Billie Sucher Blog

Are You Doing Business With People You Know, Like and Trust?

In my practice, I never know where the next client will come from. Maybe they’re from across town or maybe they’re from another state, or even country. Yesterday, I got a call from a prospect in the western part of the United States. For business tracking purposes, I inquired as to how he got my name. The caller stated he was originally from Iowa, had moved away years ago and found my business through a Google search. He went on to say: “plus, I have a high-trust level with people in Iowa.” I told him that was good to hear, though I knew of pros who could help him in his own area and shared some names should he wish to connect.

His comment made me think of something said at an Urbandale Chamber meeting several years ago when the president of the group offered:

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust.

I liked our Chamber president's words then and I believe they still hold true today. Listed below are some quotes I found that pertain to these three factors of know, like and trust:

“Many a friendship — long, loyal, and self-sacrificing — rested at first upon no thicker a foundation than a kind word.” — Frederick W. Faber

“Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.” — Og Mandino

“Basically, likeability comes down to creating positive emotional experiences in others. When you make others feel good, they tend to gravitate to you.” – Tim Sanders

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” – William Shakespeare

“Trust, but verify.” – Ronald Reagan

”Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Are you doing business with people you know, like and trust?

The Gardener and Grace

When you go out in public, is it your nature to be nice to people or is it your nature to be somewhat demanding? Are you a little impatient when waiting for the hiring manager at a job interview? Have you ever been rude to a receptionist? Are you friendly to only select people, or are you cordial to just about everyone? Do you see all people or are some people invisible to you?

The other day I was parked in front of an office complex, waiting in my car to go to an appointment. As I sat there, my eye caught a middle-aged man on his hands and knees with a shovel, surrounded by some flowers that appeared to be getting a new home.  The gardener’s scraggly long hair dangled out of his baseball cap and his dirty clothes had holes in them. I noticed people passing him by. I watched to see if anyone acknowledged him, said hello to him, or thanked him for his hard work. No one did – at least during those few minutes I watched.

As I entered the building, I paused long enough to say to the gardener, “That really looks nice what you’re doing.” He looked over at me, beaming a toothless grin and offered “why thanks ma’am -- no one said nothin’ so I wasn’t sure how I was doin’.”  

…”no one said nothin’ so I wasn’t sure how I was doin’.”  

What the gardener expressed was a good reminder to me – a simple nudge that it’s always a good thing to let people know how they are doing. A reminder that maybe someone is waiting to hear a caring sentiment from you. A reminder that maybe someone is waiting to hear a thoughtful word from me. A reminder that all jobs are important. A reminder that you can never be too kind. A reminder that no matter how dashing or how disheveled, maybe a considerate word is just what a person needs to hear. A reminder that someone is always listening and that what you say matters to someone, somewhere, sometime.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. ~ Dalai Lama

 

One of the Chosen Ones: You and Your Resume

If you are a job seeker, pretend for a moment that you are a seasoned hiring manager. Imagine that as a hiring manager you work long hours for less than you believe are worth and that you lack sleep and that you desperately need a vacation. Yet, here you are, your Starbucks in hand getting ready to start another day. Imagine that your mission this day is to find the best pool of candidates for that VP job you posted. You spend the entire morning reviewing resumes, resumes and more resumes from eager job seekers. Your eyes grow weary and tired and blurry…pretty soon, all the resumes become one – a blur of sameness in a sea of competition. Imagine that you believe you have seen just about everything there is to be seen as it relates to resume submissions:

Long resumes.

Long-winded, verbose resumes.

Wordy resumes.

Jam-packed content on resumes.

Three-page resumes.

Misspelled words on resumes.

Font so tiny you cannot read it resumes.

Typos on resumes.

Poor grammar on resumes.

Messy, disorganized resumes.

No contact information on resumes.

No email address on resumes.

No clue what this person wants to do resumes.

Lack of results, achievements or accomplishments resumes.

Endless blocks of information resumes.

Resumes with attachments you did not request.

Two-page cover letters with two-page resumes.

Resumes that in no way convey the candidate’s brand relevance.

And then, just like that, you come across a professional resume that jumps out at you! Makes you put your Starbucks down. Grabs your attention for longer than five or 10 seconds. Keeps you reading to the bottom of the page. Prompts you to hop on your cell to connect with the candidate.

Does your resume standout?

Homework Exercise for You, the Job Seeker:

Take a look at your existing resume document. Carefully review it through the laser-like lens of an experienced hiring manager. What, if anything, can you do to improve your resume and your chances of being one of the chosen ones?

For more career transition and job search tips, follow me on Twitter.

 

Magic Wands and A Crystal Ball: Are You a Job Seeker or Resume Writer?

I love what I do. I love career coaching. I love resume writing. I love outplacement consulting. The other day, one of my clients said to me:

You make resume writing look easy as pie.

Well, I don’t know about pie…as a matter of fact, I really don’t even like pie, especially fruit pie. And I don’t know how to make meringue like my Mom does and my crusts – well, I buy the deep dish pre-made ones for that rhubarb concoction I whip up for my family.  Anyway, back to pie and resume writing.

Something I have noticed more and more by clients is that they are really, really surprised when I cannot whip up their resume for them without their ingredients.  Believe me, I go the extra mile, over-the-top sometimes, most times, but the reality remains for job seekers, in my opinion – no one but you – the job seeker – can deliver the basic ingredients and the requisite data about you to the resume writer. No matter how credentialed, award-winning, stellar, awesome, or creative the resume writer you have engaged, he or she is not a mind reader. They do not know you. They have no crystal ball. They have no wands to wave to voila, magically extract your information to build the perfect resume. Only you know you – hopefully! And I hope you will take (make) the necessary time to let the resume writer you have entrusted to get to know you, too! The more data you give, the better product you will likely get. 

So how about it, job seekers? The next time you engage the services of a professional resume writer, please be realistic and expect the writer to pull the data together in a top-notch fashion once you have provided them with thorough, complete, detailed and accurate information about you and your career, goals, strengths, weaknesses, preferences, vision, target, successes, value, brand, etc.….you get the idea. To provide a resume writer with a job description of what you are currently doing (or have done the last 10 years), coupled with an old, outdated resume from another century gone by is to sell yourself short – way, way short in such a competitive market as we are in today.

Take the time to consider your past and contemplate your future, who you are, where you’ve been, and where you are going. The payoff for you is truly immense! I know this is true, because I have witnessed my clients’ success, time and again, once they understand how building a resume is a serious professional partnership – one not to be taken lightly and one in which they must be an active, willing participant. You are the expert on you – do not entrust a stranger to figure you out without your thoughtful, methodical and deliberate input.

I love to write resumes. Most days, I do a stellar job for my clients – yet that stellar job only happens when my clients truly understand that we are partners, united and together in crafting a first-class, state-of-the art, 21st-century, best-practices resume. Just as you expect the very, very best in the end product from that resume writer, make sure that you deliver the very, very best of you in helping your resume writer with the raw ingredients needed to whip up your outstanding, one-of-a-kind resume that lands you in the hot seat for an interview.  

As a job seeker, to do less, to offer less, or to give less may, can and will result in a whipped up product that doesn’t rise to the top. And you, the 2011 job seeker, deserve only the very best! 

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The Never-ending Cycle of C H A N G E

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies. ~ Author Unknown

The word change is one I hear frequently cited by job seekers. Routinely, I hear:

“I need to make a career change.”

“I want to change jobs, but I’m not sure where to start.”

“I know I need to change, I just don’t know how.”

In doing a Google search of the word change, somehow I stumbled upon a YouTube video of Conan O’Brien’s commencement address to Dartmouth graduates. Upon watching the clip, I wrote these words…

Change

Disappointment

Change

Failure

Change

Clarity

Change

Conviction

Change

Course Corrections

Change

Brand You

Change

Reinvent

Change

Success

Change

Happiness

Change

Perceptions

Change

Ideas

Change

Choices

Change

You

Change

Never-ending

Change...“Word hard, be kind and amazing things will happen. ~ Conan O’Brien

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. ~ C. S. Lewis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, indeed! Job Search is an F Word

I love the remarks clients and callers make that get me to thinking. For example, today's post is a direct result of a caller telling me that a job search is such an F word. Yes indeed! Job Search is an F word, as follows in no particular order of importance...

Focus on relevant strategies and action steps to achieve your desired goal.

Free yourself from thinking thoughts that are negative and not a good use of your time.

Face the fact that you can't go back -- that you can only go forward.

Fear is something that can hold you back or propel you forward.

Frequentlyconnect with fans and followers, both online and offline.

Facts matter when you are looking for a job or looking to buy or build a business.

Flexibility is a gift -- use it to your advantage.

Figure out what you really like about yourself, fix what you really don't like about yourself where possible and then tell yourself, you are good to go.

Features come with assets, liabilities and bottom-line. What are yours in each respective category?

Failure means that you are learning some valuable lessons for life.

Faith means that you won't give up on yourself - and others.

Functional skills are yours to identify and apply.

Fake it 'til you make it.

Frustration can always be found in the dictionary between find and fun.

Flush a bad attitude, bad biz and bad job opportunities.

Force yourself to do at least one job-search related activity each day.

Forgive. Forgiveness is always a good thing.

Fault no one for your current status or plight.

Follow your instincts and trust them.

Forego things that sound like a quick fix or too good to be true.

Fit yourself into a job that feels right.

Figure that things will go right instead of go wrong with your job search.

Filter information as it comes your way.

Finish job search tasks each day.

Fiddle around with your thinking about different ideas, opportunities and options.

First-class effort is what it takes to find a j - o - b today.

Fervently track and pursue professional opportunities and options.

Find what makes you happy and do that.

Future is that indefinite period of what is yet to be.

For more job search and career transition tips, follow me on Twitter.

 

 

 

The Cab Driver and Cleola's Brownies

The young woman in her early 20’s accompanied by her baby boomer mother and grandmother knocked at the home of an elderly lady, a lady she had never met before in her life. The lady came to the door and the young woman said, "I came by to tell you that your son used to be my cab driver. I am sorry he is gone – he was always so nice to me."

You could see the tears growing in the elderly woman’s eyes…."please come in" she signaled. The young woman, mother and grandmother all entered and took a seat in the living room.

"So you knew my son," the woman inquired?

"Yes, I can only drive to my job from March to November – I’m not supposed to drive in the bad weather. I am special needs. That’s why I would take the cab and that’s how I met your son."

"Did you know your son always made sure I got to work on time?"

"Did you know your son was always nice to me?"

"Did you know your son always made me laugh?"

"He sure knew how to talk a lot – and he was really funny."

"And he would always park in the driveway and call me on my cell phone to let me know he was here waiting for me."

Her son, a highly successful sales executive had retired early and for something to do, had started driving a cab to ‘pass some time.’ Turns out, she said to the young woman, he told me it was "the best job he ever had." The elderly woman spoke lovingly about "her boy" she had lost in the Fall of 2010.  

"You know what he loved?" said the elderly woman to the young one -- he loved brownies! "in fact, this week-end, I will be baking some nine dozen of them to share with the guys he used to play football with and some of his fraternity brothers who are coming in to town this week-end for a golf tournament. Nine dozen. Going to be baking them tomorrow."

The baby boomer mother of the young woman wondered aloud "Is this a secret recipe or something you can pass along?" Together, they all went to the kitchen and line by line, the recipe was dictated and re-recorded on a new index card:

Cleola’s Brownies - Makes: Best  (be sure to say the Makes Best part!)

350 degrees – 20-25 minutes (though Cleola only bakes them about 18 mnts. usually)

~ Combine 2 C. sugar + ½ C. cocoa

~ Add 1 ¼ C. oil

~ Beat by hand – one at a time: 5 eggs (be sure to do this part just like it says)

~ Add: 1 ½ C. flour

~ Add 1 tsp. salt

~ Add 1 tsp. vanilla

~ Nuts: optional

Put in jelly roll pan. "Now the funny thing about this recipe is that there's no soda -- no soda! I think it must be the eggs that makes them the best....yes, it must be the eggs"....

Armed with one new recipe and one new friend, the young woman collected a hug from the Cab Driver's Mother and then announced it was time to go. Maybe she and her mother will whip up some of Cleola’s Brownies tomorrow, too.

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Yet To Be Determined

In my work, I meet so many wonderful people. Some clients I’ve known and had ongoing business relationships with since 1985. Some of my clients have become very close friends. Some of my clients have passed away and left a permanent dent in my heart and in my life. A few of my clients I have written poems for and recited them at their memorial service. 

As a career management professional, I get to be a part of so many interesting career-related things – and sometimes those things make me step up, stretch and grow and get out of the safety of my comfort zone. You know, think about things you’d rather not think about. Or talk about things you’d rather not talk about. But you do, anyway.

Take, for example, one of my long-standing clients -- we’ll name him ‘Jeb’. Jeb has made a coaching appointment with me like clockwork every 4 – 8 weeks since the late 1990’s. He always has a goal he wishes to work on. He is always prepared. He always has a purpose for his visit. Throughout the duration of our business relationship, he has been gainfully employed, yet always invests in himself regarding some career-related matter worthy of his attention.

Our most recent work together is that of writing his eulogy. Previously, in 2010, we wrote his mother’s eulogy in preparation for that day down the road when it will be needed. This is the poem he’ll read when that day arrives to celebrate his mother’s life.

Eulogy, huh? Yes, you read it correctly – eulogy. My client is very much alive, in excellent health and has chosen to get the writing underway for his ‘final story’. In the calm and quiet of my office he ‘thinks out loud’ and I record and ‘fix’ (his word) his thoughts that will be used one day…yet to be determined.

Several years ago, I discovered one of my favorite career books – In Transition from the Harvard Business School Club of New York’s Career Management Seminar. And guess what I stumbled upon in Chapter 5, page 43 of said book?

Your Best-Case Eulogy Exercise

The thing about writing your eulogy while you are living is that it affords you a chance to consider (or reconsider) how you wish to live your present and future.  While there’s no delete button or strikethrough on what’s already happened in your past, (um, I don’t think there’s an app or upgrade for that?) you can indeed rewrite, reshape and rework your future if you choose.  For instance,

Where you were born: Established fact. Can’t change it.

When you were born: Established fact. Can’t change it.

The person(s) who raised you: Established fact. Can’t change it.

The place(s) you grew up. Established fact. Can’t change it.

The schools you attended during your ‘growing up’ years, 5 – 18. Established fact. Can’t change it.

Where you’ve been, what you’ve done to date…done deal; can’t change it.

And then along comes now – the present – maybe you’re at the age of  19, or 28, or 34, 43, 52, 64, 75, 88…how will your present and future life story go? Where are you headed?

Your now: change is possible if you choose…

Your future: change is possible if you choose…

Your final story: waiting for you to you to fill-in-the-blanks…

Homework questions to ponder:

What, if anything, do you know you need to be doing right now that you’re not?

Who or what needs your attention this day, this moment, this hour?

What have you been putting off for another day?

What’s one career step worthy of taking immediately?

What is one slight change you can make for the better?

What do you hope someone will be reading about you one day?

What do you want people to hear when the time comes to celebrate your life?

What, if anything, would you like to change between now and then….a date yet to be determined.

How would you like to be remembered?

Meanwhile, Jeb and I have a good start on his eulogy…the first three paragraphs are written in rough-draft format awaiting his review and approval when we get together next time…

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A Man, A Dog and Your Job Hunt

Sitting on the patio of a coffee shop in Chicago, a customer seated at a nearby table looked over and said “Do you wonder why someone would leave their dog tied up right in front of the door?”

I turned to look at the beautiful, large and ferocious-looking canine waiting for his master to return. And yes, he was perched right in front of the busy shop’s door. The dog had a demeanor that said “don’t mess with me unless you are my owner; grrrrrrr.”

The man at the table then proceeded to share how he’d grown up in an aggressive home and that he had worked really hard through the years to change and be less of this trait. Between the man’s comment and the dog’s appearance, I decided to look up the word:

A – g – g – r – e – s – s – i – v – e.

According to Merriam-Webster online, here are a few definitions:

~ tending toward or exhibiting aggression <aggressive behavior> b : marked by combative readiness

~ marked by obtrusive energy b : marked by driving forceful energy or initiative : enterprising

~ strong or emphatic in effect or intent  

A few years ago at a national career conference, one of the presenters talked about the word ‘aggressive’ and how it gets a bad rap in the job search realm. His position seemed to be that being aggressive was a key ingredient to a successful job search. In providing career services to many sales professionals, I have listened to them speak about being ‘appropriately aggressive’ in pursuing new business.

As it relates to you and your job search, do you think you are more of 1, 2, or 3:

1. Aggressive
2. Appropriately Aggressive
3. Unaggressive

Are you like the beautiful, ferocious-looking dog waiting for an employer to post something so you can pounce on it, or not? How would you describe your level of aggressiveness toward the job search game? What comes to mind when you hear the word aggressive associated with your job hunt?

 

Your Résumé: Design-Build or Template Brand?

Listening to the radio while driving to an appointment this morning, on came an advertisement that featured the design-build offerings of a landscaping firm. Design-build. My mind immediately shifted to clients and the notion of a design-build résumé. While templates are used by some job seekers, others prefer a more unique, one-of-a-kind design-build résumé experience.

If you are putting together a professional résumé, ask yourself these two simple questions before you begin the process:

1. Am I a template brand?

or

1. Am I a design-build brand?

While the ‘right’ answer rests with you, your choices, and your preferences, if you happen to say ‘yes’ to question number two, then read on about the meaning of a design-build résumé:

Distinct

Essential

Story

Increasing your chances to

Get

Noticed

-

Branding yourself as a

Unique

Individual

Listened to, looked at, liked by

Decision-makers

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