How to Better Your Job Search in 2010: Two big decisions that could help you have your best year ever.
What will your 2010 be like? Will you make more money, attract more ‘A’ clients have have your ideal career? Will you have time to lead a balanced life? How can you make sure that you do?
Many will start a new year with lofty ambitions, but soon find themselves mired in the status quo. They chase after new business and jobs like a dog chasing a car, only to learn that exhaustion is no prerequisite to success. Amid all this effort, what’s missing is a plan.
Start Your Marketing Engine
Everyone needs a growth strategy. Hope is not a strategy. Neither is “hard work.” What I propose is that you dream big and support your dream with a yearlong strategy – a one-year marketing plan – detailing actionable marketing steps you will take to achieve it.
May I suggest some great goals for you? Marketing yourself as a specialist. Marketing your services specifically to your best prospects, instead of the world. Making more money from fewer clients. Promoting your services and “brand” consistently through multiple marketing channels, such as seminars, e-mail, networking, public relations, and client and professional referrals. Take a look at social medias and start making a conscious effort to connect with a new person every day.
When you have a marketing calendar, you have daily, weekly and monthly reminders to promote your brand, which has the effect of focusing you on your best opportunities. You also have a timeline, not simply a wish, for the growth of your business.
Structure the Way You Work
Do you go home content, or worn out? I’ve noticed that top producers have something in common: a well-structured business and career path. They design their practice and career so they can do what they do best: advise existing clients, perform their job capably and/or initiate new client relationships. They have a marketing assistant, if needed, a director of first impressions, friends and family promoting them and maybe a sales associate or two … all so they can have more “face time” and treat clients, co-workers and bosses like gold.
At some point, you can’t be a one-person show anymore. You have to delegate, for the sake of client relationships and your quality of life.
Resolve to Forego Randomness
I urge you to enter 2010 with defined goals, a yearlong marketing plan, and a business setup that allows you to produce and be proactive with your clients. This will help you to grow your business in an orderly way, and give you a linear path to new levels of success.
Other related articles: The Bear Necessities: Thrive in a Tough Market with Strong Marketing Trends in Business Credit Cards for 2010 Make Referral Marketing Your Priority What Will Be New About Your New Year? The Shaft: How Some Companies Prey on the Poor -- Mark Montoya has been working in personal branding for more than a decade for hundreds of online and offline companies, small businesses and individual service professionals. His focus has been toward improving the way jobseekers find employment on the Internet. He has synthesized his expertise by helping job seekers obtain their ideal choice of employment over the Internet on his sites MyOnlineCareerSpace.com andMyOnlineCareerCoach.com, and through his books 101 Tips Every Job Seeker Should Know and The Ultimate Online Job Search eBook. Learn more at MarkMontoya.com, on Twitter, Digg, orStumbleUpon.