you think people who dig their jobs are more successful than those who don’t?

They bring a quantity of passion and excitement that is apparent to everyone, up and down the ladder, internally and with customers. People buy (generic ‘buy’) from people who are excited about what they do.

What 3 pieces of advice, from your book, can you give to us? Try and name a few that are overlooked and not commonly spoken of.

  • Most jobs are bigger than the people. This means that you can almost always make you job bigger and turn it into something more fun.
  • Don’t get behind going to Europe after college. Show some delayed gratification. Give your parents a break.
  • Talk to your mom and dad about your job more. They will have good advice and as parents; we always want to know.

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G.L. Hoffman is a serial entrepreneur and author of Dig Your Job: Keep it or Find a New One. Two of his companies have traveled the entire success path from the garage to IPO. He has been featured in Forbes, Wall Street Journal and other local business publications and newspapers. Currently, he is Chairman of JobDig, an employment-focused media company that delivers multi-channel recruitment advertising solutions to employers of all sizes in all industries. The company also owns and operates LinkUp.com, a site that aggregates and publishes only jobs listed on corporate web sites from over 10,000 companies around the U.S.

How to Lay the Brand Foundation for a Consulting Business

December 24, 2008 at 6:19 pm | In Corporate Branding, Personal Branding, Success Strategies, eBrand, social media | 4 Comments

Reader question

“I have recently gone solo and started a consulting business (with a handful of employees)… from a social networking branding perspective (i.e. twitter, blog etc.) should I concentrate on building myself or my company brand.  I know the answer is both, but which one first and foremost would you recommend, for example should my blog, facebook page, twitter names be me or my company.  What would you suggest?” – Joe Newbert

My analysis

General branding thoughts

When it comes to consulting, your customers want to deal directly with an individual that they must know, like and trust.  They are paying to work with a company, whose reputation is attached to each individual.  This means that, depending on how the consulting business is laid out, you’ll need each consultant to have the necessary skills (and/or complimentary skills if there are group projects) in order to provide value for each customer.  Hopefully, you’ll be able to over-deliver and get repeat business.  With consulting, you are offering up your expertise, as well as the consultants you hire, and they become your best salespeople for your corporate brand.

Brand strategy recommendations

There are two main things you need to know.  First, you want to protect your personal brand, your corporate brand and the brands of everyone who is working for your consulting company.  Second, you want to focus on personal brands over the corporate brand because, in consulting, transactions and relationships are 100% between people.  Below are some strategies that will help you achieve both of these:

  • Reserve your name, all of your consultants names’ and your corporate name on Twitter.
  • Ensure that everyone you work with has a Facebook page and a LinkedIn profile.
  • Purchase your corporate domain name, as well as your personal domain name (yourname.com) and tell your team to purchase their own as well.
  • Start a team blog under your corporate domain name, while positioning yourself as the top contributor because you are the CEO.  Allow each of your fellow consultants to blog on behalf of your company, while giving them the freedom to start developing their own blogs for individual use.
  • Get a camera and film personal introductions with you and your fellow consultants.  Use these video intros to send to potential clients.  You can even do a holiday greeting video as well!
  • Splatter your pictures across all social media sites and make sure to list your corporate brand name and the area of expertise you/they have.

Verdict

A personal brand is more important than the corporate brand in consulting businesses.  Since your company has more than one personal brand, you have to ensure that each consultant you hire aligns with your corporate brand in order to be successful.  From a social media branding perspective, you should demand that each consultant establishes themself using the tools mentioned above (including you), while tying everything together into a cohesive and impactful website.

How would you handle this situation?

Now is your chance to respond to Joe’s question.  Do you think he should start with the corporate brand first and then work on his personal brand?

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