Meet with 10 People a Week

Comments (both positive & negative) help others. Please share yours.

You need to meet face-to-face with 10 people a week to land the job you love. You select 10 of the 50 people you called (10 a day times 5 days a week) and schedule a meeting. Use Skype or another video conferencing app if your search takes you to another state or country.

Alyssa’s Story

Alyssa wanted a job with a clothing store. She loved clothes. She loved selling. She loved helping women combine an outfit with accessories to create the perfect look. She identified all the women’s clothiers in her community and began her campaign to prove she could help them achieve their sales goals.

She made 10 phone calls a day talking to friends and acquaintances about where they bought clothes. She discovered the names of their favorite sales clerks. She even scheduled shopping trips with her friends so they could introduce her to the staff. She counted each sales trip as 2-4 meetings depending on how many clerks or managers she met. She also visited stores on her own to talk to the staff.

She used her professional introduction that established her as a woman who loved helping other women create the perfect look and made stores money. She asked the staff questions about what they liked about working at the store. She discussed the typical client, how the store captured client information for future sales, and what sales quotas management set. She would casually ask what they liked about the store’s manager, their management style, goals for the store, etc. She shared appropriate home runs as the discussion presented opportunity. All of her questions and statements established a rapport with the staff. They established her as a true professional in their eyes. She kept her visits very short, once again proving she was a professional. She visited some staff several times to gather more information. She always finished with “Thank you so much. This has been very helpful. Who else would you suggest I talk to?”

She met with the manager only when she knew enough to impress the manager. Her referred to both the names of the staff and some of the information she gathered in her introduction. She focused not on getting a job, but what the manager wanted to achieve with the store. She verified that the information she received was accurate and presented her home runs establishing she could do what the manager wanted and make sales for the store. The managers usually asked her questions to clarify or explain what she said. She ended the conversation by saying “Thank you for spending time with me. I really want to work for you. May I remain in touch?”

She made mistakes the first few stores she visited. Sometimes she pushed too hard. Other times she failed to impress them. The more people she met, however, they better she did.

Unfortunately, she made some mistakes with the manager of one of the stores she really wanted to work for She did not give up. She visited that store each week for five weeks. She revisited the staff and spent 2 minutes with the manager trying to overcome her previous mistakes and demonstrate her gentle persistence. Those visits counted as 1 of her 10 meetings a week.

Her hard work paid off. That store manager offered her a job during her fifth follow-up visit.

Purpose of the meetings

1. You meet with 4-6 people a week to do your due diligence in preparation…
2. …to meet with 2-3 decision makers a week to prove you can help them achieve their goals or resolve their challenges
3. Follow-up on previous meetings to continue to make the hiring authority feel wonderful (we’ll discuss this next week)

Some Final Tips to Enhance your 10 Meetings a Week

• Set appointments to meet with people in office or industrial setting.
• Set meetings when convenient with the person you meet. Avoid peak work times.
• Limit your meeting to 10-15 minutes unless eating, golfing, or similar venue
• Prepare 10-12 questions to ask people during meetings. Do not ask all of them at any one meeting
• Treat everyone you talk to—especially the secretary—with respect and kindness
• Meet with others before you meet with the hiring authority or decision maker until you know what their goals, challenges, and projects
• Use your professional introduction to impress them. Do not begin the conversation with anything close to “I’m looking for a job. Are you hiring right now?”
• Change your approach if they refer to you human resources. You came across as a job seeker, not a professional
• Notice how people dress, so that you can dress one step higher when you meet with the manager
• Meet people at professional or business association meetings, the Chamber of Commerce, service organizations, and other meetings. Identify friends who cant take you as their guest. Offer to pay for your costs and maybe theirs.

In Conclusion

Sitting in front of a computer 8 hours a day sending emails and resumes depresses you.

Meeting 10 people a week to network, follow-up, and impress the manager accelerates your job search. Your enthusiasm grows. Your ability grows (because you will make mistakes with the first 7-10). Your confidence grows. You get the information you need. You get jobs faster. You get higher salary offers.

So, meet 10 people, face-to-face, a week

Join us next week when we discuss creating a professional introduction to impress people

Comments (both positive & negative) helps others. Please leave yours.

You Really Can Call 10 a Day

Please share your experiences about finding a job or your reaction to this post

One of the vital behaviors to land the job you love: call 10 people a day.

Most people roll their eyes, shudder, and dismiss the idea immediately when they hear or read this. They don’t even hear the rest because they already reject the idea. They continue to believe the outdated idea that good jobs get advertised, and that they cannot call the company because the website said not to. I agree do not call human resources unless you want a job in human resources.

Chad’s Story

Chad spent 15 months looking for a financial analyst job. He had sent 1,798 resumes in the 15 months. Less than 100 responded. Auto responders accounted for most of the 100. No one offered to interview him. No one offered him a job. He became despondent, but did not give up. He still sat in front of his computer 8-10 hours a day sending out resumes.

A neighbor recommended he come to us for service. We introduced him to “the 10’s”. He blanched when we explained making 10 phone calls a day and scheduling 10 face-to-face meetings a week. He thought we meant 10 job openings a day and 10 job interviews a week. We did not.

He relaxed once he realized the 10 phone calls included thank you calls, friends, people working in companies that were not advertising. He especially appreciated when we taught him how to find 10 people a day. He calmed even more when he realized the 10 meetings included due diligence meetings.

He started making his phone calls the next week, and had 3 job offers within 5 weeks.

Call 10 People a Day and Get a Job Faster

You will get a job faster by calling 10 people a day. Our group tested this hypothesis with people, like Chad, who sought jobs paying $40-250,000 annually. In every situation, once they understood and began making the calls (and setting the meetings) they found work within 5-8 weeks. We next tested it with people in lower income brackets (minimum wage –$13.00 per hour). 80% found work within 6 weeks (40% found jobs in 2 weeks). People in the last group faced serious obstacles to finding work: felony arrests, disabilities, and behavioral challenges.

You must make a couple of changes in your paradigm to see the value of 10 phone calls a day. We discussed these paradigms in previous posts: How People Really Get Hired, Where to Find the Best Jobs, and Do Your Due Diligence. Review those posts to remember the reasons for the 10 calls.

Purpose of Your 10 Calls a Day

Your 10 phone calls serve three main purposes:

1. Do your due diligence by discovering and verifying with friends, potential co-workers and support staff whether your past experience (use home run statements) would benefit the organization or team
• What tasks, responsibilities, or projects the decision makers want done; or what problems or challenges the organization needs resolved
• Nature of the organizational culture, environment, and work teams—and how well you would fit into that organization or team
• Management’s expectations for their return on investment and how your past ROI meets their expectations
2. Set appointments to prove to decision makers how you can help them achieve their goals or resolve their problems.
• Refer to the people you talked to in the calls outlined in point 1.
• Verify that the essence of the information they gave you was accurate
• Present your home run statements that apply to the hiring authority’s goals or challenges
• Ask if your experience is what they want on their team (not you, yet)
• Set a time and place to meet to discuss how you can help them achieve their goals or resolve their problems
3. Follow-up on previous meetings with decision makers, sources of information for your due diligence, or sources of additional people you talked to or with whom you met (I’ll discuss follow-up in a later post.

Some Final Tips to Enhance Your 10 Calls a Day

• You can identify all 50 of the people to call in 2 hours on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon (which are lousy times to call or meet people anyway) from the sources we discussed in Where to Find the Best Jobs
• Keep phone calls to 3-8 minutes maximum. Any longer and they may worry that you might monopolize their time if they hire you. Instead prove you can conduct business briefly and appropriately
• 4-5 brief phone calls over a couple of weeks, with perhaps a face-to-face meeting with a key source, builds better relationships than one long phone call
• Do not ask if they are hiring at that moment or if they can help you get a job
• Do not tell them you are unemployed
• Focus on how you can help them achieve what they want
• Practice your phone calls with your job coach, friends, and close network contacts before calling the company you really, really want to work for (make your mistakes where they don’t count)
• Always say “You have been very helpful. May call you back if I have more questions?” and “Is there anyone else you suggest I talk to?”

Calling 10 people a day really can shorten your job search. While it seems intimidating, talking to people reduces the despair or isolation that follows spending 8 hours at a computer.

Join us next week when we discuss scheduling 10 face-to-face meetings/interviews a week

What do you think? Please share your experiences or reaction to this post

Do Your Due Diligence

Please share your experiences & comments to our conversation

Many people start new jobs only to discover they dislike the new company, new co-workers, and new environment. Typically, these new job frustrations result from inadequate research—or due diligence—prior to accepting a job offer. In other words, job seekers get so excited that they received any job offer, that they fail to ensure they will enjoy the job. Instead, a little due diligence could ensure they land the job they love.

Mildred’s Story

Mildred enjoyed working for the same company for 18 years. She loved the owner and the people that worked with her. Her responsibilities and tasks delighted her. She never thought of leaving. Unfortunately, the owner decided to retire and sold the company. The new owners moved the operation to a different state.

She landed a job after looking for 14 months. In her excitement at finally ending her job search, she assumed she would enjoy the new job as much as the old one. Her excitement quickly gave way to frustration and despair. Instead of the kindly owner building a family environment, she found a global organization with aloof management intent of looking good for directors far away. She worked in individual cubicles (devoid, by policy, of personal pictures, plants, and nick-knacks) replaced the open office where she enjoyed chatting with co-workers as she worked. The frequent praise and appreciation expressed by her previous boss disappeared. Instead, every improvement or good work merely established a higher expectation. Her experience shattered her enthusiasm and pride in her work. The consequent drop in both the quality and quantity of her work resulted in the company letting her go after only two and a half months.

Mildred came to our office a despondent and scarred soul. The first four to five sessions with our employment advisers focused on rebuilding her self-esteem and belief that she could ever find a job equal to her first one. Her adviser taught her how to do her due diligence to avoid a repeat of her disastrous job. She

1. Wrote a description of the things she loved about her first job and the things she disliked about her second
2. Outlined 8-10 questions that would uncover information about the new company’s reputation, management style and workplace environment.
3. Read company websites and articles about the company where available focusing on mission, value, and other statements
4. Connected with people she knew, or found on LinkedIn, who worked (current or past) at the company to ask them her questions
5. Verified her due diligence during interviews and negotiations after job offers

It took a lot of work, especially trying to navigate automated voice mail. Mildred ceased following promising leads that, based on information discovered through her research, failed to provide what she wanted. At times she wanted to give up and just accept a job. Then, she thought of the enjoyable and the disagreeable job--and renewed her due diligence.

She received her reward six weeks later when a company that seemed to meet her requirements offered her a job. She rejoiced when the reality of her new company met the picture painted by her due diligence. She loved the environment, her co-workers, her supervisor, and her work.

Describe What You Want

First, you need to identify what you want. You can discover tools to help you evaluate what you want on my blog Happy With Your Career? I recommend you write your dream job outlining the:

• Skills you want to use and the responsibilities you wish to oversee
• Tasks and responsibilities you wish to perform
• Work team relations: private, aloof, collaborative, friendly, chummy, or drinking buddies
• Industry: manufacturing, office, retail, transportation, government, nonprofit or other
• Working environment: highly structured, flexible, routine, varied, friendly, or private
• Management style: intense, hands-on, hands-off, stressed, strong or weak
• Facilities atmosphere: cubicles, open-office, campus, private offices, or assembly line

Second, you should write questions that will gather information you want about companies. Some questions may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• What do people enjoy most about working for this company?
• What are the company’s mission, values, purposes, creeds, and strategies?
• Tell me about your work team? How many members? What does each do?
• What kinds of projects does your team work on? How long are typical projects?
• How would you describe the company’s management style? Loyalty to employees?
• What thrills you most about working there? What frustrates you most about it?

Read and Ask People Questions

Third, begin finding the answers to your questions. Read what you can on the company’s website, articles in the journals, press releases, and other sources. Websites like Jigsaw, Hoovers, Netshare, or professional associations frequently include this information about companies.

Next, talk to people who would know about the company. People might include:

• Your friends and family who know the company, or may know others in the company
• Connections on Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social media with current or past affiliation with the company
• Competitors and clients of the company
• Employees, starting with receptionists and secretaries, public relations or sales representatives, people working in the desired department, position, or team

Let me share a few tips to guide your due diligence:

• Never rely on one source of information. Try to find at least three sources to read and visit.
• Respect clerical workers. Ask questions they can answer, then ask a question that will trigger them transferring you to someone who can answer.
• Avoid taking too much time. Four 5-minute conversations build relationships better than one 20-minute conversation.
• Always ask “Who else would you recommend I talk to?” Try to get two new names.
• Send people a thank-you email. Share any information you gather with your sources.
• Ask their opinion of information you received from others. Validate what you hear.

A few hours researching potential jobs and companies prevents weeks, months, or years of frustration and irritation. Do your due diligence to ensure you will enjoy the job you accept.

Join us next week when we discuss calling 10 people a day to land the job you love.

Please share your experiences researching companies or bad jobs

Where to Find the Best Jobs

Remember How People Really Get Hired

Yesterday we reviewed that decision makers (not human resources) tend to hire people who already impressed them. Second, the approach their team and trusted colleagues to discover who they know that could do the job. Advertising the job remains the last resort for many decision makers.

So, how do you become the person they want? How do you get on their “short list”? You must approach decision makers or their trusted colleagues and impress them you can

1. Do the job they want done
2. Fit into their team or organization
3. Earn them, or save them, more than they pay you (ROI)

Michelle’s Story

Michelle’s husband had to take a cut in pay to keep his job when the recession of 2008 reached a peak. Their financial demands required Michelle, who stayed home to raise their four children, to add to the family income. Michelle loved being home with her children. She and her husband both felt that spending time with their daddy outweighed him getting a second job.

Michelle tried several methods to find some income while staying at home. She only needed to add a couple hundred dollars to the family. Finally, she decided to ask her Facebook friends. She posted a simple message on her wall asking if they knew of a way to earn a couple hundred dollars at home, with the flexibility to do it when the children did not demand her attention.

Within two hours a friend living just two blocks away responded. Her photography business flourished. She did not possess the time to do her billing and accounting. She would pay Michelle a couple hundred dollars for 4-5 hours a week at Michelle’s discretion. Michelle agreed and the family’s financial stress disappeared.

Where to Find the Best Job Leads

Since companies do not advertise the best jobs, you identify people and contact them before they recognize the need to hire someone. While you do not want to ignore advertised job postings, you will want to identify the right people to contact. We recommend searching the following sources for people who either

• Work for companies that hire people with your skills
• Know people who work for companies that hire people with your skills
• Know lots of people

You find these people through various methods:

• The names of family, friends, colleagues, and associates that you keep in your phone, address book, or email list
• Friends on Facebook, connections on LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter, or other social media
• People affiliated with companies you would like to work for listed in web sites:
  • CareerOneStop.com, Career.com, JOBCentral.com,
  • Jigsaw.com, Hoovers.com, Ask the Headhunter.com,
• Articles in trade or professional journals, associations web sites, and other media
• Job boards and job aggregators
  • CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com,
  • Indeed.com, Snag-a-Job.com, RatRaceRebellion.com,
  • State Department of Workforce Services web sites for your state

These Sources Provide 1,000s of People to Contact

Thank about it. Think how many people these sources provide.

• How many friends to you have in your phone, email, or address list? 50? 100? 1500?
• How many friends on Facebook or LinkedIn? 150? 200?500? 1700?
• Any of the company indexing sites list 100s of companies in each industry
• Indeed, JobCentral, Monster, and other job boards provide 100s of advertised jobs (remember, though, how people really get hired for the best paying jobs).

You do not seek advertised jobs. You do not ask “Are you hiring?” You want to find people who can lead you to the decision makers. You want people who can share information about an organization’s successes, goals, challenges, and needs.

You can easily find 10 people a day using these sources. Not only will you find leads—you will find the best leads. You will find the leads nobody advertised. Your main concern ceases to be finding leads. Your main concern become what will you say when you call them.

Join us next week when we discuss what to say when you make 10 phone calls a day.

Please share some of the ways that you found great jobs from your past.

How People Really Get Hired

Your thoughts and experiences will improve our conversations. Please share you comments.

We begin a series this week on landing the job you love.

Contrary to popular belief and news reports people still find great jobs in this economy. They must exercise the best job search practices to do so.

Scott’s Story

Scott lost his executive marketing position two years earlier. He sought work diligently for the first six months. Bleak job postings, however, drained his enthusiasm. He believed the word on the street, the recession had eliminated good jobs. He came to our professional program for help.

Once he remembered how people really get hired, he ceased expecting to see good jobs advertised. He remembered that he hired he always hired people that already impressed him. So, he began to contact people he knew. Not only did he rekindle interest in his ability, but his contacts also referred him to others. He contacted 10-15 people a day and set up 10-12 face-to-face or teleconference meetings a week.

As a result, Scott received multiple offers within five weeks of implementing this new approach. He accepted a $250,000 a year salary with a $1,000,000 annual bonus, plus a$60,000 signing bonus. All of this in October of 2008, the beginning of the great recession.

How Decision Makers Hire People

Most people looking for jobs fail to comprehend how managers hire people to fill their needs. They assume that companies advertise all good jobs. Talking to managers and business owners reveals a more common practice.

1. Decision makers hire people who already impressed them with the ability to (a) do the job they want done, (b) fit into the organization and team’s culture and rules, and (c) provide an excellent return on investment
2. If no one they know personally wants the job, hiring authorities ask those they know (including friends and staff) if they know someone that could fit the same three criteria
3. If no one the friends or staff want the job, the decision maker must go to human resources and ask them to advertise the job through normal channels

As a result, most advertised jobs constitute the jobs nobody wanted. This practice continues even when companies maintain a policy to advertise all of their jobs. Frequently, the hiring authority will contact the people they want to hire and say “We’re going to be hiring someone for this position. May I suggest you apply for the position”.

Our group talks to more than 200 companies a week. Of those that will eventually hire someone, 80% refuse to advertise. They claim that advertising will overwhelm them with too many resumes. One company advertised for 300 positions and received 4,000 resumes within two weeks. Instead, they reach out to people they know either to hire them, or find others they want. They extend offers privately with the public never knowing the hire occurred.

Your task: impress people before the need, so you find yourself on the “short list”.

Join us tomorrow for an extra blog discussing “Where to Find the Best Jobs”.

Please share your thoughts and experiences on how people really get hired..

Communicate Your ROI

Your thoughts and experiences will improve our conversation. Please share your comments.

Last week we discussed meeting and exceeding expectations. Several of you commented on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter that you had done so with no rewards. I admit that many workplaces became increasingly stingy and penurious. Increasing profit for the stockholders remains the number one goal of management. Employees, viewed as expenditures rather than assets, receive fewer and smaller raises. I commented on this in my blog “Salary Gap Widens”.

Recognizing this reality in the workplace, meeting and exceeding expectations alone will not gain the reward. You must communicate your return on investment (ROI) to management. You cannot expect them to notice it.

Todd’s Story

Todd (not his real name) attended our job search workshop because he was scheduled for layoff. He still worked for the company, but they had given him one week to take an outplacement workshop. During the workshop we discussed home run statements. Todd became increasingly agitated as we gave the participants time to write some statements.

Finally, he threw down his pen in disgust stating “They were stupid to let me go. Look what I have done for that company!” I asked him, “Did you tell them what you did?” His response reflects what many of you probably think, “No. It’s their job to notice what I do”. The group disagreed and convinced him that he remained responsible to communicate his successes to management. He did not return from lunch that day.

The next morning he told us that he returned to his office the day before. He told his supervisor “I believe you have made a mistake letting me go. Look what I have done for the company”. He then shared his home run statements. His supervisor asked a few questions and left the room. When he returned he told Todd “I had no idea all that you had done. I just talked to HR and they have taken you off the layoff list”.

Your Responsibility to Communicate Your ROI

In today’s workplace, every position must show a return on investment. No longer do companies maintain positions because of tradition. The pressure to generate profits pushes management to decrease costs—and human costs remain the single largest cost to most companies.

They expect every employee to either save the company, or make the company, more money than they pay the employee. Management recognizes the hidden costs associated with each position better than the employees do. Many pay records now include information about the employer’s payment to insurance, 401Ks, taxes, and other costs not recognized by employees. Companies need employees to generate more revenues than the cost—or the company goes out of business.

The amount of return on investment differs for each kind of position. Secretaries, for example, need to save or make at least twice what they cost. Production workers need to generate 5-6 times what they cost. Management should generate 7-9 times what they cost. Sales representatives need to generate 15-20 times what they make because nobody gets paid until the product is sold. Sales representatives carry all the overhead on their backs.

Many believe, as Todd did, that management should notice each employee’s ROI. While management measures productivity, computers track most metrics. In addition, the adoption of Theory Z management principles greatly enhanced a manager’s span of control. Prior to the 80’s the average manager supervised 5-7 people, all within the same facility. Today’s manager oversees 20 or more people scattered in facilities around the world. Consequently, face time with management barely exists.

As a result, you must assume the responsibility to communicate your successes, improvements and return on investment to management. I suggest you send them a home run statement at least once a month by email, once a quarter by phone or in-person, and in annual performance appraisals.

Home Run Statements Follow a Baseball Image

Todd used home run statements to change management’s mind about his layoff. You can easily build home run statements if you will imagine a baseball field in your mind. Picture 1st base, 2nd base, 3rd base, and home plate. That image structures your statement:

• 1st base: you describe the situation management asked you to change, or an opportunity for improvement you observed on your own
• 2nd base: you—briefly (no details)—outline what you did to change the situation
• 3rd base: you highlight the results of your work using dollars ($ sign), percentages % sign), and numbers (123 not words)
• Home plate: you verify this satisfies, or better exceeds, their expectations with a question

Great home run statements create the following response from management: “Wow!! How did you do that?” At which point you can add more details to what you outlined on 2nd base. Let me illustrate sample home run statements. These examples are real home runs hit by some of our clients.

“I felt that the tax commission was charging us too much (1st base). I researched the issue, prepared a proposal, and worked with the commission for 8 months (2nd base). As a result, they reevaluated our property taxes and reduced them by $500,000 dollars a year (3rd base). Is this what you wanted me to do? (home plate).”

“You asked our group to improve the assembly line (1st base). We moved 2 workstations and consolidated 3 into 2 (2nd base). As a result, we increased productivity by 15% which can increase profits by $140,000 a year (3rd base). Does that reflect the improvements you desired? (home plate).”

“I noticed a delay in processing accounts receivables (1st base). I rerouted our flow to eliminate the delay (2nd base). As a result, we can deposit an average $4,900 in payments in 2 days rather than 3. Allowing us to earn 9 days interest on approximately $24,000 a month (3rd base). Do improvements like this meet your approval? (home plate).”

In Conclusion, a Note of Recognition

Meeting and exceeding expectations does you little good, if you do not communicate your return on investment to management. You remain responsible to tell them what you do to improve their profits, increase productivity, or reduce costs. I do not encourage you to brag. I encourage you to share the facts with them and ask how they feel about those facts.

Proving your worth will place you in a better position to get the biggest raises. Demonstrating that you understand return on investment enhances your reputation for better assignments. Neglecting this, or doing it inappropriately, consigns you to frustration and few rewards.

Let me also recognize that many workplaces reflect stingy, non-visionary environments that perceive giving most employees 0-2% raises while executives receive 18% rewards as just. You need to decide if you want to work for such a company. Many companies still recognize and reward their employees. Start your research and find such a company. Then, use your home run statements to convince them you would be a great return on investment for their organization.

Learn more about this topic from my pod cast “Hit Home Runs with You Supervisor”. Also, register now for my weekly tip for more money, better living.

Until then, I’m Larry Stevenson wishing you more money, better living.

Your thoughts and experiences will improve our conversation. Please share them below.