Author Archive
Natasha’s Networking Tips (A Resource)
My colleague, Natasha Pierre, is also all about helping you to build your brand so that you are congruent with your business brand. We share many of the same principles and beliefs…a couple generations apart.
Her blog post "Three Networking Tips to Build Your Brand" offers three tips for networking success. I think they're excellent tips…never mind that one of them mentions me. :o)
Her tips include:
- Develop the reputation of a giver.
- Embrace change.
- Go "old school". This one is especially dear to me because I AM old school!
Read her full post for "Three Networking Tips to Build Your Brand".
Success With Sylvia: Tell ‘Em You’ve Gone the Extra Mile
"Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be."
~ Og Mandino (Author, "The Greatest Salesman in the World")
We know that we must give excellent service and do better than the rest in all that we do. Yet sometimes we wonder if anyone recognizes that we've done so. Well, that's easy to solve. Let 'em know!!! Here's how.
Resource Found: Careers | Job Search Site
I found this great careers | job search resource and advice website after reading my weekly Washington Business Journal and seeing Harvey Mackay's column "Swim With the Sharks". In his column he lists 10 of the most sought-after skills by employers. The skills he lists include:
- Communication skills (listening, verbal, and written).
- Analytical and research skills.
- Computer and technical literacy.
- Flexibility, adaptability, and managing multiple priorities.
- Interpersonal abilities.
Read the rest of his article for the other five he lists.
The site, by the way, is Quintessential Careers.com. Check it out! And tell them Sylvia Henderson sent you. They won't know who I am since I'm a "best kept secret" (so I'm told by my colleagues), but at least they'll know they are being checked out and recommended.
Professionalism & Work Ethics – “New School” Values
Professionalism and work ethics are “old school” values that no longer apply to our diverse, knowledge-based economy. True or false?
- Do the people you hire represent you and your organization well to your clients?
- Are customer service and increased sales mutually exclusive?
- Do your managers and supervisors communicate with and inspire their people to minimize employee turnover?
- As Baby Boomers exit your workforce, do they transfer knowledge of appropriate business etiquette to incoming generations?
- Are you frustrated with missing promotions or being excluded from decision-making opportunities?
- Is your recent graduate smart and active in different groups, yet unable to successfully interview for their first “real job”?
Your answers to one or more of these should prove the first statement as “false”.
Professionalism, positive work ethics, employability skills, and key workplace competencies are relevant today. Our economy’s transition from manufacturing and farm-based to technology and knowledge-based requires interpersonal, learning, and decision-making skills seldom taught in our test-obsessed educational system. Knowledge-based businesses, institutions, professionals, entrepreneurs, and students play significant roles in environments that value thinking, communication, leadership, teamwork, continual self-improvement, positive attitudes, and ethics. We must leave no one unprepared to deal with this knowledge-based work environment.
Require those who represent you to represent you well through their attire, communication skills, attitudes, and ethics. Correlate customer service skills such as follow-through, persistence, commitment, and initiative to increased sales. Help managers and supervisors motivate and retain employees by improving leadership skills such as coaching, listening, recognizing, and taking risks. Document standards and provide opportunities for younger professionals to learn expected business etiquette. Seek honest feedback for yourself and make changes you feel you must to succeed in the ways you define success. Model and locate resources to teach new graduates how to interview properly and to follow-up with courtesy and respect.
Professionalism and work ethics are “new school” success values that apply directly to our multicultural, global society. Leave no person unprepared…for success.
BONUS: WWSPD? Get Springboard Training's *F.R.E.E.* report on success practices and get tagged for success.
Success With Sylvia: Customer Not Always Right
"The customer is always right." That's what we've been taught to think. Yet, reality differs on this point. And here's how to deal with it when it's your customer.
Success With Sylvia: Keep Business Hours
Let's talk about your business hours. I'm in my business finest in this segment!
Get a lot more of my tips, articles, strategies, and reminders at www.SpringboardTraining.com.
Success With Sylvia: Business Bug-A-Boos
I start my "Success With Sylvia: Business Bug-A-Boos"** segments. Just as on-the-spot as the previous clip, there's information to be gained. What do you need to know about making or keeping your personal brand in line with your professional brand? What does your team need to know? Give me some topic suggestions, and answer the poll on the right side of this page. If it's about interpersonal skills and how we come across to others – in word, appearance, attitude, or behavior – lay it on me.
** Bug-A-Boo. n. plural: Bug-A-Boos. A whimsical term for "stuff that bugs you" or "stuff of which it behooves you to be aware". Used in place of all these other words. (Sylvia's definition!)
Sylvia Enters the Video Generation – Welcome_Intro
“Isn’t That YOUR Idea?” Program Tip#3
Roadblocks and naysayers. It seems that the world is full of challenges and challenging people eager to put a stop to your turning your idea to your reality. And typically the challenges and naysayers come from sources of caring about and for you! Imagine the challenges from less noble reasoning.
How can you get past the roadblocks and naysayers to continue moving your idea to IMPACT(c)? One way is to get away from your idea for a little while, and then return re-energized and re-focused to knock down the roadblocks and step over the naysayers. Figuratively speaking, of course! I will reveal my favorite way to do this. I will offer at least five other ways to get past the roadblocks and naysayers to move your idea forward to success in my program, "Isn't That YOUR Idea? How to Capture, Organize and Communicate What’s in Your Head to get Recognized, Rewarded, and Rich!". See eWomenNetwork.com's "Success Institute" to register right away!
Buy my book, "Hey, That's MY Idea! How to Speak Up and Get Recognized for What You Know and Think", at http://www.SpringboardTraining.com/Products/Invest-Success.
“Isn’t That YOUR Idea?” Program Tip#2
You have an idea for a product, service, cause, business plan, or simply for improving something that currently exists in your life or in your workplace. You pat yourself on the back for speaking up in a meeting and telling everyone your idea, and get polite acknowledgment. Then discussion continues as it was. A few minutes later, someone else in your meeting interrupts the discussion and offers an idea very similar to yours. In fact, it sounds just like yours with different wording. Miraculously the other meeting attendees loudly proclaim the other idea as the most brilliant point to come out of the meeting. You walk away wondering what just happened to YOUR idea.
Does this scenario sound familiar to you? What did happen to YOUR idea? Was it really your idea to begin with? Could you have vocalized your idea more effectively so that yours would be deemed the brilliant one?
Well, perhaps. We will identify techniques that enable you to present your idea more authoritatively in my program, "Isn't That YOUR Idea? How to Capture, Organize and Communicate What’s in Your Head to get Recognized, Rewarded, and Rich!". See eWomenNetwork.com's "Success Institute" to register right away!
Buy my book, "Hey, That's MY Idea! How to Speak Up and Get Recognized for What You Know and Think", at http://www.SpringboardTraining.com/Products/Invest-Success. You get two whole chapters that address how to communicate and present your ideas.