Boost Your Career

Results not resolutions

With the new decade upon us, now is the time to review, renew and reignite your plans for what you want the next year to hold in store.

So how can you create results and not just empty resolutions? Simple. Treat the new year as you would any other project and begin with the end in mind.Take a moment to sit quietly and visualize yourself one year from now. What do you want to have accomplished? Who do you want to have become in the process? What kind of relationships do you want have? What kind of experiences will you have had by the end of 2010? 

Allow your mind to paint the picture as vividly as you can - in words, pictures, sounds or feelings - whatever makes it feel most real for you. This will engage your subconscious mind, which is the best way to achieve successful results. 

Write down your visualisation in the form of a letter or story, as accomplishments that have already happened. Doing so will trick your subconscious mind into believing this to be true and it will work for you day and night to make your vision match your reality. 

Another major step to ensure results is the act of writing your vision down and sharing it with others. Doing so propels your subconscious mind make the commitment to reach them. 

My secret weapon to ensure my goals are powerful is to write them in the form of a gratitude letter. As my coaching clients can attest, a key success principle I teach is ‘ink it, don’t just think it’. As an author and teacher I find the narrative form to be very instructive and inspiring as it makes it feel so tangible.

If you are a practical, list writer then you may prefer to use an action plan approach to defining your year ahead. Use quarterly or six month milestones and dot points outlining what you will be do and have at each project milestone along the way.Either way, what matters is that you engage in the process of projecting your future possibility and capturing it on paper. This will give you clarity and focus. 

Working backwards with the beginning in mind will ensure you don’t set yourself up for failure. Many people overestimate what they can achieve when setting goals and end up with so many that they would have to work 20 hours a day, exercise for five hours a day and save 90 per cent of their earnings. Impossible!

This year instead of worrying about resolutions, focus on the evidence of the results you will have achieved by this time next year. And most of all remember, real success is not about having it all, its about being, doing and having those things that matter!

Yours in prosperity, passion and purpose

Heidi Alexandra Pollard
The Communicator’s Coach

Is your brand as clear as Epsom salts?

My own coach from the US Therese Skelly recently posted the following article and I thought it had some great points of interest relevant to communicating your personal career brand. Enjoy and thanks Therese!

Is your brand as clear as Epsom salts?

This has got to get the award for the WORST marketing ever. Reading a bag of epsom salts (don’t ask!) I was surprised from a marketing perspective at what it said “Epsom Salt – Magnesium Sulfate U.S.P – Natural Mineral” (and here’s where it gets interesting….)

A soaking aid for minor sprains and bruises

A saline laxative for the short term relief of constipation

A plant nutrient for vigorous lawns, flowers, plants, vegetables and trees.

Now I don’t know about you, but I doubt even brilliant marketers like my friend Michele PW or the famous Dan Kennedy could come up with copy for a product that helps with bruises, constipation, and gardening! All the marketing messages I teach about having to have a unified message just get thrown out the window with this thing.

As I re-read this bag of Epsom salts, I had the fantasy that a bunch of marketers were sitting around brainstorming, and finally they said, “What the heck, let’s just throw it all in.  We can’t figure out what to say, so we’ll just list the uses and let it go from there.”

With epsom salts, you pretty much know what you use it for.  And unlike coaching or whatever business you are in, there’s only one variety.  There’s not mint flavored, low fat, west coast, designer salts.  You get one thing.  Where you put it is your own business!  But it makes it easy because there’s only ONE way it’s delivered.

But in your business you don’t have the ability to have a crappy marketing message because you can’t figure out if you work with business owners, or mom’s, or teens, or people in transition.

That’s what this article is about.  Just because Walgreen’s can get away with having a generic product with bad packaging, as a small business owner, you can’t.  Your only choice is to narrow your focus, get crystal clear about who you serve, and what they get, and then go about creating compelling language around that.

So where do you start?

The things you need to be able to clearly articulate are what you do (as in your unique expertise) who you do it for (target market) and what problems you solve for them.  Most people start out as generalists, but the goal is to refine your market, offering and services even tighter as you get more and more sophisticated.  If you are stuck here, grab a mastermind partner or survey some old clients to get more information about how they benefited from working with you.

Why is this important?  Success is about being seen as the foremost expert in your industry. 

Well I hope you enjoyed Therese’s article - something to ponder because unlike Epsom salts, there’s no one else like you!

All the best

Heidi Alexandra Pollard

The Communicator’s Coach

Are Your Fears and Fairytales Holding You Back?

The power of communication is what the listener does with the message, not what the message does to the listener. Messages, stories, speeches, movies and advertisements that move people deeply do not do so because they are powerful in themselves. They do so because they touch the audience’s most desired wants, most cherished values or even the things they dislike most. They evoke responses that are already in the listener, they don’t put them there.

The same can be said about your inner dialogue. What are you doing with the messages and stories you tell yourself? Begin to collect information on your own thoughts, observe your behaviour, responses, doubts and fears. Listen to the fairytales and beliefs you have created for your own life: “I can’t sing”; “I’m too old”; “I’ll never be rich”; “I don’t deserve that”; “I’m not smart enough to do that.”

What is your inner voice telling you and how often? How frequently do you allow those negative beliefs and tales show up? How much emotion is behind them? How do they compare to the frequency and strength of your positive affirmations?

The greatest obstacle to your success is probably you. Too often I find coaching clients hold themselves back due to their personal fears and fairytales.

One such handbrake to success is the fear of failure, probably the single greatest barrier to success in adult life. Taken to its extreme, people are totally pre-occupied with not making a mistake, with seeking approval for security. How do you know when you are coming from a position of fear? When you hear yourself saying the words “I can’t”.

Another major fear that can interfere with performance and inhibit expression, creativity and success, is the fear of rejection. Unfortunately it creates a need in us to do what pleases others because we constantly crave approval.

Be honest with yourself - how have you feeling about yourself lately? About your career or business? About your health, relationships and wellbeing? Who’s approval are you seeking? Who’s permission are you waiting for to make a change now? Are you taking chances to grow… or have you been playing it safe?

I ask because it’s where I have been and I know exactly what it feels like to be trying to move ahead with one foot nailed to the floor. It can creep up on you - starting out small and gradually building, that need for certainty, for risk aversion, the fear of making any bold moves.

For many people, this way of being serves them well most of the time, and the very fact that they are surviving makes them want to do it more. But for those of you, like me, who have a burning passion inside you, a desire to do something grander, to fulfil your entrepreneurial drive, to become someone worth becoming, to leave a legacy…this mode will slowly kill your spirit, your career or business - and your soul.

Dreams that you once had get pushed aside. Bold ideas get filed away into the “someday when the time is right” folder. Your spark of creativity gets muffled as the busyness of life, of caring for others and going through the motions take over. Worse still, your generosity of spirit shrinks as you retreat and wait for things to get better.

So what can you do to stop the downward spiral?

Here’s five actions to help you get your passion back on track…

1.     Feel the fear and do it anyway - if you wait for all the fears to leave you’ll be waiting forever. I know the more risks I take, the more confident I become.

2.     Rediscover the passion you had.- get back to that feeling of having nothing but possibilities in front of you. Build the courage to step out in your highest good and to show up every day in a big way.

3.     Move without all the answers - analysis paralysis is a killer (this was my biggest vice), you may always wonder how you are going to find the time, knowledge, money or support to do what you want to do, but without forward motion you will never find the answers.

4.     Chunk it down - this simple but powerful concept is one that has worked from me since my early 20’s. Take just one step, once a week, towards one of your goals and you will be amazed at what you can achieve in one year. Breaking your goals into week-sized chunks will make it feel much more doable and will help you create the momentum that leads to amazing long term progress and success.

5.     Get an accountability buddy - tell someone you trust about the goal you’re committed to (I tell my coach Therese). It may be scary to talk about it, but the spoken word in itself creates energy and accountability.

Don’t settle for a second rate you - decide today that you deserve better.

Personal Communication

Personal communication is one of the most common aspects of our human conversations. Personal conversations are an essential facet in almost every one of our relationships. And one might say that the quality of those relationships is dependent upon our abilities to verbally communicate.

I have discovered in the past few weeks through my own life  just how powerful interpersonal communication skills can be in shaping our personal relationships. Even as the “Communicator’s Coach” I don’t always get it right and lately I have had some doosies. So I thought I would go back to the basics and refresh for my own purposes my five key foundations for effectively building upon and improving your personal communication skills.

Foundation #1: Be interesting and interested - know what’s going on in the world around you, keep up to date with current events and trends, as well as your personal hobbies and other interests that you can share or ask questions about during personal conversations.

Foundation #2: Develop great listening skills and know when to speak and when to listen. As a rule I believe in the Pareto principle - speak for 20% of the time, listen for the other 80%.

Foundation #3: Be fully present - make and maintain eye contact with the other person while speaking and listening. Turn away from the computer, television or any distractions so you can be there 100% with the other person.

Foundation #4: Audience centric - use language in your conversation that is familiar to your listener, don’t use fancy words or terms just to show off! Learn some basic body language it will help you to read whether they are understanding and in rapport with you or not. 

Foundation #5: Be real - be genuine, show and express an interest in what the other person is saying. Try to turn down the little voice in your own head and instead focus your attention on the other person, rather than on yourself.

Personal communication skills are one of the most powerful and strategic assets you can possess. People with effective communication skills have a real strategic advantage for business, relationship and social success.

If you would like to learn more about becoming more effective in personal and business communications, please contact Heidi Alexandra Pollard, The Communicator’s Coach today through her website at http://www.leadingvalue.net or http://www.boostyourcareer.com.au or by email at heidi@leadingvalue.net

Play to your strengths

I always say it pays to play to your strengths. But how do you work out which areas are your greatest strengths that will also boost your career and earn you more money?

Answer - follow the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule. Developed by Italian economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, this short, simple rule states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort or activity. 

Consider for example if you are in sales, I bet around 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers. Conversely, 80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers and 80% of the profits made in your industry come from 20% of the companies. 

So what can you do about it? Well for starters, keep track, test and measure so you can identify which of your customers and areas are most valuable to you and returning the greatest amount without the need for you to work any harder. Similarly identify those that are draining your energy so you can better tailor your marketing spend and your valuable time based on true customer demand.

Another area to consider for example is your staff. Who in your team is a great performer and what you can you do to help them achieve even better results? Feed them, teach them and encourage them and they will return the investment to you in spades.

Until next time, all the best

Heidi Alexandra Pollard, The Communicators’ Coach

Attitude is everything

Stuck in a rut? Feel like you’ve hit a plateau at work? Not sure what to do next to get your career progression into gear?

Then it might be time to take a look at your attitude. Just what attitude am I referring to? There are many positive attitudes that can enhance your career advancement – a few of which I believe can really help you get ahead.

Enthusiasm and positivity - being enthusiastic at work is all about your mental state. You need to decide you want to be a positive and enthusiastic employee.  Reflect on your posture, your presence and your self talk. If your self talk is all about being bored then you’ll end up feeling worse. Instead get motivated and interested in what you are going and show others that you are enjoying what you are doing. Everything is energy – the more you focus on your positivity the less room there will be for the negative to creep in.

Bygones – make every effort to forgive and forget in the workplace – that is don’t hold grudges and be easy to get along with. I am not suggesting you should compromise on your values and boundaries but no enjoys working with someone who whinges and complains all the time. Be the first to volunteer, to offer someone support and to move on when there has been tension in the team.

Not only will your peers appreciate that they don’t need to tiptoe on eggshells around you but your manager will love you for not giving them something else to have to manage!

Strive for excellence – we can’t all be perfect but if you are seen to be making efforts to be the best you can be and strive to deliver excellent service in whatever you do you will find yourself a highly valued team member in no time. Why settle for good when you could be great?

In striving for excellence you should find yourself exceeding expectations, giving your full attention and being present for each task that you undertake. Do this whether you are being watched or not. How you do anything is how you do anything so it won’t be long before your manager starts to notice your excellent work. By always aiming for excellence you will find that you naturally surpass many others in the workplace who have settled for being mediocre.

Such attitudes in the workplace will make you a welcome member of any team and will demonstrate your ability to step up into a leadership role. If you are looking for the competitive edge to give your career a boost then attitude is everything!

Reference letter writing tips

I came across this article today and thought it may be of interest to many of you who may be called upon from time to time to provide a written reference for someone. Writing a reference letter can sometimes be a daunting task - afterall you may potentially be influencing the person’s chance of getting a job or not.

To find your way through the challenge, here’s some tips from writer Michael Lee:
1. How do you know the person in question?
Here’s the first vital step on how to write a reference letter - it is important to state your relationship with the candidate - how you know him or her. Are you a teacher, a colleague or even a former supervisor? It is also important that you indicate how long you have known that person.www.selfgrowth.com

2. Back up positives with specifics
Even if you sing praises about the candidate, having no specific example to back them up will do you no good. Perhaps it is a wise idea to ask for a list of the person’s accomplishments - this is a tremendous plus in any reference letter.

3. Don’t write anything negative
Not everyone is perfect. However, that should not be reflected in your reference letter at all. Stick to the positives and let the candidate answer for his or her weaknesses during their interview with the employer. Listing the person’s not-so-brilliant qualities might only prevent him or her from getting short-listed.

4. Separation is key
When knowing how to write a reference letter, you must recognise what separates the candidate from the rest of the applicants. This is one of the more crucial points of the letter that employers really want to know. Write down characteristics that make the person stand out from the rest.

* Michael Lee is a freelance writer and writes articles for

The A-Z of Australian and NZ PR Blogs

Public relation practitioners and industry gurus Trevor Young of parkyoung and Kylie Lewis of Slice Media created a list of Australian and New Zealand PR blogs. We often hear about top marketing blogs but not often PR ones. Now more than ever, is a time for PR to shine and what better way to stay abreast of industry knowledge than to read what your peers are writing.

I am delighted to say my blog made it into the list! Click here to read more http://www.marketingmag.com.au/blogs/view/the-a-z-of-australian-and-nz-pr-blogs-1299

Cool Obama Quote

Had to share a great quote from Obama that a client just shared with me:

Change will not come

If we wait for another person or some other time

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for

We are the change that we seek.

Barack Obama

Thanks Noeleen!

Heidi

Social Networking Ettiquette

Been tweeting lately? Made some new friends on Facebook? Chances are that you’ve come across a cyber-seller, pushy, demanding and in your face, they take no time from when you follow them to promptly sending a message selling this or that product.

The increase of social media means as business owners and communicators that we now have a new channel and many more opportunities to share our message, but it’s how professionally we do it that makes all the difference.

Have you noticed the disconnect that often exists between people’s online and offline behavior and the seeming lack of polite niceties that typically you would find in business relationships being forgone in the social networking space with people saying or doing things they would never do in person.?

In a post at his Web Ink Now blog, David Meerman Scott encourages readers to treat social-networking sites as if they’re cocktail parties. That is, interacting with others in the same way you would at a face-to-face industry event. To make his point, he asks questions like these:

• Do you go into a large gathering filled with a few acquaintances and tons of people you do not know and shout “BUY MY PRODUCT”?
• Do you go into a cocktail party and ask every single person you meet for a business card before you agree to speak with them?

“Sure, you can go to a cocktail party and hit everyone up as a sales lead while blabbing on about what your company does,” says Scott. “But that approach is unlikely to make you popular.”

Take a moment now to reflect - flick back through your tweets and see if your sell messages outweigh your sharing information and listening and responding to others. And before you next start to fire away an update consider - would you say it to a real flesh and blood person standing right next to you?

Yours in prosperity, passion and purpose

Heidi Alexandra Pollard - The Communicator’s Coach