Jason Drohn's Scrapbook

Managing Your Online Identity [Podcast]

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Your online identity is crucial to your ability to succeed. Whether it be at work, in your relationships, or with your friends – if you have a poorly managed Internet identity you are in for trouble.

In fact, I read a statistic not too long ago that 64% of interviewers in Fortune 500 companies check Google before calling you back for an interview! Imagine if your online presence was their first impression of you… Would you get the job?

Managing Your Online Identity Shownotes:

  • A quick intro
  • My most recent job interview
  • Utilities
    • naymz.com
    • facebook.com
    • myspace.com
    • twitter.com
    • youtube.com
    • linkedin.com
  • Who should care?
    • Business people and professionals
    • Web Workers and Freelancers
    • Anyone looking for an interview or for work
    • Clients and ustomers
  • what can you do?
    • Be responsible
    • Watch pictures and postings – if your name is tied to it, manage it.
    • Make sure other identities rank higher
    • Manage from a central application
    • Don’t include your whole name
    • Make up a fake email address

I hope you enjoy the podcast!

icon for podpress  Managing Your Online Identity [10:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

5 Tips For Successful Following-up [Meetings 101]

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Follow-ups are the one thing separating you from 94% of individuals on the planet.  Anyone can prospect, approach people, and make an elevator pitch; but few follow up with the person afterward.

After reading “Never Eat Alone,” I realized how incredibly easy following up actually was.  Often all it is is an email or a phone call, but you force the person to think of you and your conversation as long as it’s done in a timely manner.  Too late, and you just lost your opportunity.

Here are five tips on following up that have worked exceptionally well for me:

  1. The 24-hour rule.  Follow-up with someone in 24 hours, even if it’s on a weekend.  Blackberry’s and Q’s are making the workplace more transparent.  Personally, I will collect business cards throughout the day.  When I get back to the office I enter them in my contact database.  At the same time, I type up a short email thanking them for a favor or telling them it was nice to meet them.  I usually include a question or something I promised to follow-up on in the email.  This is more bait than anything.
  2. Make a promise.  I always try to promise something when I first meet someone.  One time, I was carrying around a digital tablet.  Another guy in the meeting asked me what it was and where he could get one.  So, I collected his information, and sent him the link to it when I get back to the office.
  3. Make a Connection.  Everyone has problems.  So when you meet someone, pay attention to them.  If they are having a problem, try to fix it.  And if you can’t maybe you know someone that can!  We aren’t talking about sales presentation, but more about just helping people out.  For instance, one of the consultants I was working with was looking for a calendar for another client.  I installed a script on one of my servers and sent him a link before he finished asking me my advice.  It worked perfectly for him.
  4. Find an interest.  This is often easier said than done, but find something in common.  It is more important to make a personal connection in an initial meeting than to sell a product.  In fact, business comes second.  You will have more than enough opportunities to sell your wares as long as you make a memorable impression and follow up.
  5. Keep it short.  The follow-up is meant to be short.  Two or three sentences, tops!  Usually, in the follow-up, I suggest going to lunch about two weeks out.  Oftentimes, I am open that afternoon, but you have to account for the other person’s schedule.  And once you get into meeting the upper echelon of business people in your area, you need to accomodate their schedules.

Follow-ups are key.  Challenge yourself to following up with everyone you meet or chat with long enough to get a business card.  If you don’t do more business or have a larger referral network in a month, call me and I will coach you personally!

Mastering Your Elevator Pitch [Meetings 101]

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

Elevator Pitch - Mastering your elevator PitchAn elevator pitch closes deals before they even get started. You want funding for your startup? Master your elevator pitch. You want to sell to a new client? Get you elevator pitch down… It’s the most crucial part of your presentation. If you don’t master it, a prospect will speed away quicker than KITT in Knight Rider.

So what is an elevator pitch? Wikipedia says:

“An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (say, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).”

To me, that’s pretty generous. If I can’t deliver it in one sentence I haven’t done my job. I don’t understand my product or my business. Nothing is so complicated that it takes more than 20 words. The key is to be illusive. You need to structure the sentence so it invites questions. No questions = no interest.

To start, sit down with a piece of paper. Write down what you are going to provide. Make sure you convey your value adders like time savings, sustainability, ease of use, software based… That is crucial.

For example, I am considering starting a ‘new media’ consulting firm. What’s my elevator pitch? “Axiium enables emerging and traditional business to harness the new power of the Internet through blogging, podcasting, screencasting, and collaboration tools.” That’s it. This leaves the other 25 seconds of the elevator ride for questions :0)

The key is to engage in a conversation about your business. You want to picque the other person’s interest. It isn’t terribly hard to do, but does require some effort.

Just remember – If you can’t tell someone what your business is in one sentence or less, you don’t truly understand the idea yourself. But keep working… It will come.

The Cleveland Clinic And Google Team Up For Online Patient Records

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

Cleveland ClinicIsn’t it a great feeling to know someone important?  For me, talking to high profile bloggers and business owners is akin to being a basketball fan and meeting Michael Jordan.  You get that warm fuzzy feeling in your stomach when you hear their name mentioned and know you have something to do with them.

Last night, I was going through my feed reader and saw the Cleveland Clinic’s name pop up.  Since I read a lot of global type feeds, local entities rarely come into the picture.  So reading that the Clinic and Google have teamed up to promote Google Health was pretty exciting.   Apparently, patient records and other various information will be available online, using normal security logins.  What that means is you can be anywhere in the world and be treated for anything because all of your information is housed up in the cloud.

Here’s an excerpt from The Cleveland Clinic News:

Cleveland Clinic is collaborating with Google to pilot features and services of a new health offering. The Google offering, not yet publicly available, will assist providers to create a new kind of healthcare experience that puts patients in charge of their own health information.

It will test secure exchange of patient medical record data such as prescriptions, conditions and allergies between their Cleveland Clinic PHR to a secure Google profile in a live clinical delivery setting. The ultimate goal of this patient-centered and controlled model is to give patients the ability to interact with multiple physicians, healthcare service providers and pharmacies.

So why do I have the warm, fuzzy feeling in my stomach?  I have met with some key people in both the marketing department and the web relations department for the Cleveland Clinic on a number of occasions.  I talk every so often to people in the offices there, and admire their drive to be at the forefront of innovation.  They have an uncanny ability to partner with huge companies to make win/win situations for their customers and clients.

Just wait.  In April, they are launching a new website that is going to make use of new Microsoft Technology.  I hope everything goes well for them.  You know how Microsoft works…

Where Do You Want To Be In 5 Years? [Interviews]

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Answers for an interviewThis is one of the most important and often used interview questions of all time. Where do YOU want to be in 5 years?

When a potential employer asks you this, they are looking for a couple different things:

  • Your work ethic – do you want to climb the company ladder?
  • Your industry – are you excited about your potential in your industry? Are you looking to be in technology for a long time?
  • Your loyalty – Will you still be with our company if you are hired?
  • Your goal setting – By vocalizing your goals, especially to your future managers, you are setting them for yourself. Can you achieve them?

So, any self respecting interviewee says something that their employer wants to hear… Something like “I want to be a project manager for XYZ company” or “I want to be the head of research and development at your firm.”

The funny thing is I have been asked this question 5 times in the last month and a half. Needless to say, my response is less than stellar! Typically, I am pretty straight up and say, “I don’t know. Where should I be?”

In May, I will be finished with two bachelor’s degrees – One in business and one in MIS. In fact, word has been leaking out in the past couple months that I might be up for hire, so I have received six job offers, all preceded by an interview. The fact is, I don’t know where I want to be in 5 years. I barely know what I am doing tomorrow!

I make more money than I deserve now between blogging and Tech Solution. Why do anything different? I love what I do. I feel great about going to work in the morning. And I wouldn’t do anything different, degree or not.

So, where does this leave me and my professional development? Rather than answer that one, I am going to rely on a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien…

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

In 5 years, I still hope to be wandering…