What is the Tenth Step of Jobpreneurship™ 101?

The tenth step is to ask for referrals.

Friendships and trusted relationships are the foundation but if you don’t ask for help most people are too busy and focusing on their issues to consider that you may need or want help. So, you need to let them know what you are passionate about, what your vision is, what you want to do, where you are looking to do it, what your value is, and how they might be able to help you.

Rather than ask like a beggar, the best format is to ask them how you can help them – and then help them. Either during the conversation or later, they will ask how they can help you. If you have done your Jobpreneurship™ homework, you are ready for that discussion.

When you ask for help, it may be in a networking meeting or it may be in a private meeting. Generally, I try to introduce people and be helpful in a networking meeting but where I sense that I can really help someone, feel like this is someone whom I want to get to know better, or believe that they may be able to help me, I recommend that we meet for coffee, breakfast, or lunch to get to know each other better. If they have heard of me, are interested in me, or others suggest that they meet with me, I usually get their cooperation to later set a time and place to meet.

One of the best ways of helping others is to refer them into your network. But I almost never do so unless, at a minimum, I know them and have met at least one time with them. The best referrals that I give are if I have known them in different settings and seen them in action over a period of time.

Still, many of us are shy about asking for referrals. If you are a trusted and accomplished individual, they are usually honored to be asked by you. You would be foolish not to ask. If they cannot help you, at least now you know. Perhaps something will come up two weeks later and they can help you. A situation could develop the next day or the next year, but if they don’t know you need help you will not come to mind.

Ask for help and referrals.

 

What is the Goal of Networking?

The goal of networking is to develop relationships, friendships, and alliances. These result in your growing brand, reputation, and value in helping others. As you help others, people see that you are not self-focused but other focused. If you are self-focused, I cannot be sure that I can trust you. You can fool me and burn me. Most of us have been burnt before and are very reluctant to be burnt again. Insiders are not the glad-handers passing out their business cards to everyone. But they are watching to see who “gets it” and who “actually is helping others, can add value, and has strong potential worthy of being mentored or sponsored into others.”

That is why developing relationships is critical.

At this point let me blow up the paradigm that hard work and results are all that you need.

Masses of people have little to no measurable results. They have position titles and tenure. To a businessman, these people are commodities. That is, they are a group of people whom we assume have no value to helping us accomplish results in our organization. They become a drag on movers and shakers. We don’t need them and don’t want them in our high performance teams.

Those who are hard workers and have measurable results will get our attention but will often stay at the lower end of our organizations. Why? Because entry level positions require tactical results but the higher you move up in an organization the more you need to master leadership, teamwork, influencing other functions, and developing relationships that result in success. Those relationships include internal people, internal organizations, suppliers, clients, and industry influencers. In some cases, political and governmental figures, neighbors, and personal friends will also become critical factors to harm you or to help you.

Those who know how to develop relationships gain the emotional ties to people that will often save them from being fired when workers only are let go. That is also why the Peter Principle is frequently seen in organizations. The Peter Principle is when a person is promoted beyond their level of competency. That often is due to relationships. If you think about your past employers, I am sure you often saw this reality. Just think of Nepotism, which is a family relationship resulting in promotions often not based on any results. Relationships matter. Business is built upon relationships. You must learn to develop relationships if you want to get ahead.

Senior executives I know estimate that 50% or more of their working time is on building relationships, not work performance.

Networking gives you a chance to learn how to develop relationships, friendships, and alliances. These groups also give you a common point of interest that can become the foundation of those relationships. As you meet and greet one another you can begin identifying other areas of common interest. The more areas of common interest or respected achievement, the more likely their level of trust in you will grow.

For a simple example, I am an Eagle Scout and member of the Order of Arrow. If I meet someone with either background, that says something to me. It says that I will likely be willing to listen to them and trust them far more than someone coming up to me who I don’t know.

Developing relationships is critical to getting a job, keeping a job, and developing your career. If this is a weak area for you, Jobpreneurship™ is how you can begin to see why it is so important now and for the rest of your career.

 

Doing Research for Jobpreneurship™ 101

 

 

At this time you may feel like you are ready to go, but you don’t know where to start. That is why I teamed up with our technology platform partner, CareerShift. They have a wonderful platform but I only use two modules. But those two modules are awesome! The first module is the ability to find the types of companies in your area where you want to work. They data mine from the internet and allow you to sort by zip code, size, industry, or other filters. Then they provide websites and sources that talk about them on the internet. You can research them to see if they should be on your targeted list.

The second module is the ability to chose a company and find out who works there. If they are on the internet as working at that company, they will come up with their contact information, articles, news, and a host of helpful information for networking, finding out what their interests are, and to begin finding out where they might network. From my experience their results are far more expansive than other sites, including LinkedIn.

That is why we include CareerShift in our solutions. This resource is in 120 universities but most don’t understand how we use the data and the platform.

Next we search on LinkedIn for people from CareerShift whom we suspect might be influencers, advisors, and groups where the decision makers have in their interest and network. At this point, we can decide to either try to get an introduction to them but only if we are already close to someone they trust. Otherwise, I recommend finding out where they network or their trusted relationships network. Social media, such as Facebook, can add more insight. Then I would go to those venues to begin getting noticed and trusted.

The worst step to take is to get a casual introduction on a non-trusted basis because I think I am so wonderful that they will take time to meet me and then be wowed by me. If they take that meeting, they probably are not really decision makers anyway. I want to be sure one or more of their trusted relationships refers me into them. That way, the decision maker will take my call, will meet with me, and will start the meeting by trusting me because their friends trust me. Then my responsibility is to honor that trust by earning the trust of the decision maker and her team. That is why most introductions being done today are actually harmful unless that trusted relationship process is in place.

This is why doing research on the company and individuals is critical in you being sure you are genuinely interested in them and strongly feel you can be a trusted value to them.

 

What is the Ninth Step of Jobpreneurship™ 101?

Now you are ready to introduce yourself to the world!

You know what you want to do, where you want to do it, what companies fit your model, what they want, how to communicate your message, how to be sure there are no red lights, how to measure your progress, and now you need to being networking.

Why network? The first question a hiring manager asks in her mind is, “Can I trust him?” Those merely submitting resumes only have the resume words and interviews to base a hiring decision upon. That is one reason why assessment testing and internet background checks are increasingly popular. Those trends won’t change. But how much more can the decision maker trust these results and her judgment when her trusted influencers, advisors, and friends are vouching for you and referring you into her?

That is also one reason why many hiring interview sessions include a wide number of interviewers. When the hiring decision is agreed to by the internal team, the risk of making a mistake and paying a political penalty for it is shared by the entire team. But starting with the decision maker trusting you because you are known as a trusted brand though the networking community will often place you at the head of the line.

So where do you network and how do you network?

If you know where you want to work, you find out where the influencers, advisors, and friends are of the decision makers in those companies network. That may include formal groups, such as service organizations, professional organizations, and associations or informal groups such as non-profits, community groups, charities, churches, or even your children’s sports and clubs. If you go to beg for a job, your brand will come across as a loser. If you go to help others and participate, people will start to know you and begin to trust you. Eventually they will ask about you, want to help you, and be glad to introduce you to others. That is why this is a life practice. You are building up your brand in areas where people are who can help you and in organizations where you attend anyway.

So, if you are striking out meeting people who can help you (either too low, too high, or not even in the same industry), you need to consider dropping some venues and look for more fruitful groups.

What are your goals in networking? First, my goal is not to pass out business cards. My personal practice is to not even offer my card unless someone is interested enough to ask for it. The goal is to develop lifelong relationships, some of which may turn out to be lifelong friendships where you value each other, want to stay in each other’s networks, and eventually may be helped by them or may be able to help them. True networking is a long term investment. That is what it takes to develop a reputation of being trustworthy. Insiders may even want to watch you for a year to be sure that you are genuine. Remember, their brand, reputation, and trustworthiness is on the line if they recommend you to someone else and you embarrass them. That is also why you should be very careful when you offer to make referral to someone else. You cannot afford to introduce a unqualified person either.

If this sounds like developing a close knit group of people that you trust and who trust you, you are right. You become increasingly part of the insider groups who only deal with people whom they trust. That takes time, being tested, and has the risk of being rejected if you make mistakes. That is why they call these groups insiders. That is why they are also usually the movers and shakers, influencers, advisors, and friends of the people who can open doors for you that you could never open by yourself.

You may not ever earn a position at the elite level but you can learn the rules and still be richly rewarded for your entire career.  This is why networking results in 80-90% of jobs.

 

What is the Eighth Step of Jobpreneurship™ 101?

If you noticed, every prior step is required before you introduce yourself to the world through networking. Remember, first impressions are usually lasting impressions so you want to be sure to put your best foot forward as you begin creating your brand in your community. However, many people are not focused on their activities, not productive in their networking, or don’t really have a plan on how to approach the real world.

So, we teach the use of a Marketing Plan. You can also call it a Sales Plan. You can call this whatever you wish and modify it to suit your needs but simply put, it is a spreadsheet where you plan your sales activities, goals, and measure your results week by week to ensure you are focused, learning from mistakes, not wasting time, and focused on producing results for each step of the tactical networking through employment process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you look at the chart, another way of putting it is that all your work on product development and marketing is almost done. You will always be improving it based upon what you learn as you step out into the sales process but now you are ready to take the tactical steps required to get the job.

So, the typical tasks are networking meetings that drive relationships (not merely handing out business cards) that result in referrals that lead to one-on-one referral meetings that ultimately end up with referrals into the hiring manager who either emotionally decides to hire you or decides to refer you to others in her network who might be able to help you. If they decide that they want you (notice it is an emotional gut decision), the next step is usually to ask for your resume that they (not you) send to either the external recruiter or internal HR recruiter to add to the slate of candidates for the job.

The major difference here is that if the decision maker is the one sending down the resume, you likely will have the job unless there is a far superior candidate on the slate, they find red lights in their review of you, or you trip in your interviews with each level. Remember that, even if you are wanted and the most qualified, you still have get the political support and team concurrence before you will get a formal offer. But you will be well positioned versus anyone else whom the decision maker does not know.

Worst case, you should walk away with a follow-up to get referrals from the decision maker and anyone else who liked you.

So, your Marketing or Sales Plan starts with how many networking meetings are you attending each week. Are those meetings producing the right results, right introductions, right referrals, and right opportunities, or are they a waste of time with people who cannot help you? Keep in mind that some networking venues should be non-profits where you are passionate about helping others or peer job search groups where everyone is looking. You can learn, help others, and pay it forward. This is all about helping to build a positive brand of a person who cares about others, not just themselves. On the other hand, if you are not ever meeting people who can help you, you may need to drop some venues and add new ones.

Some of you will be tempted to substitute LinkedIn and social media to replace physical networking. I strongly support including internet business networking but think of it as a supplemental networking venue that needs to still lead to one-on-one meetings. Trust is only built face to face over time. Even if the new generation disagrees, most hiring managers and decision makers still trust personal physical meetings before they will be willing to provide referral support or be willing to hire someone. This is particularly true for higher level jobs.

What else needs to be measured? How many referrals are you getting per week? How many one-to-one meetings? How many meetings with influencers, trusted advisors, hiring managers, and decision makers per week? How often are you getting the emotional buy, the referral to HR, and actual job interviews?

This model is to help you track, focus, and measure results. Don’t be surprised if things move quickly when there is interest – including being asked to write a job description for a job that didn’t even exist before you met and wowed the decision maker.

 

What is the Sales Process in Jobpreneurship™ 101?

Here is another major paradigm shift. Most non-sales people view sales as negative, high pressure, and an effort of wasting your time trying to sell you something that you don’t need or want. The Jobpreneurship™ sales process is a process that even financial people should feel comfortable with and is how true insiders operate every day.

Here is the sales process. First, most sales people you know probably don’t fit this model. That is why most business people don’t always trust sales people and why many sales people are not as successful as they could be. Second, there are over 21 different types of sales which may be appropriate for different situations. Many are not appropriate for trying to get a job. For example, the buyer / hiring decision manager is in a company. Companies are businesses usually characterized by multiple layers of staff, influencers, advisors, hiring managers, decision makers, and competing silos. Businesses can be complex and highly political. The hiring manager’s job and career growth can be impacted by the hiring decision and that person’s future performance in the job. Further, the reason to hire is for someone to solve a problem, that is to be a solution to a need within the company. Frankly, those issues are seldom highlighted in the HR job descriptions. Also, the human element of company cultures and individuals likes, dislikes, and wants come into play.

That is why trying to get a job is a business to business complex solution sale based upon relationship development and referrals into influencers, trusted advisors, and friends of hiring managers and decision makers.

This is why effective networking, developing positive relationships, getting referrals from those relationships, and expanding your effective network through one-on-one meetings from referrals with influencers, trusted advisors, and friends who then refer you into the hiring manager or decision maker is the secret to getting in front of them based upon their trust in their friends. That is how you get around the no call backs and the gatekeepers to make a trusted relationship impression upon the buyer who then is either emotionally interested in hiring you or interested in referring you on to their network because of your perceived value by them and their friends.

Notice that this is not the model most of us think about when we say, “sales”. However it is the model that insiders use and successful repeat business is build upon. When you are building a career, changing jobs, changing careers, or even starting your own company and needing customers, isn’t this a model that you should consider?

This process takes longer than a quick close, high pressure, I need a job or a sales con job. However, most successful insiders and executives will tell you that this is they way they get jobs and would advise their friends and family.

Even if you are a high school student, a clerical worker, a Walmart stocker, or a blue collar worker, these processes work because they are based upon how human relationships work over the long run.

 

What is the Seventh Step of Jobpreneurship™ 101?

This step is critical. Many readers have said the use of this step have made all the difference in their job search. Why? Because what we are about to discuss has two purposes. First, it is a one page document that helps you to summarize many of the concepts that we discuss in our blogs, our books, in our audios, and in our virtual group coaching and seminars. If you get this document done correctly, it will give you focus on the job search process and communication messaging. Second, this document becomes what you will use in the networking referral process, that we will discuss later, so that others will have the information that they need to help you. In other words, this document will help you and will help others to help you. We call it the Marketing Document because is contains the marketing messaging and becomes the leave behind collateral for others to remember you and to be able to tell others about you.

So, what is a Marketing Document? It has three parts. First, is your contact information, value proposition, and a one sentence executive summary of what you are passionate about wanting to do. This is the most important section because if nothing else happens but someone telling someone else about you, these are the three sentences they need: how to get hold of you, why they might be interested in you, and what you want to do. That’s it! Anything else is too much at this stage.

The second part is important but rarely used. It is a listing of up to 10 areas of your expertise and results written in prioritized bullet point fashion that simply says, “Yes, she can do what she says because her background backs it up.” However, in the Jobpreneurship™ approach most people will quickly skip over this section because they will assume that if a friend said your value proposition is worth taking some time to chat with you, your goal for the referral stage is accomplished. However, for detailed focused people or if someone give your marketing document to the gatekeeper, they may want to read the bullet points. At this stage, most senior decision makers will assume you can do the job based upon their friend’s recommendation of you – and that is how you get introduced around the gatekeepers as a trusted prospective hire.

The third part is important for those who have taken a liking to you and really want to proactively help you. It includes where you are networking, what type of company you are looking to get into, and a list of the top ten companies that you are trying to get into. The purpose of this section is not to be exhaustive but to facilitate brain-storming and dialogue with enough information that the other party can better understand and think of ways they can help you or people whom they can introduce you to.

If you are following each step, I guarantee you that this document is where the rubber meets the road and will be invaluable to you. We will share how to use it in a future blog. Samples are in our books.

 

What is the Sixth Step of Jobpreneurship™ 101?

Finally you are ready to talk about yourself! Well, almost.

The next step is to develop layered conversation in short story formats so that you can share examples of how you can provide your value to a company based upon your education and prior results with other companies. Notice that the stories must be forward looking of what you can do for others but based in the facts of your prior experience and results.

Second, you keep these stories in you hip pocket to take out only if the occasion calls for it. If someone is interested in your value proposition, it is best to add a short explanation but to immediately ask them a question about what intrigues them about your value, what their background is, what their problems are, etc. In other words, engage them in a friendly conversation, as you would a friend, to begin developing a relationship to see if what you offer might be a match for what they want or perhaps for a friend of theirs who may have a need.

You don’t want to bore them, or they will tune you out. You don’t want to overwhelm them, or they will probably forget the most important points, forget what you said, or tell others something that was wrong because they misunderstood what you said.

The goal is to get the word out to the community or the internet about who you are in a simple summary so that those who might be interested in what you offer (your value proposition) will seek you out and want to know more. The second goal is to use your value proposition as the basis to ask them what they want. Remember the car sales person? Getting successful repeat buyers is not through hard sales but by finding out what they want and helping them get it – whether that is you because you are a fit or by introducing them to someone else who is a better fit.

This may sound incredulous. Why would you take the time to become a friend, want to know about them, want to find out what they are looking for, and trying to help them find someone who is the best fit for what they want? Because they will remember you, appreciate your trustworthiness, want to know more about you, and probably tell others about you. These are three secrets to success. First, if no one remembers you the problem is yours not theirs. If no one trusts you, why would they want to spend more time with your, do business with you, or hire you? If others cannot appreciate you and your value to others, why would they tell their friends about you? 80-90% of jobs come from recommendations and referrals of the influencers, trusted advisors, and friends of the hiring manager. Those referrals come through this process.

 

What is the Fifth Step of Jobpreneurship™ 101?

The fifth step has two components. First, once you know what the hiring manager wants, you need to be able to tell her what you offer in such a way that it answers their question, “Can you give me what I want and what I am looking for to hire?” In other words, what is your value to me that is different from everyone else I am interviewing? Second, once you know your unique value, you need to be able to express it in ten words or less.

Now you may have a lot of values. You may be able to do a thousand things for a company. But the hiring manager has in mind a problem or a need for a solution that is driving the justification for them to be hiring someone. So, of your thousand wonderful abilities and prior experiences, what is the one phrase that summarizes what you can do for them to give them what they want and are looking to hire. In other words, what is your value to them in a short phrase that causes them to have immediate interest in learning more about you?

The next time you watch the news, notice how just before they go to a commercial break, one of the commentators will summarize one or two upcoming news stories in such an intriguing way that entices you to stay tuned to their channel in order to find out more about that story after the commercials. You can call that phrase a teaser, a tag line, or a Value Proposition.

The idea is that when someone hears your well thought out teaser/tag line/value proposition, it is short, memorable, intriguing, speaks to how you are someone valuable to know, and someone who others (including hiring managers) should know because you might be what they need and want.

This concept is part of your branding effort but it is also part of your communication plan. It communicates in a short phrase your value to others in a simple why that is memorable so that others can tell their friends about you and your message can go viral either online or through your networking community. It also is a phrase that should intrigue interested parties to want to ask you to tell them more. You might call it a hook to get their attention and give you the opportunity to stand out in a crowd.

 

What is the Fourth Step of Jobpreneurship™ 101?

Just think of what might happen if you start networking and calling on people before your product is ready for the market. How many first impressions do you get? What would happen if all the key people in the companies and industry where you want to work have already met you before your products were ready for the marketplace?

Now we are going to talk about how to present your finished product to the market. The first key point is that you are your brand. Your reputation is part of your brand. Your image, your personality, your intelligence, your creativity, your problem solving…all of your capabilities and who you are is part of your brand. How are other people seeing you? How do they describe you to their friends?

If you are a great finished product but hide in the closet, will anyone know who you are? If you go to network but don’t speak to anyone, will anyone know you or remember you? If you stand up and speak but don’t make a memorable impression, do you exist? Seriously, you may feel embarrassed, nervous, or lack confidence but don’t worry. Unless you make a spectacle of yourself, no one will remember you. Of course, if you are trying to get noticed to get a job, trying to develop relationships with those who can help you, or trying to establish yourself within your industry, you should not only want to be noticed but to establish your reputation and brand as someone who is credible, respectable, and valuable to know and to help.

Think about the brand of car that you would like to own. If you don’t care about the car and only want transportation, then you might be willing to buy the lowest cost vehicle in the market. If you want reliability, you might want to purchase the car rated the highest reliability in the market (a form of branding). If you want the fastest car, the smoothest riding car, the most luxurious car, or the most expensive car then you would be looking for the car whose reputation and brand met your perception of what best fits what you were looking for.

You can apply the same concept to clothes, shoes, hair products, etc. The best product to buy may not always be the latest style, highest quality, highest cost or only available at exclusive stores. However, it must have the perception of being the style that you are looking for, the quality that you are looking for, the cost that you are looking for, and available at the store where you shop.

Why does a young person spend $500 for a pair of jeans with holes pre-cut in the fabric when I might spent $30 for a pair of jeans that has no holes and may actually last longer? It is all about the branding and the image you are projecting about yourself.

So, what is your brand for your product (yourself)?

The first question is, what brand is the company looking to buy for the job that you want? Does that brand match who you are? Does that brand match who you are transforming yourself to become? If not, there is a gap of perception. You may be able to do the job better than anyone else, but if the perception is that you are not the brand that they want; someone else will usually get the job.

Are you a $500 pair of jeans want-a-be who comes across like a $30 pair of jeans? What steps are you taking to take to create your brand to match the career that you wish to have?

There is much more to say about branding, but I think you understand how important this topic is to your future.

 

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