Here’s a picture I drew while in a web design team meeting a few weeks ago:

Each of these three elements have been on my mind over the years.  Mostly because of what my day job is.  But also because these three elements translate to you, and your career management.

In my design, I tend to focus on FUNCTIONALITY.  As a web developer many years ago, I was in the same cubicle as my graphics artist.  Together, we made awesome stuff. I made it work, he made it look good.  My focus has always been on database systems with web interfaces.  It was all about functionality for me.  You can see that in JibberJobber’s design. I have competitors who have nice looking sites but they just aren’t functional enough (that’s what the users who used to use them, then switched to JibberJobber tell me).  Functionality is key.

I’ve been beaten up on JibberJobber for it not being SEXY enough.  That is, it doesn’t look good.  We’ve been working over the years to change that, and are making a dramatic change soon (totally new look and feel).  I personally think it’s kind of petty to get upset over it not looking freaking-Apple awesome, BUT, I know I have lost potential users and upgrades because the look is outdated.  That’s my biased I-Focus-On-Functionality persona talking

I’ve learned over the last few years how important it is that JibberJobber is EASY to use. If doing something (adding a new contact, or log entry, etc.) is EASY, then people will do it.  If it is too hard, has too many steps, isn’t intuitive, then people simply won’t do it.  I think JibberJobber is fairly easy, but there are a number of things we’re reviewing to make easier.

Functionality + sexy (or, look and feel / perception) + ease of use = WINNER

How can you apply that to you, and your career?

Functionality: can you do the job? Are you proficient?  Do you communicate that you can do it well/perfectly/fast, etc.?  Maybe you are the best at a task, but you are too humble to communicate that you are best.  Fix that.  If you can’t really do the job, get the training and experience you need.

Sexy: Okay, I’m not saying that YOU have to be sexy.  But be presentable.  Take away things that might give someone cause to prejudice, judge, or be unattracted to you being a part of their team. This could have NOTHING to do with physical appearance.  One way I’ve thought about it is this: will my hiring manager (boss) look good because they chose to bring me on?  If so, you got this covered.

Easy: Are you easy to work with?  I like to think I am, but I know there are people reading this that LOL’d at that.  I try, though.  If you are NOT easy to work with, people won’t work with you. I look for the easiness factor now.  If you want to do something with me (or me with you), and you are hard to work with, it is OVER.  I’ve had enough hard professional relationships.  Do you make it easy for people to hire and keep you?  Or do you have too many diva-like demands?  Be easy to work with, and you’ll have more people who want to work with you.

What do you think?

Chip Hartman has done it again.  This book is an excellent resource.  And it’s a free download.  You don’t even have to give your name and email address to get it.

Build Your Brand is a 54 page ebook that is kind of a Part II to The Basics of Personal Branding (also a free ebook - download it here).

I have gone through the book and enthusiastically give my stamp of approval.  Much of what I talk about in my keynote presentations is included in this book.  Chip breaks it down in a great way, and the methods he presents should really help you put your brand together well, and understand what to do with it once you have it put together.

I think both of these are going to be resources that even personal branding experts use and rely on to help their clients.  These are excellent personal branding resources.

Chip is a friend I’ve only met once in person, many years ago at a dinner in New Jersey.  He’s… well… awesome.

He does writing, editing, layout and that kind of stuff as a freelancer.  If you have any writing/layout projects, give him a holler (his email and phone number are on the first page of the book).  If you want to know how good he is, just download his free ebook and you can judge for yourself.

Oh and Chip, thanks for including me in the acknowledgement section of the book… it’s an honor

January 8, 2008.  The Other Hardest Question: How Can I Help You? I was about 18 months into my business and networking like crazy.  Meeting lots of people, becoming a “power connector,” and having fun.

But people would ask: how can I help you?

And my response was usually something like “nothing for now, I’ll let you know.”

It was a bad answer, because people wanted to help me, but I wasn’t letting them help me!  Crazy, I know.

Here’s my post about it, where I actually answered in a much better way: How Can I Help You?

My advice to you: figure out how to best answer that question (and it’s variations).  And maybe you, too, can find out how close you are to Mr. T (read the post for more :p)!

I have an opportunity for a hungry salesperson.

It is 100% commission.

Does that bother you?

Does it scare you?

Is that “below” you?

I knew what I wanted in my next job (a certain salary, benefits, etc.), and I “couldn’t” settle for anything less.

But, as the job search went on, I got hungrier and hungrier.  I changed my expectations and priorities, and got to the point where I need to work for money.  That’s what it came down to.  My high expectations changed to satisfy survival needs.

It’s why I started my business when I did.  Even though I had high hopes and aspirations of what I could do in my own business, I still would have preferred a fat corporate job at a big, popular company.  The security in that role had always appealed to me.

But I saw that wasn’t going to happen, and I had to go to Plan B.  And then Plan C.  And then Plan D. And then I started JibberJobber.

Since I started I’ve talked to people who were hungry… really hungry.  But, not hungry enough to do straight commission.

That’s okay, I get that.  It’s a personal choice, and my offering was unproven back then.

But I am overly impressed with the person who believes in herself enough to say “I am hungry. I can dedicate time to this and work as hard and smart as I know how to either be successful, or at least give it an honest effort.”

Honestly, as a business owner, I’m afraid of hiring someone who, to me, is unproven, but requires a lot just so they show up.

For the last almost-6-years I could only “eat what I kill” (gross analogy, but common with salespeople :p).

I want to partner with someone who is willing to risk, and work, and think, and put skin in the game.  That’s who I’m going to trust with my business and success.

Am I shortsighted and immature?  Perhaps.  But I own the company, and that’s who I’m looking for.

My question to you is this:  if you come across an employer that has similar hangups , how do YOU let them know that YOU are the right person for the job, to make them more successful, and not be an entitled corporate guy?

If you can’t help me see it that way, we won’t get very far.

So, how will you help your interviewers see it that way?

Over the last 6 years I’ve met people who are hungry, and give the appearance that they will work very, very hard.  And I’ve met people who seem more entitled, and will spend lots of time in or planning or preparing for meetings, and really cost me more than they bring to the table.

Which are you?  Which do people think you are?

(Read this letter as if I was that hiring manager that isn’t returning your calls and emails)

Did you see the post last week about why I delete your emails?

Now I’ll tell you why you think I don’t ever read or reply to your emails… but first, you think I don’t read or reply because:

1. I’m too good for you,
2. I’m too busy with more important things,
3. I’m a jerk.

That’s what I’ve thought before.  I’ve felt brushed off, or “less than” the person I’ve sent the email to.

How could someone be so incosiderate and rude?  How hard is it to reply to an email??

Seriously.

Jerks.

Right?  I’ve thought that…. I’ve felt that.

And now I think I’m the jerk.  Because I have over 2,200 emails in my JibberJobber email (inbox) that I haven’t replied to.  And I have about 12,000 emails in my gmail inbox that are just sitting there, waiting for me.

Why don’t I respond to them?  Here is some insight that might be helpful:

I am, and I get, overwhelmed!

With everything.  With life, calls, other emails, deadlines, projects, etc.

I don’t ignore you because I’m a jerk.  Your email just falls through the cracks because I’m not good at time management, and managing the inbox.

It’s as simple as that.

WHAT THAT MEANS IS SOMETHING AMAZING:

Don’t give up on me.

Sometimes, I all I need is a gentle nudge, or another email reminding me of the first one.

Be persistent without being annoying.  Remind me, because your email might be sitting on Page 3 of my inbox, and I’m not going to see it since I never get to Page 3.

If you take it personal, and get offended, I’m sorry…. but sometimes all I need is for you to remain top-of-mind… do that with a simple reminder.

Cool?

Recently I put together a video series I titled “Effective Email Communication,” because I see so many emails that are, well, crappy.

I know that isn’t a professional word, but I can’t think of another word that captures what I’m trying to say.

I’m telling you, they are bad emails.  And “bad emails” don’t discriminate… I see them from old people (who should know better), young people (who think emails are going the way of the dodo birds), educated people, executives, professionals, and branding and marketing experts.

We need to do better at our communication (remember the 2012 theme for JibberJobber?), and we can start with our emails.

Here’s ONE tip on writing better emails: write a subject line that will decrease the chance of me deleting your email before I read it.

When I come into my office every morning, here’s what I do:

1. I open my email.
2. I look at the subject lines, and select all the ones that look like spam, or are not personal, or that I think I know about already.
3. I delete all of those from step 2, without reading them.
4. Then, I go through whatever is left over.

I’ve been doing this for more years that I can remember. I did it with Outlook, I do it now with Gmail.

And I bet many of you do the same thing… do you open that email from the Nigerian spammer, or do you delete it?

That’s what I thought.

I bet there are others that you automatically judge, based on the subject line, that you simply delete.

Here’s some unsettling information:  You are sending emails to people who are doing the same thing, to your precious emails!

Ouch, right?

My message: write BETTER email subject lines! That is the topic of my 7 minute clip titled “Compelling Subject Lines: Want your email to be read?” (the forth clip in the email series).  You can get the entire video series here for $50.

Last year the first post of the year was titled The Job Search Rabbit Hole.  I think I should make a (kids) book out of it.

I’ve used that idea as the 2011 theme, and focused a lot on job seekers chasing something that doesn’t exist (read the post for the story/analogy).

This year I want to talk about something I’ve realized as I’ve spoken to thousands of professionals and executives  across the U.S.  I have started to say that “the job search is 99% communication.” Written, verbal, body language, etc.  It’s all about how we communicate.  And we can communicate A LOT better.

I just finished a life-changing book written by friend and mentor Mark LeBlanc titled Never Be The Same.  It is a fast read, and completely intriguing.  It was written after Mark finished a 500 mile walk across Spain… the famous Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.  Get the book here – I loved Mark’s unique style … it was just delightful to absorb.

Mark gave me permission to share this excerpt from his book… I LOVED this story as it illustrates the communication problem that I want to help YOU think about this year.  Mark talks about going to a networking event and sharing his elevator pitch. It had all the bad, junky, jargon cliche yuck that most elevator pitches have.  One day, though, he wasn’t in the mood to share it, so he shook things up (almost accidentally).  He writes:

It was my turn-my minute-to stand up and introduce myself, again.  Only this time I didn’t blather on about my broad range of services and menu of presentation topics.  None of which, you might recall, had I provided to a single client or audience since Small Business (No-So-Much) Success was born.  My calendar was empty from Day One. Instead, I simply got up and shared my dream. In a monotone, mind you, with nary an inflection of enthusiasm whatsoever.

“My name is Mark LeBlanc, and I run a company called Small Business Success. I work with people who want to start a business and with small business owners who want to grow their business.”  Period, end.  I shut up and sat down.

There were about twenty five business people at this meeting, and when it was over, seven of them came up to me.  Now, this was a total surprise, because for ten months, no one-and I mean no one-had any interest in what I did or had to offer. Instead of repelling people, as was my habit, I seemed to be attracting prospects. There was a line, for heavens sake!

“I want to start my own business,” said one woman.

“My wife has been wanting to start her own business; give me your card,” said a business man.

“I’ve been in business ten years, but seem kind of stuck. I’d like to know more about growing my business, cranking it up a notch. Can you help me with that?” came from another.

My favorite response was a friend’s: “I’ve been listening to your introductions for ten months, and I had no clue this is what you do. I think I can refer a few people to you.”

Within thirty days, seven prospects wrote me a check and engaged me in the process of helping them start of grow their business. It was as if the floodgates opened and soon prospects came in faster than I could handle. Okay, maybe not that fast, but when you did not earn a nickel for nearly a year, this new-found success felt like I was sipping from the fire hose.”

WOW.

I had a similar experience, which I blogged about here: Substantiate Yourself.

I am convinced that the canned 30 second pitches job seekers are coached to work on lead to really, really bad results.  The pitch sucks. No one responds.  Mark changed his, focusing on the outcomes of his work, and he got results.

Small, minor, easy changes can change the results.  He didn’t throw in bigger words, fancier phrases, or more stuff.  He whitled it down to the core message, and he got results.

This is a theme that will be on my mind all year.

Will you join me this year, on our journey to better career management?

WOW.  Wow. The year is gone.  Amazing.  Here’s to 2012, which might be the year the world ends (I’m not in that camp :p).

August 2nd, 2007 I wrote a post titled How Job Seekers *Should* Blog.  It shows how passionate I was about blogging over four years ago.  After this post I saw much of the traffic go to Twitter, Facebook and other places, but I have recently seen some shifts back to blogs, with very good reason.

Check out the post – there’s some good meat in there!

How Job Seekers *Should* Blog is part of a 3 part series… you can see the other two parts in the intro of that post.

I got an email from Lana Hayes, a “Proposal Manager” in Maryland.  It’s a great question and she said I could share my response with you  She writes:

The week before the holidays I met with a Regional Manager and Project Manager for an interview.  It seemed to have gone well.

Before I went to the interview I was unaware about a 30/60/90 action plan to take until I went to a job seminar.  Over the past week I have been working on said action plan.  Now my question is, should I forward it to the gentlemen?  I have already sent both a thank you email.  If so, how would you word the email about why are you submitting it late?

Have you heard of the 30/60/90 day action plan?  I have heard of it, as a job search strategy. I think it’s a good idea, not necessarily critical in every interview, but it could be a great differentiating tool.  Lana blogs about it here.

Lana’s question… she already interviewed… when does she send the action plan to them?  Should she do it via email?

I would recommend she NOT email them the action plan.

What she could do is send a followup communication (email, letter, card, fax, etc.) with the normal stuff (thank you, etc.) and let the interviewer(s) know she developed the 30/60/90 day action plan.  She might have to educate them a little on what that means (see my post on Connecting The Dots here)… she might even include a snippet of it, but I would not include the entire thing.

Instead, I’d say something like “I would love to share my plan with you in the next round of interviews.”

Quick note: I’m on a list of PR professionals and they complain that when they share an awesome plan, sometimes they don’t get the job but the company uses their plan anyway.  There is always the danger of this.  Are you okay with that?

I am… my thoughts: showing a plan is one thing (and yes, quite valuable)… the value YOU bring to the table is that you can EXECUTE on the plan.

What do you think?  When should Lana show them the plan?  Am I right or wrong?  What would you do?

Have you ever got a request to help someone? I get, and see, these types of requests regularly.  Here’s one I saw on a LinkedIn Group 7 days ago:

Recently downsized, I am experienced in many areas any leads would be appreciated.

This was the ENTIRE message… there was nothing before that and nothing after that. So…

What do you think… can you help this person?

Are you ready and willing to share some leads?

Many of you are open to it, some of you are anxious to help, but first, let me help the person asking this question.

The problem with the question is that no one knows what kinds of leads this person would be most interested in.

Do you want to sell insurance?  There are plenty of people on Monster that would love to have you start selling insurance.

On the Group where he asked the question, there were two responses that looked like MLM.  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but are you interested in a business ownership, commission and sales role?  (based on the person’s LinkedIn Profile, I’d guess he is not too interested in that)

Would you like to work in construction, or at Taco Bell?  Want to work as a security guard at night?

There’s nothing wrong with any of these, but the question does not help me understand what this person is looking for.

Let me use imagination and re-write what this message could have been.  I’m going to use MYSELF (from six years ago) in the example below… Pass this post along to anyone who has asked you for help… many, many people need to have more clarity in their message.

I was recently downsized from my company where I was the general manager. We provided custom software and networking services for companies in a few different industries.

(these two lines gives you an idea of what I used to do, what my skills and experience have been, and perhaps what my passion has been)

I have a lot of experience with various things including leadership and strategy (which is what I did as a general manager), customer acquisition and account management, and software design and development.

(This line helps the reader/listener understand even more what my specialties are… it is definitely a missing link in the original message)

I would appreciate any leads in the Salt Lake City area.

(that is where I was living when I got laid off, and where I have a house payment, etc.  NOTE: after a few months of no success, I opened up my search to anywhere in the U.S.  It’s important to let us know if you are open to moving… or if you want to stay in one area!).

I am especially interested in a company that is growing fast and needs strategy and leadership as they grow.  I’d love to work at a company that provides software services for other companies. .. I would be open to a large company that has an established IT shop.

(This last line needs work, but the idea is to give me an idea of what kinds of companies I want an introduction to.)

For example, I’d like to work at Zions bank in their IT department, or for ______ company, or for ______ company.  I’m open to other similar opportunities, also.

(Now, close it with a question / aka, call to action:)

Do you know anyone I should talk to?  They can be at those companies, similar companies, or just in the IT field.  If you know someone you can introduce me to, will you send me an email so we can start the introduction?  My email is _______.

Contrast the message above to this message (in bold).  Very different…. when you ask for help, if you aren’t specific, you risk no one being able to help you.  Imagine going to an architect and saying “please design a house for me.  I don’t have any specifications… just a house.” They’ll need more to go on, right?

Your friends and family need more to go on, also.