Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom How to Network to Find New Customers

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom How to Network to Find New Customers According to the 2015 U.S. Bank Small Business Annual Survey, 67 percent of small-business owners reported that they maintain a social media presence for networking and marketing purposes. But in-person activities, such as belonging to and attending community or Chamber of Commerce events, were less common, despite the fact that using both may help answer the age-old question of how to find new customers. Itapped three small-business ownersâ€"Sunny Bonnell, co-founder of branding agency Motto in Dallas, Texas; Blake George, founder of design firm BMG Media Group in Detroit, Michigan; and Matthew Manos, founder of business consultancy verynice in Los Angelesâ€"to find outhow small-business owners can use networking tofindnew customers. Why is networking important for small-business owners? Sunny Bonnell: Ive always believed that the best relationships come from exploration and experiences. Networking is imperative as a small-business owner because it forces you to get out and interact with people who can help grow your business. Blake George: Networking is a great way to expand your sales team without carrying the overhead. More than likely, theindividual you talk to may not need your service in the short term. You may think it’s a dead lead, but ultimately the goal is to get that individual educated on your product or service enough to remember you in the future. Matthew Manos: Many small-business owners have unrealistic expectations when it comes to networking. The thought often is, “Oh, cool, I’m going to go to this event, and then I’ll get a new client tomorrow.” Immediate satisfaction or return on effort is not the point of networking, and frankly rarely happens. Networking is a valuable tool for small-business owners because it allows them to showcase their skills by being of service to others, developing their network’s network and becoming a friendly and familiar face. What activities do you engage in to keep a continuous pipeline of new customers? Manos:At verynice, our approach to engaging an audience and keeping a continuous pipeline of new customers and opportunities comes down to creating value, helping others and being present. George: Engaging current customers is key because the best leads arereferralsâ€"your customer base providescredibility on your behalf. Additionally, targeted advertisements on social networks are a great way to advertise to your perfect customer at the budget you can afford with no monthly commitments. Bonnell: At Motto, we are incredibly socially minded and PR driven. We are hyperactive on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat and love sharing our work. Small-business owners need to understand what they are trying to achieve and what avenues they must travel to get there. For example, we’re in the early stages of our first book, and a strategic roadmap will be an essential tool to support that initiative. How do you find time for proactive outreach when you’re incredibly busy? George: Just like anything else, you make time! Maintaining priorities andefficiency on your currenttasks is a game changer. Fine tuning the perfect amount of task delegation to your employees or automated software will help lighten your schedule. Most importantly,don’t procrastinate. Manos: As the founder of our organization, a major part of my role [and] job description is to serve as the face for our company. As a result, I speak at an average of 100 events per year. That sounds like a lot, but in reality, this takes up about four hours of my time every week. Those 300 hours per year generate 75 percent of our business leads, but only add up to about two months of full-time effort. Bonnell: You have to be mindful that work can never be taken for granted and branding, outreach and creating awareness for your business is a labor of love. Sometimes I get up an hour earlier. If I have a little downtime, Ill jot notes down or use Anchor to capture my ideas. For the rest of the interview, head over to the AMEX Open Forum.

Tips For Writing a Resume For High School Seniors

Tips For Writing a Resume For High School SeniorsIf you are looking to write a resume for high school seniors then you need to know that there are some very different standards for this type of document than there are for the typical college or graduate school resume. Not only is the level of experience required higher but the kind of information is also required to be included in a high school senior's application.So, when writing a resume for a high school senior you need to make sure that you make your application as professional as possible. In other words you need to make sure that you are putting the right words on the page at the right time. Here are a few tips to help you along.First of all you need to know that in order to write a resume for high school seniors you need to have a good understanding of the requirements of applying. In this day and age most schools require that you have at least a 2.0 GPA in order to even get into the school. Not only do they want to make sure that you will be able to succeed in the program but they also want to make sure that you can stay out of trouble in the long run. Therefore, when you are writing your application it is essential that you think about what type of school you are applying to and what your options are going to be going forward.If you want to write a resume for high school seniors, you need to understand that you are going to be competing with a lot of other students who are as talented as you are. That means that you should start with an impressive academic record if you have one. Next you should focus on your extracurricular activities and use these to show that you are a hard worker.The next thing you need to do is decide on a career goal for yourself and what kind of work you want to be doing at the end of the program. This is an area where you really need to be creative. Try to come up with something that will interest them and will provide you with something of value.Another important aspect of wr iting a resume for high school seniors is the amount of information that you are going to be listing. Make sure that you are using keywords in the material so that the student can easily find it. Even though a lot of the paperwork is going to be very simple and easy to fill out, you still need to make sure that it is all relevant and specific enough to help the high school senior with the application.Finally, when you are writing a resume for a high school senior you need to keep things neat and clean. It is easy to create too much clutter and get too much information onto the page. Try to be aware of this when you are first starting out and then work your way up to becoming more organized as you go along.Writing a resume for a high school senior is no easy task and you need to be careful that you don't spend all of your time over organizing everything and running back and forth to the desk in the office. Remember that this is an important decision and you want to make sure that you are not missing any key parts of the process.

How to Format Promotions on Your Resume - Algrim.co

How to Format Promotions on Your Resume - Algrim.co Showing your devotion to a company as well as your ability to be promoted internally can be impactful for your future employment opportunities. It shows that you are passionate about solving business challenges once you get into the workplace and that you deliver results. But how do you show and format promotions on your resume? Before we start discussing how to format your promotions in a way that makes it easy for your hiring manager to comprehend your promotions, let’s talk about why promotions are important to list on your resume. Why Promotions Are Important on the Resume Promotions are important to show on your resume because they allude to your commitment to a business or a business challenge. In 2019, more than 45% of the U.S. population changed jobs within two years. This means that it is more common to experience employees moving in and out of a position in a short period of time. For job seekers, this might feel like a great way to climb the corporate ladder. For employers, this can be a challenge as they’re constantly having to replace Human Resources. When you show your promotions, you show your commitment. And that can be a powerful way to communicate to your new employer that you’ll “stick it out” with them through and through. Best Method for Listing Promotions on Your Resume Before we jump into the methods for listing your promotions, it’s important to note that even when you list promotions on your resume, the best way to ensure that they have impact is when you list at least three bullet points which speak to your achievements when you were responsible for that position. This is a great way to ensure that your hiring manager or future employer understands that you were promoted because you were able to deliver impactful business results as part of your employment. Whenever you list previous work experience, be sure that you list them in reverse chronological order. That means that your most recent employment history is at the top of the page and your oldest employment history is at the bottom of the page. There are three methods for listing promotions on your resume. The first method is the most common. It is when you list your promotions in a way to where they seem like they are new positions. Because they are. This would be separate previous work entries under your previous work experience. Not only is it the most common but it is also the most effective. This is because you have the opportunity to show your hiring manager, in a more clear way, what caused you to get promoted. Here is an example of what that would look like: Google Software Engineering Manager - May 2012 to May 2019 Responsible for 18 software engineers on the Search team. Released more than 15 high-profile projects. Was part of agile methodology training. Google Software Engineer - May 2011 to May 2012 Responsible for contributing to the Twitter Search team. Committed more than 18,000 lines of code. Reduced our code test time by more than 80%. The reason why this is impactful is that it shows a linear progression of your career. And it is the easiest to read and comprehend for your hiring manager. Alternative Methods for Listing Promotions The two other methods are less common. And most likely will not be for you, the regular job seeker who may have experienced a promotion. This method is best used for those who have a large amount of experience within one company. Though, I would urge you to continue to look at the first method, even if your employment history with the company was longer than 10 years. And simply challenge yourself to keep your achievements terse. The second method looks like the following: Google Senior Software Engineer - May 2012 to May 2019 Software Engineer - May 2011 to May 2012 Software Engineer Intern - May 2010 to May 2011 In this situation, you are simply listing your employment history with one company and showing a vast amount of commitment and linear job title progression within the company. The reason why this method is less effective is that it takes up a considerable amount of space on your resume simply listing when and what job title you performed within the company (or in our example, Google). The last method is to simply restate the fact that you were part of the same company but with a new job title. Once again, this last method is less preferred and is not as effective as our first example. Here is what that looks like: Google Senior Software Engineer - May 2012 to May 2019 Google Software Engineer - May 2011 to May 2012 Google Software Engineer Intern - May 2010 to May 2011 Accompanying this would be one list of bullet points that speak to your entire work history with the company (or Google in our example). The reason why this is less effective is that it creates a singular accomplishment summary for your employment history with that company. And that can mix together your career progression, which can be confusing and often less effective for hiring managers. Preferred Method The preferred method is to try and keep your resume history terse and simply state every piece of work history that is effectively speaking to the job title you’re applying for. If you’re applying for a position as a Software Engineer, it’s best to leave out your Starbucks Barista work history. Use this method to show your career progression, promotions, and work history in a way that’s effective for the hiring manager and easy to scan or read. Google Software Engineering Manager - May 2012 to May 2019 Responsible for 18 software engineers on the Search team. Released more than 15 high-profile projects. Was part of agile methodology training. Google Software Engineer - May 2011 to May 2012 Responsible for contributing to the Twitter Search team. Committed more than 18,000 lines of code. Reduced our code test time by more than 80%.