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Habits of the highly employable that you can pick up

[Questions – larry@larrylitwin.com]

From the Courier-Post and “the job network” on Jan. 28, 2021. Check out the full story.

In a job search, it can be so easy to fall into ruts and passive roles while you wait for things to happen. If you are looking to refresh yourself and your “hireability” in going forward, there are several things that highly employable people do — and you can, too.

  1. Be proactive
  2. Know your worth
  3. Keep that network up and running
  4. Take ownership
  5. Be a good listener
  6. Always be growing
  7. Be positive

[Questions – larry@larrylitwin.com]

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First day of week checklist

[Questions? larry@larrylitwin.com]

From ZipRecruiter/Courier–Post online on Jan. 31, 2021

  1. Take care of yourself
  2. Dress intentionally
  3. Get to work on time
  4. Prepare to ask questions (but know when to listen)
  5. Prepare an elevator “pitch”/speech
  6. Be friendly
  7. Assess the social landscape
  8. Be positive

[Questions? larry@larrylitwin.com]

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Audience Segmentation (ISPR) vs Audience Fragmentation (IFPR)

[Questions: larry@larrylitwin.com]

Check out Larry Litwin’s The Public Relations Practitioner’s Playbook for (all) Strategic Communicators. It is available from Amazon or Authorhouse Publishing.

• Identify
• Segment/Fragment (demographically, psychographically,
geodemographically, behavioristically, benefits)
• Profile
• Rank
– Audience Power Structure
• Elite (Key Communicators)
• Pluralistic or Diffused
• Amorphous/Latent
Audiences are I(S)FPRd as matters of understanding and economics. Public relations practitioners and their clients may have limited
resources. Audiences must be I(S)FPRd to help determine which are
most important and how much time and money will be allocated
trying to reach them to either change, maintain or reinforce behavior. All four steps (I[S]FPR) are imperative to a successful PR plan.

[Questions: larry@larrylitwin.com]

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Advice from ‘The PR Playbook’

[Questions: larry@larrylitwin.com]

A tip to succeed: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

Check out Larry Litwin’s The Public Relations Practitioner’s Playbook for (all) Strategic Communicators. It is available from Amazon or Authorhouse Publishing.

[Questions: larry@larrylitwin.com]

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The 5 types of people you should have as a reference

[Questions? larry@larrylitwin.com]

From Kate Lopaze of thejobnetwork comes this advice:

Handing over a list of references to a potential new employer can feel like tricky business.

If you do not have a job offer in hand, you might be worried about your job search getting back to your current employer. If you are just starting out, you may worry that you don’t yet have a go-to list of professional refernces.

No matter what stage you are in, these five types of people make great references for any job search.

  • Past bosses
  • Past supervisors
  • Colleagues
  • Professional friends from your network
  • Professors or academic contacts                                                                                      [Questions? larry@larrylitwin.com]
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5 Secrets of Great Leadership — Here’s what it takes from Dale C.

[To comment: larry@larrylitwin.com]

Thanks again to the “Dale Carnegie Training Newsletter”

Anita Zinsmeister, President — anita.zinsmeister@dalecarnegie.com
Dale Carnegie® Training of Central & Southern New Jersey 

BY JOHN BRANDON
 
Contributing editor, Inc.com

Great leaders are not born into the role. They exhibit traits that have been learned, refined, honed, and improved over many years. There’s no single trait that makes someone a great leader. It is a collection of refined attributes.

To find out more about the secret to leadership, I talked to several executives and asked about what they’ve learned to become a great leader.

Here’s what they had to say.

1. Act like a coach

Kris Malkoski, the President and Global Business and Chief Commercial Officer atWorld Kitchen, told me the secret to great leadership is to act like a coach. You have to set the strategy and the gameplan to win, hire and coach the top talent, set goals and measure progress–and then demonstrate how this all works by example to all of your employees on a consistent basis. “You have to represent the strong values and work ethic that they expect, and you have to anticipate competitive diversions and adjust their plans to insure goals are achieved,” she says.

2. Show your passion

Passion is not something you can fake. Employees can see whether you have it from a mile away, and they know the difference. Jimmy Haslam, the CEO of Pilot Flying J and majority owner of the Cleveland Browns, told me that it is the most important secret to great leadership. “Every day we try to show people our passion for the business,” he says. “We care deeply about the people who work for our companies as well as the entire communities in which our companies are based.”

3. Listen

One secret is to listen closely to what employees have to say. If you’re commanding too much, it means you’re not listening enough. “People want to follow a leader who listens, who understands what is going on in the organization and what is important to the people who work to make the business thrive,” says Barby Siegel, the CEO ofZeno Group, a global communications agency. “Let people know that you expect them to think beyond the task to contribute to the organization as a whole. I want people to speak their minds and I let them know this as often as possible.”

4. Accept the blame and don’t take the credit

Great leaders don’t crave the spotlight, they tend to save that for the star performers on the team. It’s almost like they know how to avoid getting the most credit and prefer the employees receive most of it. “Great leaders have a great appreciation for the people around them,” says Haslam. “They are willing to accept blame when things go wrong and aren’t concerned about who gets the credit when things go well.

5. Be open to opinions

There’s one last secret to great leadership. You have to be open. If you close your mind to a group of employees or pick favorites, it leads to dysfunction and disunity. “The effective leader needs to take in and distill multiple points of view from various people and agendas, and make a well-grounded decision in line with the company’s mission and values,” says Siegel. “A successful leader understands the need to change and adapt–to be open to differing points of view and new ways of doing things–even if that means stepping out of one’s comfort zone.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
PUBLISHED ON: SEP 14, 2016

[To comment: larry@larrylitwin.com]

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17 Ideas to increase sales you can us (almost immediatelty)

[To comment: larry at larry litwin dot com]

 This week’s blog comes from:

Dale Carnegie Training Newsletter

By Anita Zinsmeister, President — anita.zinsmeister@dalecarnegie.com
Dale Carnegie® Training of Central & Southern New Jersey 

(Billfryer.com)

  1. Don’t be greedy.If you always try to profit from the first sale, you ignore the real value of the customer. This is a mistake. If you do not invest as much as you could to get customers – you will not get as many profitable customers as you might. Also, your competitor, who does know the value of a customer, can outspend or underprice you – or both.
  2. Concentrate on customers more than prospects.Research by McGraw-Hill into why retailers lost customers showed that 68% went elsewhere because of indifference or the attitude of their salesforce. Only 14% went because they were dissatisfied with the product or service and only 9% went to the competition. Your customers will remain loyal if you pay them attention.
  3. Go where the money is – all customers are not created equal.10% of cognac drinkers account for 50% of consumption. 39% of cognac drinkers account for 44% of consumption. The remaining 51% account for only 6% of consumption. So focus on the top 10%.
  4. 4. Never lose an opportunity to cross-sell.Research by banks into the number of accounts held by customers and their likelihood of switching showed those with four accounts or more were 100-1 against switching, those with only one account had a 50% chance of switching. Your existing customer is 3-8 times as likely to buy as an identical non-customer. Someone who has responded to a promotion is twice as likely to buy. Anyone with any relationship with you, however slight, is more likely to buy.
  5. Never spend without testing.  Look before you leap.
  6. Test new products on customers first.They appreciate being treated as special – and to you they should be. The risk is lower: they are more likely to buy. Only if it sells well to them is it likely to sell outside.
  7. Never lose a chance to communicate.Here are some golden opportunities: When you have anything to say of interest to customers or prospects new product, price, offer, news. When they are about to decide. When your competitors are cooking up something. When something big is happening in the market.

Those who communicate most do better than those who do it least. Do not worry about talking to customers too often. Worry about being a bore. Talk whenever you have something you think will be of interest. But do not mail or phone just for the sake of it. Think constantly what prospects and customers might be interested in.

  1. Say “Thank you”.A retailer rang up a file of customers one month after a product had been bought to say “thank you; do you have any questions?” They didn’t ring a similar file, and researched the difference.

70 percent of those rung said they welcomed the call and would like more. 45 percent of those they did not ring said they would welcome such a call. Over the next 6 months 13% more of those called bought compared with the others. The average number of orders increased by 16% per customer called.

  1. Do you offer after-sales service?Sell it.
  2. Do you have a guarantee people fill in?Use questionnaires and build a mailing list.
  3. Do you offer account facilities or sell on credit and have to invoice people regularly? Sell them at the same time.
  4. Do you have accessories or software to sell? Do it aggressively, not passively, often there is more margin in accessories.
  5. If your sales force spends too much time canvassingand not enough selling. Get leads for them through advertising(and find out when prospects are interested).
  6. Do retailers or wholesalers dictate to you? Go round them direct to customersand build a database.
  7. Sell to your most recent customers first.They are usually your best respondents. The best time to sell is when they have just bought.
  8. Offer a store-card to best customers and create special events for them.They are about five times as likely to buy as casual customers. A special preview sale for them may be as profitable as the entire sale that follows.
  9. Watch for critical moments.In the prospect’s life e.g. marriage, new house, birthday. Before buying: sending for brochures, looking in stores, working out what they can afford. After buying – the “afterglow”; having a problem; time to buy again. These help determine your “contact strategy”. An example is: People often adjust their investments when they move house.

Bill Fryer is Creative Director of Bill Fryer Direct, a direct marketing agency in Warminster, Wiltshire. By talking to him you may get even more sales ideas. Send mail to bill@billfryer.com.

[To comment: larry at larry litwin dot com]

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Eastern Michigan University PRSSA — Shares 2014 National Conference Take-aways

[To comment: larry at larry litwin dot com]

Eastern Michigan University Dec. 5, 2005 blog. Lots of good information.

Raven’s recap of PRSSA 2014 National Conference

Posted on December 5, 2014 by EMU PRSSA | Leave a comment

In October, I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to our nation’s capital. It wasn’t for pleasure but I did have a blast. I traveled to Washington D.C. to attend the 2014 Public Relations Student Society of America National Conference. The site seeing was absolutely amazing and getting to relearn some of our nation’s history was enlightening. Through the five days of various student development sessions, networking opportunities, and breakout sessions, I learned a large handful of things.

Here my top 10 takeaways from the conference. (In no particular order)

  1. Say “Hello”

Being all by myself in a place that I’ve never been to was scary yet liberating. If I wanted to be around people during our evenings out, I had to actively meet people and establish relationships. Don’t just stay in one place, get out and say “hello” to a stranger every once in a while. You never know who you’ll meet.

  1. Peers can be mentors

Having a mentor is almost essential to the way our society works. There’s just something about getting to know someone who was once in your shoes. Professionals are good to have but peers were also once in your place. They know what you’re going through differently than a professional may because they were there very recently. Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone only a few years older than you.

  1. It’s the Era of Engagement

Keynote speaker and President of Powell Tate, Pam Jenkins, believes now is our time to do stuff. “We have to do something because we have the skills to make a difference,” says Jenkins. The engagement means that people no longer turn to experts when they need something. They turn towards the people. Be the people who lead others towards good.

  1. Develop your skills, but understand your weaknesses

We can’t all be graphic designers, video editors, copy editors, social media gurus, etc. Take a minute ant think about what you do well. Develop those skills even more! If you can’t do everything then you might as well be good at what you can do. And at the very least, respect and understand the people who are good at your weaknesses.

  1. Teachers are right!

The relationship between public relations practitioners and journalists is built on trust. Teachers tell you that the relationship is built on trust and a good relationship and they are absolutely right. During a breakaway session, I learned that a lot happens off the record so you have to truly develop those relationship to get to that point. Understand that everyone has a boss breathing down their necks and definitely respect everyone.

  1. You’re making your connections now

The people that I’ve met at the conference and the people I’m meeting in classes now are going to be my coworkers, bosses, and employees years later. People are so concerned having networking events but not many realize that getting to know classmates is hugely important.

  1. Three Bone Approach

To succeed, three bones are necessary. A funny bone. A back bone. A wish bone.

  1. Life is like gym class

You fail if you don’t show up but if you do then you at least get a “B”. Go to events. Go to PRSSA. Even go to PRSA events and meetings. Get involved and you’ll be just fine.

  1. Agency versus Corporation

Both are every good options. Weigh the possibilities for both. Take a look at your personality type as well and see which works best for yourself. Think about the environment you really want to in.

        10. Move people towards action

Simply telling people how things are isn’t going to get them moving. We have to move people from awareness to action. Speaking of which, comment below with any recent takeaways that you have learned from a conference, networking opportunity, or class. You can even comment with what you want to learn from PRSSA throughout our meetings next semester!

If you want any more information on the National Conference or even upcoming National Assembly or Regional Conference then don’t hesitate to take action and email EMU!

 [To comment: larry at larry litwin dot com]