Personal Recession-Proofing

Network.  

“Nobody who is truly successful ever does it alone.” - Og Mandino, cited by Bob Burg in Endless Referrals.

“It’s not what you know or who you know, it’s how well you know them that really counts.” -Ivan Misner.

Without a “network” it will be difficult to get a job.  Without a “network” it is difficult to do a job. We have all heard the word network used as a verb. What does it mean? How is it done?

Good questions — but the answer goes beyond the scope of this brief article.  So, I strongly recommend two first steps, ideally taken while you still have a job, but it is never too late.

1. Learn how successful networking is done. Learn about “giving.”  There may be a few people who do this unconciously. But everyone, even the “naturals” can stand to invest in their future by learning this recession-proofing skill. Toward that end, I recommend two books by Bob Burg:  Endless Referrals and The Go-Giver.  There are many other great models and resources, but his material is sound.  
2. Set up a profile on LinkedIn.  There is little I can add to the two books above, except to stress the importance of even the most minimal action -  stay in touch!  Over the years of teaching the PBET Workshop, I have met over 1600 people.  Yet today, I find it difficult to contact very many of them.  All I have is a company email address and phone number for most people.  Since very few people stay at one place of employment for more than a few years, I have lost touch with most of my former students.  But today, this is completely unnecessary  thanks to social media (more on that below) and especially sites like LinkedIn.  I now urge everyone I meet to set up a profile on LinkedIn and maintain it. Establish connections with colleagues, customers, vendors, professors and others.  In short, don’t lose track of those who can be part of your network. And once you have set up a profile at LinkedIn, I would be happy to connect with you!

Market Yourself.  

This is a natural extension of networking; it includes networking and goes beyond it.  When I first established Solid Performance Solutions (1992), I read a book called Guerilla Marketing.  One of the many ideas in the book was to write an article in the field of your expertise, and get it published in a magazine.  That idea is still a good one, but it is so much easier today to apply guerilla marketing with the help of the internet.  

In 1992 I had no website and Web 2.0 was unknown.  Today the possibilities for marketing yourself online are endless and relatively easy to implement. But it is wrong to assume you already know how to do it.

1. Many have no knowledge of the array of the tools available or how to use them.  This is certainly more true of my generation (Boomer) than younger generations.  But anyone, including Boomers, can learn to create a blog, a tweet, a Squidoo lens, a HubPage; anyone can learn to use Digg, YouTube, Facebook, and a dozen more social media tools to brand themselves. Anyone can learn to use these tools, but it helps to receive training.
2. Even if you have existing experience with these tools, it helps to know how to use them to market yourself in an attractive way.  It goes without saying (I hope) that the goal is to attract, not repel. For this, almost all of us can benefit from experts - from training.

 
During the last 15 years I have operated Solid Performance Solutions as a home-based consulting service and also worked on a network marketing business. I learned a lot about what works and doesn’t work, and about attraction marketing, on or off the internet. I have put a lot about what I have learned on a separate web site - RG Consulting Partners.com.

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