Tasmaniasatan's Blog

Audiobooks

tasmaniasatan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:56:14 +0000

Listen to a book instead of reading it. Audiobooks can be purchased and downloaded from the iTunes store or from third-party sites such as Audible.com. Audiobooks are either MP3 or WAV files, and are transferred to the iPod in the same manner as MP3 songs. Alternatively, buy audio books on CD (such as the Dale Carnegie series) then rip them and transfer to your iPod. Just as there are bookmarks for books, there is something equivalent for audiobooks. If you stop listening at any point, it is possible to resume from the same point (even if you’ve switched off the iPod). Advance through chapters using the ‘Next/ Forward’ or ‘Previous/Rewind’ buttons. Playback speed can be adjusted as required.

Computer security: some people just don’t take it seriously enough

tasmaniasatan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:36:28 +0000

Security software companies across the globe are rigorously working towards improving their software to battle hackers. Software giant Symantec Corporation has released statistics which state that the majority of people—while aware of the need for security software—do not take serious action. Since many people aren’t tech-savvy, they prefer not to understand the dynamics of security software. CHIP met with Tom Powledge, Vice President of Symantec, who stated that 25 percent of computer users are mature, secure and concerned about security. However, 32 percent are completely ignorant and need guidance as well as software that is completely seamless and automatic, for example digital families in which parents are concerned about their children’s security online. A further 22 percent are aware of security but don’t really care much about it. They opt to accept whatever security software is bundled with their computer. Finally, 21 percent are technically savvy enough to recommend technology products to people who are less aware. According to Powledge, these proportions are consistent across the globe, including Asia. Further, consumers often complain that security software is too heavy on their PCs; installation takes forever, and the software makes PCs sluggish. “There’s a perception out there that security software slows down your computer. And in past it’s fair to say that this was true” said Powledge. In particular, the amount of RAM used is a major potential problem when PCs need to run other heavy applications such as games. Hence, Symantec is implementing a ‘Gamer mode’ feature. Security products will become as small as 100 MB in size, Powledge opined to CHIP. They will install in less than a minute and consume less than 10 MB of RAM in the background. This means a faster boot process, more space for applications, and seamless usability. Eventually, he hopes, security software will have literally zero impact on the performance of a PC without compromising on security. To attain that, hundreds of pieces of software are being re-engineered and hundreds of metrics are being monitored. Malicious elements are changing their tactics from traditional email attacks to a new primary attack weapon— legitimate websites. They attack genuine websites and infect them so that customers visiting these sites unknowingly download malicious code. This is gaining more and more relevance with the growing popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Moreover, security threats continue to change their tactics to fool more and more users, even if the users themselves grow more used to sophisticated attacks. Symantec’s security response labs and their intelligence network comprise of hundreds of computers across the globe. Stationed in virtually all continents, these labs gather pieces of information for updating virus definitions. “Computers running Norton products are never more than four hours out of date behind the latest virus definitions”, stated Powledge.

Gaming is something that caught the Indian user’s imagination.

tasmaniasatan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:35:14 +0000

BenQ Yao – A lot of laptops that we have to offer have the most up-to-date configurations and platforms that gamers require. We are talking about 9000 series Nvidia graphics cards, 4GB RAM, special technology for enhanced display, even cutting response times from 16 milliseconds to 8 milliseconds, giving the user smoother and more detailed graphics. Yet they aren’t our target customers, we don’t want to just target gamers. to target the general public, and gamers
can be a part of that.

Laptops like the EEE PC to the Leaptop contain almost everything that a user on the go would want.

tasmaniasatan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:33:32 +0000

I feel that today users want more, and they want to be able to access their own data easily and most comfortably. These devices are not able to provide this. The driving factor [for these devices] is low cost, but the form factor doesn’t make it easy to surf [the Internet], response times are slow and they are not so user friendly. Also products follow as the market for them expands, as school students, teenagers adopt the laptop we will introduce more devices and technology. Only the market response will decide whether we will get into this segment. As of now we don’t want to follow the other companies, we want to differentiate ourselves. We don’t have any plans for this type of a device.

Who are the drivers of this laptop growth?

tasmaniasatan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:30:52 +0000

BenQ – we represent enjoyment and quality. Through this we want to reach out to the young and trendy market. Once young people, students and teenagers adopt the laptop, only then will general users take to it. All of this depends on features and aesthetic design; the main things that make up the user experience. Chang: Globally, we have observed different trends across different countries. In the more developed, mature markets, the laptop is being seen as the second computer at home. Families have different laptops, because members don’t want to share them; even my own 12 year old son doesn’t want to share a laptop with his mother or me!

Why does BenQ want to enter the Indian market

tasmaniasatan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:28:53 +0000

Right now the India market is very strong. Worldwide we have seen that emerging markets contribute about 37 percent to the laptop market. These numbers are only going to grow. We want to give the laptop a more popular view, more like a consumer product, from office workers and ladies, to young adults and trendy teenagers. Chang: What startles me about India is the growth of the middle class here. This is the 24th time I have come to India, and every time I see a lot more cars crowding the roads, more development, Indian people are getting richer. A laptop is no longer a commercial device; now it’s personal. I see that every home, everyone will have a laptop; a family of five will have five laptops, because no one would want to share; we see that moment coming up.

Social media marketing

tasmaniasatan — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:59:52 +0000

Social media marketing is the best thing to have happened for those working from home to earn money or for those who have limited budgets. Addressing audiences on Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Twitter, other social media sites and the blogosphere can help you cover a lot of ground – all for free in most cases, the only investment being time. Even if you have all the promotional Rupees to spend, you may want to save some of these if social media can help achieve your objectives.

Here are just some of the ways you can use this channel to your advantage in whatever you are doing to make money.

GROUPS ON LINKEDIN AND FACEBOOK

Create groups relevant to what you do on these sites and invite your contacts to become members. They in turn can invite their contacts and the tribe can keep increasing. Use this to interact with members, have discussions and to update others about the latest. Since you will have people on board with knowledge of what you do, they may add value with inputs and leads. Link these groups to your sites and blogs for members to visit and to know more about your work – and in turn possibly turn customers and clients.

PROMOTE EVENTS

If you are holding any offline or online events including sales promotions, list them on social media and invite your contacts. Not only does it give you an idea of the RSVPs but also helps the word get out to those who are not on your network.

TWITTER

A microblogging platform, Twitter allows you to post messages under 140 characters to those who are following your updates. Make sure you ‘tweet’ about whatever there is to share with your target audience. If recipients see value in it, they can ‘re-tweet’ your posts for their followers to read and you could just be on to a viral campaign here. The account is free to set up.

Likewise, Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to post your status updates which can be used to share what you are doing currently. Use it to talk about what you have to offer in the marketplace and it is sure to catch the right attention.

“I came to Facebook , like all the social media tools I use, kicking and screaming. But over time I have come to see the real value.

I find each social media tool allows me to form a deeper relationship with people. I often see people connect with me first through Twitter, then Facebook, then by joining my email list.

Twitter is a taste of who I am, Facebook gives people a whole lot more information. By email list means they are very close to becoming a customer.

The biggest mistake people make with Facebook is going for quantity without quality. What do I mean? People go for having the biggest friend list without trying to get to know anything about the people they are contacting. At the very least, people using Facebook for business should send a personal note to everyone they invite to connect, then view their profile and write something thoughtful on their wall. From there, it is about participating in a conversation. My rule of thumb when it comes to conduct on social media: If you wouldn’t do it in real life or by phone, don’t do it on Facebook.”

– Andrea Stenberg, Publisher and Small Business Mentor at The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, Canada

OFFER DEALS

Everyone loves a bargain. Use your social media and Twitter communities to announce special deals on what you sell, and see word get around. And expanding your client base.

PUBLIC RELATIONS 2.0

Who does not love media publicity? Being featured in newspapers, magazines and television is not only good for the ego but can perform wonders for your branding and sales. But this conventional PR is getting more and more difficult to generate. With rising costs, pages are being slashed and advertising to editorial space ratio seems on the rise. Enter PR 2.0, or getting publicity in the online world.

Before you start thinking of it as a poor compromise, think again. Online PR is helping brands and people connect to their target audiences in highly effective ways, and in many ways that traditional media cannot.

What media is covered under PR 2.0?

The following media can be considered to come under the gamut of PR 2.0:

Blogs: Write to bloggers to talk about what you are doing and hope they write about it in their blogs. The way you pitch to them may be different than the way you do with traditional media though. Give them something exclusive to talk about, or a new angle. Remember, bloggers are more passionate in their writing than journalists. Give them the right fodder to chew.
Social Media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn: Yes, you may not get editorial coverage in the classical sense, but just talking about your brand and offerings through the various interactive tools and discussion forums can still add up to get the desired effects.
Twitter: Again, it is about getting your word out even if in 140 characters and not 400 words.

Do blogs matter in India?

A lot of people are still not convinced about the effectiveness of blogs in India, with most of them getting low traffic and few comments. But there are some sound reasons why you should pitch to a quality blogger even if traffic is not so high:

Influencers to a niche audience: Low readership may not mean low relevancy. Many of the blogs are being read by people who may matter to the company/brand. These could be key customers, investors, prospective partners, other influencers and even competition.

Pitch to traditional media, indirectly: If the blogger covers a certain sector/s you can be sure journalists covering these beats may be reading this blog. And getting ideas for their own stories. Who do you think they will call? Your client, right? Get the drift?

Bloggers also write for mainstream media: More and more of traditional media are calling upon bloggers to write for them, even if it’s an occasional piece. You don’t think they will use some of the material from their own blogs, do you? And imagine if they have no idea what you do?

Reach out to the blogger’s friends in the blogosphere: Bloggers generally maintain close relationships with other like bloggers and pass on ideas and information to one another – your pitch to one blogger may reach out to another 20, giving you a high net cumulative coverage.
Heard of ‘viral’ and ‘word of mouth’? That’s the beauty of an online post – it can get passed around creating a kind of a viral effect. Unfortunately there is no way to measure it – but it is that invisible force print cannot create!!

Get found on the net: A newspaper goes to waste at the end of the day, but a blog post stays afloat in cyberspace forever!! And is searchable by anyone who is looking for information on what you do.

A sounding board: Treat bloggers as a focus group – and capture the buzz in the marketplace. And join in the conversations.
You don’t want competition to develop a better relationship: Ok, ignore the bloggers. And wake up one day to find your competitor having a field day and enjoying all the benefits listed above.

Bet on tomorrow: Why is Times of India so big? Because they bet on a relatively new business concept 169 years ago. Ok, we don’t think such timelines in this day and age but you get the point, don’t you? Just a matter of time before blogs go mainstream – and you don’t want to be caught with your pants in the wrong position!!

Time you get going

The silver lining to recessionary times is they make it easy to bootstrap a new initiative. If you are already working somewhere, the slower pace of work may allow you to create the foundation of any additional work you take on from home. If you have been laid-off or have chosen to strike out on your own, this is the best time to turn entrepreneur. Any time and investment you put it will be carefully measured as these resources are scarce. You will follow business logic more than your heart lowering risks and increasing chances of success. Quality talent may be more willing to work for you at attractive terms than when the economy is doing good and they are in much higher demand.

This is just the right time to get your feet wet. You never know where it will lead you.

Out of the box ideas

tasmaniasatan — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:59:10 +0000

The Internet is limitless. No one can possibly measure how vast or deep it is anymore. And what all it is being used for by people. Which also means you can use it your advantage in ways limited by only your imagination and hard work.

Given here are some out of the box ideas for you to pursue. You can take them at face value, tweak them as you like or get them to trigger off some really new ideas – all designed to help you make money from home.

E-COMMERCE

There is nothing like the jingle of the cash register in an old-fashioned shop to make one feel good about money. Brick and mortar may never go away, but e-commerce is here to stay. Time you opened an e-shop for yourself. No idea how to go about it? Here goes:

The questions to ask

Like for anything else you do, start by asking yourself some questions and seeking honest answers: What will you sell? Will customers find value in buying from you? Is it cheaper, or unique or makes the purchase process easier? Who is your target market? Will they buy what you have to sell? Even if it I something people are not used to buying, can you create a market for yourself? What will it cost to set up? How much time will it require daily or weekly?

If the answers you get make a business case for what you are setting out to do, go for it. Sometimes it may not but your intuition or gut feel tells you otherwise. Don’t ignore it. If market research always gave the right answers, some of our favourite products might never have seen the light of the day.

What do you sell?

Anything you make or distribute yourself. If you don’t have anything of this sort, tie up with someone who can supply the same. And you act only as the seller. For example, you could start selling books and list them on your site. When you receive an order, pick up the copy from the distributor and ship it. No inventories to carry.

Or go a little niche. Pick on products tough to find. Where would you buy movie posters for example? After some snooping around you could find yourself a vendor. But most others might not be able to. Tie up with this vendor to sell for him, keeping a mark-up for yourself.

Where is your market?

In theory , the world is your market. And it can be in practice too. The Internet allows you to reach out to every connected human globally and service them. Of course, no one has something to sell for everyone. Segment your market well and address it well. It could just be your office colleagues or your local community. It may not be feasible to always capture markets even when they exist. A table costing five thousand rupees may be easy to deliver in Delhi where you live but not in Brazil. Or even Mumbai for that matter.

Setting up the site

Many a software company has grown rich developing applications for early days e-commerce clients. Projects ran into tens of thousands to even millions of dollars in billing. You don’t need to spend that kind of money anymore. There are enough boxed solutions, do-it-yourself websites and software-as-a-service models going around to get you going provided you don’t have anything as elaborate as Amazon planned out. You could even set these up in a matter of hours.

Receiving payments is also no longer as difficult as it used to be. PayPal and other companies allow you to process credit card payments from clients globally. Customers are increasingly getting more comfortable using their cards online. You can always ask for cheques or bank transfers when cards are not an option. It may be slower, but you save on the hefty transaction fee when processing credit card payments.

Once the money is flowing in, you can always pay a developer to make a state of the art site for you. Remember, focus on your product and marketing initially rather than investing too much in the site.

Is there any other way to set up shop?

Yes, there is. Ebay, including its Indian operations, and Amazon are some of the leading platforms who allows you to set up your own virtual store for a small fee. It is all an automated process, you can do your own branding, and they make it easy to receive payments. Contrary to popular perception, Ebay is not just a marketplace for used goods. There is a high percentage of fresh stock being bought and sold too. There are hundreds of people who have made full time professions out of trading on Ebay. Nothing stops you from doing so yourself. You enjoy the advantages of not getting into the hassle of setting up the shop yourself – and of being in the market with its own captive audience you can never hope to get on your own.

Promoting your shop

Right, your shop is open for business but how do you get the footfalls? Use social media and blogs again. You can read it up in a later section, but here are some ideas that work best for an e-commerce site:

Have a blog where you talk of your products, customer service, testimonials, new launches etc.
Social Media: Set up groups and fan pages on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn depending where your target audience is.
Search Engine Optimisation: Get a professional to optimize your site so it appears high on search engine ranking.
Advertise online wherever your target customers could be. You can always put a cap on your budget, being as low as a few hundred rupees a day, and decide where and when the ads should appear for effective targeting.
Use free advertising spots like your email signature, visiting cards, letterheads, bumper stickers, emailers etc.

OFFLINE BUSINESS OUT OF ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS

Which sites have proven to be the most successful commercially in India? Jobs, property and matrimonials top the charts and have already knocked the wind out of many a newspaper who relied on these segments as the mainstay of their revenues.

Where do you come in here? You can leverage these to service a client base not comfortable or knowledgeable about the net. And in India there is a sizeable population of this kind. And that is why you still have offline service providers for these segments despite the popularity of the sites. Here are some specific services you can provide:

Property: Indians are still vary, with justification, of property deals. They prefer dealing with real persons as middlemen and the person could be you. Sites like Magicbricks and IndiaProperties are rich with a database of both prospective tenants and buyers as well as properties on offer. You can tap into these and offer your services. There is no longer a need to send someone scouting all over town looking for vacant properties up for letting or sale. Your net connection and telephone can do most of the work, with visits scheduled once talks make headway.

Matrimonials: You could help people post on matrimonial sites and collect responses on their behalf – even providing print-outs of ‘matrimonial resumes.’ All for a fee. And commission from the site if they have such a facility.

Jobs: Start you own part-time placement consultancy. Again, like for properties, candidates and employers are all there. Use your social media networks to further tap into a global talent pool. And earn a fee every time you help place someone.

MARKET RESEARCH

Ever wondered how the likes of IMRB and Nielsen carry out market research and polls on behalf of companies? They usually design suitable forms and send out people to gather responses from people. And then charge clients a hefty fee after they have processed and analysed the same.

You could do something similar for a much smaller fee. The consumer demographic these companies seek are usually to be found on communities like Facebook, Orkut, Ryze and LinkedIn. You can tap into these with online polls, surveys or even focus group interactions. Many of these sites offer easy to use polling tools, or you can use services like Zoomerang, SurveyMonkey and ConstantContact. These are mostly free for at least the basic functionalities, and charge a small fee beyond that.

The results may not be as scientific as what some of the bigger agencies, but they can still offer some valuable market insights for companies. And the turnaround time can be very low. Clients can always follow it up with more detailed surveys if need be.

You could go a step further and start generating industry specific surveys and selling these for a fee. They may not have been commissioned by a single client, but you could earn some good money even if you succeed in selling these to enough organizations.

TUTOR ONLINE

One of the lesser known success stories in the Indian outsourcing industry is online tutoring. Companies are facilitating the coming together of teachers from India to take lessons for students from all over the world. One such service WizIQ.com has created such a marketplace where tutors and learners register and find each other. There are others who do the hard part of finding students and then connect them with tutors, everyone getting paid in the process.

Likewise, there are opportunities to take online classes for American universities but this is yet to catch on in a bigger way due to certification and other qualifying criteria. But a few Indians have already been making money pursuing this option for many years. This works particularly well for those with American degrees.

Again, this is something that can be done in one’s spare time. It is most lucrative when catering to western students. Not only do they have a much higher paying capacity but they can be taught after work hours in India due to time zone differences.

Selling and brand building on social media

tasmaniasatan — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:57:02 +0000

Sit back, close your eyes and think of all the users on LinkedIn and Facebook. Think demographics. Think purchasing power. Think influence. And imagine what this community can do for your marketing and brand building efforts.

Specialist agencies spend millions of their clients’ dollars to identify and reach out to a market segment as powerful as the one on such social media. And as a user, this is available to you for the effort it takes for a few clicks of a mouse and a keyboard. Now, why would you not want to use these sites to boost your topline and bottomline?

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA WORKS FOR SELLING

There are several ways by which you can get social media to help you with the selling process. It can complement what you are already doing, or create altogether new opportunities for you. And you can do it from office if this is a part of your day job, or just in your spare time from home.

A market in itself, and more

Users of LinkedIn and Facebook tend to be those with relatively high purchasing power, representing a huge market opportunity in itself. Many of them are also well-placed to help you get your foot inside the right doors. Most importantly, they are key influencers in the market: the people they live and work with represent consumer segments with high purchasing power and further influence.

Social media can be your salesman and brand manager thrown into one – as long as you stay within the rules and code of conduct of these sites.

Everything starts with the quality, and sometimes size, of your contacts on these sites. In some ways, it can be said that your network determines your net worth.

Find clients anywhere in the world

Being global in its reach, every country in the world is probably represented on social media. Yes, there might be a skew in favour of some countries and sectors but the network plays out not only for direct leads, but in being able to direct you to the relevant ones through referrals. Go and mark your footprint in newer territories before others do.

Small businesses can help each other

Small business owners use LinkedIn to forge informal alliances with other entrepreneurs who may complement what they are doing and for providing leads to one another in non-competing situations. They meet here, share prospects, learn from each other and get to know of markets in regions otherwise inaccessible. It is like a business chamber for them.

Viral potential

If your product or service is buzzworthy for this target group, and you position it correctly, just sit back and watch the fun – word will get around, like a rising spiral reaching out to people you never could have even if you had all the advertising dollars in the world to spend.

Corporate branding

For businesses, it is not enough to just promote their products and services; the corporate brand too needs to be worked upon to attract investors, human resources and customers. For those looking to enhance the image of their company, the social media audience may just be what the doctor ordered.

Lead Generation

Find and be found. Search by title and industry for the ideal contacts at your ideal customers. Search by title and company name for specific target customers. Be sure your profile is complete and contains the appropriate keywords for your business so that people looking for your solution will find you. Endorsements/recommendations count for a lot — get them from people who have actually been your clients if at all possible.

Sales Acceleration

Search for people at the company you are targeting for a sale. Find out about the priorities that are going on at the company — what are the high-level factors that might be influencing the buying process. Be completely open/transparent. If you have a good solution and a really good referral to a true ‘friend of a friend,’ you will very likely find an internal champion in that person.

“The very critical mistake companies do on Facebook when they try to divert the traffic back to their website explicitly through their communication. Facebook or any other online community can be best utilized only when you add value on the existing community – if you do succeed you would automatically get people screaming for you back on your website.” – Santosh Kumar, Manager – Online Marketing at Dream11 Gaming, India

THE HOW OF SELLING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

Advertise

Advertise on social media can be done within a controlled budget and, with the right targeting, give you a higher return on investment than many other media.

Interact one-on-one

Instead of spraying everyone with your marketing messages, seek out prospective customers in your network for a private discussion. And you can always ask your friends or contacts to introduce you to those who are not on your network.

Do ensure you don’t start spamming your contacts just because they have allowed you to be in touch with them. Always remember to behave with people as you would in the real world.

Engage over Q&As

Again, LinkedIn Q&As can be an effective forum to attract attention to what you have to offer as long as it is not a direct sales pitch. There would be grey areas here on what is allowed and what is not; just be careful to watch where you are stepping. Don’t allow any of your communication to be interpreted as an advertisement.

Asking questions relevant to your products and services can create awareness, help you identify your markets needs and enable you to follow up on any positive remarks for a possible sales opportunity. As a respondent to any question related to your business or industry, you can create awareness and come in contact with those who may be prospective customers or market influencers. Again, any sales pitch should be subtle – or sent over a private message.

In fact, if you regularly ask questions and respond to those related to your area of work, without necessarily speaking about your business directly, you could catch the attention of those who matter easily. They may see your profile in the process, and contact you to discuss possibilities if they get a sense you may be a trusted vendor or service provider.

LinkedIn for Consultants: Why, How and Now

If you are a consultant who wants to increase his or her income from home, try LinkedIn. The site provides value to consultants in different industry segments by helping them accomplish two of their most pressing needs:

(1) Winning new business
(2) Strengthening existing business

So, let’s see what are the ways in which LinkedIn can help facilitate the above two goals and also some immediate steps you can follow to effect some results.

HOW

Here are five ways that LinkedIn can help consultants win and strengthen their business relationships:

Be found: Potential clients find you when your LinkedIn profile matches a keyword they use for their search. With millions of searches done on LinkedIn per month, odds are someone has already searched LinkedIn for a person with your expertise. Include the right keywords in your profile, so you show up in the search results of potential clients.

Search and Research: LinkedIn not only allows you to find hiring managers in your industry and region, but also enables you to identify new prospects in the networks of your former clients or colleagues. The most valuable information for your clients is rarely on a web page: it is usually in the minds of influencers and potential customers. LinkedIn helps you find these people and reach them through introductions made by your trusted contacts.

Get introduced: Most consultants get the majority of their clients through word-of-mouth referrals. When you connect on LinkedIn with professionals who have referred business to you in the past, you strengthen your relationship with them by helping them reach people you know. Also, once connected on LinkedIn, you can see who they or their contacts know and proactively reach out to potential new clients via referrals from past clients or former co-workers. If you have more business than you can handle, you can also use LinkedIn to find qualified staff and subcontractors.

Get endorsed: One of the first steps in establishing your reputation within LinkedIn is to get endorsed by your former clients and colleagues whom you have impressed with your work ethic. This not only offers examples of consulting work you have done in the past on your LinkedIn profile, but may seem mandatory given the competitive consulting environment in different fields today. Also, don’t forget to recommend your co-workers (past and present) and fellow consultants whose work you admire.

Got Answers? Another effective way to substantiate your expertise in a given field is offering solutions and answers to specific questions being posed by your trusted network through LinkedIn Answers. Besides helping other professionals; this is a great way to further solidify your expertise in your related field of work. We have a slew of categories and sub-groups within LinkedIn Answers that cover a broad swath of possible consulting work.

NOW

If you are a consultant who has just joined LinkedIn, here are four action items to help you get started:

Connect with your past and current clients. Referrals from clients are your best lead source — and once you are connected, you can also proactively search their networks.

Reconnect with old colleagues. You never know all the people your old colleagues know until you connect with your colleagues on LinkedIn.

Connect with people who have recommended you in the past. These people have already recommended or referred you to their trusted network. By connecting with them, you maximize the chances of people in their network finding you when they are looking for help.
Request recommendations from past clients or old colleagues. This ensures that potential clients or employers who find you will choose you from their search results as the person to contact.

Let people know you, business will follow

It may be important to allow people to get to know well. This can be done by being open and transparent on these social media sites and allowing others to see your network and professional history. Let people see your endorsements, and help them connect to other customers of yours. You need to nurture your network and build relationships. Win the trust of people. Once they know you better, business will follow.

Finding a job you love

tasmaniasatan — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:56:12 +0000

“Find a job you love and you will never work a day in your life.” – Confucius

If you want a job you love, at a remuneration you feel you deserve, you can take one of the many possible routes. The old fashioned ones are floating your resume amongst placement consultants, looking up newspaper career supplements, going to job sites or just asking around. All of these may work up to a point but they come with limitations.

The jobs on offer may not be what you like. Or not have the flexibility to make you happy about the prospects. More importantly, they may never come up on any of these forums. Your ideal position might be floating somewhere and you would be wandering elsewhere, and paths may never cross. Worse, the job may not yet have been formally defined by an organization but would be created if they were to meet someone like you. Again, what if you never meet?

This is where it helps to moonlight on social media. This includes not only professional networking sites like LinkedIn but social ones like Facebook too. Here are some sound reasons why these work:

Casual talk leads to things: When you network on these sites, it is akin to meeting someone offline at events or one-to-one and having casual conversations. You never know how one thing might lead to another, just like in the real world.

Explore one another: When you meet someone with the agenda of recruitment on the table, a certain level of stiffness and formality comes into play. However, social media allows one to know more about the other without alerting each other. Going through each other’s profiles and contacts, and even connecting with the latter to know more, takes care of a lot of groundwork initially and saves any awkward moments later.

Run background checks: Profiles and contacts also allow both sides to run a background check on one another and arrive at some conclusions, if not all, before further discussions.

Even Facebook speaks a lot: Your Facebook profile may be mostly about your personal life, but they are still a reflection on the kind of person you are. Just because you meet someone at a poolside party for the first time does not stop you from having some professional conversations and forming opinions about the other person. So it is for Facebook.

Discover a love for a job you did not know existed: More often than not, we know we are unhappy in what we are doing but do not know what will make us happy. This is where social media can help again. You may discover things people are doing or offering to others to do, and it may just strike a chord somewhere within you. Only when you hear of these could you realize that this is what you would love and have the capability to do so, or be able to learn how to go about it.

Your CV is not condensed: You can create an extensive CV effectively in the form of your profile, and interested users can filter the same for the desired information. In a normal CV, you tend not to make it too long, deleting certain positions you feel are not very relevant; you don’t need to bother about this on social media. It is like a dynamic CV provided you constantly update it.

Finding overseas opportunities

“I primarily use LinkedIn for looking passively for my next job opportunity in the US. I am currently based in India and looking to migrate to the US. So I try to get in touch with recruiters who are currently working within my target companies, and who are open to networking. There are a lot of recruiters out there who are open to finding quality candidates through LinkedIn and are extremely responsive.

LinkedIn provides a single interface to put up my profile as well as REAL recommendations from my current and past colleagues, which gives recruiters some comfort.

Within a period of about three months after creating my LinkedIn account, I had already received six job leads and landed four telephonic interviews with my target companies! This would not have been possible through any of my other channels, including employee referrals in the target organizations!”

- Rohit Chugh, India (Name changed)

THE HOW OF FINDING THE JOB YOU LOVE

There are many ways to find your dream job through these sites, and you may need to pursue more than one of these to get where you want to.

Get discovered

Just like Dan Nye, CEO of LinkedIn, was by the site’s founder Reid Hoffman. You never know who may be looking for someone like you, and stumbles upon you – through a search or by chance. Make sure to improve your chances of getting a call by not only having a complete, up-to-date profile but also by making it interesting enough for others to get drawn towards you.

Get discovered through participation

Of course, the chances of your getting discovered would be low if you stay inside a hole on these sites. Make yourself visible whenever you can. You can do so by:

Being active on LinkedIn Q&A
Join relevant groups
Attend any offline events
Stay in touch with your contacts through regular correspondence.

You never know when a conversations could lead to opportunities. Just like the case of a hardware engineer who shared this: “I met someone through the LinkedIn Answers section who asked a question regarding a technical topic of interest to me in hardware design. We started conversing via email, and it turned out he was the director of US operations for a European company designing EDA tools in the very area which I am interested in working. I quasi-interviewed via email (including with one of the founders), and now I am awaiting a formal job offer.”

Get referred

If you are open to a change of jobs, it may be a good idea to inform some of your trusted contacts. They could help by referring you to someone who might be able to help, or refer your name, should they know of anyone looking for someone like you.

Go and find the employer and job you want

If you have a company, or a few, in mind where you may like to work, but are not sure if they have an opening, it may be a smart idea to look up any LinkedIn or Facebook users working at these companies. Try and get a conversation going. If you have their attention, there are many ways they can help you:

On your lucky day, they will tell you about your dream position being available, and guide you to the person to pitch to.
On most days, they will only be able to direct you to someone who may know. Request them to drop a line of introduction if they can before you contact this person.
In larger organizations, it may be more useful to find people within the department you are seeking an opening in. If you find such people, you could ask them directly about any vacancies; if you win their confidence, they may even be able to tell you who is about to quit. Move fast if this may be the case.

Actually, it is not only current employees of the target company who may be able to help, but former ones too. They may still be clued in to the who’s who in the company, or know how the system works. In fact, you could get quite candid and objective inputs from them. Current employees may not be at a liberty to talk as freely.

ALL THIS COMES WITH SOME HARD WORK

All this may sound easy in theory, but actually involves a fair deal of work – even if you have the best written profile going around. Unless you are having an unusually good day.

Otherwise, you may need to put in some hard work. Not necessarily in terms of hours, but in terms of being smart about it. Even two hours a week can go a long way if used right.

Your network matters: The bigger your network of relevant contacts, the more people you can potentially tap when hunting for a job. And if some of these are heavyweight names, your stock can go up in the eyes of the recruiter and the hiring company. Recruiters may also want to run independent reference checks, so invite those contacts to be a part of your network who can speak about you if called upon to. According to LinkedIn, adding five connections makes you 3.7 times more likely to receive a job offer.

Be an active participant: The more you are seen around these sites, the better your chances. This could be on the ‘Answers’ section, in various groups, on member mailing groups, offline events and more. Mingle around when you can.

Recommend and seek recommendations: Recruiters also make sure they check out recommendations when viewing your profile. Try and get a few from your contacts. Invite them to do so if need be – it is an acceptable practice. And reciprocate when asked to do so yourself. But ensure the recommendations you receive and give are honest, and not friends giving undeserved flattery. It should also not come from someone who barely knows your work – a sensible person will always see through it. And if you have any A-plus talent saying it is willing to work with you and recommend you, that’s much of the battle won.