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| Learn how to sell yourself to any organization. Don't miss out on this valuable lesson, read on. |
How do you present yourself to any organization in such a way that they hire you?
How do you get invited back for the KNOCK after you ENTER an organization?
[If you haven't read the last article, Enter and Knock to Achieve Your Dreams, then check it out here because it's been very popular and gotten very high reviews! It's worth your time because it will only take a couple of minutes to read the entire article]
FIND YOUR VALUE
In the last article, I promised to show you how to transition from the ENTER to the KNOCK. It's a simple, yet powerful piece of advice:
If you want to successfully get invited back for the KNOCK, you must first find your VALUE. To do this, you must ask yourself "What talents and skills and experiences and ideas do I posses that can help the firm that I am approaching?"
Here's a strategy that may work for you, because it's definitely worked for me. Take a blank piece of paper and construct a diagram similar to this:
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| This is a Mind-Map: In the middle of the page, write 'VALUE' and then draw other 'branches' with the words 'Skills', 'Experiences', 'People', 'Resources' and 'Ideas'. From these branches, you can begin to brainstorm all the different skills and unique abilities that you posses. |
The above diagram is a quickly sketched Mind-Map. Mind-maps are super useful for brainstorming. You can learn more about them by clicking here.
Here's another example of a prettier mind-map:
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| Discovering your value with mind-maps |
What each of the branches mean:
SKILLS - Under skills, write down the abilities that you posses (e.g. you may have taken a course in website design, so website design is one of your skills).
EXPERIENCES - Where have you worked before and what did you do and learn there? E.g. Have you started your own business? Have you been a leader of a society/community group?
IDEAS - What are your ideas for the organization you want to approach? For example, my idea for the organizations that I approached was to help them market their services to the Toastmaster community because this was a segment of the population they hadn't previously been targeting.
The above three are pretty straight forward. The below two are the ones that most people miss out, and hence are not able to take advantage of!
PEOPLE - Which groups of people do you have access to? For example, as a University student, I have access to University students. This means that I can help organizations market their services to students. In addition, I have access to the Toastmaster community, which means I can help organizations market their services to members of Toastmasters. Which groups of people do you know, and how can you use these connections to help the company you want to work with?
RESOURCES - What other resources do you posses/have access to? For example, as President of my Toastmaster group, I have access to an email database of 9,000 people in University and hence I can send out an email recommending 'Company XYZ's' services to the students. This was my unique selling point to the organizations that I partnered with - this helped me gain benefits worth $130,000 for my Toastmaster club.
After you go through the 'Value Finding Exercise', look at the organization that you want to work with and look for the problems that they are facing. Then try and link your value to propose a possible solution.
Imagine sitting at an interview and then telling the interviewer that you realize, from your research, they are facing Problems X, Y and Z, and here's how you can use your Skills and Resources to work with their team to come up with a possible solution. (Remember, be humble, not arrogant. Propose a possible solution, but say that this isn't the only solution and you're willing to work with the team to come up with better solutions). I know that if I were the interviewer, I'd be impressed because:
1. You'd done your research about the organization by finding out what problems/challenges they were currently facing
2. You were creative in using your skills to come up with a solution, while being open to working with the organization to find better solutions.
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| Find a solution by linking together your value. Show the organization how you can help them, and they will help you. |
You might be saying that the organization you want to work with doesn't have any problems/challenges (I doubt!) But, just in case this is the case, you don't always have to build a solution to a problem...You can also propose a better solution/strategy that will help the organization improve it's profits/brand image/employee morale, etc.
For example, I realized that Active Communications Ltd (a firm which provides presentation skills training for executives as well as the general public), was not targeting the Toastmaster community (Toastmasters is an organization that helps the general public improve their communication skills). I realized that because I myself was a Toastmaster, and hence had access to this group of people, I could collect emails of Toastmaster members and suggest that they sign up for public speaking workshops by Active Communications! Viola...it's a win-win situation: the Toastmasters get public speaking training from a renowned training firm, and Active Communications get more clients! :)
I'm sure that you have lots of ideas, resources and skills that can help organizations out. All you have to do is look hard enough, and you'll come up with a brilliant idea that will WOW any organization you want to work with:
1. Find your value. Do the value building exercise to discover what talents and abilities and resources you possess. Write down everything and anything that comes to mind...
2. Look at the specific challenges and hurdles facing the organization you want to work with. Link together your value to come up with a solution (this will impress the organization because it show's you've put in the effort to research their organization, and it shows them one specific example of how you can be useful to them)
3. When you can't find a problem that the organization is facing, find a way to improve the current strategy the organization already has in place. Maybe they aren't targeting a potential market group that they should be? Or maybe they could implement a new software (which you've had experience dealing with) that can improve employee productivity.
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| 'S' for Solution |
How do you sell yourself to an organization?
Propose a solution.
This next sentence is so important you should write it down somewhere where you can always see it: When you show an organization how you can help them, they will help you.
This next sentence is so important you should write it down somewhere where you can always see it: When you show an organization how you can help them, they will help you.
Looking forward to hearing your success stories soon!
P.S. In the next article, we will start discussing specific influence strategies. This is the real exciting stuff! Trust me, you don't want to miss out on the next article. It will show you how to present your proposal/speech in a way that that excites and engages the audience (whether it's a bunch of bankers or the CEO of an organization) !
Stay tuned, and when you enjoy an article, share it with your friends on Facebook :)
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