Greater Milwaukee Jobs

2 GREATERmilwaukeeJOBS • February 26, 2015 Don't turn off job interviewers before turning them on to your candidacy A publication of Conley Media Distributed by: Conley Distribution 262-513-2646 ©2004 by Conley Media, LLC Waukesha County Independent and Locally Owned GREATERmilwaukeeJOBS is published weekly by Conley Media – Waukesha County, 801 N. Barstow St., Waukesha, WI 53186. Contents of this publication may not be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the publisher. GREATERmilwaukeeJOBS assumes no liability for any error in copy or content. It is the advertiser's responsibility to be aware of the laws pertaining to employment advertising. Subscriptions are available for $34 (non-refundable) for a 6-month subscription. Call 262-306-5035 for information. Call Center Director: Cindy Shaske 262-306-5016 cshaske@conleynet.com Account Executive: Julie Sears 262-306-5008 jsears@conleynet.com Production: Patricia Scheel 262-513-2690 GREATERmilwaukeeJOBS Volume 17 • Number 24 February 26, 2015 To place an ad: Call us at 262-306-5035 or fax us at 262-542-6082 deadline: Noon on Wednesdays Liz Reyer is a credentialed coach with more than 20 years of business experience. Her company, Reyer Coaching & Consulting, offers services for organizations of all sizes. Submit questions or comments about this column at www.deliverchange.com/coachscorner or email her at lizdeliverchange.com. Developing a routine key to building a business By Liz Reyer Star Tribune (Minneapolis) & A Q Q. I've recently launched a small business (very small – just me so far), and now I need to make it succeed. What tips do you have to help me stay on track? A. Build some structure and stay disciplined in order to succeed. THE INNER GAME Think about your business in terms of three themes: delivering your product or service, administer- ing your company and getting the word out.To succeed, you have to be effective at all three.That will require reflection on your strengths, weak- nesses and preferences regarding each area. Product or service delivery is probably the easiest part; it's the reason you started your business. That said, you need to be sure your offering meets your customers' needs, that it's appropriately priced, etc. Keep in mind that customer needs can evolve, so be sure to keep thinking about innovations and new ways to meet market needs. Administration can be the bane of a small-business owner's existence. There are fewer challenges for a sole proprietorship, but if you have thoughts of adding employees, you need to be prepared on the payroll, benefits and leadership fronts. Then there is sales and marketing. Depending on your temperament, this can also be a difficult area. And obviously it's essential because people can't buy from you if they don't know about you. Assess your skills as a networker and your com- fort in discussing the benefits of your product or service. Finally, assess your support struc- ture. Do you have thinking partners, devil's advocates, cheerleaders and mentors? THE OUTER GAME One of the other challenges in running your own business is staying on task. I'd strongly recommend laying out a plan so that you know what you want to accomplish in a day, a week or a month. In particular, this level of discipline will be helpful for the areas that you are least drawn to. Thinking in terms of administra- tion, try setting a time of day to attend to all non-urgent emails. Set a day of the week for doing financials. Develop a system to track expenses and manage receipts (your account- ant will thank you).This will accom- plish two things: It will keep you from dropping the ball and will also keep you from being distracted and wast- ing time. Regarding business development, if you don't have a clear strategy for acquiring customers, you need to develop one. And, to be clear, while word of mouth is good and impor- tant, it's generally not sufficient, espe- cially if you do not have a long track record in your field. So push yourself to know who your prospects are, where you can find them, and how they can best be reached.Then have timing in your plan to pursue it. Make no mistake, being out there on your own can be lonely, so get your community in place. Get together with professional peers and ask people you respect to be men- tors on various aspects of running a business. Don't spend all your time working, either — be sure to have a social life and have fun! THE LAST WORD Be deliberate in your planning and implementation to help succeed in your new business. senior vice president at Dale Carnegie Training in Hauppauge, N.Y. Determine how your skills match up with a potential employer by finding out more about the company through online searches and net- working, Van Doorne said. Then in your letter talk about how your ideas at your previous employer improved customer service or sped up paperwork, whatever the case may be. Companies, he said, want to "hire solutions." As rich as your experience may be, don't overload your cover letter with details. "Just highlight one of the experi- ences that relates the most to that company," Van Doorne said. Small details matter. When you write the cover letter, be sure to address the person you write to in the letter's first and last paragraphs, he said. Otherwise, the person might not read on. "People read two parts, the top and the bottom, and then they read the middle," he said. "So if the top and bottom don't speak about the other person, they aren't going to read the middle. If it's 'I am, I am' they are going to throw out the letter." Before you mail the letter, ask a friend to read it and tell you whether he or she would respond to such a letter. After you send it, you may need to consider a follow-up letter two or three weeks later, Van Doorne said. Think about how you can add some- thing extra to your follow-up letter by enclosing, for example, an inter- esting article you might have read about the company or its industry. "This follow-up letter isn't a beg- ging letter," he said. It "should have added value." cover letter ... from page 1 After a presentation on job hunting skills, an audience member stopped me to ask how he could get beyond the interview stage. He'd had no luck, and it took only 30 seconds to guess why. Before he'd told me what kind of job he wanted – or anything else about his work history – he made a politically divisive comment. It doesn't matter exactly what he said. What mattered was that it was irrele- vant to his job search. And because he had no idea what I thought about his comment, he had no idea whether he'd just elicited a knee-jerk reaction. Whether you're doing an initial screening interview on the telephone or an in-person interview inside an organi- zation, you need to be prepared to paint yourself in a relevant, non-divisive way. That's especially true when you hear the open-ended question "Tell me about yourself." You must be ready with a few well- practiced sentences that focus on your work history, your skills, your interests and your enthusiasm to share your strengths in the particular job at hand. Don't waste a precious moment telling about your children, your health, your interest in a paycheck or your political leanings. If – and only if – it's relevant, you may include references to your hobbies, volunteer activities or association mem- berships. You don't want to give the interviewers any information that might prejudice them against you. You should be ready to briefly sum- marize the educational degrees, if rele- vant, or work experience that prepared you to seek this position. Explain your special expertise that makes you perfect By Diane Stafford The Kansas City Star (TNS) see JOB INTERVIEWERS . . . page 6

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