Keith Rosen’s Executive Sales Coaching Blog on Selling, Leadership, Management » accountability

About 25 years ago, I read my first book on selling. It was, The Secrets of Closing the Sale. Like many sales and business professionals, this was the first book that I was ever exposed to which focused on the subject and the art of selling. 25 years later, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down and meeting with the master of selling and personal development, the often imitated but never duplicated, Zig Ziglar.

Now, if you’re in sales or a self help junkie, you know who Zig Ziglar is. (If not, you’re either someone who hasn’t truly invested in your career and embraced lifelong learning by continually investing in your development, you’re fairly new to the selling profession or are just starting out, or you’ve been living under a rock for far too long.) Zig (he prefers to be called Zig over Mr. Ziglar) is truly an American Legend, an icon in the world of personal and professional growth and one of my personal heroes. (The conversation I had with him further cemented why this is still true today). Zig has shared the platform with many distinguished Americans such as Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush and has authored over two dozen books on personal growth and success, family, sales and leadership that have touched the lives of millions of people across the world.

Zig has an appeal that transcends barriers of age, culture, industry and occupation. Since 1970, he has traveled over five million miles across the world delivering powerful life improvement messages, cultivating the energy of change.

Zig Ziglar’s corporation is built upon the same philosophy he expounds to his audiences – hard work, common sense, fairness, commitment and integrity.

In his autobiography, Zig offers a candid and inspiring account of his transformation from a “too small, poor boy from Yazoo City, Mississippi,” to one of the world’s most highly regarded motivational experts. At the heart of his story are his many heroes who modeled solid values such as faith in God, commitment to hard work, compassion for others, common sense, integrity, and a sense of humor.

“Wow! What an amazing experience. What did he teach you that was new?” This is the first reaction I would typically hear from people when first telling them I had spent an afternoon with Zig and time at his headquarters. So, what impact did Zig leave on me that I have taken to heart? What profound, new and valuable message was I able to walk away with from my meeting with this highly acclaimed guru and though leader?

Before I answer that, (no, I won’t make you wait until my next blog post) here are just a few of the things that Zig and I casually chatted about. (Our conversation was videoed and I will be posting the video to share with you in the very near future.)

• How the selling profession and the profile of a salesperson changed and evolved since the time he authored, The Secrets of Closing the Sale, 25 years ago.
• What salespeople need to do today to ensure their success in this new marketplace.
• What leaders need to be more mindful of if they want to ensure the success of their organization.
• The people who have impacted his life the most.
• Zig’s definition of integrity.
• A message for the younger generation out there, who are working hard at trying to build a successful career and a family.
• His legacy.
• What parents need to do to be more accountable around raising children with stronger, more meaningful values.
• How people actually go about developing or upgrading their attitude.

I was fortunate to gain the perspective of such a worldly man grounded in the values that matter. You would even think that it would be a bit of a challenge to retain all of the gems Zig shared with me. Conversely it wasn’t. It was surprisingly, yet reassuringly very simple. You see, the ultimate epiphany I had, the priceless message that Zig delivered, was grounded in the core principles that are and have always been right in front of us.

Zig reinforced what really mattered most; the basics. Yes, that’s right. The basics that we so often gloss over, neglect, take for granted and assume we already have in place. The very basics that are paradoxically, still the undeniable and timeless secret to success and designing a life worth living.

The basics of truth, being your word, living a life of integrity, honoring your core values and your commitments, honesty, family, faith in yourself and helping your fellow man and woman selflessly and graciously. Yes, the basics that our society seems to have an unyielding tendency to put aside and dismiss in search of the latest and greatest, the next “Big Thing” or the flavor of the month. We have fooled ourselves into thinking there is some other secret out there that would help us get what we want most and propel us to where we want to be, both in our home life and at our work life.

We are hiding behind the guise of “What’s next” without honoring the core, fundamental beliefs and values that make us all worthwhile human beings. As we immerse ourselves in our own thinking, as we get distracted and challenged by the upsets and problems at work, as we continue to allow the media to erode our thinking and our heart-centered priorities as well as sensationalize our deepest fears and insecurities, we move farther and farther away from the person we truly want to be, and then with a shock, we turn around and notice that the person we have become, is not the person we want to model, especially for our children.

Our integrity has now been compromised, and we wonder why we continually feel, “off,” out of sorts, or out of balance with ourselves, regardless of how much more money we make or what other possessions or successes we amass. We can’t understand why personal satisfaction, our self worth, sense of fulfillment and our peace of mind continually escapes us and our grasp, and becomes more and more elusive.

To reinforce Zig’s message, I’m reminded of a conversation I had with his son. When talking with Tom Ziglar, the CEO of Ziglar, Inc., he shared with me so many wonderful stories about his dad. During one of our conversations, he shared with me one of his dad’s quotes which was, “How much better would world be if people cared as much about their responsibilities as they do their rights.” With the level of greed and American Entitlement that has plagued our society, which has only come into our direct line of vision due to our challenging marketplace and the media continually reporting on the failure of so many large institutions and organizations, this message is so timely today, more than ever before.

Zig’s message touches the heart, soul and spirit of everyone he interacts with, especially those who work with him. It was during my video shoot later that day, as I was filming some new training and coaching insights, when someone else in Zig’s office shared another story that is yet another testament to Zig’s character and being a man who lives by his word and walks his talk. I was told that, throughout all of the years Zig has traveled the word, before every seminar or presentation he ever delivered, even as they’re introducing him and calling him on to the stage, he would always make it a point to pick up the phone and call his wife, just to tell her he loves her.

What a better place our world would be if every man and woman would call their spouse or significant other on their way to work, just to say, “I love you.” To this day, Zig cherishes his wife and the relationship he has with her (the Redhead, as he lovingly refers to her in his books). He keeps her on the pedestal that she so rightfully deserves to be on. Again, what would our world be like if we followed in Zig’s footprints, doing the things that really matter most.

When it was time to conclude our conversation, one of the final questions I asked Zig was, “I’m not sure if you’ve been following the numbers on your book sales and where they rank in terms of popularity. So I took the liberty of seeing how The Secrets of Closing the Sale has been doing on Amazon. Currently, your book holds the following rankings regarding how popular they are in specific categories. In the category of sales and selling, your book is rated number 15. Now, here’s what I found interesting. Under the category of spirituality, your book is holding strong at number 3. Now, I know you’re a very spiritual man. And regardless of your faith, how do you explain this? What’s the connection between success at selling and spirituality?”

To that question, Zig smiled and responded with a resonating message that reinforced why the holistic approach to professional development will always be the most effective and long lasting. That was, while skill, talent and what you do is important, it is the essence of a person, your character and who you are that matters most.

At 82 years of age, he still has that spark, that twinkle in his eye, that presence he naturally exudes from a man who we can all use as a model of what it means to be not just remarkable, but to be human; that’s the Zig we know and love.

I don’t know if there are too many authentic heroes like Zig left in the world, and I know he’s still one of mine. And as I look on my desk at the gift that my children had given me just the other day (an early Fathers Day present), I’m reminded why I do what I do and what gets me out of bed each day. My five year olds (twins) came back from school and in their youthful exuberance, handed me a picture frame they had made with the cutest picture of each of them wearing a suit and tie that their teaches had dressed them in. On the top of the frame it said, “When I grow Up I want To Be Just Like My Daddy.” How important our role is as parents, our most significant role we will ever have. That message was a happy reminder of how important it is for me to follow in the footprints of success that my hero has left behind for all of us to travel on.

I am profoundly and deeply appreciative of my time with Zig and of the gifts that he has shared with the world.

And to Mr. Zig Ziglar I say, I am grateful for the contribution you have made to me, as well as the impact that you have had on all of us throughout the years. Keep shining.

Listen to the full podcast here.

Sure, we can’t control many of the things going on in the economy. However, what managers and business owners can control is how they go about realigning their thinking and efforts around how they are continually developing their people, which begins with how these managers develop themselves into the leaders they can be in this new age.

It’s evident that many organizations have lost sight of the primary objective of management and leadership, which is simply this: To make your people more valuable.

There are several issues at work that inhibit the manager’s ability to get their people to be more accountable around their goals.

1. Is there a consequence to their actions or non-actions? And that consequence can come from you (i.e. the affect on their salary, position, job, bonus, satisfaction, peace of mind and so on) or from a personal cost they would feel themselves by not changing.




2. Building off number one above, it’s all about how you position this conversation around accountability. This is always a tough job for managers, because most of the time, they get on their soapbox and preach the consequences to their team. This often sounds like: “You can be more successful if….” or “You can make more money if only you would …...” or “If you don’t turn this around you’re going to (be out of a job, get fired, fail, and so on).”

This falls on deaf ears because for someone to truly internalize this message and make it real for them, they must hear the consequence in their own words, through their own voice and arrive at the consequence on their own. They need to recognize it, say it and declare ownership around it.

And the only way to do this is by asking them better consequential questions. In this podcast, I’ll share with you the steps you can take to coach people to become more accountable around their job and their goals, and the questions you can use to achieve this critical objective. (Oh, and did I mention that by following this process, you no longer have to be positioned as the bad guy!)

Listen to the full podcast here.

“I know how to interview. I’ve been doing it for years.” I hear this from practically every manager or HR executive I’ve ever had the privilege of coaching or training. And today, when speaking to one of my favorite clients, a VP of HR, this statement was echoed once again.

And it’s not like these managers or those responsible for making a hiring decision are doing it all wrong. Many are quite good at interviewing people, finding the right candidates and screening out the ones that just don’t fit. I’ve just observed over the years some key areas that many people are missing the mark on when conducting an interview and determining who the best candidate for the position truly is.

Especially when it comes to topgrading and rebuilding your sales team, getting the right candidate in the right position in the most expedient way possible is more critical than ever. The cost of not doing so can be severe. And this cost is compounded when companies onboard the wrong person. Just pick up any newspaper and read about another company closing their doors or missing their sales goals to exemplify how much of a priority this is today for any organization.

Below, I’ve listed some very key questions in order to reduce mis-hires and bring on the right people. If asked and asked correctly, these questions will reduce mis-hires by about 80% or more. Yes, that’s how powerful these questions can be. I would strongly suggest weaving these questions into your interviewing process. And keep in mind, most of these questions will apply to any position. Notice that I’ve also broken down these questions by category, as well as some additional categories that you can use to build out further interviewing questions.

Granted, you may already be using some of these questions during an interview. And keep in mind, this list can be built out even further. However, it’s the collective use of all the questions that are going to have the deeper, more positive impact when choosing the right hire.

Moving beyond simply the questions that you could ask, what other things are you doing to ensure you make the best hiring decision? Keep in mind, the interviewing process is multi-dimensional. To build off this, lets look at how you manage or facilitate a simulation or a role play. Many interviewers ask questions like, “How would you handle this if you were in this situation” or “Tell me what steps you would take before calling on a key account” or even “Walk me through a strategy you would use to build your pipeline.”

While these are all great questions, they are still falling short of one critical element. That is, the language this candidate would be using to facilitate the type of conversation described in these simulations. To go deeper in determining this person’s acumen or ability, it’s critical you’re able to evaluate how they communicate, as well as their overall communication strategy that would be embedded in each of these situations I’ve described in the prior questions.

The most successful salespeople realize that sales, just like leadership and coaching, is truly a language and a way of communicating. Therefore, it’s imperative you uncover not only how they think strategically and the processes they may use but how effective this person could be when you send them out to connect with your new and existing customers. Anyone can talk a good game regarding processes and approach from the hundred foot viewpoint. But how they deliver the message in a variety of different situations is something that can’t be faked during an interview.

When these questions and the simulation exercise are used correctly, you’ll find that the need to topgrade your sales team will diminish because you’ve fixed the breakdown in your overall hiring and retention strategy; the broken component that exists in your system and where it all starts, your interviewing process.

Interviewing Questions:

Work History:
1. What were your responsibilities in your last position?
2. We all make mistakes. What would you say were a couple of the mistakes or failures you experienced in your last job?
3. If you could go back in time and fix that, what would you do differently?
4. What would you prior supervisor say if asked what your strengths and weaknesses were?
5. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced and were able to overcome?
6. What were your successes? What are you most proud of? How did you achieve that?
7. What circumstances contributed to your leaving?
8. What was your supervisors name and title? Where is that person now?
9. Would your boss hire you back? Why?
10. What were his or her strengths and weaker points from your perspective?
11. Would you be willing to arrange for us to talk with him or her?

Next Position:
1. What criteria are most important to you in your next job?
2. Describe your ideal position?
3. How close does this opportunity fit your ideal position?

Excellence and Development:
1. How to you better your best?
2. How do you raise the bar on yourself and others around you?
3. How do you develop yourself and your skills?
4. How important is it to you to be the best at what you do?
5. How do you assure that happens?
6. How do/did you keep your edge in such a competitive environment/marketplace?

Accountability:
1. What does personal accountability mean to you?
2. What areas in your life/career are you most accountable? Least?
3. Give me an example of how becoming more accountable has contributed to your success?
4. Where do you feel you need to become more accountable (in an area in your life or career)?

Decision Making and Problem Solving:
1. How do you solve problems?
2. How do you go about making decisions?
3. Give me one problem or challenge you had and walk me through how you solved it using that model.
4. How do you go about making a career decision? What factors do you measure? Your approach?
5. What were a couple of the most difficult or challenging decisions you’ve made recently?
6. What are a couple of the best and worst decisions you’ve made over the last year or so?

Creativity and Solution Development:
1. How creative are you?
2. How important is creativity in relation to your overall selling approach and strategy?
3. Can you provide an example how you were creative in your last position that led to solving a problem or closing a sale?

Integrity:
1. What are some of the values you have that you refuse to compromise?
2. Describe a situation where you were pressured or challenged to compromise your integrity and what you felt was best and right? How did you handle it?

Self Discipline, Time Management and Organization:
1. How do you go about organizing your schedule and your day?
2. Do you live by a set of best practices? How? What are they? (in selling, organization, etc.)
3. When was the last time you missed a significant deadline? What happened?
4. Everyone procrastinates at one point or another. Can you share the kind of things that you have a tendency to procrastinate?
5. How much guidance and supervision do you feel you need?

Self Management/State/Stress:
1. What stresses you out?
2. What do you when that happens?
3. How do you eliminate it? How do you handle it?

Openness and Self Awareness:
1. What were the most difficult criticisms for you to hear and accept?

Resourcefulness:
1. What actions would you feel you would need to take during the first few weeks here in your new position if you were to join our organization?
2. What obstacles did you face during your present/last position and how did you handle those?
3. What would you be mindful of needing to do and the resources and training you would need to secure your success here?

Tactical Sales Oriented Questions to Recruit at a Deeper Level:
You can find these questions and more on my prior blog post here:

1. What was the average size of each sale? (Dollar amount, cost of goods/services sold.)


2. What type of appointments were you scheduling when prospecting or cold calling? What was the goal here?


3. Where the appointments on site/face to face with each prospect or via the phone?


4. When actually closing a sale, did you actually sell over the phone or did you have to meet each prospect in person?


5. Did you sell a product, a service or both? (Describe how you sold each product and why there was a different approach.)


6. Did you handle the entire sales process from start to finish, including the deliverable? (Was there an account executive who you worked with, was it a team oriented approach to selling, were you only responsible for certain aspects of the sale?)


7. Describe to me the products or services you’ve sold? (Complicated or simple?)


8. Did you sell something that had an online component? Was it strictly a service? (Where they selling the tangible or the intangible?)


9. Was your product/service a “nice to have,” a “want to have” (luxury, added benefit) or a
   need to have?” (Was it a necessity, i.e. gasoline, telecom, office supplies, utilities, mobile phones, insurance, etc.)


10. What do you consider ‘prospecting’ and ‘cold calling’ to be? How do you feel about having to engage in this activity? (We’re looking to uncover how they think and feel about prospecting; their perception of it.)


11. What type of prospecting and cold calling did you do? How much cold calling did you do each day/week? (Number of calls made.) How many calls did you have to make to (get an appointment, close a sale, uncover a new prospect, etc.)?


12. Please share with me what your typical approach would be when cold calling. (Describe not only your process but exactly what you said when you were making a cold call.)


13. Who was your target audience/prospect? (B2b, b2c, C level executives, business owners, sole practitioners, were you dealing with only one decision maker or did you have to coordinate with several decision makers, influencers, committees, board members, etc.)


14. When were you calling on them? (Time, day, frequency of calls, etc.)


15. What was the average size of the company you called on?


16. What markets did you focus on? (Type of company, industry, vertical, etc.)


17. How did you get your leads/uncover your prospects? Where the cold calls you made totally cold or were you getting them from another source and then following up with them? (These would be warmer leads from trade shows, web inquiries, referrals, call-ins, direct mail and marketing efforts, etc.)


18. What were the concerns or objections that you typically encountered with your prospects? (What stalled your sales efforts?)


19. How long was your average sales cycle? (From the time you connected with a qualified prospect up until the time when you converted that prospect into a client.)


20. Were you selling based on a bidding process, RFP’s, etc.?

Simulations and Role Plays:
1. If you had to make a call to a prospect who you have never spoken to, what would be the steps you would take before making that call?
2. What would that cold call sound like?
3. If you were following up with a customer to explore and uncover additional selling opportunities, what would your approach sound like?
4. Lets say you just delivered the final product/service to your new customer. They called you the next day with a major problem. They were frustrated and irate. Lets say I’m the customer in this situation. How would you facilitate that conversation? What would that dialogue sound like?
5. There’s a prospect you’ve been calling on for months. They’re finally ready to make a decision to buy and you just found out that there are two more venders now involved in this bid for their business. What would be your strategy to position yourself as the vender of choice? (What would you say, questions asked, etc.)
6. How many times do you call on a prospect before putting them on your do not call list? How do you determine that? What would your approach be? Why?
7. You’re about to visit a new potential client for the first time. What preliminary work would you do? How would you craft your presentation and set the expectations of the meeting? (What would your presentation sound like?)
8. You’ve been handed a client list of approximately 100 accounts to call on. You’ve noticed after several months, their monthly spending with you has slowly diminished. How would you handle this? What would you say?

Additional Topics That Require Further Questioning:

• Persuasion
• Communication
• Presentation
• Assertiveness
• Team player
• Conflict management
• Motivation and passion
• Tenacity, commitment, perseverance
• Education

Important webinar below for any business owner, executive and sales manager who’s top priority is to retain customers and bring in more business and more sales today.

The Sales Leadership Imperative! Webinar for Sales Managers Who Need To Get Their Sales Team Selling More Today

DATE: Thursday, April 23, 2009
TIME: 1:00 PM - 1:45 PM Eastern Standard Time
LOCATION: Your Phone or Computer – Live Webinar!

Presented by: Jonathan Farrington & Keith Rosen
Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now here.

For more information or to register click here.

FACT: There has never been a more critical time for sales managers to impact sales and lead from the front.
FACT: The majority of sales managers are simply not equipped with the right skills and tools to do so.

Most sales professionals, in practically every industry sector are struggling to meet sales quotas. And as some look ahead, there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel. The reality is, there are still plenty of opportunities to better retain existing clients and acquire new ones but the rules of engagement have changed – possibly forever.

Sales leaders, who have recognized these changes, are re-educating themselves and their sales teams by adopting a totally new approach to selling as well as leading their team and as such, are forming a new type of sales culture. To drive positive, measurable change and keep their competitive edge, managers must learn how to quickly and effectively coach, motivate and retain their top producers while turning around the underperformers.

Join me and Jonathan Farrington, one of the foremost sales team development experts in the world – for this hard-hitting session. This event has been created specifically for sales leaders who have 100% commitment to doing whatever it takes to elevate their sales team to a whole new level so they can start selling more today.

We will highlight how you can:
• Leverage your personal strengths as well as the hidden talents of your team
• Utilize a proven coaching model to impact performance immediately.
• Engage in daily revenue-generating activities and stop doing the things you shouldn’t be doing in the first place
• Master the language of leaders, to get people into action without resistance
• Develop the infallible confidence of a true champion to model what you want your people to achieve
• Recruit, retain and motivate your top producers and turnaround underperformers
• Turnaround or terminate an underperformer in less than 30 days.

For more information or to register click here.

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now here.

Listen to the podcast here

Got your mojo?

Are you born with it or can you develop it? Here’s a recent podcast I did with Salesopedia that explains what makes up your sales mojo, which defines who you are and how you come across to others.

Listen in as I describe in detail how your confidence, attitude, mindset, relationship with fear, and your ability to be engaged in the moment, all combine to determine how powerful your sales mojo can be. During these times, you need every advantage to be successful in your career, especially in sales. So make sure you tune in to get your sales mojo and develop your unique, winning edge.

You can listen to the podcast here.

What can you learn from observing the top performers within your organization as well as embracing the mindset of your potential successor? While this final section may require some more due diligence on your part, it doesn’t stop here. Even as an eternally grounded optimist, it’s just good business sense to ensure you have developed a contingency plan and have it in place so that you have some additional cushion to land on in the event the bottom falls out from under you.

This could make the difference between a rapid free fall into the abyss of career uncertainly and a lateral move or even an upward career re-engineering on your part where you come out ahead. Develop your career safety net by planning for the unplanned.

Here are the final three installments of this eight part series on what you can do to keep your job and insulate yourself from a layoff.

Part 6: Observe the Top Performers

1. Become the model employee. What are the best of the best doing? Benchmark best practices so that you can then emulate them. Don’t wait for your boss to come and tell you what they are. By then, it’s probably too late.

2. Master the basics. Now is not the time to take anything for granted. This includes the more obvious displays of the behavior of a model employee. And this isn’t limited to simply being on time at work and for meetings as well as meeting all of your deadlines. You also don’t want to be caught making personal calls, texting or corresponding to non-work related emails. Stay away from toxic gossip and keep your positive attitude on high.

3. Produce stellar work: Everyone today can rely on the excuse of being understaffed, unsupported or resource thin and always feeling under the gun when dealing with last minute demands. This certainly helps justify mediocre work. Instead, treat everything you do as the most important task of the day. That’s the champion’s creed. If you did, how would that change your output?

Part 7: Embrace the Mindset of Your Successor

Imagine if you were the person who was laid off twelve months ago and has the opportunity to land a new job. How would that change your work ethic? Keep in mind, this is the person who you are competing against for your position every single day.

Part 8: Develop a Contingency Plan

1. Build out your network. Use social networking tools such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and others to connect with the people you know and expand your network from there.

2. Know who’s hiring in your field. It’s important to know your options. What skills, education, and job training are employers looking for within your profession or industry? While it’s not what you want your thoughts to be consumed by on a daily basis nor be top of mind, you still need a balanced plan of attack; maintain a stellar productivity level while knowing what you can fall back on. So ask yourself, “If I was unemployed today, would I be ready to start up my new business, create my dream job or apply for the open positions tomorrow?”

3. Track trends. This is where I suggest caution, as the pendulum of extremities can swing each way when it comes to staying current on industry events, changes and news. Reading newspapers, checking your blackberry or iphone, reading journals and trade magazines; even talking to colleagues is good practice in order to keep your ears wide open for opportunity and your finger on the pulse of activity. However, given the number of people I’ve been coaching recently, I’d think that most of us are probably indulging a little too much what the media is feeding us. The unfortunate fall out of this is, what you continually listen to you start to believe.

Be careful about overindulging in the media and the news, and invest more of your time on what you can control in the immediate moment, the quality of your work, your attitude and your productivity. Because in the end, this is what is going to keep your job.

Here are installments number four and five in my eight part series. These two focus on developing a deeper appreciation for your job if you’re fortunate enough to have one today, and some strategies you may want to stay away from unless you want to be known as the consummate complainer. Where do you think that’s going to get you?

Four: Be Grateful

Talk to people who used to complain about their salary, boss and work conditions. The same people who used to whine about their job are now many of the people today who are grateful to have one. And this sense of deeper appreciation for their employment and their income is echoed from the taxi driver to the cook at the local restaurant, the shop worker, the teacher, the sales associate, business owner as well as the executive.

It’s not just a right to have a job but the privilege that comes with having one today. We are finally beginning to shed the sense of American Entitlement™ that was spawned from the greed that has put us in this position we are in today.

Five: Don’t Be The Squeaky Wheel

Are You known as The Consummate Complainer? Where it used to be the squeaky wheel got the oil, now they squeaky wheel is getting the axe.

1. Be of service rather than being selfish. This is the time not to be so self centered but to also be of greater service to others. Don’t seek out greater recognition; financial or otherwise. Be more collaborative rather than being competitive. So, get involved and help out where you can; now more than ever.

2. Be fully accountable. That means no blaming or passing responsibility and no finger pointing. If you made a mistake, then be the first to own up to it and correct it. Trust me, no boss wants to be caught up in further drama, so stay away from creating any unnecessary problems and conflict with other employees that kill your time and productivity.

3. Don’t be high maintenance. Companies don’t need much of a reason today to let people go. In fact, many companies are taking advantage of this and have accelerated the dismissal process of more underperformers today than they have in decades. So, be careful if you’re the type of employee who always complains; whether it’s about the temperature in the office, the work space or the noise. If you’re known to be the person who has an air of entitlement or who is just difficult to work with, guess who is going to be the first to be let go, and in many cases, that’s regardless whether or not they are top performers.

In this third part of an eight part series, here are some strategies that will enable you to increase your visibility and the measurable value you deliver in order to avoid being the victim of another layoff.

Be Visible but Not Egocentric

Ironically, this is not the time to put your head down and just do your work. If you’re not known by others and the measurable value you bring to the organization, then you’ll be the first to go. It’s great if your boss is a raving fan and an advocate. However, make sure he’s not alone. Make it a point to get your name in front of other managers so that they know and value your work as well. After all, what if your boss loses his or her job first? You want to make sure that someone else knows who you are and can speak highly of you, especially if your boss is first to get axed.

If your great work is unnoticed or you are not connected with some measurable results, something positive, something important, such as an increase in sales or profit, then all of your efforts can easily become insignificant if not visible. What if there’s no one to stand up for you during the planning meeting where the objective is to determine the number of layoffs and who it’s going to affect? At that point, it won’t matter how valuable you are if your value is not clearly recognized by these decision makers. Make sure people understand what you do and how you add value.

Finally, while you want to be visible about the results you’re producing, do so without bragging about it. Instead of running around pontificating about your achievements or emailing people about your successes as if you’re running for public office, meet with your manager regularly to make sure you’re on the same page regarding your performance objectives. Moreover, ask directly where they feel you can improve and what you can do about it. If you haven’t had your annual performance review yet, take a more proactive posture and hand in an updated progress report, action plan or business plan with the intention of bringing your boss up to date on your accomplishments and responsibilities within the company.

The World Bank just reported that the economy is in the worst shape since the Great Depression. Here are a few career retention strategies to adopt (as well as some things to avoid doing) to stay employed, become more valuable and avoid being the next one cut. These strategies can make the difference between you moving up the ladder of success or moving out the door.

The TV show Survivor provides a glimpse of how crucial it is to foster key alliances if you want to be a player and have a shot at winning the one million dollars. This certainly isn’t the only forum where it can make or break you. In this second part of an eight part series, here are some non negotiable strategies to start implementing today that will enable you to foster more key strategic relationships that can better insulate you from a looming layoff.

Foster Key Strategic Relationships: How to Keep Your Job- Part 2

1. Encourage Key Relationships. Your ability to socialize responsibly certainly plays a role here. Statistically, executives and HR find it hard to fire people they know well. As such, encouraging a relationship with these people can offer more job security for you.

2. Schedule More Frequent Meetings With Your Boss. This isn’t only about sharing what value you’ve brought to the table lately. Even with your heavier workload, now would be a good time to find out how you can help your manager. How can you deliver more value? See if you can take something off their plate. How many employees are going to their managers to see how they can help them? You’ll certainly separate yourself from the pack. If positioned correctly, you’ll leave a positive lasting impression.

3. Meet More Frequently with Your Peers. It’s good practice to connect more often only with your boss however, don’t stop there. What about connecting more frequently with your peers and the people you work with daily? Make certain that you work well with them so that the people you work with can talk highly of you. What can you do to make their lives easier without compromising yourself?

4. Seek Out a Mentor. Be on the lookout for someone within your company who you can develop a close relationship with and who can act as a mentor, particularly someone higher up. This person is more likely to be able to help you and keep you out of harm’s way when a potential layoff is imminent.

Millions of jobs have been lost over the last year. A recent survey indicated that almost 50% of American’s are worried about losing their job. Our job market hasn’t experienced these staggering numbers since 1974. With more companies laying people off, how can you insulate yourself from the rest of the work force and maintain your employment without becoming another statistic?

Today, employers have less tolerance for mediocrity, and just doing enough to get by creates the opening for someone who’s hungrier (or more desperate) to take your position. Being valuable takes precedent over being important these days. Every job today has become more valuable and as such, every person more transparent about how much of a measurable impact they’re having to the bottom line.

Here are a few career retention strategies to adopt (as well as some things to avoid doing) to stay employed and what you can do to avoid being the next one cut. It all starts by becoming more proactive and shifting away from the reactive posture many people are taking.

These strategies can make the difference between you moving up the ladder of success or moving out the door.

In this first of an eight part series, we’re going to start with what you can do to make yourself indispensable.

1. Make Yourself Indispensable

Do More For Less: Work longer hours and take on more responsibility. Take on more work and as many assignments as you possibly can, even the workload of two people without asking for more compensation or recognition. Over-deliver on what’s expected while managing realistic expectations with your manager.

Be the best at what you do. Period. Find out what the top producers are doing and do it or better.

Round out your skills. As more companies shrink in size regarding number of employees, there’s still a significant amount of work that needs to get done. Those who are open to new ideas and are willing to stretch themselves regarding learning new skills and adapting to a new culture are the ones who will be retained. Conversely, those who have a very narrow skill set that may have been deemed valuable when initially hired yet can’t help beyond their current role will be the likely first candidates to go.

Build Your Skills: Be the best you can be. Get a coach. Take continuing education classes. If you’re not, your colleague is. How important is your career?

Being valuable takes precedent over being important. It doesn’t really matter where you sit in the organization in tough times, being a contributor who can be counted on to do the important work is the most significant position to take and certainly takes precedent over being “important.” Managers need to roll up their sleeves and get back in the trenches if it means making their numbers or not, even if that means having to pick up the phone to make a cold call or two.