Within every mistake, there is a lesson. This week, I learned a good lesson at work.

I’ve been listening to Lis Wiehl’s Winning Every Time: How to Use the Skills of a Lawyer in the Trials of Your Life. It’s a good book covering the tactics lawyers use to build their case. Such tactics have real life applications outside of the courtroom. For example, by correctly choosing your juror, and building a solid case, you could win an everyday argument like getting credit for returning a product. For example, talking to a part-time store associate who didn’t want to be working at the store in the first place probably is going to be a waste of time. S/he is not going to care. A store manager, who’s focused on profit and store traffic, may be more inclined to listen to you in hope to keep your loyalty.

Another lesson I learned was that lawyers ask a lot of questions in the courtroom. However, good lawyers never ask a question that they don’t already know the answer to! This is powerful!

This week, I walked into the big boss’s office, asking for her approval on a piece of creative. I’ve done so so many times before, and generally such reviews go okay. This time was a little different. For reasons still unknown to me today (I was just having an off-day), I walked into her office completely unprepared. I did my homework. I checked the boxes and crossed the to-do list. I knew that my creative was solid on delivering on what the team wanted. However, I also knew that it was a much focused piece that intentionally left something off. I should have known that this could have been a point of discussion. I should have had my “evidence” ready. I should have had my “counter arguments” ready. I had them, but somehow, at that moment that matters, I just didn’t perform! I didn’t frame my argument. I didn’t present my evidence. I froze. And the review went very differently than what I had initially imagined.

This taught me that no matter how many times you’ve done something in the past. No matter how many times you’ve won the game (to borrow an Olympic inspired analogy). You have to be 100% prepared and ready to perform your best every single time! Every meeting is a trial. You’ve won if you achieved your objective. You’ve lost if you did not. In order to win, you need to present your argument with evidence. Every meeting is a trial; no exceptions.

When I asked my boss what she thought about the piece, I should have known the answer. Again, never ask a question that you don’t know the answer to. I should have known that she would contest the points that were intentionally left off the piece. In order to secure a winning judgment from my boss that day, I needed to address why certain points were intentionally left off. I needed to establish that the points we chose to include on the piece were the most impactful one for delivering on our needs. I should have framed my argument carefully, slowly leading her to the conclusion I wanted. If I had acted like a lawyer, I would have presented a logical argument that would have left her no choice but to must award me the decision I sought. A winning verdict for that piece of creative.

Every meeting is a trial. Every meeting has juror(s). Every one of us has a lawyer inside that could help us win our everyday cases!

Photo credit: Joe Gratz

A national career fair is coming up at the end of the week. So, I thought I’d post my tips on how to work a job fair. Of course, I take it for granted that you know you need the basics like a good resume, a good suit, a good elevator speech, etc.

1. For the ladies, wear flats. Purchase a pair of dressy flats. Otherwise, your feet will be hurting before the fair is half done, and it would get increasingly difficult for you to put your smiley face on. The rule of being comfortable while staying professional extend to the gentlemen as well. To this end, consider bringing an extra suit or invest in a washable suit. Once, I had a spill during the conference, and I was lucky that my suit was washable. If you choose the extra suit route, the back-up suit obviously would not need to be as nice / expensive.
2. Bring a lot of resumes. In fact, bring a jump drive with your resume, writing sample, portfolio, etc. on it. Just in case you need it, you could always go to your hotel’s business center or a Kinko’s.
3. Do your research well ahead of the time. Many job fairs set up a website with job posting. Figure out which employers would be there. Know your targets. Apply ahead if you can. Try to set up interviews for the fair well ahead of the time, if you can. For one fair, I had 8 interviews lined up prior to even going to the fair. Everything that I got while actually at the conference was gravy.
4. Plan to arrive the night before, and go to the fair site. Often, there is an early check-in set up, and you could get your registration package the night before. The lines for early check-in are usually far shorter! This would allow you to have more time in the morning during the actual fair. Even if you missed the early check-in time, make an effort to stop by the convention center. One, you want to get familiar with the site. You wouldn’t want to lose any time on the real day of the fair. Two, even if you didn’t get your official package, there may be event maps lying around. Pick one up. That is perhaps the single most important piece of material besides your security badge. You want to study that map the night before. You want to figure out a war path. You want to figure out what is the most efficient way to hit up all the employers you wanted to visit.
5. Visit your #1 target company second. This is perhaps my most important tip. Don’t bother wasting time on an employer in which you have absolutely no interests. However, there are those that are on the end of your list. Pick one of those as your first visit. Often time, similar jobs have similar job fair interactions. So, by staying within your list, you would just get more practice on how to interact with these companies. You would get used to the questions they’d ask. You would get better at making a good first impression. So, don’t waste time with companies not on your list. But, why pick one of the ones on the end to start? Because inevitably you would be nervous. Truthfully, this is your guinea pig visit. Work off your nerves. Get a good real-life practice. If you happen to nail this, great. If not, you would just move on to those higher on your list. Why visit your #1 company second? You would be still awake, full of adrenaline early in the day. You would be at the best of your game early on, so use that toward your top companies. In addition, each company reserves some at-the-fair interview spots for candidates they meet during the fair. However, these spots go fast. If you want to get on one of these spots still, you need to make sure you visit them early on.
6. Along with the above point, don’t bother visiting with companies with which you already have interviews scheduled till later. Prioritize the companies you still need to get on their interview schedule first.
7. Go to the networking events hosted by your target companies. Network, network, network!

Good Luck and Good Hunting!

Photo credit: career fair, originally uploaded by yngrich.

Related articles online

• Career and Internship Fair: What You Need To Know (smudailymustang.com)

Scene (In conference room C at approximately 9am):
In-house Creative Designer: What?!?! That wasn’t approved?
Me: No…
In-house Creative Designer: But, we’ve been moving forward with this already…
Me: Um… why?
In-house Creative Designer: Because I was told to! You should have told us that this design wasn’t approved!
My inner monologue: Um… I told your boss… and I would think that your boss would have told you…
Me: Well… I’m sorry about the confusion. But the design isn’t approved. I’ll keep you updated after we talk with the big boss later today… I’m hoping to get approval this afternoon…
In-house Creative Designer: Uh. Fine. Just keep me updated.
Me: Will do!

Everyday I learn something. On some days, it’s about marketing. On other days, it’s just about life. Today, I discovered a recurring theme in my meetings… people vent to me on matters over which I have absolutely no control.

I decided that this is when I should just don’t care. Why? Because caring takes energy, and I have limited amount of energy at the end of the day. In these cases, I have no or very little control over the matter the person was venting about. Therefore, a quick cost and benefit analysis would tell me that I could not exert enough energy to actually make a material change. Therefore, in these cases, I should just don’t care. I just need to let these comments roll right off of me, and focus my energy on something that would actually make a bigger change!

Photo credit: Dilbert tag, originally uploaded by Ol.v!er [H2vPk].

I’m starting a series of posts on job hunting. Why? Well, for my particular career path, marketing for a big CPG, recruiting season is right around the corner. If I could offer anything that I’ve learned along the way to help my readers get into the field, I’d be happy to offer it.

To launch this series, I thought I’d recognize a marketing legend: Seth Godin.

Anyone reading this blog probably has read enough posts about how important it is in the job search process to become more knowledgeable about the industry. Well, you reading this blog is already a good start Allow me to share with you another one of the easiest ways to become more knowledgeable if you’re trying to get into marketing.

Go to your library, borrow a book by Seth Godin. He publishes a book each year, so there are plenty to choose from. I personally recommend Purple Cow or Tribes. These are two of his books that are the most frequently referenced right now. Purple Cow is a book on innovation, and it may be Godin’s most popular book. Purple Cow has literally become a proper noun in the industry. (If you’ve been following my Primal Branding series, think about how Seth Godin has created his own sacred words.) Tribes is his latest book on leadership.

Why is reading Seth Godin one of the easiest ways to get knowledgeable about marketing?

Because first and foremost, Seth Godin is a recognized marketing guru. He is even an action figure! Who in marketing has action figures? (Unicorn shown above sold separately.) The fact of the matter is that basically anyone in the industry would have heard of him. If you’re going to pick a book to read, may as well pick one that you could causally drop into conversation with another marketer…

Secondly, they are short! I know how much time you need to dedicate into the job search process. For some of you, you’re trying to do this on top of being a student full-time. There are other books out there that I’d recommend for generally reading pleasure (such as Patrick Hanlon’s Primal Branding), but they are too long and involved to be considered as “one of the easiest ways” to become more knowledgeable about the industry.

Lastly, Godin posts on his blog everyday. You can subscribe to it. Then, the next time you talk to a recruiter, you could open with “Hi, so what did you think about Seth Godin’s post today?”

Photo Credit: Seth Godin Rides A Unicorn, originally uploaded by zoomar. Technorati: pmqw25z8sy

Related articles online

• Seth Godin Talks Tribes (enquiringmimes.com)
• Tips for Job Hunting During a Recession Part I (halliecrawford.typepad.com)
• The Best And Worst Cities To Look For A Job (techcrunch.com)

The other day, I was thinking about all the projects I have going on, and I began to wonder how I would be able to do it all. Well, the simple answer was that I am quite good at multitasking.

Then, I remembered that once, at an interview, I was asked how do I handle multiple tasks? I remembered that I had some answers at that point, but I also remembered that feeling at an interview where you just knew you did not really nail that question…

So, I remembered answering something about prioritizing. They asked, how? I gave some vague answer of depends on the deadline, the requestor, etc. Since then, I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, and he explained a great system of prioritization. Basically, divide your works into four groups. 1) Urgent and Important, 2) Not Urgent but Important, 3) Urgent but Not Important, and 4) Not Urgent and Not Important.

His advice was the need to address the first group was quite obvious. The second group would also be important, but since it’s not urgent, we would need to be extra diligent to make time for these tasks. We should learn to say “no” to the third group of tasks. As for the fourth group, we should forget it, but many people would waste too much time on things within this group. I thought this was a great way to frame up how I prioritize. But somehow, I didn’t think this quite answer why I was good at multitasking… I thought there was more to it still.

Then, I read Radical Careering by Sally Hogshead, and she used the term timestacking. She defined it as “extracting every bit of capacity from time for maximum efficiency. Uber multitasking.”

I thought, this was it. I have been timestacking!

But, I still did not quite grasp what that really meant.

Then, the light bulb went off, and I understood how I seemed to be able to do more with the same amount of time.

Remember back in school, a teacher taught you about volume with a glass. She then filled it up with rocks, and she could only fit so much. Then, she filled it up with pebbles, and she found more space. Then she filled it up with sand, and she found more space still in that glass.

That was the essence of my multitasking!

I break my projects into the tiniest little pieces of tasks. This way, I have more flexibility in fitting the different tasks around each other.

For example: A project would be to create a piece of marketing material. A procedure within that project would be to gain legal alignment. Many people stops at this on their to-do list. Then, at 8:29am, you could not get to it before your 8:30 meeting. At 11:59am, if “gain legal alignment” was still on the to-do list, it would get rolled off to after lunch. Then, what would often happen after lunch? Some other things would ambush you and they would occupy the top spaces of your to-do list. So, at 4:59pm, “gain legal alignment” remained on your to-do list and it would get rolled off to another day.

However, what if that procedure was broken down even further? What if what made it to the to-do list was “email copy to lawyer”? At 8:29am, you could still fire off an email to the lawyer before your morning meeting. Then, you would be able to cross of an item on that to-do list, and it would just feel good. But, of course, back on the to-do list would be “awaiting legal reply”. However, this simple step kept the project moving forward. Perhaps at 11am, you got your legal reply. Then, the new thing on your to-do list would be “call agency”. In all likelihood, you still wouldn’t have been able to “gain legal alignment” by the end of that day. If it was so short, simple, or easy, it would have never got put off to begin with. However, I believe you could appreciate how much further along in the process you would be if you would just take it one step at a time.

In addition, with me, I have found that there is another benefit to breaking my projects into tiny tasks. It allows me to be completely focused at the task at hand. Whenever I have worked on mega-tasks, I would get fatigue mentally quicker. I would get distracted easier, probably because I wasn’t able to see the end of the tunnel. With a lack of focus, I would just simply not get as much done…

Also, with a to-do list of tiny tasks, I would never feel like I was unaccomplished at the end of the day. I would always be able to cross off something!

So, try to break your rocks into sand, and fill your days with sand!

Click Here for more Work Smarter, Not Harder Tips!

Photo credit: SqC: Jar of Rocks 2, originally uploaded by Yogi.

I’m a big believer of the mantra “Work smarter, not harder!”

Today, at work, I exercised one of my favorite work smarter tactics.

As marketers / business owners, we’re often put in the position of coming up with creative solutions to some of the business’s toughest problems.

For example, I had been tasked before to come up with a new way to communicate a certain product benefit. So, I gather a group of internal experts for brainstorming sessions. Of course, I’m blessed to work in a corporate culture that truly encourages teamwork. Whenever I have one of these brainstorming sessions, my experts always come up with a point of view or a possibility that I had not considered before.

So, next time you need to solve a business problem creatively, try collect in a room some great minds from your company. Your legal counsel? Your technical expert? Your consumer facing folks? Your marketing people? These people collectively know your business inside and out, and collectively would have a much more well-rounded solution than you could come up with alone.

Photo credit: Working Together Teamwork Puzzle Concept, originally uploaded by lumaxart.