rtupThe “Entrepreneur Effect” Advantage
Having effective impact and delivering outstanding value to your employer can be challenging. Job descriptions are just bullet points of basic things that you are expected to perform and that is only the beginning. Established organizations expect their employees to go above and beyond those bullet point task and make a real impact on the business.
During interview process, when you want to join an organization, one of the key questions to ask is: what success means for me? This is an absolutely important question, because it goes above the traditional bullet point tasks that you need to perform every day and shift the conversation towards results. What is the expected results that I need to delivery and I am getting paid for. And what are the outstanding results that employer “really” wants you to deliver.
Do they need to become profitable? They want to become break even? More revenue needed? Do they need more new logos and customers?
Now, the fact is, no matter what position you are in and the job that you are doing, there is always room for improvement and of course “outstanding” results. It really comes down to your attitude towards what you are trying to achieve and what you are planning to become.
Just an example; I know a Pre Sales engineer that always resist when it comes to cold calling and prospecting as his attitude is “I am not a sales resource, I do not cold call”. To put this to the context, the business is suffering from acquiring new logos and people needs to step up and do what ever it takes to get more customers. My approach and attitude is, Pre Sales is a sales job and in every sales job, you need to be a fanatical prospecter. Otherwise you are failing your employer, your teammates and most importantly, yourself.
Delivering on your job description which is a template coming from HR, vs. becoming successful at what you do are two different things and you need to be aware of the expectations and the outcomes that you are chasing.
No matter how cool you are, if no body knows about it, you do not exist.
Throughout the process of becoming successful at your job, there are some skills that will help you thrive. Acquiring and mastering these skills will help you not only stay relevant to the market place, but becoming best version of yourself and becoming more valueable in the market place.
I call these skills the “Entrepreneur Effect” impact as founders and entrepreneurs are acquring these skills during their journey to build successful businesses and startups. These are the same skills that make them outstanding founders and pushing our life forward. The fact is, all these skills are learnable and even if you do not want to be a startup founder, you can use them in the corporate world and become a beast when it comes to deliver results.
Personal Branding
You already have a brand! The fact is are you aware of it?
No matter what position you have and in what scale you work, you already have a personal brand. It means people have a perception of who you are and what to expect from you. The fact is, you must be in control of your personal brand. You must become a branding expert in your field so that everybody knows you, and most importantly, they know what to expect from you. You need to communicate this message via branding tools that are available out there, such as social media, clothing style, speaking gigs etc. The fact is this is not a one week or two weeks practice. Personal branding is a long term process and it may take years for you to establish a strong brand for yourself.
Master personal branding space.
Marketing
No matter how you want people to know you and impact their perception, you should be able to communicate that message clearly with the market place. You do not need to work in marketing space and marketing roles to learn marketing. You must learn how marketing strategies and tools are working so you can build a strong presence and messaging around YOURSELF.
No matter how cool you are, if no body knows about it, you do not exist.
Sales
The most important of all in my opinion, is the ability to sell. If you are coming from technical and engineering background, and you want to break into sales roles, or even if you are thinking of becoming a founder and start your own venture, or you are thinking of going up the corporate ladder and become a CTO or CIO in IT space, you must know how to sell.
This include selling yourself and your ides to stakeholders, but most importantly bring new streams of revenue to the business. Trust me, there is always ways to utilize your existing network and do more sales.
If your attitude is I do not want to be a sales person, you are doing your job wrong. Sales skills are the only set of skills that make you more valuable in the market place as businesses always looking to bring more revenue from the down of time to the end. This is the one skill that never can be outsourced, automated or eliminated.
Organizations always and always need sales!
What skills you think you should have to deliver outstanding results and make yourself unique in the market place?
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