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I’m Asking For Your Help

February 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Help wanted sign

I'm hiring!

As you all know, I’m currently trying to launch Diamonds or Dogs.  As you’ll see in Wednesday’s post, my next stage involves generating traffic for the site before I try to raise some venture money.  In order to that, I need your help.  How can you help you ask?  Well, I’m glad you asked!

First, I would really appreciate feedback on the site itself.

  • Is anything broken?
  • Is anything misspelled?
  • Any technical issues?

I’m aware of the current issue with recommendations (you may also like…) sometimes recommending things they shouldn’t. Anything else?

Second, what do you think of the site’s content?

  • Would you use a site like this?
  • How can I make it better?
  • What’s missing?
  • What do you think of the items and reviews?

Third, would you like to be a reviewer? That means you’d need to send me a profile and then 1 review every two or three weeks, and yes, you get a cut of the profits if your items sell well. Does that sound like fun? If so, contact me and let me know.

Fourth, assuming you like the site or a specific gift review, I’d really appreciate some free publicity. That means:

  • Like one of the items features on the site on Facebook. I’ve tried to make that easier by including “like” buttons on the bottom of every item review.
  • Share the site with your friends who may not see this post
  • Tell people about the site or about specific reviews
  • Retweet reviews

Essentially, spread the word about the site and any specific item you may like. Who knows, maybe someone in your life will get the hint and buy you the item you “liked” :)

Thank you all very much for the help and I look forward to helping you with your own endeavors in the future!

Filed Under: Communication, Starting A Business, Step 3 - Communicate Tagged With: , , , ,

How Do I Start My Own Business, Part 1

January 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment
light on

No, this isn't me

Gal’s Note – Unlike other blogs who’ll tell you that working for someone else makes you a brain dead wage slave, I’m going to tell you that starting a business is not for everyone.  It’s risky, takes a lot of work to start and requires a lot of time to maintain.  There are no easy solutions here and no easy alternatives to a day job.  Some people will like this choice and some won’t.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with working a standard job for someone else and if that’s what you like then by all means, enjoy.  In fact, if that’s what you want, I have a few other posts you may be interested in.

Gal’s other note – This was originally meant to be a single post.  However, due to the increasing length of the post and my own time constraints, I’m going to make it part of the whole Diamonds or Dogs series.  I’ll explore more aspects of starting my own business in the over the new couple of weeks.

So you want to create a business? Here’s a few things I’ve learned over the years, starting up both successful and unsuccessful businesses.  The basics of starting a business consist of:

  1. The Idea – What is it that your business will do?
  2. The plan – How are you going to launch your business?
  3. The communication – Who are you talking to about your business and why?
  4. The execution – Putting you plan into action.
  5. Adapt and evolve – What do to after it turns out that your plan was wrong. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Goals, Perfectionism, Starting A Business, Starting Out Tagged With: , , , , ,

How Did I Do On My 2011 Goals?

January 2, 2012 By 1 Comment

Happy new yearBack in January I posted these goals as the things I wanted to accomplish in 2011.  Looking through them now, I’ve accomplished a lot.  Yes, some of these goals failed and some only partially succeeded, but I aimed really high in 2011.  I also learned a lot about setting goals and creating plans; information which I am going to apply to 2012 goals. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Finance, Goals, Health, Jobs, Life Lesson, Perfectionism, Relationships, Step 2 - Make A Plan Tagged With: , , , ,

Dealing With Disappointment At Work

October 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

DisappointmentThe last week was not a good week for me professionally.  It started by with some bad news about something I had hoped to achieve at work.  The details are confidential but needless to say, I was very disappointed.  I felt betrayed and alone, as though other people should have been there for me, should have warned me that this was happening.  I also felt angry, I felt like I didn’t get the support I needed so it wasn’t fair to criticize me now and hold me back from what I wanted.

I wanted to sulk and blame the world.  Actually, I wanted to run away and quit my job.  Luckily, I have a bit more common sense than that, plus a very intelligent wife who listened to my issues and presented me with some great advice.  Ultimately, I went and talked to my boss about this whole thing, although I did take some time to formulate my thoughts before I marched in there.

What I realized was my career is my responsibility.  As I’ve defined it before, responsibility is the willingness and the ability to take action and I’m the only who has both of those things when it comes to my work.  Should other people have helped me along the way?  Sure, and they would have if I had asked.  Should other people have supported me?  Sure, and they would have if I told them I needed it.

Ultimately, it seems like I made a few mistakes:

  • I tried to do everything myself – This is fine when you’re an individual contributor but not when you’re a manager.  A manager has to rely on his people to do the work and I didn’t do that.  If a problem arose, I went and solved it, instead of teaching my employees how to solve them.
  • I didn’t look far enough into the future – An employee needs to be concerned with executing immediate actions.  A manager needs to be concerned with formulating plans for the future and then letting his employees execute them in the present.  I was too backwards focused.  I was reacting to what had happened before instead of planning for what was going to happen.
  • I was too reluctant to ask for help – Instead of asking for help, I waited for it to be offered.  I didn’t even tell people I needed help but instead assumed they could see it for themselves.
  • I didn’t communicate well – Because I am the product expert, I entered many conversations with the mind set of “I’m right and you’re wrong.”  Even worse, when I would get into arguments I would try to “win” the argument instead of figuring out how it could be resolved.  I didn’t take the time to say “ok, how can we resolve this?  What data would help us figure this out?” because I was too busy arguing.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I was really disappointed with myself after this realization.  Here I am preaching all these lessons about good communication, planning and asking for help and I myself had completely ignored them, much to my detriment.  The truth is that we can all be less than objective when it comes to our own lives.  It’s easy to take a look at someone else and say “they’re being too argumentative” but it’s not so easy to do the same when looking in the mirror.  Luckily for me, my boss was more objective than I and pointed out some of these issues to me.

I say lucky and I really do mean that.  There are a few possible outcomes here:

  • My boss doesn’t pick up on this, promotes me and I fail miserably
  • My boss picks up on all this and fires me without telling me why
  • My boss picks up on all this and tells me about it

Choice number 3 is the best of all worlds and it is indeed what happened.  Through this choice I can now improve my manner of work.  I’m also lucky in that my boss is someone who gives second chances.  That is, if I truly improve, I’ll get everything I want and then some.  As I said, this is probably the best of all outcomes.  Am I disappointed?  Yes, but I do believe that this is for the best.  Now I just need to prove that I can change, and that I already know how to do.

Mentors

What this shows me is the value of mentors and coaches.  Everyone has a coach, even olympic players who are considered the best in their game.  Why?  Because the presence of an objective observer is an excellent way to improve.  We just have to be willing to take their advice and not get too defensive.   Our first instinct is going to be “you don’t know what you’re talking about.  I’m already doing this and you’re missing out on some facts”, but by carefully listening to what they’re saying and then digging deep to see what they actually mean by their words, we can gain some incredible insights into ourselves.

I’m glad to be working for someone like that and I’m grateful for the learning opportunity.

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And no, he doesn’t read this blog :)

Filed Under: Communication, Coping With Failure, Coworkers, Getting Raises, Honesty, Introspection, Respect, Responsibility Tagged With: , , , , ,

Why Do IT People Suck? A Lesson In Customer Service

May 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

RespectIf you’re anywhere in the corporate world then you’ve probably had some kind of bad experience with a group of people affectionately known as IT. They’re the folks responsible for setting up your computers, making sure the network doesn’t break and helping you out when you can’t figure out what’s wrong with your email. They’re also the folks with the reputation for being surly, unfriendly, unhelpful, uncooperative and a variety of other, less complimentary adjectives. In fact, at most companies I’ve worked with, IT was the department people disliked the most and they were generally viewed as an obstacle to people’s productivity.

Why Is This?

How do a bunch of people who usually work pretty hard and are in general smart and friendly develop a reputation for being absolutely awful to work with?  By the way, I will firmly stand by my assertion that IT folks are very smart and quite friendly once you get to know them.  They’re no different than any other person I know and there’s nothing inherent in IT which makes awful people.  So why is it that they have such an awful reputation?  It’s an easy answer actually, they have absolutely zero respect for their customers. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adding Value, Getting Raises, Respect, Sex Tagged With: , ,

Maybe The Reason You’re Failing Is…. YOU!

March 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

flickr 'relationships' [aka 'bullshit detector']I have an acquaintance, we’ll call her “Sam”.  Sam has been trying to get a job for three years now, ever since she was laid off from her accounting job at the start of this recession.  Sam keeps complaining to me about why she can’t find a job.  Sometimes she complains that the job postings companies put out there are not real. Sometimes she complains about how the only people who get the jobs are the ones who are friends of the hiring manager.  Last week she complained to me about how all the good jobs are going overseas.  At this point I offered to sit with her and go over what she was doing and see if there was room for improvement.  She sent me her resume as a starting point and I spent about 30 seconds looking at this document before determining that Sam’s biggest problem was Sam.

Sam’s resume looked like something out of a resume nightmare.  It was poorly formatted, full of spelling errors, filled with massive run on sentences and overflowing with useless information.  It was 5 pages of utter nonsense which would make any would be hiring manager toss it into the garbage can as soon as they saw it.  When I further asked Sam about her job search, I found out she had done no networking and no research into the various companies she was trying to get hired at.  Think about that for a second.  Here’s a woman who had been looking for a job for THREE YEARS and she was utterly clueless. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communication, Confidence, Coping With Failure, Decision Making, Getting Hired, Networking, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

All Of Life Is Sales And You’re The Product, So Learn How To Sell Yourself!

March 7, 2011 By 4 Comments

Sale In A Sale Shop Selling Sale SignsFirst of all, yes, all of life is sales.  You may not like it and you may think that’s not the way it should be, but it’s the way it is.  Whether you’re trying to get a job, get a raise, get a date, get married, get a house, get a loan, get into school or just get on that last flight home, you’re trying to sell something.  You want the other person to do something for you in return for whatever it is you’re trying to offer.  You need to understand that and get used to it.  Even when someone is doing you a “favor” you’re still selling.  You’re selling them on the fact that your friendship is important or that one day you’ll return the favor, or maybe you’re just selling them on the fact that if they do what you want you’ll stop bothering them.  Doesn’t matter, you’re still selling.  Don’t like that fact?  Too bad. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communication, Getting Raises, Making More Money, Selling Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Reach Out And Touch Someone

December 13, 2010 By 2 Comments

Lunch with friendsYour friends are your most important resource.  By that I include not just your good friends with whom you drank too much rum last weekend (thanks Dave!) but also those slightly weaker relationships like the people you used to work with at your last company, the folks you volunteered with at that Wetlands Restoration project or even the folks you went to school with all those years ago.  These are the people who will help you find jobs, get home loans, find the right school for your kids, buy a good car or build that surfing website you’ve been thinking of.  That is the very essence of a good network, a great bunch of people who help you when you need help.  The only problem is that most people are absolutely clueless about managing a network like this.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Friends, Getting Hired, Networking Tagged With: , , , ,

How To Get A Job In A New Field, The Rule Of 27

October 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

COMICS + INFORMATION DESIGNI had a professor in school who taught me about what he called “the rule of 27” and I would like to pass this information on to you because I’ve found it to be amazingly useful.  The rule of 27 is basically a way of remembering that informational interviews can be your best friend when looking for a job in a new field.

How Does This Work?

  1. Figure out what kind of job you want.  For me, it was being elected to public office on a local (city or county) level.
  2. Find three people in this field that you know through your network.  I found the former mayor of a local city through a family member and two city councilmen by looking up their emails on the city council site.
  3. Arrange informational interviews with them.  Be honest about what you want.  Tell them you’re looking for a job but you know nothing about the field.  Explain that you’re hoping to learn from them.  Most people I know will say yes to this.  It’s flattering to be considered an expert and most people like the opportunity to teach others through their experience.  For me, all three interviews went extremely well.  I learned a lot and all three seemed happy to share their experience.
  4. Come to these interviews prepared with a lot of questions.  If you show up and you’re obviously unprepared or unenthusiastic, you’re going to waste their time and no one likes that.  You need to ask a lot of intelligent questions about the field, what it’s like to work in it and what you can expect.  I think I spent about 2 hours with each of these people.  I repeated my questions with each one but it was interesting to see the different answers each one gave me.
  5. Do not ask these people for a job.  You are there to learn, not to apply for employment.  Asking for a job makes it look like you’re just using them.  Believe me, if they have a job for you and you impressed them with your questions, they’ll offer.  My third interviewee told me I should apply for a job on one of the city commissions as a way to get my political career started.  I did and she helped me get the position.
  6. After your informational interview, keep in touch with these people, send them follow up questions and keep them up to date on your progress.  Don’t spam them with daily emails but do keep the contact alive.
  7. Ask these people for three more people you can talk to.
  8. Use the knowledge you just learned in your next informational interviews to ask even more in depth questions.  Dive into the details!

The whole point here is to make a lot of useful contacts and become an expert in the field.  In the end, any expert with a lot of contacts is going to be offered a job.

By the way, the name “rule of 27” came to be because no one has gotten beyond 27 different informational interviews without being offered a job.  Honestly, if you’re doing this right then by your 5th to 10th informational interview you’re going to be an expert on the field.  For me, after a year of serving on the Sunnyvale housing commission, my fifth interviewee offered to help me run for city council.  I had to turn it down at the time because I was finishing up school, but it was gratifying to hear that offer.  Five informational interviews is all it took to get on the city commission and be offered help for an election run.

Limitations

Note that this only works if you have the right skills.  For example, if you have no engineering skill, no one will hire you as an engineer no matter how many informational interviews you do.  Well, I do know one person who used this method to go from bartender to investment analyst but that’s the exception, not the rule.  However, this method does work when making changes like going from tax accountant to financial analyst or going from sales to marketing.  That is, making the sort of career jump that doesn’t require a whole new skill set but does require some specific knowledge.  I’ve also used something similar to get into grad school but that’s a whole other story.

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Radical Honesty is still going great!  Will sum up my experience next week.

Filed Under: Getting Hired, Honesty, Networking Tagged With: , , , ,

We Are A Nation Of Losers And I’m The Head Loser!

October 18, 2010 By 1 Comment

2007-05-08 Just askI was sitting down for lunch today at a local sandwich shop. Besides the great flat bread sandwiches, they also offer a decent seat by the window that allows me to engage in one of my favorite past times, people watching. So there I was, enjoying my sandwich, when a woman walked in and said “hey, is there any chance you could set up a table outside for me?”

At first, I thought she was crazy. Who was this person to come in to a restaurant and ask them about how they ran their business? Hey Lady, these guys never put tables outside so how about you shut up and order a delicious sandwich! Then I think to myself, how rude! I can’t believe this person would even ask for something like this. Even as I watched the server take one of his tables and place it outside I was still thinking to myself, “I would never want to be this lady, what an awful way to behave.” It was only when I sat there behind my glass window, watching her enjoy the wonderful California weather that it hit me!

We have become a nation of losers.

Yah, that’s right, I said it, we’re a nation of losers and I’m one of them! You know why? Because we refuse to ask for what we want. We prefer the easy path, the path of least resistance, which means we force ourselves into this pretend state of meek politeness, and that makes us losers! I read a thread on Get Rich Slowly the other day which talked about negotiating salaries. I saw a comment along the lines of “I’ve never negotiated for a salary in my life” and I felt such disdain for this person. Here was someone who never asked for what they wanted and deserved. No wonder they were miserable. And then here I am, I’d love to sit outside and eat my sandwich but I’m too brain washed to even think about asking for that. Even worse, when someone does ask for this simple little thing, I think badly of them. I think they’re rude, demanding and a little crazy.

Are you the same way? Are you the person sitting at the bar afraid to approach that person you’re attracted to at the other end of the bar? Are you at a dead end job and hating every day of it? Are you getting paid less than you think you’re worth but haven’t said anything about it?  Are your friends and family bugging you in some way but you’re afraid to ask them to stop or change because you think that’s rude?  It’s funny how we let ourselves sink into these mindtraps of “don’t rock the boat”.

Ramit from I Will Teach You To Be Rich had a great post today about scripts, certain beliefs about our lives that cause us to make stupid decisions. Well, I’m going to add another script to my own list, the inability to ask for what I want.  However, I’m not just going to be aware of this script, I’m also going to try and break it, because it has to stop.

Stop Being A Loser

We need to stop this, stop making it easier for other people to say no to us by not even asking. When we’re too scared to ask, we’re reducing our chance for success to ZERO! That’s right, zero chances for success. When I refuse to act because of some imaginary risk or because I think it’s rude, I’ve doomed yourself to failure. And yes, I say imaginary because most of what’s holding me back is imaginary. It’s not rude to ask for a table outside. If you do it politely and with a smile, it really isn’t. The store wasn’t that busy, it was 3:30pm. The guy had plenty of time to move that table and he did. Asking for that little favor wasn’t rude and I bet, had he said no, she would have smiled and moved on. That’s not rude or crazy or impolite. Neither is going up to say hi to someone sitting at a bar, neither is asking for a raise or for a higher salary offer, neither is asking your coworker to do their job and neither is asking your friends to stop nagging you about something you consider important. We don’t need to apologize for these things or be afraid to do them.  We just need to stop making ourselves into losers by not asking for them in the first place.

True Story

I just hired someone a few months ago and she rejected outright the first offer I made her. Did I fire her? Did I get mad and retract my offer? Of course not. We negotiated. I ended up with a kick ass, proactive employee and she ended up getting paid more. And yet, there I was, thinking less of someone for asking to move a table 10feet.

So I will say this again for both your benefit and my own. With a little bit of common sense you’ll see that the risks that are holding you back are completely imaginary. With a smile and a reasonable attitude, most requests are not rude or crazy. With a little courage to ask for what you want, you’re going to find that the world is a much better place to live. So stop asking permission and start asking for the things you want and deserve. Yes, you might get a few no’s along the way, but you’ll get a lot more yes’s than if you never asked at all.

I’m thinking of ordering that book in the heading pic :)

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As you can see, that honesty experiment is working really well for me :)

Filed Under: Communication, Confidence, Getting Raises Tagged With: , , ,
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