A career resolution is exactly what it sounds like: a resolution for your career intended to help you grow into a better professional. At Work It DAILY, we believe that you need to work on your career every day (yes, you do, in fact, need to "work it daily"). So, everyone should make a career resolution or two along with those other ambitious personal resolutions. They can be little things like learning a new skill or growing your professional network, or bigger goals like landing a promotion or getting a new job.
But how do you know what kind of career resolutions to make?
You can begin by asking yourself, "Am I where I want to be in my career?" If your answer is "no," you need to take a closer look at your career goals.
Here are five more career questions you should be asking yourself this new year to figure out how to grow your career and become the professional you know you can be.
1. Am I Proud Of My Job Title?
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You could be a janitor or a neurosurgeon, it doesn't matter. If you aren't proud of what you do for a living, there's something missing: passion and purpose.
Career burnout is real, but sometimes it's deeper than that. Our passion at 25 won't necessarily be our passion at 40. And that's okay.
When we are passionate about what we do, we are proud because we are doing what we think is important, what we love doing. We feel a sense of purpose. We are adding value to and making a difference in this crazy world—in a small, but significant way.
Every job is important. No matter what your job title is, if you aren't proud of it, and don't feel like you can leverage your strengths as a professional in the position, you should absolutely change that. Identify that one problem you want to find a solution to and go after it. What are you waiting for?
Remember, the only bad job is the one you aren't passionate about, the one that isn't allowing you to leverage your professional strengths and reach your potential.
If you don't know what your professional strengths are or what kind of work you'd find purposeful and fulfilling, we recommend taking our free career quizzes.
Take the quizzes now to learn your unique combination of professional strengths and how they can help you get better career results so you can be proud of what you do.
2. Do I Feel Secure In My Career?
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This is a bit different from job security. Actually, job security doesn't exist. Every job is temporary. Think you can stay in the same job for decades and then retire? Think again. While that may have been commonplace for past generations, today's workforce and job market are completely different than what they were a decade or two ago.
So what does it mean to feel secure in our careers? When we believe as professionals that we can add value wherever we are.
You are a business-of-one. A company won't want to invest in you if they don't know the kinds of services you provide, the kind of value you could add to the organization, and the problems you could solve for them. Here are some examples of questions that will help you determine if you're secure in your career:
- Are you adding value at your current job?
- Are you honing your skills, expanding your network, and building your personal brand?
- Do you feel confident that if you lost your job, you'd be able to find a comparable one in the same field?
- Do you feel confident you'd be able to demonstrate to potential employers how you add value?
Since every job is temporary, it's extremely important to constantly work on our careers and ask ourselves these questions frequently so we always feel secure in our businesses-of-one.
3. Will I Be Able To Achieve Wealth?
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When most people think of "wealth," they think of dollar signs and anything that you can attach a monetary value to. Our jobs help us build wealth. We're not going to tell you that money isn't important. Of course it is! It allows you to live the life you want to live. In many ways, money equals freedom.
But the truth is, there are other forms of wealth that are more important that you can't attach any monetary value to.
Real wealth comes in the form of family, friends, hobbies, experiences, knowledge, and community. If you don't have these things, money will never fill that void.
So, is your career allowing you to build this type of wealth? The intangible kind? Or are your relationships suffering because of your job? Is your work-life balance nonexistent? Do you have any time to pursue hobbies, learn, or volunteer?
Your career should never inhibit you from achieving real wealth. The best job isn't the one that pays the most. It's the one that pays the bills and gives you enough time to live, too.
4. Do I Have Any Regrets?
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Just asking ourselves this question can be difficult because maybe we don't want to know the answer. Acknowledging that you regret something in your life is the first step to making a change. Guess what? There's still time to chase your dreams!
If you do have regrets, that doesn't mean you haven't been a successful professional. That also doesn't mean you haven't had a good career. You could be the most successful person, but if you never got up the courage to start that business, make that career change, or go back to school, you'll most likely think, "What if?" for the rest of your life.
You'll never know if you don't try. Don't be afraid of failure. Life is just one big experiment, and it's your job to learn from those experiments. That's how you discover what works and what doesn't. That's how you discover what's possible.
And even if you do "fail," that's an incredibly more valuable experience than waiting out the clock on a mediocre career. So, don't give up on your dreams just yet.
5. Can I Reach My Full Potential In This Role? In This Career?
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When we feel like we have more to contribute to society, that's a sign we haven't yet reached our full potential. Do you feel like you're wasting your potential at your current job? Do you think you'd reach your full potential in another career?
Really think about what you want your professional legacy to be. It's a lot harder to get up in the morning when you don't find fulfillment in your work. When it comes time for you to retire, are you going to look back on your career and feel like you could have accomplished much, much more with those 50 years?
Everyone has unique gifts, skills, and expertise. When we focus on developing ourselves as individuals, as businesses-of-one, it's a lot easier to share those things with the world. Give yourself a chance to reach your full potential. If you haven't taken our free quizzes yet, your results will help you do just that. You may be surprised by what you can accomplish.
Before you get back into the same routine at work this year, we hope you take a few minutes to ask yourself these career questions. Listen carefully to how you answer them. You may need to make a career resolution or two.
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By CAREEREALISM-Approved Expert, Deborah Shane
We have come to the last step in our sales journey. We have covered prospecting, qualifying, analyzing, negotiation, closing, and now retention.
People will remember how you made them feel! Follow these tips from career expert Deborah Shane to create and maintain great relationships with your customers.
What kind of experience do you want customers to have with you and your business?
How do you keep customers happy, engaged and continuing to refer you?
We are all working so much harder today to find, qualify, develop and close new customers. The effort you put into retaining customers is almost more important than finding them. Loyalty? Gone. Poor customer service has compromised loyalty more than any other factor. Why companies cut back and cut corners on customer service is so short sighted.
The impact of customer retention is felt in 3 ways:
1. Profitability: 5-20% more expensive to find a new customer than to keep one.
2. Revenue: Just 5% more retention can translate into 77% more revenue over 10 years.
3. New Business Development: Reputation plus referrals equals growth!
Information from www.sba.gov.
I know for me, if a vendor is NOT paying attention to me, not speaking to me with respect, and doesn’t show me an appreciation for being a customer, I am gone to one that will and does.
There are very few “exclusive” companies (besides the IRS) where competition doesn’t give you a choice.
So, what can and should you be doing today to ‘always be retaining?’
I love the concepts in Seth Godin’s Lynchpin, where he talks about the new world of work. He defines the lynchpin mentality as, working toward being “indispensable,” someone who makes a difference, leads and connects others. Treating your customers with this kind of attitude and mindset will set you up for long term customer relationships and success. Invest in training your employees to ‘always be retaining’ and it will pay off big!
As I look back on my long career path, sales and customer service underlie all of the parts, cycles and phases. Business is sales. Without sales there is no business. I am not sure why this fundamental idea is not taken more seriously, by businesses and professionals today. They still view sales as a dreaded activity they have to do. Well, you absolutely are in sales.
There is a NEW FACE AND LANGUAGE for sales today. It is based on the six fundamentals we presented plus the qualities that make you ‘indispensable,’ someone your customers can’t envision living or being without. That is a coveted position to work yourself into.
So the six step sales process finding a prospect, qualifying that prospect, analyzing their needs and matching them with your assets, negotiation, closing and retention remains the same...adding that intangible quality of being indispensable is what sets you apart.
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We are all “salespeople.” Front desk to back stage, anyone in the chain between the customer, sales person, sales team IS IN sales. When that experience is unified for the customer through the chain and they have a consistent memorable experience, then and only then can you retain them and foster them becoming you biggest cheerleaders!
Here are 5 tips for creating consistent and memorable customer experiences.
Train your entire staff to “always be retaining” by being:
1. Polite: Speak and act respectfully no matter what.
2. Knowledgeable: Know your company, product, service, market and competition.
3. Sense of Humor: Nothing bonds people more than an appropriate sense of humor.
4. Personal: Own your time with people on the phone or in person. Focus on them.
5. Out-Servicing Your Competition: Know what they are not doing and do it.
There are so many social tools today that make communicating, rewarding and surveying your customers at the same time easy. Use them and leverage them to engage, connect and serve.
Customers are hungry for real people to simply answer the phone and say, “Welcome to Train with Shane, this is Deborah, how may I serve you?” Yes, it costs more, but, trust me it costs way more when customers flee and go somewhere else!
How do you retain customers?
Did you enjoy this article? You can read more articles by this expert here. Also, check out all of our free webinars!
CAREEREALISM Expert, Deborah Shane delivers business education and professional skill development specializing in women in business, those in career transition, sales and personal and social brand strategy and integration. Follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.The photo for this article is provided by Shutterstock.
