How to fail fast

On or off the learning curve? New communications media: Fad or fact? It doesn’t matter. As a communication professional, you are obligated to learn new channels. Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Blogs? YouTube? Are you still in denial about social media or did you jump in, learn from smart friends and suggest new ideas for your employer or client? Where are you on the adoption curve? Stay relevant. Don’t be a dinosaur. Just do it.

You are not your résumé. Your résumé is not a stone tablet documenting your career. Do you customize it every time to show the prospect you have exactly what she wants? Do you include links for your Facebook page, blog, Twitter account and LinkedIn profile? If you do not have a complete profile and recommendations on LinkedIn today, you do NOT exist to prospective employers and recruiters. Do you have a portfolio? Is it online and accessible 24/7?

Be responsive. How long did it take you to return my call or acknowledge my email? Is that how responsive you are to someone trying to give you a job? We are all competing in a global market and there are other candidates who are at least as smart as you, willing to do your job at a fraction of the rate and a lot more eager about getting the job done. Extra points awarded for responding quickly and providing valuable information. Instant disqualification for responding two weeks later with “I’m interested” and expecting someone to be impressed.

Listen more. Typically, your clients aren’t communicators. That’s your role and great communicating starts with great listening which leads to deep understanding which, best case, sets the stage for great thinking. So, listen. Probe with questions. Repeat back what you think you understand. You have two ears and one mouth. Use them proportionately.

“But I’m so experienced.” Your experience might be perceived as a price tag that puts you out of the competition. It can also be a great big “sell by” date indicating you need to be left on the shelf. Your experience might imply you don’t know about the latest, greatest marketing media (see above). Your experience might intimidate someone who graduated college 10 years after you did. And it might create the impression you’re too good for the job and will get bored and split at the first opportunity. Don’t assume it’s a good thing. Focus on results and value.

No whining. Life can be hard. Work can be hard. And a lot of things are unfair. But complaining about it doesn’t change anything except the perception that you can’t hack it. As Jerry Maguire says, “That’s not what inspires people.” People don’t pay a premium for someone who sees only half-empty glasses. Find a solution instead of finding someone to blame.

Think ahead. If you can’t play chess, at least play a good game of checkers and figure out what your client or manager wants next. I don’t know about you, but I get Big Points when I can anticipate what my spouse wants. Your client is the same way. If you earned a good result for the client, did you write it up so all your client has to do is forward it to her management? (And she might not do as good a job as you will.) Think ahead. Just one or two moves.

It’s not about you. There’s a very fine ego balance consultants need to strike with their clients. On the one hand, you are the Star Who Does Great Things. On the other hand, you’re equally attentive to the Little Things: you get the rental car, order the meal that’s just a little bit less expensive and listen with Total Fascination when she’s telling you about her cat (mom, ex, garden, shoes, etc.). You’ll hand your client breath mints and make eye contact to let him know he needs to take the mints. Your entire Reason for Being is to make your client successful and as a service provider you go to great lengths to make that happen. And you will be rewarded and your ego stoked when the client trusts you completely with their career and future.

A handwritten note: the gem of personal marketing. Who writes Thank You notes? People who know that the recipient might just tack it to the wall of her office and look at it every day as a constant reminder you are One Classy Pro. Anyone who refers a job lead or grants you an interview is worthy of personalized multi-media gratitude: email, voicemail, thank you note, Facebook wall post, etc. But when you write it, stamp it and mail it you always leave an infinitely indelible impression.

Keep your promises, keep everyone on track. Take notes. Flag action items. Send the action items to the people involved. Resolve any misunderstandings. Act on the action items. Report on the status of the action items. Reconvene and repeat. Simple? Yes. Effective? Absolutely. Common? Not at all. When was the last time you received timely minutes from a meeting? Or any recap at all from a meeting? Some one ought to be doing this and you have an opportunity to be the hero in this story. You are a communicator. Get it done.

Be interesting. Being an interesting person doesn’t compensate for you being unresponsive, not smart, or having out-of-date skills, but combined with great performance, being interesting makes you The Complete Package. Be involved in your community. Coach soccer. Play an instrument. Dance. Practice yoga. Volunteer. Sky dive. Write a book. Do a triathlon. If you are someone who is admirable, then you increase your chance of being admired.

Dress to impress. You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge the cover by the cover. Are you dressed appropriately and with a sense of style? Are your shoes shined? Are your nails neat? Breath fresh? Glasses clean? Don’t make me be your mother.

Don’t touch the third rail. Politics. Religion. Sex. Do we really need to elaborate?

Pay it forward. Give and you shall receive. Leave an unsolicited Recommendation on LinkedIn. Share your contacts and resources with new colleagues or students. Send small, thoughtful news articles they might enjoy, or send something that made you think of them. Don’t be a stalker, and don’t expect anything in return. It will come back to you, tenfold, over the course of your career. Guaranteed.

Do you feel our pain? Are these tips a no-brainer for you? If so, you’re one of a few rare GEMS (Go-to Expert Marketing Superheroes) and we’d love to know you.

Need help and want us to send over somebody who “gets” it? www.htconnect.com

Adam Vincenzini, the senior communications consultant at Paratus Communications in London, has written a great post about the lessons Don Draper can teach us about social networking.  Here’s a great sample:

You are the product

People don’t buy things, they buy feelings. Feelings come from people. Therefore (drum roll) people must be at the centre of your social media marketing efforts. [more]

It’s a fun post and I learned a couple of things too.  So take a read and let me know what you think.

Over at Web Worker Daily, one of our favorite ways to keep on the cutting edge, has a great post today:  6 Ways to Revive a Dead Social Media Channel.  Take a look at this great tip:

5.  Post consistently and relevantly. Another aspect of gaining back the trust of your connections is to show a commitment to engaging in and updating your channels. Jumping in once every few months appears haphazard and careless. If you don’t show you care, why should anyone else?

Here’s the link to the story.

His post springs from Pizza Hut hiring an intern to manage its social media strategy and this sparks … well … a rant from Goldsborough that hiring an intern to manage social media is tantamount to hiring an intern to manage customer service. Take a quick look:

Would you ever put an entry-level employee in charge of your brand perception, advertising or customer service? That’s what you’re doing when you hire a twintern or someone who’s new to the professional world to manage one or more of your key online consumer touchpoints. Try putting that last sentence in a PowerPoint deck as your strategy and present it to your boss. Then let me know what the reaction was if you still have a job. [entire post]

At High Tech Connect, we’ve seen a dramatic surge in demand for consultants with social media skills and experience and we’ve drawn the conclusion that anyone in marketing MUST be fluent in social media.  But we’re also seeing an economic squeeze that’s driving the work to the millenials who may know how to talk social media but don’t have the more important skills of how to help a company create demand.

We’re watching this topic very closely.  What do you think?

One of the challenges in our ever more connected world is that social media is one, full-on, constant coffee klatch.  The party’s on, whether you’re ready or not. Sign into Facebook and all your friends might know you’re there … and ready to chat.  Sign on to Gmail and Yahoo mail and the same thing happens and the next thing you know, you might be involved in two simultaneous chat sessions as you’re trying to clean out your inbox.  And nothing much good is going on.

One of the blogs I follow, Freelance Switch, had a great article last week about how to use social media and protect your focus all at the same time. Here are some of the lessons to learn:

1. Have a plan
2. Track your time
3. Maintain fueling stations
4. Take breaks
5. Delay reactions

…and here’s a link to the entire post. Do you have a way to manage the social media firehose? I want to know. Pass them on and I’ll share them with everyone here.

For all our fans on Facebook, here’s Facebook in Real Life.

Suddenly, everyone wants to be a consultant. The battle for work heats up again and only the strongest and smartest will survive.

High Tech Connect has a unique vantage point with nationwide clients large and small, agencies and non-profits, new college graduates as well as seasoned industry experts, freelance contractors and newly unemployed perm candidates. We know what it takes to be successful in this challenging market.

Here are a few tips to help you stand out at the top of the candidate pool:

VERSATILE & PROACTIVE: Regardless of your background, the more versatile you are the more valuable you are to clients. You need to be equally strategic and tactical. Clients and employers are still extremely stressed and understaffed. There is little time for formal training or even project direction, so you must be proactive and assertive. Everything you do from the résumé, interview and follow-up needs to assure the client, “I’ll do whatever it takes to make you look great.”

SOCIAL SAVVY: Eighty percent of hiring managers are using LinkedIn to find candidates so if you haven’t yet posted your qualifications and recommendations on LinkedIn, you’re missing opportunities. And every project, from writing to exec comm, now requires some element of social media marketing. If you are still in denial about social media, you will no longer be relevant to today’s employers. High Tech Connect uses a proprietary database, LinkedIn and Facebook to find the right connections for clients because “perfect” candidates are moving targets more than ever before.

RUN A “REAL” BUSINESS: Being an independent consultant requires more than just printed business cards. You are a business owner and the IRS is increasingly auditing people who don’t correctly operate their sole proprietorship. They are also scrutinizing corporate clients for misclassified contractors and leveraging million-dollar penalties. Because of the risks involved with hiring consultants, more clients are requiring sole proprietors to incorporate and carry business liability insurance, or using placement agencies like High Tech Connect who will payroll you.

Finally, while you may be great at marketing a product or service for your employer or clients, you may not feel as comfortable marketing yourself. Take inventory of the tools and techniques in your marketing arsenal and don’t be shy to use them for your personal brand. Call a friend who can give you honest feedback or trade services with another communications colleague whose expertise augments yours.

There’s no time to waste. Projects and jobs are popping up everywhere and you need to be poised for success. Go get ‘em!

Have some of your own tips to share? Leave a comment here and share this post with your colleagues.

Social media at its core, means sharing, participating in a community, and as counter-intuitive as that feels to private citizens, it’s critical for a social media manager or CEO when creating a company’s social brand. Of course, you do need to be careful if you have young children and not disclose sensitive personal information. But professional communicators need to understand the playing field has changed and if they can’t find you or see your contacts and credentials, they assume you have something to hide. Or you simply don’t “get” social media yet.

For example, why would High Tech Connect allow hundreds of clients to have direct access to 1300 carefully selected consultants via our LinkedIn and Facebook pages? It’s the core of our business model, after all! But our business is not just tossing names and résumés based on keyword searches. Clients trust us to sleuth out the perfect ones with exactly the right skills and personality. They don’t have time to screen everyone who claims to be a writer in our Friend list, and they certainly don’t know who might be exaggerating. We do.

So despite our initial reservations, High Tech Connect is now quite open with our connections in social media. We’re certainly more open than our competitors. We are very honest about collaborating with candidates and clients to create a three-way-win. And we use social media to bring us closer to our colleagues: giving career advice, listening to their suggestions, supporting their families and interests, and keeping our friendship alive.

In social media, you first have to give. And the benefit of that goodwill and generosity is priceless from a brand perspective. So if you want to position yourself as a social media expert, you need to unlock your connections. Share your contacts, your ideas, your advice. In return, you will receive unexpected gifts from those who want to help you to succeed.

Win this Cool Flip Camera!

If you haven’t already heard, we are giving away this FREE Flip camera in celebration of our new and improved website!

And as usual, the High Tech Connect crew can’t do anything without adding a sprinkle of color and pizzazz. So here’s a picture of the actual Flip camera design — accompanied with one of our signature “Hair on fire?” bobblehead pens.

Please help us spread the word! Send friends and colleagues to our new website and become a fan on our Home page. Anyone who was previously a High Tech Connect Facebook Fan will automatically be entered in the January 20 drawing as well.

And we’d love to hear your comments about the website. There are still a few tweaks and metatags to add, but overall we’re thrilled with the overhaul. We’re grateful to our friends Steve and Josh at Design2Market, SEO maven Ellen Ferlazzo, Richard at Tri Valley Internet, and our own amazing team for getting it just right.

Ah, don’t we all wish problem-solving was this easy?

If you haven’t embraced the Chat instant message function on Facebook, you are missing a huge opportunity to stay in front of clients, colleagues and friends — and even save days of phone tag or email exchange. This Web 2.0 tool has become a “secret weapon” for our team.

For example, when a new project request comes to High Tech Connect, we mine our database and typically find 2-3 dozen candidates to screen. But if we glance at the people currently online on Facebook, we may see a name that jogs our memory about a skill they have or a colleague they know. Then before looking up 36 phone numbers or crafting 36 coherent emails and waiting for replies, we can simply ping someone via Chat: “You still consulting?” “Ever done PR for a wireless startup?” “Written many pharmaceutical white papers?”

And sometimes we need to ask a quick question to a busy client. Catching them on Facebook at 10:20 pm means they’re still awake and can probably handle a one-line query about interview times or purchase order approvals. But we always follow the rules of the instant messaging road: don’t bug people unless you really need to ask a question, if they don’t respond they are away or busy, and always keep it quick and to the point.

Obviously, chat does not replace live phone calls or detailed emails, but in this economy with overworked clients and under-utilized consultants, the shortest distance to connect them can be right there on our Facebook Chat screen. So, if you see us on Facebook, ping us any time. We’d love to Chat. )