Are You Ready to Get Fired?

As a Co Founder of Laguna Niguel Connectors and a person that has spoken to numerous transition groups throughout Southern California I am ecstatic that the employment outlook is getting better.

As a native in the New Normal I know that you have to be prepared for all scenarios in a rapidly changing world where a hick up like gas prices can put the brakes on hiring momentum when in the old normal they wouldn’t be linked. The New Normal is a world of sound bite news that lemmings follow.

Are you ready for the next chapter of your life or is  somebody else going write it for you?  The Chapter you don’t see coming.

Most people aren’t.  They react versus anticipate because that is the pattern they know.  You didn’t have to be so prepared for quick jobs changes in the past but that’s not the new world.

I have 27 year old friends who grew up in the New Normal and are very educated, competent and have had 3 jobs already because clients and budgets change.

So what if you got fired tomorrow.  Would you be ready?

What if you were called into an unscheduled meeting and your boss and a person from HR was there to deliver the news.  Would you be ready or would you panic?

Would you be ready to hit the mean streets of transition?

Will you be ready for the first Monday of not working with no place to go, no reason to rush to get dressed in the morning,  no company computer, no company cell phone, no company meetings, no Monday busyness?  No calls to your partner saying you will be home late that night.

Will you already have your own personal business cards?  Will you be ready to put your personal website in your new email salutation on the first day?

Will your Linkedin profile be stellar and a magnet for every recruiter to find?

Will you spend your first week talking to people about what happened or be too busy marketing yourself.

Will you spend your first nights thinking about what happened or why there isn’t enough time to take you to where you want to go?

If you are smart you will be.

In a world of disposable jobs the only certainty and continuity is the life you live with yourself and the people that are important to you.

 

The other never ending variable is the need to provide for your family.  Will they be Cobbler’s Children or fellow shoemakers?

Just like Superman, today you need to be ready to change your costume from corporate apparel to personal apparel at the drop of a tweet.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch a video on How to Create a Job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMSFqT9M_FQ

Why Holiday Time is a Great Time for Networking.

Hey Starbucks has been playing Christmas music since Halloween so I guess it’s time for a Holiday Time is a Great Time for Networking Blog.

I’ve always felt that the holidays are a great time for networking, meeting new people, taking new steps to find your next opportunity, and being out there.  I have also found it an easier time to contact prospects and that people can actually be more accessible and answer emails and calls.  They probably want to make sure that they won’t find a lump of coal under their tree.

I have always felt that the key to a successful 1^st Quarter is an aggressive 4^th Quarter.  When other people go into Holiday mode I try to stay in work mode.

The holiday period offers a full networking dance card.  There are lots of events out there. You will find that your calendar can be quickly filled.  Recently I have found holiday may involve numerous organizations collectively sponsoring one event so the turnout is larger and people from various disciplines attend.

Different people come out at Holiday events.  The Holiday season seems to attract people you don’t often see during the year.  Often Senior Level people come out during the Holidays to show the flag.

Holiday events are also social events so they are more informal and allow for one on one dialogue versus sitting down at a table and listening to a speaker. You can cover more ground, meet more people and make more contacts.  Don’t leave your business cards at home or keep them in your purse.

Let’s face it.  Many people aren’t comfortable with networking and one on one dialogue with strangers is not their strong suite.  As Holiday events are social events, significant others often attend.  Spouses can often provide relationship building touch points and follow up opportunities that you might not be skilled at.  These are the times to be working all the advantages that you can.

Holiday time offers opportunities for special follow up that you might not regularly implement as part of your networking strategy and I’m not talking about send a follow up resume to the CEO that you met.  Maybe it is a Holiday card or a personal note requesting a courtesy interview or taking your call.  Maybe you will find that the Holiday spirit of graciousness may generate different results this time of year.  There is has been an uptake in hiring across the country recently that may increase hiring in the spring.  This is a great time of year to make sure that you are top of mind.

The Holiday Season is also a great time to recognize some of the key contacts in your networking world that have aligned your direction or improved your wiring in the past year.  If you got a new position this is a great time to thank the person that helped you get there.  Send them a Starbucks card, burn them a CD or sign them up for a Magazine Subscription or just send them a personal note.  Everybody likes to be recognized and appreciated.

So get out there this Holiday Season and let’s see what the New Year will bring. I want to enter the New Year being aggressive in closing out the year and optimistic on the results that will bring.

In the spirit of Christmas download my free audio CD called Hank Blank’s Guide to Holiday Networking.  Adjust the volume up a bit.  Hope you enjoy.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Be stupid with him on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch some videos on http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

Or you can just send him a large gift.  They are always welcome.

Job Hunting in Two Different Worlds.

A friend of mine who is in sales got a job offer this week.  She was very happy.  She got the job because of two reasons; relationships and Linkedin.  Oh of course she has many other skills that got her the job but the relationship and Linkedin were pivotal.  The last time this person found a job was by responding to an ad posted in a newspaper twelve years ago in the Old Normal.

Another friend of mine is in sales and recently lost their job.  They were living in the Old Normal and were suddenly launched into a new and uncomfortable world called the New Normal.

They had less than 10 connections on Linkedin, an incomplete profile and no recommendations.

They were not alone.  Many people who work for companies not engaged in social networking often are also not engaged with the personal marketing tools of the New Normal.  I have blogged about this before.

The friend of mine who got the job this week really leveraged the power of Linkedin.  The first thing she did was hire a professional photographer and had a number of photos taken in an office environment.  She got photographed in a variety of outfits so she would be able to pick the very best one.  It shows her in a Boardroom setting.  She looks very professional, polished and like a business leader one would want to hire. My other friend has no picture on their Linkedin page. They were invisible.

The friend of mine who got the job this week had many recommendations from previous clients on her Linkedin profile.  Former customers became her references.  High level people don’t recommend people publically unless they believe in their capabilities.  After all they have their reputation to protect.  The other friend of mine had no recommendations on their Linkedin profile.

The friend of mine who got the job found that recruiters were always checking out her Linkedin page.  She regularly sent them invites to connect on Linkedin and they responded.  They were chasing her as she had adjusted to the New Normal.

My other friend in the Old Normal sent out e mails to his associates asking for a list of recruiters that they could chase.

I continue to be surprised by how many people remain in the Old Normal.  This recession started in 2007 the same year the iPhone was introduced and let many people in transition continue to have an extremely weak presence on Linkedin.  Why are they not listening?  What do they not believe? They certainly don’t need more pain.  The time to change has long passed.

Congratulations to my friend in the New Normal. Please wake up my friends in the Old Normal.

Hank Blank speaks to companies and organizations on How to Rise Above the Crowd.  You can check him out by doing a Google search on Hank Blank or visiting his site at www.hankblank.com.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch some videos on http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

What Makes A Social Media Expert?

I am sure that all of us have encountered our fair share of Social Media experts.  Often many of them are fairly one dimensional.  Among a target group of their peers they may generate an adulation feast but in other marketing sectors they meet skepticism because they only have one credential.

I think social media experts abound because social media is such a fire hose nobody can really grasp it all. Everybody has their drink and knows their one sector and there is so much activity fragmentation that people can claim expertise that some find difficult to challenge.

A CEO told me the other day that his social media agency had arranged a Tweetup with 1.5 million participants. That’s what his social media experts told him.  A Monday Night Football game may only capture 15 million viewers Nationally.

In social media there are few career benchmarks or protocols.  If you described yourself as a Brand Manager or an Account Executive you would come with a pedigree of experience and a predicable certain skill set.  Not so in social media. If I ask somebody, “What did you do before you became a Twitter expert?” They respond, “I was a Realtor and then I got into social media because the market wasn’t that hot.”  Not exactly P&G.

I read a great analogy the other day from a writer I wish I could credit here who described social media as pearls on a dress. One piece of the outfit.  Now if you walked into a room wearing only pearls you would certainly grab everyone’s attention and be certain to get a ride home but you would probably only be remembered for one dimension.

If you ask many social media experts to define a GRP or Gross Rating Point they can’t.  Or an electronically optimized press release, or a VAR channel, or a listing allowance or segmentation studies.  You get the drift.

Social media is one vertical, one channel of the brand’s dimension.  When I worked at agencies such as JWT you had to immerse yourself in all the facets of the brand experience.  You knew how to read Nielsen reports, you did store checks, you rode with sales people, and you knew research methodologies up and down because flawed research could upset the apple cart. During an internal brand review at JWT, the General Manager asked the AE how they liked the Oscar Meyer slices.  The AE said they were vegetarian.  Very quickly they weren’t working on Oscar Meyer.

Sure people visit Facebook over seven times a day but the average person surprisingly to me still watches over 25 hours of TV a week and they listen to a lot of radio.

Only ten years ago we had the .com bubble.  At one time .coms that hadn’t made a penny profit were valued more than GM. Wall Street believed it and the papers printed it and people talked about it. Then the .com bust came.  The .com bust certainly didn’t kill the internet but it certainly diminished the hype.  The same will happen with many social media experts.

Just Ask Jeeves about how things can change.

Hank Blank frequently speaks on Networking and the New Business Process.  His presentations are called “How to Rise Above the Crowd” and “Why Agencies Don’t Want New Business.”  To contact him to speak to your organization or company send him an email to hank@hankblank.com.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch some videos on http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

How to Improve your Consulting Career

I have written a series of recent blogs on how to build a consulting career.   I started out with How to Create Job by Creating  a Consulting Career followed by How to Build a Consulting Career and recently More on Building a Consulting Career.

Here are some tips on building a consultant career.

One of the challenges with consulting is that many people say the practice is not scalable for single individuals or a limitation on capacity and growth.  A consultant is always time challenged between chasing new projects which upon completion stop generally income and the perpetual chase for the Yankee dollar.

To augment my resources I have always used paid interns.  I have done it for years.  First it was my kids and then a variety of college students. There have been many graduates of Blank and Associates.  What works best for me is students who live in close proximity to me and students who are studying marketing, public relations or advertising because that is in business I am in.

It’s a win win situation.  Students who recently graduated from college face the chicken or egg shuffle of “you have no experience.”  Working for me provides them with relevant experience and after a time they move on and get hired which is great for everyone.  I can also help them get a job by providing a working reference.

I basically try to assign as many task projects to them to save me time.  For example I write all of my own content but my interns help me by posting my blog in the discussions section of the fifty Linkedin groups I belong to.  I would be less inclined to spend the time to do that.  The more I distribute my content the more feedback I receive.

Why do something yourself that you can have a student do for you at $12 an hour? I am trying to make much more than that.

I find that students are also very social media and technology savvy which helps a lot.  They have helped me in many ways.  Everything from syncing my phone and iPad to loading apps on my devices to educating me on new technology to PowerPoint presentations.

I love it when they come to me and ask, “Have you ever thought of doing it this way?”  I generally change the way I do things because they may have a better idea. The learning is both up and down.

The other way is that I increase my scalability is because of my network.  One of the benefits of networking is that it saves you time and makes you more productive.  People think that is counter intuitive.  It takes time to get there and back, listen to the speaker etc.  They think that time would be better spent doing other things.

My network is so broad that I rarely have to research something and when I do I go to Jane Bayer at Factfinders who can find anything.  I don’t go to Google, I go to people.  I know people who have told me who to use celebrity talent, social media experts in all areas of expertise, proof readers, printers galore, and trade show suppliers.  Whatever it takes I can generally find quickly and efficiently.  There is a big difference in consulting betwen telling your client you are working on something versus having the answer.  So how broad are your resources?

More to come.  Hey this has been a journey of learning lots of lessons.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch his video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

More On How to Build a Consulting Career.

In my last blog I wrote that one of the first things I learned in developing a consulting career was that it is not your knowledge that is key to success but how your market yourself and your knowledge.

On my journey somebody once told me that the speakers that make the most money aren’t the ones that are the best speakers but the ones that are the best marketers.

To market yourself effectively you need a plan. When I first started out I think that my business plan was mostly in my head. This was a little surprising because in my work career I was often responsible for developing written plans.

Over the course of my consulting career this evolved.  Today I definitely have a written plan but it is not what you would expect.  My plan is a visual map which is on the back of my office door and is about four feet long. It is a collage of presentation pad sheets.  It sits upon last year’s plan which is about two feet long.  It is basically a bunch of drawings, words and circles done in crayons and magic marker and not a list.

My great trainer and coach, Judith Westerfield, lead me to the understanding that as a creative person I would implement my plan better by having a visual expression of what I wanted to accomplish versus a list of tasks.  She was right. You have to visualize to realize. There are sections where I have total clarity. They are my foundation elements.  Then there are various other visual clusters that represent my objectives and the core attitude that I need to maintain to achieve my goals.

My plan keeps me on track.  One of my 2011 goals was to speak in Canada.  I recently spoke to the Petroleum Joint Venture Association in Calgary so I took a step in that direction.  Other things I have not accomplished yet but at least I have a loose structure of where I am going.

It is funny but I often show it to new interns that work for me and they totally get what I am trying to do almost immediately.  Maybe they have a youthful clarity.

The next step to developing a consulting practice is to get out of the house.  This is difficult for most people because computers can keep you trapped at home sending out e mails that delude you into thinking you are connecting with people.  People don’t remember e mails, they remember people.  Many people love to hide behind their computers but to succeed in consulting you need to get out there.  There was an old expression that sales people should have small desks so they don’t sit at them but are out and about.  Consultants should be outside people versus inside people.  They should be finders first versus grinders.  That will come later.

You will succeed or fail in your consulting career based on the power of your network.  I have written many articles on the power of networking.  My network has sustained me.  During the ten plus years of my consulting practice I have never had a call saying, “Hank I am a total stranger and I want to do business with you.”  I have had calls saying I got your name from Mary or Sally or Bill and those calls lead to new opportunities.

My advice is simple on the networking front.  Schedule five meetings a day when you start consulting.  Two will get cancelled and you will end up with three meeting a day.  Each of those people on average will give you two names which ends up being 6 names a day. If you follow that practice on a daily basis you will connect with 30 people in a week and 120 in a month.  If you networked with that purpose for a year you would be a very connected person.  Possible? Yes. Powerful?  Well let me ask you a simple question.  “How would your life change if you met one new person a day?’

More to come.  Hey this has been a journey of learning lots of lessons.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch his video on YouTube  http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

How to Build a Consulting Career.

I wrote in my previous blog that it doesn’t appear that the hiring market isn’t going to catch fire any time soon.   I hope history will prove me wrong.  I see many people desperate for work spending hours on low probability job pursuit just to stay busy.  People cold call me saying they are looking for work when I am not even a recruiter.  Many people spend their time chasing vapor.  Perhaps that time could be better suited building a consulting practice with a greater rate of return.

Consulting is not for all.  Somebody once told me that a consultant is somebody who likes to have their feet firmly planted in mid air.  It is like jumping off a cliff every month hoping you encounter somebody on the way down with an extra parachute.

So how do you build a consulting career?  Well one of the most painful things that I had to learn in making the switch from the work world to the consulting world is that it is not your knowledge but your product that counts.  “Hey I have a great resume and great experience.  I am smart.  People will seek me out. I was stupid.”  You can’t send people your resume when you are pitching a consulting gig because you need substance because those prospects expect you to produce substance for them.

You need to productize your knowledge.  Ten years ago you needed collateral and a brochure.  I think that is less important these days.  My capabilities presentation is a Keynote presentation on my iPad.  It is simple, affordable (except for the iPad), portable and makes an impression.  My friend Ivan Torres created it for me.

Then you needed a site.  My friend Dante Fiorini created the current Hank Blank site. Matt Desio the original one. I have had a personal site for about ten years now and people visit it according to Google Analytics but I can get more people reading a blog posting in one day than visit my site in one month.  On a good month I get ten times more visitors to my blog than my site and people say they like my site.

Today many people may not need a website at all.  You may be able to get away with a rock and roll Facebook page if you are in social media or have some types of practices.

Today I find that my Linkedin profile is the core of my personal product and branding.  Often more people check me out on Linkedin in one day than visit my site on any given day.  I used to have a recommendations file when people asked for references.  Now I just cut and paste the pertinent recommendations from my Linkedin profile and e mail it to them.

Another piece of advice I can give is never to do anything yourself.  Sounds like a nice life eh? Well if you consult I can guarantee you that you will work more than you have ever worked in your life but it will be a different kind of time.

What I mean is use other people’s expertise. I have shared what Dante and Ivan have done for me and they are just the start of my journey.  Many people said to me many times you use a template and build your own site in four hours.  Why would I want to do that?  Don’t fall into that trap.  I have scissors at home but I don’t cut my own hair.  Use the best resources to produce the best product at the price you can afford.  I have also always traded my expertise for their expertise when possible.  Yes barter.  People will do things for you if you try to make money for them.

An iron rule. You can never compromise your personal branding.  If your card doesn’t make people smile it is not working. You need to be memorable and your card is what people take away.  You don’t need to over think it.  The Hank Blank card with Blank on the back was created by my friend Ken Church and printed in four days.

It makes people smile or laugh all the time and smiles and laughs start relationships.   All your materials need to impress people.  Never cut corners with your personal brand.  If you are using a free card from the internet you simply aren’t committed to yourself. Those types of cards will never make people smile or laugh.  Just forget you.  You can never compromise your personal brand. That is all you have when you start.  Just you and your brand and some hope.

More to come.  Hey I have ten years of mistakes to cover here.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch his videos on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

How To Create a Job by Creating a Consulting Career

In late February 2001 at 7.30 at night I got fired on the phone.  As I remember it was raining.  I was Executive Vice President and Partner of an advertising agency.  Who cares?  Four days later I had my Hank Blank business cards and my consulting career began.  I knew a lot about working but I knew absolutely nothing about consulting.

Thus began one of the most interesting and exciting and frightening decades of my life as I totally reinvented what I do and how I do it.  I have created ten years of income and self employment.

As readers of my blog know, I do a lot of networking.  This is what I see.  Some of the very capable people that I network with have now been out of work for going on two years.  They face questions from hiring managers asking them why they haven’t been hired in a long time.  If those hiring manager were in transition they could be in the same boat but since they have a job they get to ask the stereotypical questions not aligned with today’s reality.

It doesn’t appear things on the job front are going to improve or change in the immediate future.  There are still jobs but robust job hunting may never return.  This recession started in the middle of 2007 is entering its fourth year.

Ten years ago I started my career basically in a year of recession.  It was a few months before 9/11. I have been able to survive for ten years, paid my mortgage, raised a couple of great kids but I had to totally reinvent myself.  I was wired for working but not wired for consulting and creating a job for myself each and every day.  I had to totally reinvent my skills to have a consulting practice.

The job I had in advertising ten years ago as a Senior New Business person doesn’t exist in large numbers anymore like many other jobs.  It went the way of overhead machines, acetates, receptionists, and vacations.  In ten years I have heard about two openings with that title.  There are plenty of Junior jobs but not the job that I had.

I am going to write a blog or two on developing a consulting career.  First consulting is not for the faint of heart.  As I mentioned you have to create a job for yourself each and every day.  A consultant is basically perpetually unemployed.  That is why I relate to people in transition.  They are constantly hunting for work and I am constantly hunting for work.

Then there are no benefits, no healthcare insurance and no vacations unless you succeed and can provide those benefits for yourself or your partner can provide them.  No car allowance, no expense accounts, no bonuses unless you earn enough to provide those perks.

The first capability you need to have to succeed as a consultant if the ability to adapt and reinvent yourself.  Recently I have been speaking in Calgary, Washington D.C. and Palm Springs on New Business Development and Networking.  I will be speaking in Baton Rouge, Scottsdale, Orange County and other cities later this month.  Ten years ago I didn’t speak to companies and organizations about networking.

I recently completed an agency review for a client.  Ten years ago I didn’t do agency reviews.  I had been in plenty but never been paid to conduct them.  I have done reviews for companies such as Jenny Craig, Villeroy & Boch, Raley’s Supermarkets and Jacuzzi.

Reinvention is key to successful consulting. If my skills were the same as ten years ago I would be in dire straits. Are you reinventing yourself or are you staying the same and getting left behind?

More to come.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch his videos on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

Networking Isn’t Multi-Level Marketing

We have all heard of Multi-Level Marketing.  Unfortunately many people approach networking in the same fashion and they think that the networks other people have built belong to them for their marketing purposes.  Just because I am on Linkedin doesn’t mean I have been recruited to sell other people’s products or services.

People find me in various ways.  They see that I am connected to somebody they want to reach for the sole purpose of generating financial currency for themselves.  They reach out by email, phone or introductions and ask me to connect them to my contacts. Often my contacts are senior level people and decision makers.

These people who are basically strangers who I don’t know but they think my network belongs to them.  Sorry, it has taken me decades to build my network often by going to networking events when I wanted to do other things, or getting up to early to speak to a group at 7 in the morning.  My network is not a public service.  I am not going to connect strangers to my contacts.

The only people I open up my network to more freely are students, people in transition or if I see a good fit.  Connecting a person in transition to a company when that person is not a qualified candidate is not a high return strategy for anyone.  Fruitless activity is not high opportunity job hunting. These individuals would be better served learning how to fish but they want the quick fix and coming to me is the easier path.

“We are on Linkedin together” doesn’t really create some kind of fraternal bond when there are over 100 million people on Linkedin. All my connections aren’t your connections because we are on Linkedin. Linkedin isn’t a giant Amway.  I feel more connected to the 200 plus people in Canadians in OC because we share similar backgrounds and shared interests like curling.

I often get solicitations from people thru Linkedin asking me to connect them to a second degree connection.  Connecting strangers to strangers is not networking.  I will also not write a Linkedin recommendation for anybody that I have not had a working relationship with.

As I have a very extensive network I also get emails saying that I have quite an impressive network.  They would love to get together and see how we can help each other.  In the past I used to bite but only very rarely did I find that they really wanted to help me.  It was their interest and access to my network that was their primary concern.  If I didn’t follow up I never heard from them.

I often meet people who almost upon immediately meeting me ask “Who are your clients?”  They have a solution looking for a problem.  They get no time.

I have become very skeptical of outreach that says. “Let’s see how we can help each other.”  I have no problems finding people that need help.  It is all around us.  I would rather focus on them than people that want to use me.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch his video on the Power of Networking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-dSNVAN9FU&list=UUEigDTyDiFGXVfyg7sRErOg&index=10&feature=plcp

Does it Hurt Your Career if Your Company Doesn’t Practice Social Media?

I have met many people who are employed in the Pharma industry, financial services and many other fields who aren’t very actively participating in social media.

Many people I encounter in these industries are very successful. Highly goal oriented, well compensated and very sharp.

Then, when you “Linkedin” with them you see that they are social media newbie’s.  Their social media presence isn’t aligned with their career success presence.

Oh sure, they may use Facebook for personal reasons but their Linkedin presence is less than stellar. Twitter is a ditter for them.

They have poor quality photos on Linkedin yet these people always dress for success. They have few connections, no recommendations even though they may have been recognized for National sales awards at their company.  Their social media presence doesn’t match their career achievements.

They are at the top of their game yet their social media presence makes it seem like they have been under a rock or out of touch.

In most cases the companies that they work for are non adopters of social media for FDA or other compliance issues.  Their company’s hesitancy to embrace what the world is practicing is compromising their career in many ways.  Many people can become complacent because there isn’t a lot of internal recognition in their companies for being social media savvy.  The FDA is light years away from coming out with social media guidelines.

If something should happen to these high achievers who aren’t social media savvy they could be in big hurt.  Everybody knows that nobody is secure these days no matter their accomplishments, position, or sales awards.

If they lose their jobs, recruiters won’t find them easily and they won’t look impressive if they do.

They will be at a disadvantage compared to other candidates that have been in the social media game longer.  Many of these people may not have their skills but they may be easier to find and sell into an organization.

If you aren’t actively participating in social media you will be in catch up mode. Establishing a strong Linkedin presence doesn’t happen overnight.  Your Linkedin profile is today’s living resume available to all 24/7.

You can’t allow your social media presence to be dumbed down by the fact that your company doesn’t participate.  That is personal career compromise and is simply not a career option these days.

So how do you start?

-Market yourself like with the same level of effort that you market your company’s products.

-Dress for success on social media sites as well.

-You need a high quality brand image that matches your appearance and your pharma wardrobe.

-Invest in yourself by getting a high quality photograph.

-You’ll be less inclined to do that when you are not working.

-Update your activities on social media channels on a daily basis.

-Find Linkedin and Twitter webinars on YouTube and watch them.

-If you need a great Linkedin presentation send me an email.

-Spend thirty minutes a day marketing yourself.

-What is more important to you and your family?  Your marketability or TV?

Saying that you don’t have time is not the right answer.  A major problem for high achievers who are in transition is that they don’t know what to do with time when they are no longer employed. They go from no time to too much time. They lose their busyness and their familiar rhythm.

Bottom line; if you let your company’s lack of social media engagement dumb you down you may pay a personal price

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

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