YOUR Personal Marketing Plan
Your PMP is as unique as you are. While the elements that you must address in your Plan are similar in all well-documented Plans, your commitments to time and activities, and your interface with “real life” will bring said personalization to your Plan. Our 12-step process accounts for all necessary elements in planning…
THIS Week’s Session: Thursday, March 9th…8:45 at The Egg and I
Developing YOUR Personal Marketing Plan
PRODUCT ANALYSIS
The first three steps: Assessment, setting your objectives, and developing your personal marketing collateral materials… What is your communication strategy? In today’s digital world of recruitment, it is that set of keywords and concepts that comprise your story.
Your proven skills, areas of knowledge, and your actual, collective experience are the features of YOU, ‘your product,’ and your collateral materials (think RESUME) is your ‘story’ of the benefits of employing you. Actual employment happens when YOUR value proposition meets an employers’ needs.
If you are still unclear on the next steps along your career path, it may be appropriate for you to use your initial wave of networking with people that already know you, to ASSESS your strengths (think: market research).
TEST MARKETING
Steps four and five are in place to provide you with confirming feedback that you have selected an appropriate approach to the marketplace. Coaching your references, then branding yourself in the digital world of recruitment will help you validate your initial decisions. This validation that the marketplace needs you and your value proposition helps you to have the necessary confidence in your story.
- Discuss your resume with your references… does your story capture the real YOU? Have you missed any key bits of supportive information?
- Use LinkedIn, your “digital footprint,” to pull interest in you to your Profile, and to push your message out to the marketplace through your network of contacts and Group activity.
DISTRIBUTION NETWORK
The next two steps, initial research and pulling together your initial contact list are in place to create focus to your efforts… What are the trends in the market that are attractive to you, and which target organizations are most needy of your value proposition? Your evolving contact list will take you through the A-B-C’s of networking and the development of your distribution channels…
- Start with people you already know or have reason to “should know,” as they are the most likely to be receptive to your initial efforts.
- As you develop your network, identify key bridge contacts that can give you specific information or introduce you to key decision-makers and hiring authorities.
- Critical to your success is building relationships with people who can influence your hiring. This ‘must see’ list of influential contacts and hiring authorities is the epicenter of your job search campaign!
YOUR CAMPAIGN LAUNCH
Have an implementation strategy and stick to your plan. Your Personal Marketing Plan should evolve as you progress in your job search. I would recommend early on in your search you attend several events where other job seekers hang out. These are great places to meet new people, develop and practice your elevator pitch, and get some support.
However, within 6-8 weeks you want to begin moving AWAY from those kinds of events to places where potential employers and people close to potential employers hang out. The former of these events will usually be free.
The latter may cost you something. That’s why you want to work out the bugs in your verbal and printed “brand image” in the early stages of your job search. So you can be more effective and efficient when you implement your PMP. Yes, this means you will say “no” to some things.
You want to be strategic! Remember that an occasional job search is the most predictable part of your career-long strategy!
Critical to the efficiency and productivity of your campaign is the regularity and frequency of the activities you are willing to commit to, and the uses of your time, that will create top-of-mind awareness of YOU (the product) in the desirable or chosen marketplace. In other words, what are you willing and able to commit to to get HIRED!…to LAND your next right employment?
READY… The first seven steps of the 12-step process are there to prepare you to be successful in a job search campaign. You are READY!
AIM… Steps five, six, and seven are there to help you focus your efforts. You’re ready and have your targets in sight… you have the correct AIM!
FIRE… Anyone can pick up a weapon and fire it… most of us can push the button that launches a missile. But the practiced, prepared, and confident marksman is the one most likely to have the skill to actually hit their target!
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