Thursday, November 15, 2012

Rainmaker 16 - LinkedIn: Your Personal Publicist


Do you show up at your best for other 175 million LinkedIn members?

Many posts have been written about developing your profile and contact information for the 'yellow pages' of the professional community – the top part of your LinkedIn page. While this is important and you must build a strong profile and history, it is like filling in the entries for your school year book when compared to your visibility and growing legend by participating in the groups.


To showcase your knowledge and experience by starting discussions and writing comments on other posts – when you continue the conversations and add depth, you get more visibility. Blogging is more demanding than a discussion and commenting – but each is a positive addition to your legend. Be positive when commenting and show your knowledge and mastery.


Here’s how:

Be serious – Start a discussion and comment often and consistently – start a discussion once a week and comment on 2 posts per day
Stick to the topic posted – focus your comments on the topic, add to the body of knowledge
Want to change topics – write a post – don’t derail – create your own; comment on comments your posts receive – no arguments, only write positive points
Read an interesting post?- repost it in your group but add value by offering your comments about why you.

Chose LinkedIn groups with topics of interest to you professionally and on which you can contribute to the existing body of knowledge.
You can leverage you visibility in the professional community by using the LinkedIn groups, discussions, and commenting.


Definition: A Rainmaker creates a significant amount of new business for a company. The Sales Lab Rainmaker Series is one rainmaker technique for technologists during the first 300 seconds (five minutes) of the monthly Capital Technology Management Hub Meeting.



Here's the growing collection:


Rainmaker 15 – Make The Most Of Your Choices
Rainmaker 14 –The Myth of Full Capacity
Rainmaker 7 - Mark Your Territory
Rainmaker 6 - Networking IS Business
Rainmaker 5 - Start With an Offer
Rainmaker 4 - Time, Talent, and Treasure
Rainmaker 2 - The Name Tag
Rainmaker 1 - Gifts
And The First Rainmakers (11/3/10)
Go to: http://bit.ly/TheRainmakers

October 9th is the next Capital Technology Management Hub meeting featuring this Sales Lab's Rainmaker 16 LinkedIn – Your Personal Publicist - 300 seconds of pure profit. The main speaker will be Philip H. Smith III of Voltage Security, Inc., presenting The Payments Ecosystem Security Challenges in the 21st Century.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Advice – It's Amazing What Is Heard



Periodically individuals have asked for advice about personal career situations – more so in recent years as folks transition to new roles and organizations, or the search for them.

They start with a description of the circumstances and talk about their concerns.

As I am conjuring up any wisdom I have on the topic, I couch my comments in terms of what I'd do in similar circumstances, and then share the details.

In some cases, the listener's response is a 'Yeah-But' objection before really considering the approach – here's why that won't work for me. After a few of these responses, it seems clear that suggestions for a solution is not the intended goal of this conversation.

When wrapping up the talk, I say this is my view of how I would address the issue, but the listener would be wise to get another view or two and consider the ideas offered in terms of what is best for you.

Recently, I ran into someone who had asked for my advice when in transition – he has landed and is quite happy in the new position. He said that my advice served him well in successfully landing a new position with exciting challenges and significant opportunity.

To learn from his feedback, I asked what was the best thing he took from our earlier discussion, fully expecting that some aspect of my approach to the issue was the key.

His response: you said get others opinions and consider the information in terms of what is best for me.

The comment brings into sharp focus that we have control over what we say and the points we make – but the listener determines what they hear, interpret, and retain.

It's amazing what is heard.

What are you taking away from my story?