Career Development

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Whether you like it or not, you are being Googled each day by clients, potential clients, the media, adversaries, referral sources, potential employers, your current employer, recruits, friends, family members, even a potential romantic partner – the list goes on. But most professionals aren’t regularly conducting Google searches on their own names, which is extremely risky in managing your online reputation and professional brand.

The lines between our personal and professional lives are getting blurrier by the day in today’s hyper-connected digital world. As a result, it’s imperative to take cautionary steps to protect your professional reputation and brand, while also embracing social media as a necessary networking, business development and branding tool, especially in today’s environment. Here’s how. 

It’s a great time to take stock of your marketing and business development activities over the past year, including your successes and failures, and set goals for the year ahead.…

What if I told you that there was a cool visual way to view and then request new connections to your LinkedIn network and it was so easy that all you had to do was to hold up your smartphone and scan a QR code?

Well, it exists – pretty exciting, right? (it’s a relatively new feature that was introduced in June 2018) and many people don’t know about it, because LinkedIn doesn’t always do a great job of letting its users know when it makes enhancements to its platform. Take full advantage of this nifty tool and impress the lawyers with whom you work and your colleagues. Also – add this to every presentation you give from now on.

Use the summer and this time working remotely to make enhancements to your LinkedIn profile and your LinkedIn branding and marketing plan.

LinkedIn is the most important social media channel

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While it is a little more challenging to build relationships that will turn into referrals and new clients today due to social distancing, it is not impossible by any means. It just requires us to pivot what we were doing before the pandemic (taking clients and prospects to lunch or events, going to in-person networking events and conferences) and conducting most of our networking and brand building online or by phone. It involves shifting to doing more thought leadership and relying on social media and webinars.

When done correctly, these tools can help you cast an even wider net on your marketing and business development efforts than before due to the vast reach of the social platforms. Your goal is to stay top of mind and to be helpful. That’s it. Here are some ideas on how to incorporate these tools into your marketing and business development strategy and turn your connections into new business.

There will come a point in your career when you will get fired, let go, downsized or furloughed. No matter the circumstances surrounding you losing your job, it sucks. I’ve been through almost all of them myself.

But the bright side is that you can emerge from these situations as a stronger, better version of your professional self and use these failures to propel you to work situations that are a better fit for you – just like I did.

Every dark situation has a silver lining, and I want you to know that you aren’t alone in experiencing speed bumps along your career path. You can fail (multiple times in fact) but still have a successful career. Remember – just because it didn’t work out for you in one position doesn’t mean that you are doomed for your entire career. What will define you is how you dust yourself off after a setback and forge ahead. Resiliency, resourcefulness and determination will set you apart from others and help you get back on track. Here are some tips to help you.