Have you heard of push marketing and pull marketing?

The concept is simple: are you PUSHING your stuff to prospects or are you so interesting (or appealing) that you are PULLING prospects to you?

Apple products are typically PULL.  People talk about them, everyone knows about them, they are relatively easy to find and buy.

Apple competitors spend lots of money on PUSH strategies.  They are saying “hey, look at me, over hear!  Get your eyes off that iPhone for a few minutes and see how COOL we will make you!”

In yesterday’s post I talked about four things to incorporate into your job search strategy, and the amount of time to spend on each one.

The one thing I didn’t talk about was how to switch your strategy from a resource-intense PUSH strategy and make it more of an attractive PULL strategy.

How do YOU think this happens?

I saw this on AOL Jobs: The Simple Truth About Finding A Job

The article says that leads come from four places:

• Your Network,
• Through directly contacting target employers,
• Answering ads (aka, job postings), and
• Through external recruiters and agencies.

I think that nicely sums it up.  What I don’t like about the graphic on that page is that it doesn’t show where you should spend your time.

In the Ask The Expert video with Nick Corcodilos, Nick talks about how to work with recruiters, and how to think about them as a job search tool or resource.  What he teaches you is totally different than what I did in my search (which was to rely on them for a lot of hope and results).

In my job search I spent more than 90% of my time in my job search on job boards but I was told only 14% of jobs where found through boards.  Nick said about 1.3% of jobs were found through Monster.  Do you see a problem here?  Even if I were to spend an equitable 25% (giving each of the four strategies listed above equal time and effort, I would have been spending way too much time in those areas).

Without thinking too much about it, I’m not sure what else to put on the list of things to do in your job search (at this high level), but I do know you can’t spend an equal amount of time on them.  Instead of 4 equal boxes, perhaps it should look more like this:

Note how SMALL the brown (job board) box is.

The green box is also small, although it is wide.  I didn’t know how else to represent the idea that for some people, working with recruiters (especially how Nick teaches you how to do it) can work, but you have to do it right/well.

The almost-thirty recruiters I had developed relationships with did nothing more than file me away. They weren’t working on openings that I could fill, so I was irrelevant to them.  But I didn’t understand that for months, and I spent way too much time chasing them.

So, there you go… the same four strategies, but the key is to know how much time and effort to spend on any of them!

I had the pleasure of interviewing and chatting with Nick Corcodilos for last week’s Ask The Headhunter.  It was a blast.  I had questions for Nick but the audience had a lot, too.

Here’s the conversation, enjoy!

Note: Vimeo video.  To make this full-size, push play and then on the bottom right click the icon that looks like this:

I love meeting JibberJobber users. Here’s a note that one use recently sent me:

I’m a business lawyer who graduated the year they froze most of the transactional / real estate law jobs. I’ll say two things:

(1) most of the networking advice I got from my career services office was HORRIBLE; and

(2) after taking the initiative to re-educate myself years later, I (literally) cried tears of joy when I found JibberJobber.

This is such a well thought out and incredible service. Thank you for being passionate and obsessed enough with the idea of streamlining your networking process and generous enough to share it with the rest of us.

I wish you the best in all that you do!

I sure love getting emails like this.

I am, and have been obsessed, about the networking process, and making it better (or, as this person mentions, streamlined).

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and feelings – it strokes our ego and is fuel for our obsession!

Yesterday I announced that we simplified JibberJobber.

Yes, it is ironic that the blog post to announce it was one of the more complex posts I’ve written.

But something I want you, as a job seeker, to get out of yesterday’s message is SIMPLIFICATION.

You might have heard me use the word “concise,” when talking about your communication, written or verbal.

To me, concise means short and to the point.

In yesteday’s post I explained that we are simplifying some things in JibberJobber.  My hope is that it’s easier to understand things.

Are your messages too complex?

Let me give you an example of a too-complex message.  Yesterday I wrote an email to someone asking them if we could get on a phone call. My original message looked something like this:

Can we get on a phone call?  And if not, you can jump on my user webinar anytime: www.JibberJobber.com/webinar.

Do you see a problem?

I gave the person an OUT.

I distracted them from my original message/question.

That second sentence can be short and to the point, but it can be distracting.  It wiped out the first sentence.

When I talk about simplifying I’m not saying you have to have LESS (although you will have less).  I’m saying to not distract your message by throwing stuff in that shouldn’t be there.

Before I sent the message I took out the second sentence so it simply read:

Can we get on a phone call?

Now you don’t have an OUT.  You respond with yes or no, but you don’t think “maybe I’ll just get on a webinar… ”

Here’s a similar example:

Can we get on a phone call?  Or you can just look at my LinkedIn Profile and tell me what you think.

WHAT???  Talk about giving an OUT!

I see this type of message TOO OFTEN.

Folks, read through your emails you send and look for those OUTs.  There’s an awesome little key on your keyboard that takes care of OUTs:

Delete the distractions.  Stay on topic, and keep the messages to a minimum (that means, don’t try and say ten things in an email where you really need to say just one thing).

Go back and read yesterday’s post. Hopefully you’ll see that’s exactly what we are doing.  And you should, too.

I was reading Ditch! Dare! Do! (a great book on personal branding by two friends and saw an interesting line.

The story was about someone who was communicating their brand using what has been historically been called an elevator pitch.

You know, the one that you should spend no more or no less than 30 seconds on?  (Story: I was at a networking meeting where they had you do your 30 second pitch and if you went over 30 seconds they would annoyingly ring a gong.  It was horrible!)

In the book they gave a great example of someone answering the question “what do you do” with a 28 word response.

28 words… intriguing!

Maybe instead of shooting for 30 seconds, which for some people can sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher blabbing on, let’s talk about getting it down to something shorter… 28 or 30 words!

This is hard stuff, but if you can brand yourself well CONCISELY you can have more power in the conversation.

About seven years ago I was fortunate to have lunch with a recently laid-off marketing manager.  He had been involved in the growth of a large and successful local company.

At the time I had priced the premium level of JibberJobber at $6.95 a month.  It just felt right.

My uncle, a senior level executive, said I should charge $20 or $30 a month, because it was just that valuable.

At lunch, the marketing manager asked me how I came to the $6.95 decision.  I’m not sure what I said, but I’m sure it was as elusive as “it just felt right.”

I really didn’t know what I was doing with pricing back then.

He went on to tell me that his company did some in-depth studies and found that from the $5 to the $10 price point was NO DIFFERENT to consumers.

In other words, I could charge $5 or $6 or $10 and it wouldn’t have a negative impact on how many people purchased.

He said this was true at every price bracket, so $5 = $10, $15 = $20, $25 = $30.  A consumer would say something like “oh, it is less than $30.”

I do that… when buying something my brain says “oh, this is less than $10,” whether it is $6.95 or $9.95.

The bottom line is that you can leave money on the table, and after our conversation I decided to listen to the expert and change the price to $9.95.

Here is my point: I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn’t expert in it, I wasn’t even smart enough to read a bunch of books and figure this out. But I found and talked with and listened to an expert, and I was able to make decisions based on what he had learned.

I’m guessing you are questioning or struggling with something.  Whether it has to do with interviewing, networking, job search, healthy eating, marital relationships, exercise… or a host of other things, why not find the expert?

Sometimes you will have to pay them.  Sometimes the answer you need will be on their blog or in a book they wrote.  But it’s always better to find the person with the best right answer rather than struggle with bad or lack of information.

I do have to say, though, don’t ask an expert out for lunch just to pick their brain.  This is offensive, and you’ll be one more leech in their inbox.

I regularly consult with small business owners (aka solopreneurs) about how to network and market.

Those two are almost one-in-the-same, aren’t they?

On a recent call I was talking to a solopreneur about doing webinars or teleseminars.

You can get a lot accomplished with a teleseminar, but what if no one comes?

Same question with a book… what if you write a book and no one buys it?

My answer: IT IS OKAY.

Perhaps the purpose of the teleseminar, webinar or book is NOT to get it in front of people, have people buy it, or even come (to the webinar or teleseminar) or read it (the book).

Let me give you an example: When I go somewhere to speak I might speak in front of 100 people.

That isn’t very many people!  I don’t want to get on a plane, take about a week from my schedule (a trip can take a week… 2 travel days, the day of the presentation, the prep before and the catchup after) to get in front of 100 people – especially if I do that for FREE! (I usually waive my fee to job clubs)

No money (or, the opportunity to make a sale, but I’m usually not even going to break even), all that time, for only 100 people?

That’s not entirely why I do it.

Would I do it if it were 10 people?  I did that before (even though I was told there would be 100 people there).

Where is the value?

Here’s the value… and this is important for you as a solopreneur to know, and it is important for you as a job seeker to know:

The value is in the pre- and post- marketing.

The group who has 100 people coming… they might have an email list of about 4,000 – 10,000 people.

I want (them) to TALK ABOUT me, my message, and my trip.  I want them to email their group twice before I come, and twice after I’ve left.

In each email message I want a link to JibberJobber (the best and most important career management and job search organizer out there) and my LinkedIn book (linking to Amazon and/or my LinkedIn blog).

I know have given this job club organizer something to say, about me, to his/her audience.

And in addition to the 100 people who actually come, I’ll get four touch-points to the 4,000 people on the list.  That will result in:

• book sales,
• JibberJobber signups,
• more evangelists talking about me,
• curiosity and branding.

Is THAT worth it?

Shooting an email out to 4,000 people randomly is not a big deal. It would likely have a negative impact.

But for the TRUSTED organizer to shoot the email out, and have them say something like “ JibberJobber is the best and most important career management and job search organizer out there,” is really, really, really valuable.

My point is, I’ve given them something to talk about.

What can YOU give your network to talk about?

What I’ve learned is it can’t be one single thing or event.

Think of something you can do monthly, or every other month, that they can say “oh, that sounds cool.  And I’ll tell my friends about it…”

Last week a JibberJobber user told us some of his email2log emails where NOT becoming Log Entries.  We paused everything and looked for the bug.

I hated this bug. This is one of the main reasons people upgrade, and I want people to feel confident using JibberJobber.  If the trust level goes down, people use it less, and don’t want to upgrade.

I loathed this bug. So we stopped other stuff to look for what we knew would be an elusive, or what I used to call a “ghost” bug.

When something happens like this we typically ask the user a number of questions to understand exactly what they did when the error occurred.  This includes what browser are you on (most problems are with Internet Explorer users.  There’s a reason tech savvy people call Internet Explorer -> Internet EXPLODER), Mac or PC, etc. We’re trying to figure out where the root problem is.

It could be anywhere from your seat (that is, YOU (aka, user error)) to your mouse configuration to your internet speed or connection to your OS or browser.  It could have to do with the points of the internet between you and the server and back to you.  It could have to do with our server, whether the hardware or the system load or, what we can easiest find and fix, software logic on our end.

There are easily a dozen potential points of failure… finding the culprit is part of a process that can be tedious, especially if we focus too much time in the wrong place.

Think about this in your job search.  Think about you (unemployed) and getting a job (the end result).  Where are the “points of failure?”

You could have the most amazing background, resume, and even interviewing skills, but if you have bed head, wrinkled clothes and bad breath you might not have any luck getting jobs or introductions to network contacts.

You could pay thousands of dollars for a great resume but be a complete jerk who no one wants to be around, work with or talk to.

Or, you could be the most amazing person around with a horrid resume because you refuse to pay a few hundred dollars for a resume expert (aka, your personal marketing expert) to make your resume match your awesomeness.

See the different points of failure in your job search?

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Identify the points of failure in your job search. I listed a half dozen above.  If you are in a job club you can probably sit with your peers and list 100 points of failure in a job search.
2. Make sure you are not focusing on the wrong one(s). You can spend weeks and months focusing on the wrong issue.  You might think throwing money at one point of failure will make up for deficiency in another.  If you can’t identify the point of failure that you need to work on (I’m talking about root issues, not symptoms) you will always be stuck, and get frustrated that what you are focusing on is not altering the results!

Here’s an example of job seekers focusing on the wrong thing.  As I travel and speak at job clubs across the U.S., I find lots of people who are completely hung up about age discrimination.  They are focusing on this barrier that they have little control over, and blaming their failed job search on age discrimination.

At the same time they are ignoring other things that are more likely their real point of failure.

I know age discrimination is a problem – I’ve written about it regularly.  I talk about it regularly.  But you need to step back and see if there are other problems that you need to address, and that you have influence over.

There are old people getting good jobs, right?  Maybe your problem has more to do with a different point of failure than something easy to blame (as real and as frustrating as it is).

In closing, I’m embarrassed to say that we even had this issue with my favorite JibberJobber feature.  It has really been bugging me since we found out about it. But late last night when my developer reported that he found and fixed it (and, he fixed the root issue by writing a filter to NOT let anything go to the spam box anymore), I slept really, really good last night!

What point of failure are you not figuring out?

On Friday we talked about Wayne’s dilemma of having a system and process but not getting results.

There were amazing, awesome comments helping him.

Yesterday we talked about what I would do to get informational interviews.  Wayne had some good thoughts in the comments.

As I was reading the comments, and writing a response to his comment, I thought about the power of introductions, and why they are so powerful.  Other comments on Friday alluded to this, but let me take a swing at it.

Introductions are so powerful because an introduction is accompanied by the trust the other parties have.

In other words, if YOU ask me for an introduction to someone, that someone will TRUST me and my relationship with them, and you benefit from that.

I want to write about eight more paragraphs, but think about that last line.  Actually, let me write it again:

In other words, if YOU ask me for an introduction to someone, that someone will TRUST me and my relationship with them, and you benefit from that.

YOU become the beneficiary of the relationship, and my branding, that I’ve nurtured over time.

What do you think?

If I’m right, does that encourage you to ask for more introductions?