How To Trick Yourself Into Making The Leap To Your Next Job

I recently read a great annual recap post from a successful entrepreneur that asked, what has been your biggest take-away or key learning this year? I responded to the post by stating my biggest take-away for 2015 was that we should all make a leap we might be a little afraid to make, whatever that leap might be. Win or lose, we’ll be better off for having tried, and when it turns out to be a fantastic move, even better!

My comment stemmed from an actual event in my life in 2015, a job change that turned out to be an absolutely fantastic move. Without getting into too many details, I had a job I truly enjoyed, was working with a great team made up of a group of folks that I loved working with (and spending time with), but sadly, was also at a place that didn’t really align with my values. Ultimately, it just wasn’t the right place for me.

While I thought about leaving, my commitment to finish the job I started, the desire to continue working with the team I had grown to love, and that natural fear we all have of changing jobs, kept me from looking. It wasn’t until I was lucky enough to hear about some changes that were going to effect me that I finally decided to start my job search.

Fortunately, by the time those changes were put in place, I had already secured a great new job at a great new company with a great new team. But, I’m not just spinning a yarn here, folks, I have a purpose. See, I’ve changed jobs twice in the past two years, following two seven-year stints in a row, and on each occasion, when looking back, I probably should have changed jobs sooner than I did. Now, while I believe everything worked out perfectly for me, I can also sympathize with all of you out there who might not be working the job you really want, or working for the right company, but find yourself in a spot where you are afraid, or maybe just reluctant, to make the leap you know you should be making.

Trust me, you are not alone. I know a lot of great people who aren’t necessarily happy with the job they have, but share that same fear of beginning a job search, especially if they worry an employer getting wind of their decision to leave might retaliate in some way. Fortunately, though, I have a little exercise that might help.

The last thing anyone working a full-time job wants to do is take the time to find another job after working all day, but we all know it is much more beneficial on many levels to conduct a job search while still employed. Though being unemployed provides much more free time to conduct a job search, it can also negatively impact confidence and even result in job seekers accepting a job offer that might not be right for them.

So, here is what I propose you do to find the motivation to conduct the job search you might be reluctant to start. Go to work next Monday and work a normal day. Do your job just as well as you always do, and when you walk out the door to go home that night, pretend your boss just took you aside as you were walking out and told you he or she just discovered you are going to be let go in six weeks.

Think about the scenario for a second. If this actually happened to you, what would you do? Would you go home and lounge on the couch in front of the TV, or would you get to work finding a new job?

I understand this might take a little effort and almost seem silly to convince yourself this mock layoff warning has occurred, but I promise you this – if you can truly take this little ruse to heart and pretend you have just six weeks until you’re out the door, you’ll do what you need to do to ensure you find that next job!

Start by updating your resume, portfolio, website and LinkedIn profile, and asking colleagues for recommendations. Ask past employers and colleagues to serve as references. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can get everything for your job search lined up once you actually get over the fear of making that leap and start these tasks.

Go to work every day and keep doing the amazing job you’ve always done, and every night, every weekend, every lunch break, look for the job you really want – with the commute, salary, culture, company and team that will make this move a fantastic one!

If you have been contemplating making that leap for some time, but have been reluctant for whatever reason, this little “six week fire drill” might surprise you! If you really buy into it, put your nose to the grindstone, and work the job postings and your network, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the progress you can make in those six weeks.

With the average job search taking two months, by the time you reach the six week mark from that imaginary layoff warning from your boss, you might just be well on your way to a couple great job offers. In my case, by the six week mark, I had already turned down an offer for the salary being too low, was in the final round of interviews for a job I knew I would love, and waiting on a job offer from the fabulous company I’ve loved working for over the past four months.

Make that leap, my friends! Win or lose, you’ll be better off for having tried.

Screen capture by William L. Savastano

Thank You And I Wish You All The Best In The Coming Year

I hope the social media stars have aligned and the Google, Facebook, Twitter and/or LinkedIn algorithms have come together to result in your eyes actually finding their way to my words today so I may take a few minutes to reflect on an amazing couple of years and thank you for the role you may have played in making them so.

You hear quite often that a door doesn’t close without a window being opened and for me that has really proven to be the case many times in my life, especially over the past two years. While at times, I’ve had to break that window to get it open, or crawl through it just in the nick of time, it still doesn’t change the fact the grass has truly been greener on the other side of that window.

First and foremost, whether you and I spent a lot of time working together at some point in the past couple years, or just had a few passing greetings in person or through electronic means, let me say that I am thankful to have had that time with you. While some interactions obviously have more impact on one’s life - like a recruiter forwarding on your resume, a friend giving you a special thank you card, a loved one giving you some great advice, or parting ways with an employer or major client - I believe each interaction, whether seemingly positive or negative at first, ultimately has a positive impact on the course of our lives in the end.

While I wonder sometimes if my optimism is real, or if I just fabricate it following life’s events and interactions, ultimately, I believe the true nature of the event or interaction is trumped completely by my perception of it in the end. I truly believe how we perceive and approach life’s triumphs and challenges is entirely up to us.

But, that being said, when I take stock of life today and compare it to where I was two years ago, or one year ago, and discover I am better off, there is little more I can do than be thankful for each event and interaction, whether seemingly positive or negative at the time, because those events and interactions are what led to the positive outcome I am experiencing today.

So, whether you were one of the events or interactions that seemed positive, or negative, at the time, I thank you for the part you played in landing me where I am in life today, and wish you the very best in the coming year...

Photo by Christopher Jayanta via Pixabay

Do We Really Need Swear Words In Business Headlines?

Now, don’t get me wrong  - I swear all the time – especially when I’m driving, as I am sure a lot of my fellow Southern Californians do, but I recently found myself put off by the use of a certain four letter word used to describe excrement. Why? It was in a slide presentation featured in an email from Slideview that claimed to be able to show me how to build better marketing content.

Being an avid content marketer, I am definitely interested in any presentation that claims to be able to show me how to build better content. But, there I was, on the third slide of the presentation, and sure enough, there in the headline was the word “shit” where you might have just as easily found a more appropriate word.

Again, not opposed to swearing, but when you are about to teach me how to build better content, the last thing I think you should show me is that you lack the creativity or vocabulary to grab my attention without using an expletive. I can’t be the first to notice this trend of trying to shock-jock business readers with the words “shit” and “fuck” to get their attention. To all of you business writers and content creators out there, I ask, is this really necessary? Is this really where we want to go?

I get that we’re not in the schoolyard anymore and can hear some of you referencing big boy panties in your rebuttal, but again, I would argue it is not that these words offend me, it is simply that I believe they do not, and should not, have a place in our business writing because I also believe we can do better than trying to grab attention with words that would make children gasp, point and giggle.

As business writers, it is our job to take the time to create messaging that actually garners attention on its merit, not on its juvenile showmanship. We should take the time to do the job right and earn our clients’ or employer’s money with solid messaging, not simply by putting a swear word in the title and calling it a day.

Credit Unions and Cybersecurity

I recently conducted some research on the cybersecurity challenges credit unions are facing and here is what I learned:

Data security breaches are a significant problem for credit unions because once members begin to question the safety of their personal information, these financial institutions can incur massive losses before member trust can be restored. Many consumers have been known to reduce the number of financial services they’ll put through their credit union following a breach, and some have been known to leave the credit union entirely.

The National Association of Federal Credit Unions found that, on average, a data breach costs a credit union just over $225,000. While credit unions have implemented security measures and devoted resources to protecting customer data, much like all industries, their measures are failing to keep up with the ever-increasing sophistication of attempts from hackers to gain access to credit union members’ personally identifiable information.

Even though federal regulations have been imposed on credit unions to ensure a basic level of security for member data, these regulations, even when met, are still falling short of stopping data breaches caused by malware. Thus, credit unions may be meeting regulations, but are still not meeting members' security expectations.

With endpoints that can vary from ATM machines to company laptops to customer and vendor portals, credit unions inadvertently provide many avenues for a cyberattacker to gain the foothold they need to launch malware and access databases housing sensitive customer information like social security numbers, passwords and credit card numbers.

And unfortunately, their own infrastructure is not all these credit unions have to worry about. As reported in a recent Business Insurance article, when asked what keeps her up at night, Debbie Matz, the head regulator for 6,350 U.S. credit unions, answered: a cyberhacker sneaking in through a credit union vendor, cracking through to the larger U.S. financial system and wreaking havoc along the way.

The credit union vendor portals Matz refers to can include a vendor’s own separate payment processing systems, like point of sale systems, which also leave credit unions vulnerable no matter how well they secure their own infrastructure. If a point of sale system endpoint is left unsecured, credit union members' personal information becomes vulnerable to theft and the endpoint can be used as an access point to larger systems.

One of the scariest parts of this story is that credit unions across the country are relying on traditional antivirus solutions to protect their infrastructure. These solutions are less than 50% effective at stopping threats, at best, and usually, threats are only identified after they cause damage. The data breaches these solutions don't stop are expensive to repair and also harm brand identity, which can lead to a reduction in revenue and even litigation.

There really is only one solution that can secure a credit union’s infrastructure as well as protect it from attacks originated at vendor portals. Credit unions should seek out a solution that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to protect every endpoint in their infrastructure from not only malware that has been identified by antivirus software, but also malware that has never been seen before. Once their own infrastructure is secured with this technology, credit unions should insist their vendors do the same, thus securing their organization completely from over 99% of malware.

While credit unions definitely face some substantial challenges when it comes to cybersecurity, the technology already exists to secure their data – they just need to deploy it.

Photo via Pexels

Getting Sales To Use Marketing Collateral

It's the age-old challenge for marketers...how to ensure the collateral your team creates actually gets used by the sales team. In this guide, I show you the secret to solving that challenge.

Click here to read Getting Sales To Use Marketing Collateral.

Photo via Unsplash

Healthcare Industry Hardest Hit

According to a report from the Ponemon Institute, the cost of a lost or stolen record in the healthcare industry is over double that of other industries. Security Week reports that cost to be $363 as opposed to the average of $154, with the average breach having a total cost of $3.8 million. This has led the online magazine for Internet and enterprise security news to report the headline “Data Breach Costs Rise, Healthcare Industry Hardest Hit”.

But what is driving this massive increase in security breaches and their cost in this vital industry? As with many industries, it is the adoption of technology and human interaction with that technology that is creating new challenges.

Healthcare is Becoming Digital

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinic Health Act, passed by congress in 2009, encourages healthcare providers to digitize records. While good news for patients who will ideally be able to access their medical records from anywhere in the world, this process is not only increasing the volume of digital records, it is increasing the number of endpoints required to manage them. Advances in technology are putting a mobile device in every caregiver’s hands, but this is putting great strain on healthcare provider IT teams to keep up with a constant barrage of attacks on these endpoints by viruses and malware deployed by cybercriminals hoping to gain access to sensitive information.

Providers are Retaining Sensitive Patient Data

And speaking of sensitive information, gone are the days when your doctor knew your medical history from memory and kept a back-up copy in a file folder behind the reception area. Today, with electronic billing and digitized healthcare records, more and more sensitive patient data is being retained on networked computer systems. This has made healthcare provider infrastructure an attractive target for cybercriminals.

It’s Getting Cloudy (and Mobile-y)

InformationWeek predicts that by 2020, 80% of healthcare data will pass through the cloud at some point in its lifetime. Patients are becoming more technologically savvy and that means the use of mobile apps to access healthcare systems and records. Providers can only be so vigilant with the implementation of cloud security and BYOD policies because all it takes is one compromised device for a significant breach to occur.

We’re Only Human

While healthcare providers can secure systems and put all of the “detect and respond” technology they can buy in place, one of the biggest threats to their security is the very thing that makes them great – their employees. Providing healthcare to large numbers of patients can result in a very fast-paced and stressful environment. Workers can suffer from fatigue and distractions. This can lead to disaster since all it takes is one wrong click on one malicious link to compromise an entire infrastructure.

A Solution to All of These Challenges

I mention “detect and respond” solutions because while being mildly effective at alerting healthcare infrastructure administrators to attacks AFTER they happen, these traditional antivirus and malware detection solutions will never PREVENT the attacks that come as a result of these new healthcare industry technology challenges. Only a “preventive” solution that scans and detects the characteristics of files to locate potentially malicious files BEFORE they execute will guard against these new challenges.

For this reason, healthcare providers should seek a solution that uses an artificial intelligence and algorithmic science engine to scan every file on every endpoint in their healthcare infrastructure instead of one that simply alerts them once a breach has occurred. By deploying such a solution, healthcare providers can truly secure every endpoint in their infrastructure. This means regardless of whatever “detect and respond” solutions they have in place, no matter how many digital records their team processes, and no matter how many times employees click on something they shouldn’t, a “preventive” solution will have them covered because files are quarantined BEFORE they execute, stopping threats BEFORE they can do damage.

Photo by Darko Stojanovic via Pixabay

Using Live Chat To Increase Conversions

I did a little research a few months back on live chat after meeting some great folks at a solid startup that is revving up to make live chat a strong part of the customer service and support experience.

Live chat can help online retailers and other businesses who are seeing great traffic numbers but low conversion rates. It offers a very personalized experience at a time when the online customer experience can be very generic. Live chat can also help your site rise above the competition and meet customers' real-time expectations.

Click here to read Using Live Chat to Increase Conversions.

Image by Dean Morris via Pixabay

Always Be Straightforward With Your Customers

We all make mistakes – nobody is perfect, right? Well, I recently read an article about a bit of a blunder from a startup I wanted to share with you, not to highlight the company’s mistake, but to share a great lesson for enterprises. This story really got me thinking about the importance of transparency and honestly when it comes to our customers.

As reported to Medium, the former customers of a cleaning service called Homejoy that had gone out of business received an email from a company called Fly Maids, stating they were Homejoy’s new “partner” service and inviting them to give their services a try. Seems harmless enough thus far, right?

Well, the invite took a turn for the worst when these former Homejoy customers visited the Fly Maids website and found their name, address and credit card information pre-loaded into the site. To make matters worse, many customers found the Fly Maids website so similar to a competing cleaning service’s site they began to think the entire thing was a huge scam and suspect their credit card information had been compromised.

Turns out that behind the scenes, one of the co-founders of Homejoy had acquired the company’s domain and customer data then founded Fly Maids to continue to service Homejoy’s customers. The problem? He decided not to tell these facts to the Homejoy customers he was prospecting as not to influence their decisions to engage Fly Maids for their cleaning services based on their previous experience with Homejoy. First off, I’m not really sure why you wouldn’t want to take advantage of a customer’s previous experience with you…unless, of course, it was a bad experience. And secondly, how could you not expect to freak someone out by pre-loading his or her credit card information to your website? And thirdly, which is a topic for another article, how scary is it that someone can purchase your credit card information from a company that has gone out of business?!

The backlash was so bad that Fly Maids has taken down their site and assured former Homejoy customers the company has deleted all of their credit card information. So, what is the lesson here? I believe this is a great lesson in transparency and honesty for enterprises.

When you are about to launch a campaign or are planning your sales and marketing strategy, be mindful if you are ever at a point where you are about to, maliciously or not, take a step in which you are going to try to keep your customers from finding out about something. If there is one thing that customers don’t want from you, it’s a surprise. If you are about to do something sneaky, think twice. As I always say, just be square with people, no matter what. Make sure that you are always the one who is above board, straightforward and never working behind the scenes. Your customers will always appreciate your honesty.

Using The Industry Articles You Read To Stay In Touch With Prospects

You’ve called and emailed a prospect as often as reasonable and you’ve done everything to show them the value of the product or service you’re selling. We’ve all been there – we know exactly when it is time to let the prospect go and move on to the next one.

But, what if instead of completely letting go, you kept that prospect on a drip campaign that did nothing but provide them with some bellwether industry information and the latest industry news from time to time? Or, better yet, sent them a personalized email at some seemingly random times that provided them with this content.

This is the age of content marketing. And while not a new concept, today’s sales and marketing professionals need to keep in mind that simply providing a prospect with information about your product and all of its bells and whistles simply does not cut it anymore. Prospects want to buy from people they know are thought leaders and who have a close eye on the market’s pulse, not just someone who scanned their badge or bought their name on a list.

It is going to take multiple touches to make a sale these days, and if you simply continue to prod people with nothing but facts about your company and its products or services, you are going to lose their interest pretty quickly.

Chances are, you spend at least a small part of your day reading up on the latest trends and news about the industry in which you work. If not, and you’re in sales and marketing, trust me when I tell you that you should be.

When you come across a particularly interesting article, spend a few moments thinking about whom on your prospect list might also be interested in that article. Shoot them a hand-typed, text only email with a link to the article. Don’t explain how the article relates to your product or service or tell them about a discount promotion you’re running, simply, send them a quick message briefly explaining how you just finished reading an article you feel they might find interesting.

I’ve seen this relatively easy method for creating a touch point bring a cold prospect back to the table and even into the win column. You will find that over time, your prospects are not only going to see you as an industry thought leader, but also come to feel that you genuinely care about the well being of their business.

When you are out making sales and someone tells you that they actually feel you care more about their business than they do, you know you’re doing some good out there. If you’ve never heard that before, then it sounds like it’s time for you to build and strengthen some relationships. One of the best ways to do that, especially when a prospect has given you every indication they are simply not interested in your product, is to start reaching out to them about their industry and showing them that you care about their business. A simple and easy way to do that is to start sending them links in a personal message to some of the articles that you have recently read.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Screen capture by William L. Savastano

It's Time To Win The War Against Your Inbox!

I’m sure there are more than a few resources out there designed to help all of us manage one of the most daunting things in our modern lives – our email inboxes – but since I’ve never actually used any of those resources, I figured I’d throw my hat in the ring as well and share my management tactics.

Over the years I have amassed a number of different email addresses, both personal and professional, and in the interest of making sure I don’t miss out on a single contact, I still maintain nearly all of them. From the AOL email addresses I used in college to the ones I manage on a shared server today, each one reminds me of a different time in my life, serves a different purpose and delivers content that I am still interested in reading.

Whether you have one email address, or way too many like I do, here are some simple steps you can take to make sure your inbox and its content are manageable:

First and foremost, if you are lucky enough to have just one email address, please feel free to skip down to the next paragraph, but if you are like most of us, you have more than one email address. You may have so many email addresses that you don’t know what to do with them. I want you to pick one of them – maybe it is the most professional, or maybe it is the easiest to check because it’s the one on your phone – but either way, choose one email address and then set up a forward to it from all of your other email addresses. Ideally, do this in a manner that allows you to reply back to each email from any of your email addresses, but if not, the process is still manageable.

Once you have everything coming in to just one email address, it is time to get ready for battle. It is not going to be easy – it is going to get frustrating and feel really repetitive at times, but there are all sorts of scammers and spammers, phishers and peddlers and they want nothing more than to see you drowning in unwanted emails. The only way you are going to get your inbox to a manageable level is going to be for you to go to war against all those unwanted emails.

The first thing you can do to fight back is to make sure you continue to protect yourself. You are going to be opening a lot of emails as part of this process, but you need to remember, above all else, that every time you see an email you think is a security threat, delete it immediately. Don’t even try to open it on any device. There is no way to manage or stop these emails, but give yourself peace of mind by deleting them right out the gate.

Unfortunately, even after doing that, you are still going to have a lot of unwanted email left in your inbox. Great deals on cars, great deals on loans, great deals on all sorts of pharmaceuticals and great deals on just about anything else you can think of - all of them cluttering your inbox. If you use your email addresses for business at all, it can be even worse - you get a ton of email trying to sell you products and services as well as a ton of emails about conferences, seminars, webcasts and all sorts of white papers. It may seem the best thing to do is to simply delete all of these emails, too, but sadly, if you just delete all of these unwanted emails, you are going to keep getting more and more of them. It’s almost like the more you delete, the more they send!

But, if you fight back by taking the time to open each of these emails, scroll down to the bottom and unsubscribe, over time, you will start to witness a miracle! Your inbox will actually start receiving less and less of these unwanted and unsolicited emails. You are always going to see new ones and they may come in waves, but overall, if you keep up the good fight and continue to unsubscribe, you will definitely see a positive difference.

I’ll say it again, just to drive the point home. If you think it’s a security threat, don’t open the email. All other emails, open them, no matter how uninterested you are in what they are selling. Scroll down to the bottom until you see a link to unsubscribe. It might be a little hidden or be a linked image, but it should be there. It won’t be there EVERY time, but when you see it, click on it. You should sometimes get a message that you have been automatically unsubscribed simply by clicking on the link, and other times, you’ll be asked to provide your email address. Make sure you know which address the email was sent to (this is for those of you with multiple email addresses) and be sure you enter that email address into the field correctly. Make sure you click unsubscribe and stick around long enough to make sure you see a confirmation that you have been subscribed in some way before backing out of the browser window. Keep in mind that these spammers are hoping that you’ll miss a step or get so frustrated with their unsubscribe process that you’ll simply quit trying.

After you feel you’ve successfully unsubscribed, go back to the original email and scroll down further than that first unsubscribe link you clicked. Chances are, you are going to find a second or maybe even third unsubscribe link down there. This is because there may be an unsubscribe link for the campaign, then one for the spammer, and one for the company that is actually selling the product. If you don’t subscribe from each and every unsubscribe link on each of these unwanted emails, you’ll probably still keep getting email from them. Be sure to go back to each email and ensure you’ve unsubscribed from each link.

And, lastly, while you’ve deleted the obvious security threat emails and unsubscribed from all the unwanted emails, there is still one more step – taking a good hard look at the remaining emails – the ones you supposedly do want to receive. As you read each one of these emails, give a little thought to whether you really do read it or if you really want to keep receiving it. If you do, by all means, just let it keep coming, but if you don’t really read it – if you tend to just skim it or delete it pretty quickly - you may as well just unsubscribe from that email as well.

If you do just these few things – delete the scary stuff immediately, unsubscribe from EVERY unsubscribe link in an unwanted email, and unsubscribe from the stuff you don’t really read, you will soon find that your inbox is actually not only manageable, but you might actually enjoy checking your email again!