The economy is getting slightly better.  Job opportunities are opening up a bit.  Here is the first in a series of Weekly Pearls that we published several months ago.  We called the series The Job Seeker. 

Laura Bristow, Director of Education at The Medix School, said this about our e-book, Outfuence for Job Seekers, “Outfluence for Job Seekers is a good handbook for anyone contemplating a job change or who is already engaged in the job search process.  Job Seekers highlights aspects of job hunting that you don’t usually think about, which I find very valuable.  The book offers a number of creative communication techniques to consider.”

 The Job Seeker

 Today is a great day to look for a job!  Here’s what you do:  put on a conservative, professional-looking set of clothing, shine up your shoes, and head out to a coffee shop or a mall area where you know local businesspersons frequent.  Get yourself a cup of your favorite morning beverage.  Sit down amongst the folks and begin to meet people.  As you are standing in line waiting to place or receive your order, be sure to strike up a conversation with someone near you.  Be confident, friendly, complimentary, and most importantly be yourself.  Don’t be loud.  Always be respectful.  Listen more than you talk.  Make good eye contact.  Don’t be afraid to smile. 

You don’t want to be too aggressive.  You don’t want to appear desperate.  You just want to get to know people.  When you meet someone you really like and you determine that they come into the establishment often, make sure you return at the same time on future days.  Get to know them better.  Over time you will get comfortable enough to begin talking about opportunities.  It won’t take long.

Of course, if you meet someone with whom you connect right away don’t hesitate to ask if there are employment opportunities where they work, or in their company if you discover that you are speaking to the owner.  Company owners are always searching for people who are:

• energetic,
• self-starters,
• good communicators,
• flexible,
• and team players. 

You want to display these qualities.  These are all qualities that you can communicate silently.  You can find more information about silent communication in this website.

As a job seeker you have to find ways to differentiate yourself from the crowded playing field of job seekers.  I’ve told you what employers are looking for and I have told you where to get information about differentiating yourself.  If you need coaching, our Outfluence coaches can help you in person, over the phone, or via e-mail.  The cost is minimal; the result is the job-seeker’s edge.  Call  Al directly at 410-365-0742 for more information. 

Every day needs to be inspired, and you are the only one who can inspire your day today.  Go out and inspire today by helping someone, meeting someone, or doing something special that will move you closer to your goals.

Al Betz is one of several local businesspersons consulting with South River High School in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.  The consulting assignment is focused on providing students with the skills and the tools to be successful in the 21st Century.  A Signature is a theme chosen by a school and its surrounding community to connect classroom instruction with real-world situations and workforce-relevant skills.  The Signature selected for South River High School is Global Communications and Public Affairs.  The students have expressed a particular interest in learning about the soft skills which are often not a part of today’s school curriculum.  Outfluence, LLC will offer the students programs in Constant  Messaging®, Silent Communication, and Inspired Performance, each components of soft communication skills.

Al and Kay Betz have been named, along with Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author Robert J. Sherwood, Julie Ziglar, daughter of famed motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, and others, to the founding Board of Advisors of the United States of America Blended Family Association.  The mission of the Association is to unite, to serve, and to advocate for blended families living in the United States.  Outfluence, LLC is also a corporate partner of the USA BFA.  Additional information about the Association can be found at www.USABFA.com.

365 Thank Yous is the name of the book.  The back cover describes it as an “inspiring, true story about how a simple, old-fashioned act – writing thank-you notes – led a hopeless, angry, middle-aged man out of despair and into a wonderful life.”  The author began to put others first in his life and found joy in sharing, and receiving, gratitude. 

Putting others first does not mean sacrificing one’s own dreams and desires.  In the Outfluence vernacular putting others first means to be aware of the needs of the other living things in your life and to act thoughtfully toward them.

A Baltimore radio icon is most likely celebrating his final Thanksgiving with his family this week.  He is battling an insidious form of cancer.  He has received hundreds, maybe thousands, of “thank you” notes  from his listeners.  As he said, “I don’t fear death.  I’m just not ready to go yet.”  Imagine, though, how wonderful the feeling of knowing the impact he has had on so many lives.

A community of rabid college football fans discovers evil in the program.  One of their revered coaches has been accused of molesting young boys, possibly for decades.  No one in the college community stood up for the boys, despite having knowledge of the evil preying on them.  Finally, someone did speak out and started a torrent of activity in support of the boys.  Investigations are under way, jobs have been terminated, people have been arrested.  But good is winning out over evil as at least one nonprofit organization forms and raises hundreds of thousands of dollars in its first few weeks in support of programs to assist victims of molestation.  Others have created programs of awareness.  Others still are speaking out about child abuse and delivering the silent message to the boys that your community cares and wants to do something to rid itself and the world of this evil.  We all say to the courageous leaders who are stepping forward to respond to evil:   thank you.

A high school administrator told me this week that she wants business leaders to ignite the desire to learn and to make learning even more exciting for her students than it already is.  Students want to see a path to their future or they will drop out of school.  This school administrator is coordinating a county-wide innovative program whose goal is to connect classroom instruction with real-world situations and workforce-relevant skills.  There is a lot to be thankful for in this community . . . thoughtful administrators, teachers, parents, business leaders, and students.      

Thanksgiving 2011 comes at a time of great turmoil and change in all of our lives, yet we still have much to be thankful for.  It’s comforting to see people remembering old friends, fighting for goodness, and moving forward.  To all I say thank you, and Happy Thanksgiving.      

Business leaders agree that relationships are everything.  If you want to sell your products or your services, it is essential to network and to make friends.  It is important to be tenacious in pursuing business relationships.  Tenacity must be accompanied by integrity and creativity, and that’s where the ability to communicate effectively becomes paramount.

How do we creatively communicate our integrity?  How do we exercise tenacity without being overbearing and boorish?   

I think my friend Eric Byrd, the Jazz Ambassador to South America, so named by the United States Department of State, has it right.  He teaches Outfluence audiences about the “W.”  The “W” is an interesting concept that uses a range of emotions and silent activity to inspire people and thus to create customers.  Eric uses the “W” as a silent communicator in setting the mood for his audiences.  In business we can use the creativity inherent in the “W” method of communication to set the mood for the establishment of our integrity silently over time.  We build into the “W” our Constant Messaging® skills which enable us to thoughtfully, purposefully and sincerely demonstrate our reliability and our trustworthiness. 

Robyn Griffith Maxwell says about the Outfluence program, “You will learn things you wish you knew earlier.  You get a true ‘edge-ucation’ in marketing yourself.  I ordered this book and I can’t get enough.”

“I learned things I had never heard of in the bazillion other ‘sales’ books and articles I’d been thumbing through in the past nine months, and for that I thank you,” says Judy Stevens.

What Robyn and Judy, and others, find in Outfluence is an awareness of the power of silent communication and inspired performance.  What are your silent communicators revealing about you?  What are the silent communicators of others revealing about them that you need to be aware of?

Can you recover from a faux pas?  Of course you can.  The mechanism of recovery is appropriate communication delivered in the form of a quiet storm of friendship.

Your customers understand that best efforts don’t always lead to successful conclusions.  In other words, we all mess up once in a while, no matter what.  Customers will tolerate mistakes if you make up well.  Yes, just as you have to learn to make up with your spouse or your friend when you disappoint, you have to learn how to transfer those same make-up skills to the business world.

The first thing I recommend that you do in responding to a mistake is to quickly take ownership of it.  No excuses.  Your customer doesn’t want to hear it, nor does he have time to spend on it, nor is he interested in the reasons for the mistake.  He just wants to know how you are going to fix it and when.  An occasional mistake can actually be a good thing for your relationship.  This is an opportunity for you to show your customer that you can be counted on to deliver just as well when things go wrong as you can be counted on when things are going smoothly.  Poor trouble management can very easily lead to the end of a business relationship.  Good trouble management will promote your customer’s confidence in you.  Your customer will be watching you very carefully and he will look for these silent communicators in your trouble management performance:  

1. Responsiveness.
2. Responsibility.
3. Reward.

I have already addressed 1 and 2.  Number 3, Reward, is the gift of friendship that you can deliver to your customer.  You deliver this reward silently in the seriousness with which you approach the problem.  The immediacy of your reaction, the pace of your response, the quality of the personnel you assign to correct the problem, the intensity of your desire to get it right for the customer, your recognition of the importance of the matter to the customer all create a quiet storm of friendship.  If you have established an Outfluence quiet storm of consistent performance throughout your organization from the beginning, your trouble management program will be a component of the storm and will occur naturally.  This is a storm you won’t mind getting caught in.