Shift Over: Making a Successful Career Change

So, you’re thinking of making a big career change, maybe starting your own business, but not sure what you want to do? As you’ve probably already discovered, choosing a new path isn’t as easy as you might think. Without some careful planning you could find yourself mulling over career changes every few years without ever landing on something that leaves you feeling satisfied.

For this article, let’s assume that you want to become an entrepreneur or business owner, and not an employee.

When business owners are looking to get new business their first thought is “I need to get clients.” Makes sense. Clients = business. But beyond that initial thought, how much real planning goes into seriously drilling down into who those clients are, how to reach them, and then how to get and keep their business?

If you sell shampoo, then it’s easy to know that shampoo buyers are generally going to look for your product in pharmacies and supermarkets. Speaking to the owners or managers of those stores is a good first step to getting your product on their shelves. Supply and distribution of your product unfolds from there.

But what if you’re selling a service and not a product? Many times there isn’t a store that people can walk into to buy a service, so knowing where you need to go to get new business isn’t always straightforward. This is why analyzing both yourself and your customer base, and having a plan to reach them is critical to your business’ success.

Who Wants Your Service?

By the time you reach the stage where you’re looking for clients, you’ve obviously been through the initial process of determining what service you’re selling, so let’s jump to who is buying it. (As an aside, this information is also helpful for those selling a product).

David Spector who works for Google’s measurement and analytics services says, “Companies need to be laser-focused on their customers and the customers’ challenges, always making sure to answer the question,

‘How can what I have help you succeed?’

With that in mind, each service that is sold needs to be tailored to a particular customer. For example, if life coaching is your service, consider what area or niche is of particular interest to you? If you’re not particularly spiritual, it’s going to be difficult to identify with and coach someone on challenges around spirituality. Same thing if you are coaching on family dynamics as a single person with no children.

Having, and knowing your niche will make your marketing a lot easier. There is nothing fulfilling in working many hours each day on something that doesn’t personally interest you. Even if you are an ‘expert’ in a particular area based on past work experience, it doesn’t necessarily mean that going into going to work each day will excite you. And after all, you’re shifting careers because you want to be excited, right?

In developing your niche, consider what you’d like to spend your day doing even if you couldn’t get paid for it. In the wise words of Confucius, “Choose a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

Know Yourself, Your Business and Your Clients

As you establish your business, you’ll need to ask yourself a lot of thought-provoking questions and be very honest about your answers. You won’t be doing yourself any favours if you’re not honest in your introspection.

Envision your ideal business model and client.

Take a good amount of time to write down an exact description of your business, including all the services or products you’ll provide, the market you will serve, your value proposition, the benefits your services will bring to your potential clients, your unique selling feature, and what else you believe makes you different from your competition.

Contemplate too, how much time you want to spend working in your business. Maybe it makes sense to work part-time with a regular base of clients and part-time in a job for extra money or personal interest. All this should factor in to your ideal business model.

Consider also:

• Whether you have the skills to provide exceptional service to your clients, and/or is additional training going to be necessary to get you there?
• How much money will you need to get your business started?
• How much money will you need to be profitable? This will depend on the number of clients you have, how often you service them, your rates, minus the cost to market and support yourself and your business.
• How much time are you willing to spend on getting business, and working your business?
• What does success look like to you?
• How long do you want to be in your business and what are your short, medium and long term goals for the business?
• Where is your competition? Does it make sense for you to be in the same location as they are?
• What are your competitors doing/offering that you like and don’t like?
• Could you be successful using the model that the competition is using?
• What information can you obtain from a competitor on their rates and business model?
• Could one of your competitors be a potential mentor for you?
• Are there other mentors who might be available to advise you on establishing your business?
• What past work experience and contacts can you draw upon to help you get to where you’d really like to be?

Creating and Using a Business Development Plan

So, you’re about to do something drastic and change careers. That is a really big, and potentially rewarding move. Obviously, if you’re going to make such big move you want your new gig to work out. So, what’s the next step?

Make a plan!

A business development plan is different from a business plan, but both are critical to knowing how to best serve yourself and your clients. Without them, you might as well be throwing a large axe at a small target while blindfolded.

(Just so we’re clear, not a lot of people could hit that.)

A business plan focuses on establishing and operating your business by outlining your company’s financial goals and timelines for short and long term growth (quarterly, yearly, multi-year), including employees, products or services, and locations. It’s an important and necessary document and you should create one even if you’re going to be the only one who works for you.

Alternatively, a business development (BD) plan clearly spells out what you’re going to do to get and keep clients. It specifically lays out, on an individual basis, what actions are required to achieve daily, weekly, and quarterly marketing and sales goals.

Obviously, it’s equally important to have a BD plan to ensure your company’s success, but what isn’t always clear is where to start or how specific you must be. Writing “Get 10 new clients this quarter” on your plan will definitely not get you there. Your BD plan must be specific:

“Contact Chamber of Commerce by December 31 to see about establishing a 2017 guest-speaker series on sole proprietorships.” is more along the lines of what you must write on the plan.

In order for business development plans (this goes for business plans, too!) to be truly effective it has to meet certain criteria:

1.   It has to contain achievable, realistic goals;

2.   It has to be short and concise (do not have more than 10 goals per quarter);

3.   It has to allow for flexibility and growth; and

4.   It has to have measurable timelines and results.

Your success also depends on how often you populate and adhere to the plan. If you fill in the fields on the plan one day and don’t look at it for a month, it won’t do you much good.

You must get in the habit of referring to your plan every day, and strive to address all or part of a goal each day. Cross something off your list daily. This creates the momentum that you need to know you are working toward your goals. You can see what you’ve already done and remind yourself that you are working toward a larger goal. Your success!

Most of us can’t work in a vacuum and we require accountability to keep us focused on our goals. It’s just the way that the majority of us are built. If we weren’t this way the world would be chock-full of Warren Buffets, Elon Tusks, and Richard Bransons. But we are more like others than we are not, and sometimes it takes more than dedication, and a clear path. Sometimes it takes accountability to get us where we want to be.

For those of us that need it, I suggest that you share your plan with someone else, and let them follow up with you on a regular basis to check progress. When others hold us accountable, we are often more motivated to hit those goals.

Final Points to Consider

Know Yourself and Your Competition. You should be able to clearly explain your services in under 30 seconds (this is called your “elevator speech”). You should also be able to succinctly describe the difference between yourself and your competition if you’re ever asked.

Know Your Prospect. What are their needs and how does your service help them? This will help you identify a potential client when you meet them.

Customers Are Everywhere. Dressing for success is very important, so is having confidence in yourself and the service you offer. No matter if you’re at the grocery store, the dentist, or out for a jog, you should look tidy and clean, and your confidence should be pleasant and not overwhelming. Leave the prospect feeling glad that they spoke with you. It will make them more willing to answer the phone when you call to follow up.

Satisfaction guaranteed? Selling services requires satisfying clients more than other business models. Consider a satisfaction guaranteed policy after your initial consultation with the client. Assuming they want to continue working with you, use that time to ask your client if they’d be willing to give you an endorsement or referral. When you’ve made a customer happy, their willing endorsement of your service is critical for word-of-mouth business. Keep a list of all your satisfied clients, in case you’re asked for references.

Be flexible. Not everyone buys a product or a service in exactly the same way. When you are flexible with timing, delivery, pricing structures and payment methods, you open your business to more people than you would if you offered only one fixed plan. But remember, being flexible for your clients must also work for you, otherwise you won’t enjoy building your business and it will take its toll on you.

Time is money. If you’re selling products, the passive income from the sale of that product comes once it is sold. Service providers sell their time – usually based on appointments, and at some form of hourly rate scale. No appointment means no income. If an hour passes unbilled, it’s lost income, never to be recouped. Have a reasonable cancellation policy in place to help minimize money lost by missed appointments, and ensure your clients know the policy upfront.

Don’t be afraid to fail. Remember that your service is not for everyone so don’t take it personally if you are initially turned down. It can take a long time to incubate a relationship with a prospect. Everyone who has ever achieved successful has first faced failure and disappointment.

And finally, get feedback. Don’t be afraid to ask your clients how you’re doing and what you could do better or differently to make a happier relationship. Keep an open mind and be willing to listen to both praise and criticism. How else will you be able to grow unless you listen and learn? Remember to follow suggestions you receive from the feedback. As a client, nothing is worse than feeling like the feedback you gave has been ignored..

We can all use a helping hand and a different perspective. I work with individuals and businesses to help them identify and achieve next-level success through measurable goal setting and accountability.

When you’re ready to discuss shifting your career, get in touch for a complimentary consultation and find out how developing a plan and working with a coach can help you focus and reach success faster.

For a sample business development plan that you can populate with your own goals and actions, visit the Useful Stuff section on my website.

 

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“The Thinks You Can Think”, or Why Your Team Needs to Brainstorm

“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh the thinks you can think up if only you try.” – Dr. Seuss

Brainstorming is the act of having an open forum for a group of people to freely discuss a particular topic. The idea being that open discussion promotes creative problem solving and identifies opportunities better than traditional meetings where one person leads the discussion.

Non-judgmental brainstorm sessions with your team work wonders for advancing creative thoughts, even for people who always seem to think creatively. By non-judgmental, I mean both criticism and championing is not permitted.

Regular brainstorm sessions can:

• Improve your team’s communications skills and ability to work together.
• Discover and expedite solutions for areas in need of improvement.
• Allow team members to feel like valued contributors to the company’s success and not just along for the ride.
• Allow for an enhanced client service experience (if the client is involved).

Tips for successful brainstorming:

• Schedule regular sessions, at a intervals that work for you – weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, and make sure you and your team keep the appointments. A brainstorming program needs to have regular participants to build confidence, trust and momentum.
• Ensure that each participant understands and agrees to the rules at the outset.
• Accept all suggestions without judgment. Brainstorm sessions benefit most from critical thinking and that won’t happen if people feel like they can’t be heard and accepted.
• Keep to your schedule. If you schedule one hour to brainstorm, respect the time of each participant. It is important that the session not feel like an inconvenience to participants, but a welcome break from their regular work.
• Keep to your agenda. Focus on one or two issues in each brainstorm session. This allows you to take a reasonable amount of time to drill down to a creative solution.
• Consider bringing in a trusted ‘outsider’ to each session. This may be someone from another team, or even a client. Whoever it is, it should be someone who will participate (but not dominate the session) and offers a different point of view than your team.
• Rotate your brainstorm leader for each session. This helps team members develop confidence, leadership skills and engagement.
• When a suggestion is brought forward that the group wants to pursue, before implementing it can be a good take-away exercise to ask each team member to develop a related list of pros and cons for discussion at a future brainstorming session. This can help work through any potential kinks in the plan.

If you’re interested in developing regular a brainstorming program and want help setting it up, I can help. Email me at jen@jenfritz.com to discuss how.

The Winter (Spring, Summer and Fall) of our Discontent

I just read a Gallup statistic that an incredible 70% of US workers are disengaged from their jobs. Seventy percent!

That is a huge number of people who do their jobs day in and day out without putting any heart behind their actions. And it begs the question, how do companies survive when more than two-thirds of their workforce could care less about its future, its clients’ needs, or even their own futures?

As a manager, business development professional, and coach who has spent the last couple of decades trying to engage professionals to be more than an office zombie, it immediately makes me wonder how I would go about diverting a boat heading straight to a waterfall when most of its crew are rowing in different directions, or just not rowing at all. What a position to be in!

Comedian George Carlin once quipped: “Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.”, and this is a sad reality for many people. I know from personal experience that what tends to happen in companies where the vast number of employees are disengaged, is the engaged workers end up being the ones assigned all the urgent and important tasks. Some employees can thrive in such an environment because being the ‘saviour’ gives them a sense of purpose, but eventually a cycle emerges:

Companies invest a huge percentage of their bottom line in training and employing staff. When an employee leaves, so too does that investment. The more senior the role, the more it will cost to replace them. It is an expensive process to bring someone new on board and have them reach the level of competency that the previous employee held. Even for a role once occupied by a Disengaged Employee. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes letting such an employee go is a necessary amputation, but it needs to be a thoughtful and introspective exercise. The worst thing a company can do is dump the hiring process on their HR department without anything more than a job description, leading the company to repeat the cycle with a new person.

Before a replacement comes on, management must consider what went wrong in the relationship – including where they failed the employee – and commit to making changes that will result in prolonged employee engagement at all staff levels.

So, where do companies often fail their people?  As the chart indicates, employees who are rewarded (either through compensation, feedback, growth, and other perks), will feel like valued members of the company, and continue to feel fulfilled. Though it does happen, it is rare for an employee who loves their job to leave it.

Take a look at this terrific Employee Engagement Tips list from Dale Carnegie Training for ideas on keeping people happy. Implementing even a dozen of these can work wonders for staff morale.

The worst thing a company/its managers can do for employee morale is ignore their people. The productive employee that asks their manager for a conversation about their future, and expresses a  desire to do more at the company is the employee that should be nurtured. They are the Engaged Employees – one of the 30% who want to succeed along with your company! Even if the company cannot at that time give the employee what they want, the honest conversation needs to be had. Efforts need to be made at the management level to keep that person engaged, or help them grow in other ways. But be aware that putting off your Engaged Employee for a prolonged period will result in a Disengaged Employee and once that happens, it will be even more difficult to bring them back over to the Engaged side.

If there will never be an opportunity for that Engaged Employee to experience growth within your company (because sometimes there really isn’t anywhere for them to grow), it is better for everyone involved to let them know that sooner than later.

Don’t begrudge them for wanting to be more. Acknowledge that not all your people were meant to stay with you, and willingly give them the freedom to move on.

And employees, don’t begrudge your employers for not being able to give you everything you want. Sometimes you need to move out in order to move forward.

That’s just the way life is.

 

What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us Stronger, or Does It?

For many people around the world September 1 is the reminder that a new school year is almost upon us. With that comes the morning scramble to get kids out the door fully-prepped with lunches, school supplies and matching shoes.

My shoulders still tense at the memory of those busy mornings when my stepson was little and we juggled bathroom time, clean clothes, safe school snacks and a good breakfast before heading out to school and work. I wasn’t fully aware of it at the time but I began most mornings with a tension throughout my body that caused me to take short, shallow breaths and created a crease between my eyebrows that no amount of wrinkle cream can erase. My commute and work day were continuations of my stressful morning and day after day I couldn’t seem to get out from under this overwhelming pressure. Like most people, I was living with stress.

Eventually, the stress became too much for my body to handle and it lashed out. I lost a lot of weight, and hair, couldn’t sleep through the night or focus at work, developed IBS-type symptoms. All indicators of a body living with stress.

Anyone who’s seen the public service announcements knows that Stress Kills.

So, as we head into a new school year, or new work season, it is imperative for our mental and physical well-being that we learn to manage our stress. I don’t know anyone who leads a completely stress-free life, but there are definitely ways to minimize its effects on our body. Here are a couple of discrete things you can do throughout the day while sitting at your desk.

Breathe. As deeply as your lungs will let you. Do this right now three or four times.

Drop your shoulders. Pull them down toward the ground and rotate them in circles a few times, clockwise then counter clockwise. Women especially tend to carry most of their tension across the top of their shoulders, as if we are carrying the whole world. We’re not. So just let that weight slide off the edge of your shoulders.

Bend. If you prefer to do your exercises with some privacy find a quiet spot and add to the above by bending forward at the waist and hanging with the weight of your arms pulling you down toward the ground. Don’t bounce. Hang there for a count of 30. Slowly roll yourself up into standing position and with a slight, slow twisting motion continue to stretch your back muscles by swinging your arms in front and behind you gradually increasing the twist. Continue to take deep breaths while you exercise.

If you’re concerned about attempting any of these activities, speak to your doctor first, and do not attempt if you already have a bad back.

If you find yourself forgetting to take breaks throughout the day to do these activities, try setting a reminder on your computer or phone that goes off every couple of hours.

These are obviously physical activities you should do to alleviate stress in your body, but there are more important techniques that will take a great amount of courage and confidence to implement. You must learn to actually decrease or eliminate the things in your life that cause you stress. Two critical ones that many of us find difficult to do are:

Saying no. Chances are you take on a lot of things at home and work that you don’t need to. It’s natural for us to want to be able to do it all for everyone, but it is unrealistic. Do you really need to attend every single office meeting, or show the new person around? Do you really need to bake a batch of cookies for the entire class, or take five other kids to soccer practice?  You really don’t. So just say no, firmly but graciously, when you find yourself faced with these types of nice-to-do, but unnecessary requests. Just say no.

Delegating. Just like saying no, delegating can free up your time and sanity. We do not need to do it all and if we want people to ever be self-sufficient (and we do want people to be self-sufficient) then we need to delegate to others. Your co-worker is capable of learning to maintain that tricky metrics spreadsheet and researching company intelligence. Your six-year-old can gather their dirty laundry and lunch items, put dishes in the dishwasher, and feed the dog. It will take a few gentle reminders, without you taking over and doing it yourself, but many of your regular tasks can and should be delegated.

I know these sound counter-intuitive for time-stretched individuals, but other habits you can build to minimize stress include:

• Getting enough sleep every night. Do not watch TV or poke around on your laptop or phone for at least 45 minutes before hitting the sack.
• Reducing caffeine, alcohol and cigarettes.
• Eating well-balanced meals.
• Walking your dog. I mean really walking your dog. It will benefit the both of you.
• Exercising or meditating regularly.
• Establishing a past-time just for you such as reading, writing, doing crafts, learning a language or instrument, or taking up a sport (and not feeling guilty about it!)

Remember that stress can build in our children just as easily as it builds in us. Look for signs of stress in them and teach them to manage or eliminate it. Don’t overload their schedules or try to manage every hour of their day. Just like adults, kids need their own guilt-free down-time to be creative, play, or even help out around the house in an unpressured environment.

As always, I am available to work with you to help build healthy habits. To find out how, email me at jen@jenfritz.com for a complimentary consultation.

When you find yourself feeling overwhelmed again take a good, deep breath. Then follow it up with another.

Mission: Recognition

When many companies were starting out or beginning a new phase in their growth strategy they wrote something called a “Mission Statement” which was aimed at inspiring management and staff to be the company they always wanted to be. It was likely posted on the company website or in the staff kitchen to remind people about the company’s aspirations, culture and ethics.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, over the years that Mission Statement blended into other noise on the kitchen bulletin board or was buried in an unread “About Us” section of the website.

It’s a safe bet that the majority of people in the company don’t even know
there is a Mission Statement.

Well, if you’re serious about the growth your business – with both clients and staff – it may be the perfect time to dust off the old Mission Statement and take a good hard look at whether it still describes the company you want.

Chances are it needs updating, maybe a little or a lot, and chances are you’re not exactly sure what the updated version needs to say. To be clear, updating your Mission Statement is not a quick and easy process – or at least it shouldn’t be. It is perhaps one of the most important documents you will create for your company. A good amount of analysis needs to go into the task to be sure that the final product is short (less than one page!), unambiguous, and inspirational.

A great Mission Statement should define how a company betters the lives of its clients, its staff, its owners – and its community. At the end of the day, that new Mission Statement will need to be able to concisely state for everyone: “This is why we’re here.”

What your Mission Statement should not be is a string of inspirational words that say nothing, as illustrated in this Dilbert comic:

Image: DILBERT © Scott Adams. All rights reserved.

In preparation for overhauling your Mission Statement or writing one for the first time start by asking your staff, senior executives, and even your clients what they believe your company means to them.

I’m not going to give you an example of a ‘good’ Mission Statement because that would set you up with someone else’s idea of what it should say. Instead, take a look at this a helpful article from Entrepreneur.com that outlines the process of analyzing and writing a Mission Statement. It will get you on the right track to think of a Mission Statement that defines you.

Remember to proudly display your completed Mission Statement throughout your company, refer to it at every Town Hall and board meeting, post a link to it on your website and include it at the bottom of every email, send a copy to your clients and to everyone who helped you get to the final product.

Keep it alive, and it will keep your company alive!

And just in case you’re wondering, individuals (especially entrepreneurs) can and should have their own mission statement. What would yours’ say about you?

I understand that writing a new Mission Statement can be a daunting process, so if you find that you’d like some help getting things started, my company is available to work with you to interview, compile research and create a Mission Statement that will rock. You can reach me at Jen@JenFritz.com for more information.

What Makes a Habit, a Habit?

First, let’s define what I mean by ‘habit’. I consider it a pattern or behaviour  that occurs without forethought. Some we consider ‘good’ and some are ‘bad’, but for the most part we don’t know we’re doing them until it has already happened.

When we want to change a habit, we need to first become conscious of what it is that we’re doing, and then stopping ourselves as we’re doing it.

As a kid, I was a nail-biter and worked hard at getting rid of that nasty habit by using terrible tasting polish that I would paint on my nails. Though it made me aware when my fingers were in my mouth, the polish wasn’t what caused me to stop biting my nails, it was me consciously thinking about what I was doing as I was doing it and forcing myself to stop and change my behaviour. It took some time, but it worked for me and has stuck for decades (I’m not saying how many…). Over the years, I have applied the same ‘training’ to other behaviours that I wanted to change, and most have also remained with me.  I have to rework the ones (like exercising more) on a semi-regular basis.

You’ve probably already read Stephen Covey’s popular best-selling book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“. It is a thought-provoking look at what we humans do, regardless of geography or background, that can be altered to make us effect positive personal change. I first read this book in the early 90s and just recently re-read it. And you know what? All of the principles still apply, and it’s stuff we already know.

All this is a rambling lead in to get you thinking about what it is that you are currently doing that you would like to change — in any part of your life.

From the 7-Habits book, I have recreated this chart to help visualize what  it takes to turn an unconscious habit into a conscious one. We want a new habit, but first we have to be aware of the old one, have a desire to change, and the skills to do so. It’s very simple, but very powerful.

Assuming, of course, that you WANT a change for yourself, I recommend writing down some of the habits you have that aren’t working for you — become conscious of what it is that you’re doing.

Next, visualize not having that habit and/or replacing it with a habit that you want. Then, think of two actions that you can do to stop yourself from the original habit when you notice yourself doing it, and apply your ‘new’ habit.

Rinse and repeat. The change won’t happen overnight, just like your original habit didn’t. Don’t be discouraged, just keep at it.

While we’re on the subject, I also suggest re-reading Steven Covey’s book with your particular habits in mind. It will offer a new perspective on an old topic.

Happy summer reading!

What it Takes to Lead

Over the course of our lives many of us will encounter people that we consider natural leaders. People who behave in a way that make others want to succeed. If we’re lucky enough to call one of these people ‘boss’ for even a short period of time, we will have hit the career jackpot.

What is it that these leaders are doing that make others want to step up?

They consistently do things that others don’t — they lead by example. Their ability to bring out the best in people around them can seem effortless, but it is work. You will never hear a leader say ‘that’s not my job’. Leaders roll up their sleeves without concern for hierarchy. They are knowledgeable, curious and empathetic, but also serious and committed to what they believe in, and that includes the people they work with.

When working with leaders, we often don’t know that we’re giving more than our usual until we find ourselves doing things to better our own game. Call it competition or a desire to impress, whatever it is, it works. When you think about it, that’s a pretty great way to get more out of people. It sure beats demanding and berating in an attempt to get increased performance.

We may not all be leaders by instinct and Dale Carnegie recognized that people can learn and apply the most important leadership skills in order to be successful. From his book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, I have recreated his Leadership Principles, below:

“A leader’s job often includes changing your people’s attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:

Principle 1: Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

Principle 2: Call attention to other people’s mistakes indirectly.

Principle 3: Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.

Principle 4: Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

Principle 5: Let the other person save face.

Principle 6: Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be ‘hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise’.

Principle 7: Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

Principle 8: Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.

Principle 9: Make the other person happy about doing the thing that you suggest.”

And my own additional Principle: Remember that you are dealing with people and that every one of us has made and will continue to make mistakes.  It’s how we act when we make them that demonstrates our true leadership skills.