What Can Blogging Do For You?

If you're a regular reader of blogs but haven't taken the time to dive in and start writing, consider the career paths of several people who have taken that plunge.  Each of these individuals is involved in the recruiting space, and that industry has done well with recruiting blogs, but marketing, small business, PR, finance, product marketing, legal, and technology also have good stories.

This sample is not going to focus on companies that have done well with blogs, but rather the career paths of individual bloggers.  You want to know the ROI?  Here are some figures. 

Recruiting:

Joel Cheesman:  Joel, who writes the popular Cheezhead blog, runs his own business as a SEO consultant for recruitment marketing.  Joel has been blogging just two years, but now says most of his new business leads come from his blog (not his website).  Joel speaks at conferences, starts contests, and just recently signed a sponsorship deal with JobCentral to pay him $100,000 over the next two years.

Harry Joiner: You'll recognize Harry because he's one of the authors of this blog, but he also writes for MarketingHeadhunter, his blog on his business as a, you guessed it, Marketing Headhunter.  Harry is a friend of mine, and we talk about the impact of his blog on his business - I'll leave it up to him to quantify the amount - but he counts on his blog to bring in qualified candidates for him to place with his clients.   At $20,000-$30,000 (and up) a placement, any candidate that finds Harry through his blog is someone he didn't have to proactively solicit.

Humility: The Core of Servant Leadership

As a marketing recruiter, not a week goes by that I don't get a call from a VP of HR looking for a VP of Marketing who is a "servant leader."  Servant leadership seems to be all the rage these days.  Every company wants servant leaders, but few seem to know much about servant leadership.  They talk the talk, but walking the walk is much harder.  That's because ...

Servant leadership is based on humility.

Most people, if they really knew anything about humility, wouldn't like it.  That's why so few people are humble.  Humility involves dying to oneself -- sacrificing oneself to a higher good or legitimate authority.  Quite often it means doing what you don't want to do.  Sometimes it means going down with the ship so that others may live.  And always, it means killing the egotistical, self-centered person inside all of us who wants to be comforted, petted and admired.

Humility is a Godly thing.

For truly authentic servant leaders, everyone has dignity.  Everyone is a child of God.  Everyone is the best in the world at something.  Everyone deserves respect.  Everyone deserves to be elevated and  invested in.  Everyone deserves to be perfected, and servant leaders perfect those around them by nurturing everyone and and setting a benchmark example.  They walk the talk -- and inspire others to raise their game.

But here's the paradox of humility:  If you think you have it, you don't.  Imagine someone bragging about how humble they are.  That's an oxymoron, isn't it?  You can never be too humble.

I'm not talking about the "awe-shucks" false modesty that most of us have.  I'm talking about putting others first always.  That is antithetical to our secular, me first, zero-sum, he who dies with the most toys wins society.  True humility is counter-cultural, which is why it's so rare.  In fact, if you want to be a truly counter-cultural rebel, then rebel against your own vanity.  Master yourself.

Now, I can't tell you how to gain humility.  Usually one has to fail (and fail spectacularly) before one discovers how much one needs others.  But barring that, here are some signs that you lack humility:

• Thinking that what you do or say is better than what others do or say.
• Always wanting to get your own way.
• Arguing when you are not right (or when you are right, insisting stubbornly or with bad manners).
• Giving your opinion without being asked for it (when charity does not demand you to do so).
• Despising the point of view of others.
• Not being aware that all of the gifts that you have are on loan from God.
• Mentioning yourself as an example in conversation.
• Speaking badly about yourself so that others may form a good opinion of you or contradict you.
• Making excuses when rebuked.
• Hiding your faults from others so that they may not lose a good opinion of you.
• Being hurt that others are held in greater esteem than you.
• Refusing to carry out menial tasks.
• Being ashamed of not having certain possessions.

I could go on but I won't.  You get the idea.  Zig Zigler has long said that you can have anything you want in life as long as you make sure that others get what they want first.  That's a hard truth to recognize -- and an even harder truth to live.

Lists of Recruiting Blogs

The Recruiting Blogosphere is a small and concentrated group of recruiter, HR experts, and online employment companies that use blogs and social media to communicate their marketing and personal branding messages to the wider online world.

At last count, there are about 300 recruiting blogs that are regularly updated, and you can track them at several places in the recruiting blogosphere.

John Sumser has a large blogroll, as does Recruiting.com.  RecruitingFly is a search engine that allows you to search topics, and The Day In Recruiting is an RSS page of the latest updates for the most popular blogs.  Michael Specht runs an HR dominated community page, and ERE has its own list of online talents.

What did this mean for recruiting in 2006?  It meant that companies that sell their products to recruiters had a large sounding board of content-hungry bloggers looking to do amateur journalism on new products and new ideas.

DuctTapeMarketing Channels are an excellent way to expand the reach of the small business community (It's clear that John Jantsch has achieved that simply because you are reading this blog).  I wonder what new communities will form in 2007?

300 recruiting blogs, but 10,000 knitting blogs.  If you're a business blogger, is it better to be a purveyor of Applicant Tracking Software, or a online seller of yarn?

How to Email Top Candidates

Have you ever had a voice mail ignored?  Has your snail mail ever been trashed?  Have you ever been told by a receptionist that "we don't give out email addresses?"  As a management recruiter, I sure have!  In B2B selling situations (and in management recruiting), it has never been more difficult to get past the screeners of the real C-level decision makers.

If you want to send an email directly to your C-level prospect, candidate, or hiring manager, simply visit Whois Search and enter the URL of the firm you wish to solicit.  After entering a special onscreen code, note the format of the email address of the firm's Webmaster.  Try sending an email to your contact using that format.  See example.  This trick is especially effective for Hoover's users, who can lookup the names of the firm's officers and copy multiple recipients in on the same email.

And if you really want to increase your response rate, simply call your recipient and say, "Hi, ____. This is Harry Joiner and I was just following up on an email that I sent you this morning.  Do you have a minute to talk? ….etc…."  Studies have shown that telemarketing behind a direct mail or email promotion will increase your response rate by five-to-ten times.
__________________________________________

Q:  Need the number of a management recruiter who "gets it?"
A:  Download Harry's contact info for future reference.

Great Job Search Letters

Wow.  Those kids at Hah-vahd have sure got it made:  The Harvard University Career Center has assembled a really nice ebook to teach its students how to manage a letter writing campaign for their job search.  It's easy to follow, comprehensive, and FREE.  Ka-ching!  Click here -- then save that puppy to your c:drive.

Top Five Candidate Traits

By: Harry Joiner, Management Recruiter
Ph. (678) 795-0900

Last week I was asked by a friend to field some questions from the students in a University-level marketing class he is teaching.  The first question he asked me was "What are the top 5 traits you look for in a candidate for any marketing job?"

Good question.  Here are the top five things I seek in any candidate -- especially those who are applying for marketing jobs:

Business orientation.  Marketers must think holistically about their business and address their company's constraints to growth:  There's no point in developing a slick "brand promise" that cannot be brought to life with your company's current operating model.  Everything from legal, to finance, to accounting, to purchasing, to manufacturing, to warehousing, to logistics, to customer service, to marketing and sales must be in alignment with your company's Unique Selling Proposition.  And if your company's sales process is out of step with how the customer actually buys -- forget it.  That's why the best marketers are literate in all areas of business.  These are the pros who truly understand that marketing is a means to an end -- not an end unto itself.  No margin, no mission.

Humility.  If you have a massive ego, forget it.  I don't say this because I can't handle people with big egos.  I say this because marketing people with big egos always think they know better than their customers.  That's "death" in the marketing business.

People skills.  I do my job on the phone, which means that I am effectively blind. Minus the corn rows, there's no difference between me and Stevie Wonder.  Therefore, if you aren't warm and empathic on the phone, then it's hard for me to imagine that you will be warm and empathic in person. People, including my clients, want to do business with people they like, and they always do a phone screen before bringing a person in for an interview.  So relax and have fun.  Otherwise, you are wasting your time.  See the paradox?  Have fun or you're dead!

An inquisitive nature.  I'm no genius, but I have gotten by on my obsessive compulsive desire to learn.  Marketing, in particular, is too dynamic a field to be stagnant.  If you think you can skate by on the "Four Ps" you're wrong.  Keep learning.  We are just in the top of the second inning of this Internet thing, and it promises to completely change not only marketing -- but the way we think about marketing.  Don't get attached to any one marketing model or "one-size-fits-all" way of thinking.  Think integrated multichannel marketing ... and remain channel agnostic.

A track record of accomplishment.  You can't talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into.  If you have job hopped, or if you have walked off a job, or whatever, then no amount of my God-given sales talent is going to help you land a job.  If you hate your marketing job, stick it out until you generate a sensible alternative for yourself.  Nobody wants to hire a diva or a baby.