Successful Blog

How to Protect Your Web Reputation and Promote Yourself Online

by

Guest Post
by Riley Kissel

Job hunters with unchecked Internet existences should worry: an increasing number of employers perform DIY background checks on prospective employees via the World Wide Web. Specifically, they’re running applicant names through search engines. From there, they uncover social networking profiles and anything in which the applicant is attached to that has been published in some way on the Internet. If you haven’t cared about online reputation management yet, you need to.

But hold off on merely deleting your Internet existence all together, because if there’s one thing employers use their investigations to do besides find reasons not to hire people, it’s to hire them. Social network profiles let employers see a glimpse of the “real” you, or at least, see if there are any discrepancies between your resume and what your profiles say about you. Finding information that backs up your claims, or simply confirms that you are indeed a worthwhile individual, are aspects of the hiring process that encourage prospective employers to perfect, not eliminate, their web-based details.

So it’s vital that you go through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and adjust your privacy settings so that no friends can potentially post damaging information that can be seen on your profile. In addition, sweep through your submitted information to weed out potential red flags – such as any posts that could be construed as offensive. But the essential aspect of making sure you look good on social networks is to constantly monitor your profiles on them, as well as staying up-to-date on privacy changes while job hunting.

It’s also important to become a member of every social network that you can. When mixed with proper monitoring, having multiple accounts may seem like a lot of work, but doing so allows you to immediately take control of the first results people are going to get back when they type your name into a search engine. In addition, if your name’s reflected URL has not already been taken you should buy the rights to it as soon as possible. Having YourName.com is a great way to make your resume readily available plus additional information of your choosing and eliminate confusion stemming from someone else using your name domain for purposes unrelated to you.

Don’t be intimidated by an Internet presence, but don’t disregard its benefits either. It has much to do with the chances of you getting a job as it does with you losing the opportunity to get hired. It’s not outside the realm of possibility for those adamant about finding work to improve their Internet-based reflection. It just takes patience and diligence, two attributes the modern job hunter surely must have.
————————————

Riley Kissel is a freelance writer who covers many industries with style. You can find out more about him at RileyKissel.com

Thanks, Riley, for this few moment of clarity..

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Is Internal Competition Giving Your External Competition the Win?

by

A Guest Post by
Natasha

cooltext443809602_strategy

Taking care of the internal competition to compete better with external competition

Think of an organization, having different departments competing with each other, to the extent that they wouldn’t mind sabotaging each other’s work, or bringing a project to a total halt, just for the sake of jeopardizing another department’s reputation, without even thinking of the loss that the company has to suffer.

Sounds quite absurd? However, this seemingly absurd contention exists in more businesses than what you can imagine (and the chances are that it exists in your own company as well).

Many resources get wasted, brilliant ideas never get implemented, and the businesses fail to take off, just because different departments fail to collaborate with each other. And it’s not limited to large businesses, when the business is too small to have different departments, this tussle might exist between individuals.

So, how to make sure that the company’s resources are not getting wasted, just because some workers are focusing more on getting the better of each other instead of trying to outperform the real competitors.

Organizational Culture:

If probed, nine times out of ten, you will find that the organizational culture is the root cause of the problem, so the blame should be placed on the higher-ups who are responsible for influencing the culture of the company. At times, lack of collaboration between different departments can be a direct result of the higher up trying to use “divide and rule” policy, and encouraging people from different departments to come and share negligence or slip-up reports of other departments or fellow workers. When the managers’ start taking interest in such stories, the employees will try to make some on their own, and instead of focusing on their core duties, they’ll be trying to find some “material” to feed the higher-ups with more and more negativity about other departments.

Needless to say, if you are looking for better synchronization, you must not encourage, or approve of any such immature behavior.

Emphasis on common goals:

It is the leadership’s responsibility to get across this message to each and every department, that no matter how significant or non-significant the job seems to be, each and every department is in it together. So, when someone tries to disrupt or interfere with another department’s work, it will eventually hurt the organization benefits, and when the organizational benefits get hurt, the damage will ultimately come back to hurt each and every department, pretty much like a circle … together you rise and together you fall.

Rewards and Appraisals:

If not handled carefully, rewards and appraisal system often ends up adding fuel to fire, especially when different departments have goals or targets that coincide with each other. In such scenarios, departments will naturally try to take the credit for each and every accomplishment; this “credit war” is quite the same as the “turf war” (and we know the consequences of turf wars). Not only they’ll try to take the credit, the departments will go to the extent of hiding their successful strategies or techniques from other departments.

Enhance collaboration:

There are many ways to enhance collaboration, for example you can conduct joint meetings, training sessions, or recreational activities, where manager and employees from different departments can mingle with each other. But more importantly, at these joint sessions, meetings, or trainings, you can discern some tension going between two specific departments, you can call them up in person later on, and resolve the issues ASAP.

—-
Author’s Bio:
Natasha is an internet marketing expert by profession. When she’s not working, she likes to work out, read, and even draw (though she shares her paintings with very few people who are good at containing their laughter). Currently, she’s working for Loft conversions London that provides the services like Loft conversions in Hertfordshire .

Thanks! Natasha!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Successful-Blog is a proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

The Leadership Role of Blending Work, College, and Family

by

The Audacity of Tenacity in Leadership
A Guest Post by Val White

I had finished an Associates Degree in Business when I was younger and pre-children. When my first child came along, I found a way to work from home while participating in my young child’s life. Two years ago, I felt it was time for me to go back to work and rejoin the corporate world.

I quickly discovered that a lot had changed in the 10 or so years that I had stepped away to care for my family. My skills needed refreshing. I wasn’t interested in the same things. I had changed and so had my choice of careers. I knew I needed to go back to school. I also needed to tend to my family and contribute to the family budget with a full-time job. After much research and soul-searching, I settled on a state college that combined virtual program with a “brick-and-mortar” college experience.

Today, I’m in the last course before I’ve fully earned my Bachelors degree in Information, Networking, and Telecommunications (with an emphasis on Web Development). Getting here wasn’t easy. I still have to get that degree to payoff in new career opportunities.

But I can easily say that I’ve achieved a lot.

The Innovative Leadership of Blending Work, College, and Family Life

A favorite article at NewandImproved.com, The Way of the Innovative Leader resonated with me as it laid out five leadership traits found in those who live and inspire great thinking in the people around them. (© 2006 New & Improved®, LLC. Mailto: info@newandimproved.com) And as I read the article over, I came to realize that those same traits were what I came to value as I grew into the role of non-traditional college student, who also had both a family and a job.

These are the five traits I relied on to keep going when I might have stopped. Whatever your situation, these five will serve you well in getting you to your goal.

Integrity:

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don’t make promises that you can’t or don’t intend to keep. In the lifestyle challenges of family, college, and job, you may find yourself overwhelmed if you haven’t developed the ability to say “no” to things that will add more clutter and demands on your time. Inevitably, something is going to fall off the edge if you fill your to-do list with too much. It’s easy to get your priorities mixed up in the attempt to do it all. The lines easily become mixed: family, college, job – college, family, job – dreams of future career, college, family, umm…job. If things get out of hand, it’s best to stop everything for a moment, a day, or a weekend and reevaluate your priorities.

Tenacity:

Wiktionary.org defines tenacity as …
“The quality or state of being tenacious; as, tenacity, or retentiveness, of memory; tenacity, or persistency, of purpose.”

I also love this definition:
“The greatest longitudinal stress a substance can bear without tearing asunder, – usually expressed with reference to a unit area of the cross section of the substance, as the number of pounds per square inch, or kilograms per square centimeter, necessary to produce rupture.”

I’ve endured a few semesters where I truly felt I would “tear asunder!”

There will come days that it’s all you can do to put one foot in front of the other and make sure the essential tasks have been completed. Truly, keeping a firm and unshakable picture in your mind of your goals and purposes is so very important in order to withstand these days when they come.

Curiosity:

As a non-traditional, adult student with some life experience, I found learning much more of an adventure than I did in my earlier years. Instead of just coasting through a class to get the credits, I found more benefit in finding ways to apply this new knowledge to my career goals and asking myself how it applies to right now or 5-10 years from now.

Being curious will surely expand your vision and enlarge your understanding of your world.

Courage:

What will others think and/or say to me when I tell them I’m going back to college? Is it really a waste of time and money? After all, I have more lost career years behind me than I have ahead of me. Will I really be able to apply what I’ve learned?

It takes courage to face your own demons and plunge into the unknown. For some, it’s an ongoing battle or one they don’t even wish to start. I’ve found that whatever it is that you’re afraid to start or when you want to give up, remembering one simple truth is a great motivator: you’ve got something to contribute that is uniquely you and nobody else can do it.

Humility:

Referring again to wiktionary.org, the definition of humble is,

“thinking lowly of one’s self; claiming little for one’s self; not proud, arrogant, or assuming; lowly; weak; modest.”

This doesn’t necessarily appear to be an attractive trait, does it? In reality, when approaching this lifestyle of family-college-job, there will be many opportunities to practice humility … and come out stronger from it. Simply entering a college program is a statement that you don’t know it all and you’re in need of help in achieving your future goals. You’re going to need to engage with instructors and other learners in discussions that might prove that others will have better ideas than you do. But more than this, you’ll find humility when you reach out to others around you for support, advice, and help with daily tasks.

So, how did these experiences and traits contribute to my job of being a role model?

Quite simply, my husband and children watched me – day by day and night after night of late night homework. They cheered with me when I reported my test and homework scores. They listened to my frustrations and they helped lighten my load when they could. I hope that I offered my family.a chance to see and develop these essential leadership traits to serve them in throughout their lives.

You have no choice about being a role model. You are one … it comes with the job. The only choice you have is which role you’ll model. – The Way of the Innovative Leader

Those concise three sentences are the sum of the reasons I chose to finish my college aspirations as an adult.

And why I know I’ll also achieve all of my goals.

What is your leadership role?

————————————

Val White is a mom, web developer, and student at FHSU fhsu.edu. She is just now venturing out of the safe confines of the FHSU online class discussion board and looking for new opportunities to contribute on the web. You can find her portfolio at valwhitewebdev.com.

Thanks, Val! Amazing story. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Beach Notes: Whale Sculpture

by

by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

At this time of the year it’s a common occurrence for us to see one or more whales just offshore from our local beaches, on their annual migration north. Occasionally we are lucky enough to see one breaching. The picture is of one of the sculptures in the 2008 Swell sculpture festival – an annual event – at Currumbin Beach, about 15 minutes from where we live. “Helidon Breach”, the title of the work by Matthew Bath, references both the magnificent sight of a whale breaching and the source of the beautiful white Australian sandstone from Helidon, Queensland.

Helidon Breach by Matthew Bath

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

Selling to People: How to Be the Value Not a Necessary Evil

by

Guest Post
by Doug Rice

I am in an interesting position as a sales professional. I see things from the rather optimistic perspective of a salesperson. I see myself as a value creator and a problem solver for my customers. I help them achieve their goals. I make their lives easier and more fulfilling. I believe that I am valuable to them. They don’t just need a product or service. They need ME. I make a difference to them.

But, then again, I buy stuff too. I am a consumer and a businessperson as well. And I have to ask myself, “Do I view other salespeople in the same way?” You see, when I take off my sales glasses, and come back to end-consumer reality, I realize that I may be a little delusional. It seems that most people have quite the opposite view of salespeople. They see them, not as value creators, but necessary evils.

When people go shopping for a car, they rarely want the salesperson to help them. They tolerate it because they have to in order to get the vehicle they want. I recently read an article about an increasing number of doctors refusing pharmaceutical reps from making unsolicited sales calls. “If we need something,” reads a sign on one doctor’s door, we’ll call you.” We hate shopping for furniture because we don’t want to be “hounded” by the salesperson. We find the house we are interested in and THEN contact the real estate assigned to it to see if we can negotiate a better price. We send out an RFP to decide between suppliers.

We want the car. We want the house. We need the drugs. We need the supplies. But the salespeople? They just stand in the way of us accomplishing our objectives. They just make the buying process more difficult for us. We don’t want them and we don’t need them. They are necessary evil.

How to Be the Value Not a Necessary Evil

If you are a salesperson, you are probably feeling rather indignant right about now. I know the feeling. I hate admitting this to myself. But let’s face facts. This is the perception that most buyers have of us. The question is, “what are we going to do about it?” You see, it really doesn’t matter if we truly are value creators or simply sheisters trying to squeeze out profit. If customers perceive us as barriers, that’s what we will be. We can create all the value in the world but, if it goes unnoticed, we are just exhausting our efforts in vain. So, how can we change perceptions? Well, it isn’t easy, it won’t happen overnight, and it will take a lot of upfront effort before there is any payoff. But it is possible to transform your image from that of a necessary evil to that of a value creator. Here are a few tips:

  1. Never fail to qualify. Asking open-ended questions signals to customers that you care about helping them find solutions. Never talk features and benefits until you know what the customer needs. If you do, you may offer a benefit that is irrelevant to the customer. And customers seem to view benefits as mutually exclusive. If it works in one way, then it must not work in the way they need it too. Always know your customer before attempting to sell your customer. If you don’t learn about your customer, you are going to be irrelevant. And value that is irrelevant isn’t really value at all.
  2. Never emphasize price. It doesn’t matter if you have the best price in your market, bragging about it will commoditize you and make you unnecessary. And an unnecessary good is just as bad as a necessary evil. I’m not saying to hide your price. Be upfront about it, but present it in a matter-of-fact manner, as if it really isn’t important. Your customer is trained to seek out the best price but really wants the greatest value. Sell the value, not the price.
  3. Always have a reason. Whether you are sending an email, making a call, or giving a presentation and whether it is your first, second, or third attempt, always have a reason for contacting your customer. Never simply “check-in.” This kind of activity says to the customer, “Hello, you haven’t bought from me yet. Are you going to do it or not?” Newsflash for salespeople: they probably haven’t bought yet because you haven’t yet convinced them. Pestering them with calls basically asking them to hurry up is not going to motivate them. Have something valuable to say every time you contact them. If you do, you are reinforcing to them that you actually have something meaningful to contribute.
  4. Always follow up. Nothing says that you were merely an obstacle to overcome more than the customer never hearing from you after the sale. When you turn the sale into the beginning of the relationship, you are signaling to the customer that you are in it for the long haul. Make sure they don’t just have your product or service after the sale. Make sure they have you. Closing is the new opening.

    5. These tips aren’t guaranteed, of course, to turn you into a knight in shining armor for your customer. But they do send the signal that you are not merely a transactional salesperson. You do not sell businesses a better service but rather a better business. You do not sell consumers a better product but rather a better life. If sales is your career, you’ve got to start working on changing your perceived role. Commoditization is all too easy in today’s world. You’ve got to stand out if you want to stand at all. Soon, “necessary evils” won’t be necessary at all.

    ————————————

    Doug Rice who writes for How Does that Make You Buy? You can find him on Twitter as @dougricehdtmyb
    Thanks, Riley

    –ME “Liz” Strauss
    Work with Liz on your business!!

PetCareRx Offers Advice for Online Success

by

Guest Post
by Riley Kissel

The survival rate of any business is fairly low. Only 1 out of every 10 succeeds in the first five years. With the popularity of online businesses growing daily, the success rates of these types of businesses is even lower. However, one online giant, PetCareRx () has endured and continue to succeed in spite of the odds, and the company’s COO, Blake Brossman, is more than willing to offer 5 great tips for success in the online business world. In order for a business to succeed, Brossman believe every company needs:

Passion

Always choose to start a business that revolves around something that you are passionate about. When business becomes difficult, when the long hours and seemingly endless marketing becomes too much, it will be your passion that gets your through. Brossman became determined to offer great pharmacy services to pet owners after having to deal with his own Rottweiler’s expensive medications. “I looked around the vet office and saw all the helpless people spending astronomical sums of money to treat their pets,” Brossman recalls.” I wanted to give these people the opportunity to treat their pets without breaking the bank!”

A Great Business Plan

PetCareRx was started during the dot-com hype of the late 90s, and was able to survive when the bubble burst during the early 2000s, and they credit their success to the company’s solid business model. “The 2000 bubble was caused due to incessant hype, and weak business models with high investments,” stated Brossman. PetCareRx new the products and type of service it wanted to offer, wrote it down in their business plan with precise goals, and stuck to it. Now they are an industry leader.

Excellent Customer Service

PetCareRx reviews couldn’t be better. The online pet pharmacy has been a hot spot for pet owners for years, and has built incredible company loyalty. “At PetCareRX, the customer always comes first,” stated Brossman. “PetCareRx, built a strong foundation around every pet parent’s requirement, backed by a great product line and the highest level of service and convenience. This helped us survive and grow over the years.”

Social Media

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are great ways to spread word about your online company, and a great way to allow patrons a way to create a community, without having to spend anything. They are also a great way to offer special discounts to Fans or Followers to add to increase company loyalty. PetCareRx can be found on both Facebook and Twitter, and frequently offers fans great discounts to use on a variety of store items.

Show Your Credentials

Many online businesses fail because they don’t convey that they are trustworthy. People don’t want to purchase a product or service from a website that doesn’t look secure or isn’t backed by prominent watch groups. PetCareRx has made it a top priority to be licensed in every state and to make sure their customers are aware of this. However, other less successful pet pharmacies don’t take the same precautions which can easily put a pet at risk. “Visitors should be skeptical of ordering medications or any products from any non Vet-VIPPS certified pharmacies,” stated Brossman.

Starting an online business is difficult. Succeeding with an online business is even more difficult and requires time, dedication, and perseverance. However, the rewards can easily prove to be worth the hours and energy poured into it.
————————————

Riley Kissel is a freelance writer who covers many industries with style. You can find out more about him at RileyKissel.com

Thanks, Riley, for simply showing how great thinking has built great success.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!