In the dynamic landscape of today’s professional world, the journey from employee to manager can be swift and exhilarating. However, it often comes with a critical caveat – many individuals find themselves in management positions without the essential training in people skills, motivation, and leadership that is vital for success. This phenomenon has far-reaching consequences, including high turnover rates, plummeting morale, and a general sense of upheaval within a company. So, how can we safeguard against this perilous pitfall? The answer lies in investing in an Emerging Leaders Training Programme.

Equipping Your Leaders of Tomorrow

An Emerging Leaders Training Programme is a strategic initiative aimed at coaching individuals with high potential for leadership roles. It serves as a launchpad for those who are poised to take the reins, offering them a curated curriculum that encompasses a wide spectrum of skills and knowledge crucial for effective leadership.

The Recipe for Success: Skill Sets in Focus

1. People Skills:

One of the foundational pillars of successful leadership is the ability to understand, communicate, and empathize with team members. An Emerging Leaders Programme hones these ‘people skills’, fostering an environment of trust, respect, and collaboration.

2. Motivation and Engagement:

Keeping a team motivated and engaged is no small feat. Emerging leaders need to grasp the nuances of what drives individual team members, and how to create a cohesive, high-performing unit. This training programme provides the tools and techniques needed to keep morale high.

3. Conflict Resolution:

In any workplace, conflicts are inevitable. Effective leaders don’t avoid them, but rather, tackle them head-on. The programme equips emerging leaders with conflict resolution strategies, ensuring that disputes are addressed constructively, leading to stronger, more cohesive teams.

4. Strategic Thinking:

Leadership isn’t just about managing day-to-day operations; it’s about charting a course for the future. Emerging leaders learn to think strategically, making decisions that align with the company’s long-term vision and goals.

Fostering Employee Retention and Morale

The repercussions of untrained leaders are often felt in the form of high turnover rates. When employees feel disconnected, unsupported, or undervalued, they’re more likely to seek opportunities elsewhere. An Emerging Leaders Programme helps stem this tide by creating leaders who are not only skilled in their roles but are also adept at providing the support and mentorship that team members crave.

A Culture of Stability and Growth

A company’s success is deeply intertwined with the stability and growth of its workforce. A well-structured Emerging Leaders Programme signals to employees that their development and well-being are valued. This, in turn, fosters a culture of loyalty and commitment, resulting in a stronger, more resilient organisation.

The Ripple Effect: Impact on the Bottom Line

Investing in an Emerging Leaders Training Programme may initially seem like a cost, but in reality, it’s a strategic investment that pays dividends. Reduced turnover, increased employee satisfaction, and a more streamlined, efficient workflow all contribute to a healthier bottom line.

Conclusion: A Future-Focused Approach

In a rapidly evolving professional landscape, the importance of nurturing capable leaders cannot be overstated. An Emerging Leaders Training Programme is not just an investment in individuals; it’s an investment in the future of your company. By providing your emerging leaders with the tools, skills, and knowledge they need, you’re setting the stage for a prosperous and harmonious workplace. So, let’s embark on this journey together, and build a future where leaders are not just managers, but visionaries.

At Robin Lines Associates, we’ve worked with organisations such as Service Now, Vistry Homes, Endress + Hauser, CPL Aromas, Yamaha, and Quest Software to deliver tailored Emerging Leaders Programmes and Academy solutions, ensuring the long-term security of their management teams. If you want to hear what we can do for you, don’t hesitate to Contact Us.

The post Nurturing Tomorrow’s Leaders: The Power of an Emerging Leaders Training Programme appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Much of our life is spent working in teams, but all teams are comprised of individuals, and all individuals have their own unique strengths, weaknesses, needs, wants, motivations, etc. A great head coach at a football club improves a team’s performance by identifying how best to harness the potential of individuals. When we watch a movie with fantastic acting performances, what we’re watching is the result of a casting director identifying the right people for the roles, coached on set by a director who knew how to get the very best out of them.

For the individual, working with and learning from great coaches instils traits, attitudes, and practices that remain with them for life, offering a considerable advantage in competitive fields.

The same very much applies to one-to-one coaching in the business world. Those who invest in coaching are making an investment in their future, and one which will provide them insights and opportunities that can give them a significant head start over peers who haven’t benefitted from those experiences. Why?

Focus, Direction, Clarity

Work is stressful and often challenging. It’s stressful because so much of what we do feels out of our hands. Businesses that were performing well a few years ago have been hit by the double-whammy of a global pandemic and record inflation. Now many of those businesses are struggling, and those struggles trickle down to the individuals. When our employer feels the pinch, we do too, which manifests in fears and anxieties.

In some respects, these outside factors feel “bigger” in the modern age. Technology makes it difficult to switch off. We live in a world that is so much more aware of what’s going on minute by minute that our downtime often becomes more work time. We don’t take a break, and instead spend our supposedly private time glued to our phones and laptops, trying to find our way through the fog.

An experienced coach, one who has lived through boom-and-bust periods before, can help you switch off. They can teach you strategies for coping with unknowns, dealing with stresses, and encourage you to focus on the things you can change, not the ones you can’t. They’ll help you focus your efforts in a positive direction and aid you in finding an achievable way forward.

Accountability

It’s much easier to accomplish something when somebody else holds us accountable. While some people are phenomenally self-driven, many of us struggle to realise our goals when the only person we’re accountable to is ourselves. Life is short but offers the illusion of time. Putting something off until next week or next month doesn’t seem like a big deal when we have so much time left. It’s also very easy to make excuses to ourselves. Something else came up, we didn’t have time, we weren’t feeling our best, we needed a rest, etc.

That’s not to say there isn’t some truth in the excuses we tell ourselves, but excuse-making and procrastinating are habit-forming. When you’ve put something off once, and there was no immediate penalty, there’s no compelling reason not to put it off again, and again… And again…

However, that illusion of time eventually catches up with you when you realise how much time you’ve wasted. When months or even years have passed by without taking genuine steps towards your goals, the consequence is often demoralising. Maybe you try and rush it through, or more likely you try and convince yourself it wasn’t that important anyway and give up.

Those who work with coaches are less likely to waste time and more likely to succeed at their goals. Undertaking coaching is an investment, and we all tend to do a lot better when we make such commitments. Moreover, a coach will help you identify where you can find the time to make those little changes that snowball into real changes.

Learning For Yourself

Almost anyone can teach something, and almost anyone can learn something from them. However, there is a difference between learning by receiving information and learning for yourself. Think about the subjects you are most interested in and compare how much you know about those subjects to the ones that you’re not that interested in.

Chances are if there’s a particular subject that interests you, then you seek out more information about it regularly, and often without realising it you learn about other subjects at the same time. For example, somebody with an interest in the space programme likely knows more than they think about physics, astronomy, engineering, evolution, Cold War politics, etc., because of the way all of those subjects intersect.

When we take the time to learn about something for ourselves, we end up with a much more expansive knowledge about both the subject we’re interested in and related subjects. When somebody just tells us a fact, we gain less overall knowledge because the focus is so much narrower.

A great coach knows this because that’s how they’ve learned so much themselves. Consequently, a coach isn’t there to give you all the answers. They’re not there to solve your problems or tell you what to do. What they will do is teach you how to find answers, how to solve problems, and how to work out what to do for yourself. In doing so, you gain a substantial advantage over those whose knowledge is limited by only learning from being told.

Interested in Coaching?

If you want someone who has the experience to help you see through the fog in these trying times, to offer the benefits of accountability, and to set you on a path of exponential self-motivated learning that will benefit you throughout your life, Robin Lines Associates provides a complete, tailored programme of bite-sized coaching sessions that can equip you with the skills, knowledge, and traits to outperform your peers and achieve your goals.

Visit Robin Lines Coaching for more information.

The post 3 Major Advantages of One-to-One Coaching appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Part of the reason is that New Years’ Resolutions encourage a narrow focus on a goal without a plan to achieve that goal. While it’s possible to achieve something by ‘dumb luck’, most of the time, that isn’t how the world works. We need more than a goal but a roadmap for getting there.

If you were planning a road trip from New York to Miami, you wouldn’t just set off from Manhattan and drive south hoping for the best because that approach introduces all sorts of potential problems. Without planning such a journey, you could easily find yourself fifty miles from anywhere without food, water, or fuel. You’d also likely find the trip incredibly dull because you wouldn’t have established any milestones to afford you a sense of accomplishment along the way.

When most of us adopt a New Years’ Resolution, that’s effectively what we’re doing; setting a destination but making no plan for how we get there. Without a roadmap, the best we can do is try to ‘wing it’, which rarely results in success. Such resolutions also lack specifics, such as a deadline; even if we set a deadline, it becomes too easy for us to keep shifting it further away.

Ultimately, our New Years’ Resolutions lack accountability. It’s easy to tell yourself you’re going to do something, but it’s even easier to come up with a hundred reasons not to do it and to make excuses for ourselves.

Let’s imagine, for example, that you set a goal of reading twelve novels by the end of the year at a pace of one novel a month. By the end of January, you’ve read a couple of chapters. You can tell yourself that’s fine; you were busier than expected and didn’t have the time, so you’ll catch up in February. Once February is finished, and you’re even further behind your goal, you’ll just tell yourself the same thing again until, eventually, you’ll reach a point where the goal seems unobtainable. Still, it doesn’t really matter because you’re only accountable to yourself, so you can make an extra effort next year instead.

When it comes to a simple thing like reading more, it doesn’t particularly matter whether you reach the goal or not. However, some people set career goals. How many times have we said, “This year will be my year!” and by the end of the year, it wasn’t really your year? On December 31^st, you’re still in the same position you were on January 1^st. We can, and we do, make the same excuses: ‘I was busier than I expected’, ‘I didn’t have the time’, ‘Things didn’t click for me’, ‘I’ll do it next year’.

Once again, that early burst of determination and excitement hits the wall of reality, and because you’ve not planned ahead, you haven’t got a ladder to help you get over it. Similarly, because you’re not accountable to anybody else, you can reason yourself into acceptance of the situation even if, deep down, you know that you’re missing out on something that could improve your life, well-being, and happiness considerably.

Those effective and permanent beneficial changes to your career path are rarely a case of saying, ‘I’m going to do X’ and then just doing it. To overcome this cycle of ambition giving way to acceptance, you might want to consider investing in yourself by investing in individual coaching services that will not only provide encouragement and support but help you with drawing up a roadmap for achieving your goals. Importantly, a coach offers accountability. You’ll have somebody there for each step of your journey to question and challenge you positively so that you can’t simply brush off each setback with a comforting but defeatist line.

If you’ve noticed that you struggle to find the ladder to help you get over the various obstacles life throws at you, and you’re tired of simply settling then consider contacting us, or visiting robinlinescoaching.com to see whether we might be able to offer some vital assistance along your career path.

Don’t feel the need to settle when a simple investment in yourself today can reap huge rewards in the coming years.

The post New Years’ Resolutions: Planning Ahead for Success appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

The post Developing Resilience (Infographic) appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

We have partnered with The Skills Network, a leading provider of technology-enabled training and skills solutions, to deliver a comprehensive suite of learning materials to help people supercharge their futures.

Our offer is centred around two fundamental principles – convenience and choice. More and more, people want the freedom to develop their skills, independent of the workplace. They want the opportunity to learn in their own time, at their own pace, and in the comfort of their own homes.

Through our courses, users gain this flexibility, while having the option to choose from a range of programmes enabling them to learn new skills, grow existing ones, or simply refresh themselves. Furthermore, while some online courses charge hundreds of pounds and ask for significant time commitments, our programmes are inexpensive, short-courses, that allow the learner to properly tailor their learning experience around their free time and developmental needs.

By providing our modules in such a fashion, both individuals and organisations can confidently purchase only the courses that are relevant to their needs.

Over the next few months’, we will be adding more options to our library, growing our offer as our learners grow their skills.

Right now, you can study areas such as:

• Leadership and People Management
• Customer Service
• Finance and Accountancy
• Selling and Prospecting Skills
• Negotiation and Influencing Skills
• Business Development

All programmes are currently priced at £42 (inc. VAT), include all necessary learning materials and are CPD Certified.

To see our current range of courses, click here (opens in a new tab). Each course has a description and a demo, so you can feel confident that the material and teaching method is appropriate to you before you commit.

If you require more information, you can Contact Us.

The post Introducing Our New E-Learning Portal appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

With that in mind, we wanted to offer a few pieces of advice for anybody currently lacking confidence in their work.

Be Patient With Yourself

If you’re used to working in an office environment and now find yourself at home, it is perfectly natural to feel somewhat out of sorts. Remote working can be a lonely experience if you’re used to a busy office. Transitions can take time to get used to, and even after a couple of months’, you may feel like you’re not at your best. Try not to worry about pushing yourself; just focus on what you can do.

You’re Not Slacking Off if You Take Some Time for Yourself

One of the primary concerns managers tend to have about people working remotely is that they might be slacking off. With the copious temptations of the modern home, it’s easy to imagine somebody bingeing Better Call Saul on Netflix or a dozen funny cat videos on YouTube. While that may be a legitimate concern for some managers, you shouldn’t feel bad if you take a bit of time each day to unwind. If you’re already anxious, stressed or lonely, a chapter of a novel or a quick comedy clip on YouTube might be what you need to re-centre yourself.

Protect Your Work Time

While you should definitely factor in some ‘me’ time, you also need to be protective of the time you have. There is a tendency for others to see someone working from home as not really working. Your family and friends may think you have time for a chat, or household chores, or an online video game; particularly if you are taking five minutes to sip a cappuccino while watching cat videos.

What you need to do is assess what must be done each day, sort tasks in order of priority, and work through them in order of priority. When you are working, you need to minimise distractions. This might mean putting your phone on silent, closing your email client or simply shutting the door to your workspace. Let your family and friends know when you’re going to be busy and unavailable.

Get Comfortable

Not many of us have invested in the expensive chairs you often find in modern offices. We don’t tend to have water coolers, air conditioners or lots of plants. The reason why office managers invest in these things is that comfort improves productivity. If you’re uncomfortable, then those niggling frustrations of sore backs, boredom or heat/cold tend to fester and impact how productive you are.

While it’s unfeasible to spend a small fortune on acquiring all sorts of new equipment for a short-term situation, you can still take steps to make your work environment more comfortable. Try using cushions on otherwise uncomfortable chairs, use slideshow functions to change your desktop wallpaper, listen to music that stimulates your mind and try to think how you can personalise your workspace to make it a pleasure to be at.

Keep in Touch With Colleagues

Make sure your colleagues know how they can reach you, and ensure you know how to reach them. In remote work situations, it often pays to be more forthcoming with communication that you might typically be. Ask yourself what your colleagues and managers might need to know, and make sure that they do. By being proactive about keeping everyone in the loop, you will likely find that others adopt similar policies. Consequently, the remote workspace not only feels less lonely but also more productive.

Make an Effort in the Morning

When you don’t have to try hard, it’s easy to sit at your computer in a dressing gown with personal grooming put off until later. However, if you make a similar effort in the morning to what you would do on a typical work-day, you may find that you put yourself in a more productive frame of mind. You needn’t go so far as to put on a suit, but try not to start the day off too casually. Think about what you want to do today, how you would generally start the day, and dress and groom accordingly. What we do in the morning has a significant impact on our mindset for the whole day, so start the day as you mean to continue.

Ask for Feedback from Leadership

It’s a lot easier to feel comfortable with what we’re doing when we know whether we’re doing it right. Leaders may assume everything is fine if they don’t hear from us, but we may take their silence as a sign, something is wrong. Instead of wondering, or panicking, reach out to your leader and ask. You’ll either receive some good advice on how to improve your performance, or you’ll gain the confidence to know that you’re doing well. Either is a good thing.

The post Improving Productivity and Morale while Working Remotely appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

It sounds like yet another business buzzword or phrase, but Growth Mindset has its origins in education. Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, wrote in her book, ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’ that there are two types of mindset. There are those with a Fixed Mindset which assumes that our character, intelligence and creativity are static givens. In contrast, there are those with a Growth Mindset who view challenges as opportunities, failure as a chance to grow and everyday life is a bounty of prospects to stretch our existing abilities.

Most of us have both mindsets. There are times when we believe we cannot do something, either because experience has taught us that we will probably fail or because of a simple lack of belief. Dweck, who worked with a number of children and adults, discovered that believing that your abilities are rigid creates an urgency in proving oneself repeatedly.

This urgency causes people to overthink situations. They second-guess themselves at every opportunity. Instead of believing they can do it, their mind is filled with questions – will I succeed or fail? What if I look stupid? Will I be accepted?

The Growth Mindset, however, accepts that you might fail, you may look silly, and sometimes you will be rejected. None of these things is bad unless you decide it. Every failure, rejection or moment of sounding a bit daft is an opportunity to grow and improve. Your characteristics are not carved in stone; they are mutable, and you can develop.
 

View Challenges as Opportunities

If you go into something believing you will fail, you will probably fail. When you second-guess yourself, you cloud your mind with unnecessary negativity. Stop that. Even the most foreboding of challenges is an opportunity and when presented with something outside your comfort zone, tackle it head-on. You will be surprised at how much you can learn.
 

You Don’t Fail, You Learn

When things go wrong, which they will from time to time, stop seeing it as a failure. Instead, collect yourself and your thoughts and analyse what went wrong and how you can improve next time.
 

Enjoy the Journey More than the Destination

Life is a journey, but you don’t want it to end yet, right? Too often we prioritise the end to the point we fail to appreciate the process of getting there. No matter how difficult, mundane or repetitive the task, try and take joy in doing it. Even something we have done a thousand times has the opportunity to teach us something new.
 

Cultivate a Sense of Purpose

Much like when building your Personal Brand, you should have a sense of purpose. Think about your long-term goals and how you can achieve them. You will almost certainly need to grow along the way.
 

Remember Actions Reap Rewards, Not Traits

It does not matter if you aced every test in school or were the greatest player on the sport’s team. Unless you put in the effort, you will not reap the rewards. Be a Lionel Messi, not a Nicklas Bendtner.
 

Cultivate Determination

Seeking approval from others is limiting. The most important person to seek approval from is yourself. Those with a keen sense of determination are more likely to seek their own approval.
 

Always Move the Goalposts

Achieving a goal is great, but what’s next? If you wish to continue growing, you must have a new goal. Perhaps you hit all your sales targets this month? Brilliant! Add 5% to the figure and go again. You should never be accepting of the same result for too long.
 

Take Your Time

You spent most of the first two decades of your life in education for a reason. Learning takes time. Just as you cannot learn a new language in an afternoon, you cannot expect to become the thought leader in your field in a week. Keep at it and think of the long game.
 

Chip Away At the Fixed Mindset

When you start seeing the results of your Growth Mindset, you will realise how the Fixed Mindset is a large boulder tied around your waist. Though you may never be able to cut the rope, you can hack away at the stone to make yourself grow that much faster.

The post Developing a Growth Mindset appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Whether working in an office or at home, the chances are that there are days when you do not feel productive. It is easy for our minds to wander, or for us to put off more difficult tasks in favour of simpler ones. However, in doing so, we often create even more work for ourselves. Streamlining your productivity is an important step to success. Today, we outline a simple system for improving your time management skills.

Start By Taking Notes

To improve our time management skills, we first need to identify how we are misusing time at present. Begin by taking notes of everything you do in a day over the course of a week or two, and this means everything. Jot down the time you spend on work, chat, getting a coffee, surfing the web and even staring blankly at your screen hoping that inspiration or motivation strikes.

The goal is to lay out how you are currently using your time. Once you see how much time you waste on unproductive things, you should be motivated to do something about it.

Focus on What’s Important

You need to begin assigning a priority and an urgency to your tasks. A simple way of doing this is the Time Management Matrix.

We want to start breaking unproductive habits, such as getting through easier but non-urgent tasks. The longer you leave an urgent task, particularly one that will require a significant time investment, the more overwhelming it seems. Although some people work more effectively to deadlines, many struggle to focus as pressure begins to afflict the mind and cloud judgement.

Plan Your Day

Some prefer to do it first thing in the morning; others prefer to do it at night. Whichever you prefer, make sure you are heading into each new work day with a clear plan that puts urgent, high-priority tasks first. You might want to create a checklist to give yourself a visual cue that you are getting through your work or to simply feel a sense of accomplishment as you tick tasks off.

One method you might consider is to use your calendar and treat each task as an appointment. You should also allow time for interruptions while making a conscious decision to keep these to a minimum.

Plan to Think

A time plan should include time to think and reflect on the task before you. Studies have shown that 20% of our thoughts contribute to 80% of our productivity. Work that performed regularly might be second nature, but you need to allow some time to have conversations or plan tasks that are less familiar.

Consider the Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a method of maintaining focus on tasks. It is based on evidence that the human brain is only capable of peak-focus for 25-30 minutes at a time. Therefore, you would work for twenty-five minutes, take a five-minute break, and then resume what you are doing. One major benefit of this method is learning how long tasks generally take and allowing for better time management. You can start to think of tasks in the number of sessions needed, as opposed to a number of hours.

Another advantage to adopting the Pomodoro Technique is realising how much you can do in twenty-five minutes. You might be surprised! With a timer ticking down, you might even be spurred on to finish part of the task before your next break.

Phone: Off or Priority Only

One of the most useful devices on your desk is also one of the biggest distractions. Little beeps and flashing lights; mobile phones demand attention. Most modern smartphones allow you to limit notifications to priority only. This means that your boss or an important client can get through, but sales calls or non-pressing messages get silenced. Treat is as a digital Do Not Disturb sign and stop allowing your phone to intrude on your workday.

Email: Ditto

How much time do you spend reading or replying to emails that can wait? In the same way that you prioritise your workload and your phone contacts, you should prioritise your emails. If a message flashes up that is not from an important client or colleague, do not feel drawn to reading it. This might take some training and self-control, but unimportant emails are a time-stealer.

Consider Using an App

There are a variety of applications out there that can help you manage your day and collate your thoughts. Microsoft OneNote, Evernote, SimpleNote, Jotterpad, etc.

These apps have varying features, so I cannot recommend the one that works for you, but many allow you to create notes, plan your day and move tasks about to keep on top of things. Ensuring that you remain organised is key to good time management, and these applications might help.

Always Plan for Me Time

A major point of streamlining your productivity is to give yourself more personal time. You do not want to be working all the time because you want to reap the benefits of your work. Once you get organised, you will soon see that saving ten minutes here and fifteen minutes there adds up to a lot more personal time for you to enjoy with friends, family or simply by yourself.

The post Simple Time Management Techniques to Supercharge Your Productivity appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

There are those who sit around waiting for opportunities to come to them. Occasionally, one gets lucky – but luck is all it is. We are all lucky at some point in life, but the problem with relying on luck is that we have no control when it comes and how it helps. The clear majority of us cannot and should not rely on luck to make our way in life. We should take control and make our own luck.

Last week when we looked at identifying target audiences, we encouraged you to take time to understand the problems a business or client faces. This week, we want to expand on that and look at how you can build relationships. While opportunities can arise from various sources, we cannot ignore the fact many come from our connections.

Remember the “monkeysphere” we mentioned last week? If someone is asked to recommend a person for a job, they will often show bias to friends. This bias is why companies make an effort to try and connect with people on a personal level. Staff are trained to address you by your first name. Algorithms try to identify what products or services are relevant to you. Marketing materials attempt to imply a bond between consumer and supplier. Similar logic applies in business. If you are not making friends, you are not creating opportunities.
 

Create Opportunities

How do you create opportunities? There was a time when taking out a golf club membership was considered to be a necessity in business. Today, however, we have a few more options. For example, have you ever looked at local business events? You might be surprised just how many big and small events take place near to you every month. Google them, or check the local newspaper. Many towns even have specific clubs for small business owners or local entrepreneurs.

Find the events that fit with what you want to achieve. Some of these events will be casual gatherings, whereas others will be more formal events with guest speakers. Try to attend a variety of events and be prepared to do some networking. Look for opportunities to build a relationship with other people, especially those in similar fields.

Since the same people often attend these events, being seen at them gets you noticed. Even without speaking to someone, you are communicating with them that you are serious about your work. Being perceived in this way can encourage others to want to get to know you. Every connection you make is a potential opportunity, especially if you take the time to build the relationship.
 

Get Social

Another way to build relationships is via social media. Twitter can be a great way of reaching and engaging with influencers in your field. While many of the most followed Twitter users rarely check their engagements due to sheer volume, their actual followers will. Responding to tweets with a thoughtful response can attract people to you. LinkedIn is another way to engage with potential influencers. However, be aware that some people prefer to keep their circles to people they know.

Identifying what engages others on social media can also be very useful. If the influencers you follow regularly tweet about specific topics, tweeting or writing blog posts about the same subject can attract attention. Remember, influencers are so because they influence the conversation; they are the Thought Leaders we have discussed previously.

Where possible, whether it be on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or another social network, try and respond with a comment instead of simply liking the post. When your goal is to build your connections to create further opportunities, a like is meaningless. Few people bother to check who else has liked a post. Sometimes you do just genuinely ‘like’ a post or update and have nothing further to contribute, and that is fine. It does not say anything bad about you, but if you could say something, you are missing an exposure opportunity by not saying it.
 

Stay Rational

A final word of warning about social media: everything you publish on the Internet is cached and logged forever. Those with a habit of engaging in highly charged political discussions, or tweeting inebriated insults towards fans of a rival football club may want to start a new profile and rethink their behaviour. Even a deleted tweet can come back to haunt you.

Whichever way you choose to begin building your circles, keep active and consistent. You want to position yourself as a reliable, rational and regular voice in your field. The more people that begin to take notice of you, and the more relationships you can build, the better the chances that opportunities will start to come your way.

The post Building Relationships and Creating Opportunities appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Audience Targeting

Let us start with your target audience. One of the biggest mistakes that individuals and businesses make is trying to appeal to everybody. In the social media age, we come across examples of this on a regular basis. You have almost certainly encountered adverts on social media sites such as Facebook that have been completely irrelevant to you. Given that Facebook is well known for its ability to target, you might wonder why? Occasionally, it is Facebook’s fault, and the information they have about you is wrong. Often, however, it is the responsibility of the advertiser.

You might have a product that you believe will appeal to a particular demographic. Therefore, you would create your advertising campaign and target 18-35-year-olds. However, what if your product was more suited to women than men? Perhaps the product is a tech product, and now you are wasting advertising views on technophobes? If we do not put the thought into marketing, we do not target the right audience.
 

Focus on What You Want

Audience targeting begins at a young age. We learn which of our parents or relatives is most likely to give us the treat we want. At school, we learn which teachers are more tolerant of certain behaviours. We learn which of our friends will be more inclined to spend their Saturday with us playing video games, and which one would be more likely to go to the pool.

It always boils down to the same thing; we want something, and we want to focus our attentions on the ones who might give it to us. If a high salary is what we want, then we will consider our job applications in line with these aspirations. When job security is the key, we are more likely to apply for jobs with established companies over start-ups, even if the latter offers better pay.

There is absolutely no point in developing our personal brand unless we are going to target the right people. How do we do this?
 

Empathy

We should start by building relationships. I have previously written about networking, and today we are going to expand on that.

If you are looking for a new job or opportunity, consider empathy. Whether you are applying for a job at a company, or you are looking for clients freelance, you must have empathy. A job opportunity becomes available when there is a problem that needs to be solved. Nobody takes somebody on just to fill a position; they want a solution.

When you apply for work, you must show an understanding of the problem. If it is a sales job, they want to increase sales. If it is a marketing position, they may want to create more brand awareness. Take time to research potential opportunities to understand where the employer is now and then consider what you can offer to solve their problem.
 

Do Your Research

If you are wondering how to do this, remember that we live in a connected age. Interactions on social media can quickly identify problems a business is facing. Similarly, comments sections on blog posts, or where applicable, newspaper articles. If possible, try and talk with people who have worked in the same field and get a sense of any industry-wide problems. Take a look at financial reports if available. Build up a profile of the opportunity, and then think about how you can add value.

Once you have this information, you can begin to prepare your case for why you can add value. Gather your testimonials/references and any relevant case studies. Highlight what skills you have that could solve their problem. As the Scouts might say, be prepared!
 

The More You Do, the More You Get

Just like you are looking for something from them, they want something from you. Empathy is crucial to building that relationship between you and others. It shows that you are aware of the problem and that you will help to solve it. In both our personal lives and our business lives, the more you are willing to do for someone else, the more they will be willing to do for you.

The post Your Personal Brand and Your Target Audience appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.