5 Ways to 'Up' Your Profile

 Source: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130418191059-34334392-5-ways-to-up-your-profile

At one point in your career, you’ve likely been told to “be more visible” if you want to advance your career. I have been on the receiving end of that very advice — and have delivered that advice to more than a few of my team members over the years. But what exactly should we be doing?
I asked three of my go-to gurus on all things work-related — Diane Baranello of Coaching for Distinction, Stacy Lauren Musi of Chadick Ellig Executive Search, and Raleigh Mayer of Raleigh Mayer Consulting — for their suggestions on practical, actionable steps to raise your visibility, which I’ve consolidated into the following 5 tips:

1. Brush Up: Achieve a level of mastery whether you provide a service, sell a product, build buildings, or groom pets. How do you achieve mastery? Request mentorship from a seasoned professional in your field. Share interesting articles with your network. Do research and then publish. Interview experts. Write a white paper. Start a blog. Go back to school for an advanced degree or certification. Any of these will help elevate your expertise and build your credentials.
2. Step Up: Take on rotational or lateral assignments to broaden your exposure, joining task forces and other cross-functional groups to expand your network, and spearheading high visibility (perhaps even higher risk) business or corporate initiatives with firm-wide impact to showcase your business acumen. When stepping up, don’t be casual with how you share information on progress and achievements. Even on a regular update call, create a slide that shares some data. While one should take every opportunity to recognize the progress made by the team and to put others in the spotlight, don’t relinquish your clear role as a leader.
3. Speak Up: Develop relationships across the organization at all levels to expand your network, promote your area, and build your social reputation. Ask to be present at meetings where more senior leaders are in attendance – and, when you present, use language that shows you “own” the work. Hone your ability to deliver a clear, impactful message at meetings and present a point of view whenever the opportunity presents itself.
4. Stand Up: Seek and accept opportunities to present and speak publicly internally and externally to gain visibility and increase your influence, which will give you access to distinguished connections, build your reputation, and gain publicity, perhaps in a journal, on the internet, or in an industry publication. If you don't hold membership in an organization in your field, the time to join is now. Also consider getting involved community and other charitable organizations — and not just as a volunteer but also as a board member.
5. Dress Up: Make every day a “photo opportunity” with a polished appearance including perfect posture, strong body language, and a personal style statement (color, jewelry, or accessory).

What’s been the most effective way you’ve raised your profile?

5 Best Times to Start a Company

Source:http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130319124711-1714080-5-best-times-to-start-a-company?trk=mta-lnk

By:Michael Lazerow
    Entrepreneur w/ $2B of successful exits




Entrepreneurs come in all sizes, shapes, ages and colors. Great businesses have been created in times of prosperity. Great businesses have been started during our deepest depressions.
There is no perfect time to start a company. But these five periods in your life are best suited for new venture creation.
1. You're young
The best time to start a company is when you are young. The younger, the better. Youth is a beautiful thing. It's the perfect combination of ignorance and innocence. Stupid decisions are excused as learning experiences and the worst outcome of most youthful transgressions is a few days in juvenile prison, or, worse, going broke.
Blogger Michael Arrington recalled a conversation with a venture capitalist that "entrepreneurs are like pro basketball players. They peak at 25, by 30 they're usually done."
I don't agree with the blanket statement, but I do agree that it's easier to pour your life into a company when you're young, creative, fresh, and fired up.
When I graduated from Northwestern in 1996, my primary asset was time and passion. I decided to focus these assets on two goals: making money and finding women who would date a geek in glasses with crossed eyes and a bum heart.
Starting a business killed two birds with one stone. I grew my first company into what became a publicly-traded firm (University Wire and Student Advantage) and I met my future business partner, best friend, lover, and wife at a wedding at age 22.
I've never met an entrepreneur who said, "Wow, I wish I hadn't started so young." The world is full of regrets and one of the main ones is from entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs lamenting that they didn't start off earlier.
2. You're miserable at work
Life is too short to sit behind a desk and be miserable. Show me someone who makes a million dollars a year but hates her job and I'll show you an unhappy woman.
I've always believed that misery loves company for a reason. Look inside any company and you'll find a boatload of misery, the best fuel to start your own company. We grow up rebelling against our parents. Many grow companies to rebel against former bosses.
Use your nights, weekends, and lunch breaks to form your ideas and network and start laying the groundwork for your eventual prison break. And when you're confident you're on to something, jump. I assure you that you'll never look back, even if all you have at the end is less money in the bank and a learning experience.
3. You're out of work
There's nothing like a good ol' fashion layoff to turn you from a worker into an owner. It shocks and beats the comfort out of you. It's a mini death forcing the least introspective to examine all aspects of their lives.
Let's be clear, everyone who is laid off should not start a business. But a layoff is a great catalyst if you're already thinking about making the move.
When you're fired or let go, many fall into the trap of focusing energy on the people who "wronged" you. Just the opposite. Look at the firing as a blessing in disguise and motivation to reevaluate your life. Put everything on the table—new opportunities you have been ignoring, industries you're interested, and starting your own gig.
4. You have no responsibilities
Start-ups and life responsibilities are often inversely related, if not mutually exclusive. The more responsibilities you have, the less likely it is that you will start a business.
I have many friends who have been speaking to me about starting businesses for 15 years now. And for many, they now feel it's too late to jump in.
While age and responsibilities are often related, they aren't always. So start a company when you have the time and the energy and the freedom to do so. Don't wait until it's too late and you're trapped by a mortgage, private school tuition bills, and annual family vacations that you need to fund.
Starting your own firm has a ton of rewards—excitement, accomplishment, the promise of financial freedom, and more. But don't kid yourself, it also has a ton of downsides—you won't see your friends or family as much, your income will approach zero, the time you used to spend working out is now being spent networking, meeting, recruiting, and traveling.
Providing for others and keeping up with a lifestyle you've grown accustomed to makes it hard to start companies, especially for the first-time entrepreneur. If you are single, married without kids, or thinking about getting married and starting a family—and considering jumping on the entrepreneurial train, do it now before you decide that it's just too late.
5. You have an incurable obsession
Our great country was founded on the idea that anyone with an idea can strike it big. John D. Rockefeller, the son of a traveling salesman, founded Standard Oil, and in the process became the nation's first billionaire whose fortune swelled to more than $500 billion.
The Rockefeller story is a great one. But don't get seduced by the myth, the money, the adventure, and the allure of being a self-made person. Starting a company is the hardest thing you will ever do professionally. It's you versus the world. And the world wins 90% of the time.
Start a company after you sit on your idea for a while—and you can't get it out of your head. You're obsessed. You're incurable. No matter how much you try not to think about the business, it keeps coming back. You start working on the idea during all your free time. You can't stop talking to friends and family about it. And you feel like you will never forgive yourself if you don't take a chance.
This incurable obsession must be consistent over an extended period of at least three months. Let it sit. Let it settle. And don't confuse it with the entrepreneurial seizure, a more temporary excitement that will wane if you give yourself time to really think about the idea.
So when should you start a business? Today. You're not getting any younger. And if you don't, the only thing you will have to show for it is a bag of regrets.
See that cliff in front of you that you're scared to go over? Run up to it once again. But this time, actually jump. What you will find below is the life you wanted to live and all you need to do is get over the fear that's keeping you back.
(PHOTO: Flickr, Bernat Casero)

Is Fear Stopping You from Starting a Company?

Source: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130318143953-1714080-is-fear-stopping-you-from-starting-a-company?trk=mp-details-rr-rmpost






You've done what you were supposed to do. You got a great degree. You landed your first job. You've now been promoted a few times. And you're now hanging on LinkedIn like every good professional should do.
You now are making decent money—more money than you ever thought you'd make. You're married and now have responsibilities – kids, a mortgage, parents who may outlive their savings.
But you're not living the life that you envisioned. You may say you are. But be honest. Brutally honest with yourself. Move all fear to the side. Admit it.
The great job that you worked so hard for years and years to put yourself in the position to get is now your jail.
What you didn't realize then you realize now. You shouldn't have done what you were supposed to do. You should have done what you wanted to do, what made you happy, and what would have provided you the freedom to live the life you wanted.
And THAT is start your own business.
You didn't start the business because you were scared. You didn't have the money to do it. You didn't have the time. Whatever. But you didn't do it. That's a fact.
Don't worry. It's not too late to start a company, which is your only hope to live the life you want. But if you fail to act now or soon, it may be too late. And getting off your current path onto a more fruitful one may be less risky than continuing to cash the regular safe paycheck and building for the long term.
If we can all agree on one thing (and it may be the only thing we can agree on), it is this: The "security" society is over. OVER! And it's never coming back.
Social security is bankrupt. We know that. The program, like many others in the US, is a GIANT PONZI SCHEME! The money I pay today for social security goes right out the door to pay for benefits of others.
Job security? Forget about it. Assume you will be laid off, no matter what industry you're in. Expect it to happen sooner than later.
Unemployment, COBRA, the EPA, FEMA, SEC, and most other government safety blankets and protectors are irrelevant. It's not that the good people (in most cases) who work there are all ignorant and don't mean well. We've seen over and over again that government protections don't work.
Government security is over. Job security is over. Financial security is over. Sit with it. Feel it. Be with it. And start acting.
Does your personal financial future look like China and Brazil? Or are you Greece? The decisions you make today to build for your future will determine your fate.
Why does it make financial sense to start your own business? Even if you continue to get your paycheck, you're paying 40 percent to the local, state, and federal government. So the real opportunity cost is the after-tax money, the in-your-pocket money.
I'd argue that investing that money in your future is a better investment than investing 10 hours a day, and probably many weekends, trying to make someone else money, someone who may lay you off very soon.
Say you make $120,000 per year, a healthy salary for a college-educated professional. Of that, $48,000 goes right out the door. So your "in-your-pocket pay" is really $72,000, or $6,000/mo. That's the investment you'll be making in your future, it's your opportunity cost. It's a lot of money but definitely not enough to build any sort of real cushion or wealth, especially if you live in any city.
Now the old model was to slave away at a company earning enough to "survive" and support your family in hopes that you'd move up and make the big money in a decade (or two). Well, now that golden payday has been crushed and the only constant is change.
Entrepreneurs take advantage of change. Change is their muse, their catalyst, their lover and their protector.
Change chews up and spits out workers, employees, and the status quo of how things were done. Change looks at the above as inconvenient barriers to getting to a better place, temporary barriers that can be removed at any time.
So the question you need to ask is simple: Is your annual take-home pay, after taxes, really enough for you to justify the status albeit-potentially-fleeting quo? I'd argue for many of you that the answer is NO by a long shot. And you taking your paycheck and deluding yourself to think that this too will pass is dangerous and short-sighted. Fear is holding you back.
Starting a company provides you two main benefits: flexibility and a prosperous future where you'll control your own destiny. You'll also have learned the financial survival skills necessary to thrive in any environment without sitting at your desk worrying about whether you're on the chopping block. What I love most about starting companies is being able to show up to see my kids at school whenever I want. I work harder than most people. But I do so more on my terms than anyone else's.
I am a realist. I know that not everyone is capable of quitting their job and starting up. Bills need to be paid. Responsibilities don't go away. But for those of you who are in a position to invest in yourself and your future, look in the mirror and ask yourself if fear is getting in the way.
If it is, attack it and start living the life you want to live.