Maxafication-ize Your Life

This post is about how to make you competitive in the commerce marketplace. Where there is value you will also find competition. One of the greatest areas of competition in the world is in the marketplace. It does not matter if you are working for yourself or looking to work for someone else, trading skills, experience, knowledge, or products for income. It requires being competitive.

There is a lot of good material on the job boards, blogs, books, magazines, social networking sites and other mediums for obtaining information on how to make you more appealing to be taken on as an employee, partner, team mate, or supplier.

This is a “people based” area of competition. Persons should become strong in a few basic areas. Once these are in place you can adjust here and there to make yourself more valuable.

Image
Image is about how you cause others see you .

Visual – hygiene, clothing, grooming
Communication – What you say/write, how you say/write it, body language
Timeliness – Are you on time? Do you seem rushed? Are you prepared?

Experience
When you are able to connect your experience with experience someone is looking for, you have the basis for a match. This means it is good to research the company you are targeting. What do they do? What is being written about them in the media? Who is their executive leadership? What is the company culture? These are things that help you to target where you would like to work or with whom you want to do business. Experience also includes any education that enhances your experience.

People skills
This is more than just being polite (though being pleasant is a good thing). This is the ability read the person(s) you engage with and respond in a way that shows insight, maturity, and interest. First acknowledgement is that everyone is not the same. People or motivated by different things. See people through their eyes and perceptions. Be able to accept someone without agreeing or disagreeing with them. Sharpen your listening to find out what is important to those you meet. Introduce yourself and promote your ability to solve a problem or enhance a value by your connection with the person(s).

Now let’s talk about how you find the opportunity. Most people use the shotgun approach to obtaining an opportunity by sending/posting/emailing resumes to many companies. Some fill out applications from many different companies. Others just let everyone they know that they are looking for work. While you can obtain an opportunity in these ways I believe they lack purpose, focus, and ultimately have no connection with where you want to go in life.

Here are some tips I would offer:

Complete research on people, companies, and organizations who are engaged with doing what you would like to do. Find out as much as possible about where you want to be. Target the opportunity you are going after.

Find out how to prepare yourself to be valuable to your target. Ask someone who is already in the position with the opportunity you are targeting. Find out what they did to get in.

Prepare yourself by taking the advice you were given by the person you questioned.

Accept any open door that gets you near that opportunity and grow.

This approach makes sure you do not spread your efforts so wide that you lose the impact of being at your best, by being prepared.

I will post more tips on making the best of opportunities!

Do you believe these tips will work for you? What tips would you offer? Leave a comment!