Archive for Women On Business
What are you worth? The cost of branding you.
Posted by: | Comments“The cost of doing business” speaks for itself. You have to put money out to make money; feed the investment so that it grows becoming lucrative and prosperous. A fundamental basic that business leaders process regularly, right? Absolutely!
Why then do many business professionals treat themselves and their own career marketing tools with substandard expectations? As a career strategist and resume writer, pricing of services is one of the top #3 questions asked of clients. Certainly understandable and always welcome!
If you are willing to spend money on high end clothing, hair salon upkeep or high end handbags, perhaps you may want to redistribute where you are investing your hard earned dollars. Are you buying into someone else’s brand or are you taking care of your own?
While most professionals realize the time, complexity and strategic writing that goes into developing a solid and effective marketing tool, there are always a few folks who see their resumes as a typeset piece of paper tracking the basics of their work history asking, “Why does it cost so much”?
Top 5 Reasons Professionally Written Resumes Cost Money
You are paying for a customized marketing tool reflecting your most important commodity…YOU. Customized, one-on-one marketing takes time and a specialized set of skills from a writer who has the ability to dig deep into extracting your key skills and accomplishments.
- A behavioral based trained professional writer has a unique skill set in individualizing and interpreting your core competencies in writing. This takes credentialed training and years of practice which is more than just being a technical writer.
- Strategic writing and appropriately targeting a clients goal is factored into a professionally written resume. When I am asked to write a general resume, I educate potential clients that this is not a service that I offer. A general resume is as useful as trying to catch a variety of fish using one type of bait.
- Researching industry trends, verbiage and current job marketing opportunities takes time. Behind the scenes, a top notch resume writer is busy collaborating with industry peers, researching web sites and bringing forward new information to support the needs of the client.
- Credentials cost money. Most writers have a varied assortment of credentials, education and training to support their writing. For a writer who is continuing to learn, refine skills, seek out new credentials and advanced exposure to global assessment programs, know that the cost of doing business will be aligned according to skills being offered.
Lesson: Invest in your professional brand by having the appropriate tools. If you are going to drive a fancy car, wear high end heels or expensive jeans, become truly authentic and coveted by having a top notch resume in your tool kit.
Work for a Jerk?
Posted by: | CommentsAt one point or another, we have all worked for a jerk. Trending analysis, client feedback and underground communication clearly indicate that mismanaged employees and boundary violations are on the rise. Managing through tough times and poor leaders is often time more difficult than the work itself. Poor leadership can range from an immediate supervisor to poor HR leadership. Noone is exempt.
Taking charge of your career and disengaging from negative forces, including a jerk of a boss is within your reach. As a Career Strategist with an organic and practiced track record of problem solving, I am focusing this weeks blog on the employee relations aspect of managing poor leadership, self preservation and maintaining your sanity.
5 Strategies to Activate NOW
#1 Document…Document…Document
Venting is short lived whereas documenting is soothing, has long range positive effects and will set you up for a chronicle of events if you need to take legal action.. Hand write your discontent in a strategy journal. This is a journal specifically dedicated to you, your work, your accomplishments and your discontent. Keep it is a safe place and use it daily. Date, time stamp and openly journal details of what is occurring. Always be sure to credit yourself for one or two accomplishments per writing. When leadership is lacking, you need to start truly leading yourself. This means crediting your daily accomplishments and cheering for yourself!
#2 Keep the Personal Out of Professional
Remind yourself that you accepted your position to offer professional skills in lieu of pay. That is it! Nothing more! While it is a bonus if you make a friend or two in the workplace, your primary focus must be on your skills and honing them. If you have a jerk as a boss or a leader who leads you to feel uncomfortable, steer clear. You are under no obligation to take part. If you think you can out maneuver the person…perhaps you can but you will be far better served if you develop a strategy focusing on your accomplishments and becoming successful than trying to “play the game”.
#3 Remove Fear from your Vocabulary
There is a reason the famous quote “there is nothing to fear but fear itself” has stood the test of time. Use it. Get out from behind your fears and exercise your courage. This does not mean randomly acting out, but rather, put a plan in place on making your move to either sustain the existing workplace dysfunction OR exit the company. Planning your work and working your plan is powerful. Have dedicated hobbies outside of work. This will give you something positive and productive to look forward to and feed your focus on you.
#4 Stop living above your means NOW
If you cannot quit your job due to financial restraints, start cutting back on your luxury spending and live beneath your means. Start paying yourself first by banking as much as you can. Make a game out of stashing away extra money. You will gain power over yourself which will bring a heightened sense of confidence into the workplace. Your boss may be curious about seeing a change in your however, never needs to know why the change. Remember Rule #2??? Keep personal to yourself.
#5 Take Action.
If you have been spoken to inappropriately, asked to divulge personal information, felt emotionally violated to the point of crying or coerced to conform in what may be perceived as a borderline “touchy feely, cultish” environment, stand your ground and exercise your voice. The EEOC is always available to file charges especially if on the job allegations are not being dealt with. Environmental harassment is NEVER ok. Once you speak up, you are protected by the law from any further wrongdoing. Get Moving!
For more information: www.eeoc.gov.
Honoring Women Presidents
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s President’s Week this week. Besides school vacation, it is also a time to honor Abraham Lincoln and George Washington; two past presidents who were a major part of our history in the United States.
The holiday this week prompted me to think as well about honoring all the women presidents who have started and are now running their own companies in the United States. These women are playing a major role in our current economy and our future history. We should take the time to honor and recognize all female presidents in business and the incredible impact they have on the economy in the United States.
Here are the facts:
- 40% of all privately held U.S. firms are now owned or controlled by women. (10.4 million firms).
- Women’s companies are responsible for creating jobs at twice the rate of all firms.
- Women’s companies are now responsible for more payroll than all the Fortune 500 companies combined.
- Women’s companies are growing profits at a faster rate than all firms.
- 420 new women-owned businesses are started every day!
Margaret Heffernen states in her book, How She Does It. Women Entrepreneurs are Changing the Rules of Business Success, “That these companies are doing so well says a great deal about female strengths and talents….These phenomenal numbers show just how effective women can be when they work on their own terms.”
To Madam Presidents everywhere, we honor you for your hard work and dedication, your commitment to your purpose and vision, and your contribution to the growth of our economy. YOU are our future.
Tune into Women Mean Business Radio on March 23rd, when I interview Margaret Heffernen.
http://www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1612
Women Leadership and Mad Men
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Some revolutions are bloody, and some are flash-in-the-pan moments.
The women’s movement began quietly with a book “The Feminine Mystique”, moved to bra burning, and gained traction with consciousness raising groups.
All of that seems like it was centuries ago.
We now head large organizations, are in key positions in government, and have a say in just about everything. Yet some of the pleaser and martyr behavior patterns that were handed from generation to generation are still dying a slow death.
Just watch “Mad Men” and remember how it was. You worked if you typed and delivered. No not ideas – merely the coffee to the men. While much has changed, there is more work to be done.
This is a year of both celebrating change and dialoguing about what still needs to change. CELEBRATION: in the next few months women will cross the threshold and become the majority workers in America. CELEBRATION: women professionals are in the majority in this country. CELEBRATION: women have become economically powerful in their own right.
What is the next phase of the revolution toward equality, and even beyond that, toward partnership?
Perhaps we need to regroup and create consciousness-raising groups that mirror the 60’s. Maybe this time it needs to include both men and women. While we need to celebrate the successes, we really need to ask the hard questions that remain unanswered for ourselves, our children, and even our grandchildren.
My daughters are grown, and I am now watching the dilemmas and concerns about what it means to raise children in a world that is going at warp-speed. What does it mean to run a business, run a household, and still have time for the kids?
I believe the dialogues of today are around the unfinished business of the past. The issues are around motherhood, and fatherhood. The issues at the deepest level are about the children. If we have them, then who raises them? What kind of support is needed to bring out the best in the next generation?
This is where the pleaser and martyr patterns of the past, so deep in the neuropsychology of most women, kick in. Women still appear to be the ones who make the plans for the youngsters, take off the time if they are sick, and worry about grades, friends and drugs. Sure, dads are included, yet it still seems that mothers are carrying the heaviest part of the load. That has not really changed.
I am not suggesting we demand that our men vacuum and make the oatmeal. That discussion belongs to each couple to sort out. I am thinking way bigger than that. I am wondering if we can look at the countries that have offered families more help, looking especially at Norway and Sweden.
What do we need to do to change, so the next generations grow to be the best they can be? When do we as women take the pleaser and martyr parts of our personalities and transform them into their positive opposites – the truth teller and the integrator? What are the questions that need to be asked to sort out the dilemma of what we can do, what our businesses can do, and what government can do?
I’d love to hear from you with ideas about creating life-enhancing programs that can deter so many of the social problems connected with the new world of work we have helped create, and the burdens of parenting at every level of our society.
Let’s start a 21st Century rendition of consciousness-raising, and keep the revolution for healthy and balanced evolution at the forefront of our lives.
Show Your Colleagues Some Love
Posted by: | CommentsWomen have the reputation of being great nurturers. After all, we have always been the primary caregivers for our family and children. It’s our history. It’s in our DNA.
Here’s my question this week for professional women: Why doesn’t that love and nurturing carry over more into the workplace?
What happens to women in a work environment that holds them back from nurturing and supporting each other?
I know that women make excellent managers. We often take great care to nurture our staff, and sometimes, in fact, we take on too much work ourselves to protect our team. But how much support do we give our female peers?
In a recent radio interview I did with Gail Evans on Women Mean Business Radio, this topic surfaced. Gail spoke about how women don’t seem to help each other be successful in a corporate environment. During the interview, she told the story of one instance in her tenure as Executive Vice President at CNN that a female colleague exhibited some behavior during a meeting that Gail felt would eventually sabotage her career. After the meeting, Gail asked this woman to join her in the ladies room, and she gave her some honest feedback about what took place during the meeting and how she might approach the situation differently in the future. Gail was nurturing her. She cared enough to help her female colleague be successful. Gail’s philosophy is that if one woman succeeds, we all succeed.
How many times have you taken a female colleague/peer aside for the purpose of helping them advance their career?
It’s Valentine’s Day week. Maybe it’s time to love and nurture our female colleagues.
I would love to hear from you about specific examples you might have when you “nurtured” a female co-worker and spread the love.
Leadership Lessons: I’d Rather Be a Whale
Posted by: | CommentsPart of leadership, especially women, is to be a voice for separating the wheat from the chaff. It is time for all of us as women leaders to put a halt to the binding messages we are bombarded with about image. No, I don’t mean we should all state that overweight is better, I mean we need to begin to question what is being fed to us (sorry for the pun) about what is the standard for the acceptable and attractive woman. It is a legacy issue that if addressed now will have a vast impact on our daughters (and they are all our daughters regardless of who birthed them) of the future.
Nancy Pennebaker, a senior consultant with our organization, Creative Energy Options, Inc. (CEO) sent this to me for both the humor and the depth of the message. Our company motto, “we are all connected and no one wins unless we all do”, is embedded in the following short article. It shows that this issue of image is one that is a world issue.
Notice that the sign in the window of an exercise studio and the answer are from France, where the image of gorgeous models in clothes by Yves St. Laurent, Chanel et a.l became the standard of beauty.
This is a time for us to say what really matters and stand for changes, so that the future is not trapped in the girdles of the past.
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“This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?” A middle-aged woman, To Whom It May Concern, Mermaids don’t exist. The choice is perfectly clear to me: P.S. We are in an age |
