It can cost you 13-times a person’s annual salary if you hire the wrong person, according to Brad Smart.
Brad is the main man behind a couple of books, Topgrading and Topgrading for Sales, which I highly recommend to anyone involved in hiring.
A dozen of my colleagues and I were lucky enough to spend two days with Brad in Chicago in October 2005 when we took his Topgrading training program (which I also recommend).
The 13X cost of a mishire was a stunner! …
Are you linked in?
If you’re in business, you likely should be!
LinkedIn is a business networking tool that allows you to keep track of your previous and current contacts as well as get linked to new ones.
Why should you care? Because each of your contacts is worth an average of $948 in annual revenue, according to a 2009 article by Business Week Magazine/Harvard Business Review. (note: there used to be a link for this article but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have been archived — at least I can no longer find it). .
I’ve been using LinkedIn since it was founded by Reid Hoffman in December of 2002.
You can see my profile here: LinkedIn (note: You’ll only be able to see my public profile there unless you are already a LinkedIn member).
LinkedIn is similar to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, only it’s focused purely on business.
There are numerous other professional networking sites out there — with names such as Plaxo, Xing, ZoomInfo, Ecademy, Spoke, OpenBC — but I believe LinkedIn has them all beat.
Here are some of the reasons I recommend this online networking tool:
I have a short-cut for you to beef up your number of LinkedIn connections..the following tool helped accelerate the growth of my linked in network.
Use their Import Webmail Contacts feature (It’s an option in the Add Connections section and might also be offered when you first sign up). LinkedIn then will go check out all of the email addresses from your email account and offer you the option to invite any or all of them to link in.
I personally chose to invite only the people who were already LinkedIn members (LinkedIn indicates that) and you can send one email to all of them with a personalized message (which I recommend).
Here’s a great 8-Step Action Plan on Setting Up & Maintaining LinkedIn written by a networking pro for a Webinar he presented to Chubb.
And if you want to expand your network even further, check out The Connector Exercise.
Good luck with your networkin’.
Googlejuice!
If you had to master one concept in online marketing, this would surely be it.
I’ll give some Googlejuice tips below…but first, some of you might be asking: what is Googlejuice?
Googlejuice is a catchall for a handful of things that you and others can do to make your products, business or anything else show up high in Google’s rankings when people search.
By the way, there’s a great book called What Would Google …
-->Googlejuice!
If you had to master one concept in online marketing, this would surely be it.
I’ll give some Googlejuice tips below…but first, some of you might be asking: what is Googlejuice?
Googlejuice is a catchall for a handful of things that you and others can do to make your products, business or anything else show up high in Google’s rankings when people search.
By the way, there’s a great book called What Would Google Do? that recently came out — it has a few pages on Googlejuice and in general how to work better with Google.
So why is Googlejuice so important? Because it can send enormous traffic to your Web site — and you don’t have to pay marketing dollars for it!
Question for You:
When you search on the names of your product categories, products, company, executives or industry, does your organization show up first every time?
If the answer is yes, please contact me as I’d like your advice!
If the answer is no, you may find the rest of this article helpful.
What’s the secret? I don’t know.
Google Juice is based on secret algorithms, and we’ll probably get the formula around the time Coke gives out its secret recipe!
GoogleJuice Tips
But, there are some basic Googlejuice tips you can start working on now:
Now go enjoy a Googlejuice smoothie!
Know thy role!
My good friend Jane turned me on to a framework that she learned at Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter…it’s called DACI and it stands for: D = Driver, A = Approver, C = Consulted and I = Informed.
The DACI model has helped me execute numerous projects more efficiently!
Here’s how it works:
When you are trying to get something done, ask yourself: “Who can serve in the following roles?”
Driver = This is the most important role. It’s the person who drives a project from start to completion — it’s their neck on the line to get this thing done! This is typically one person but you can be two “co-drivers.”
For larger projects, I highly recommend that you pick a highly organized and detail-oriented person to be the Driver. A less-organized person works fine as the Driver on small projects involving fewer people and items to organize.
The DACI driver’s responsibilities typically include:
Note: The driver doesn’t have to be the smartest person and in fact I find that the smartest person on a particular topic often doesn’t make a good Driver (they make a good Consultant)
Approver = The person who will approve the project (aka “The Boss” or a senior manager)
Consulted = These are the experts that the driver will call upon to consult him or her. This can be the largest group and it is up to the Driver to make sure to find and utilize Consultants
Informed = These are the people who need to be informed about the progress of the project. They will include all the people above — the Driver, Approver and Consulted — and possibly others who want to be updated on the project but aren’t actively involved.
So, next time you’re trying to get something done: Try using the DACI approach…and get in touch with knowing thy role!
A few of us sat down in the Palm Springs hotel suite of Harv Eker, best-selling author of Secrets of The Millionaire Mind…and he shared a powerful framework on getting results.
His philosophy is to reverse engineer the process of bottom-line results
The gist of what Harv said was:
Ok, so you want results first, right? Well, what leads to results?…that would be Action (as in taking an action).
Next step is to ask: What leads to Action?…well, that would be having a Feeling about something (i.e. you feel strongly enough to take action).
Now, what leads to Feeling something?…that would be Thinking about something.
Finally, what leads to thinking about something?…well, that would be what Harv calls Programming (what you were taught as a child, the conditions you grew up in, etc.).
I added “Talking” to the second step…so here’s the 5-step framework:
So, since we’re reverse-engineering this whole thing, the highest leverage you have to impact results is to affect the earlier steps.
For example, if the results you want are to buy an expensive car, yet you were taught (i.e. Programmed) by your Mom or Dad that possessing an expensive car was a bad thing (because it flaunted wealth), then it will be very difficult for you to end up acquiring your new car by simply Taking Action.
Your Feelings about the car may be very mixed because of your parent’s influence…you may not even be able to Talk openly to people about you wanting the new car — but you want it!
So, if you want that new car, work first on the:
Harv shares this framework and many others in Secrets of The Millionaire Mind, which I recommend.
Thanks, Harv!