How to get what you want
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The title of this blog may have you expecting a step-by-step process on how to increase your salary 5%, or get a C in front of your title. And while this content will surely help you do that, my advice for you is quite simple.
When you think about your personal development strategy, and if you are going after a professional goal, you want to think about value creation and what it means to your customer. If you are in marketing or sales, you’re used to thinking about need-states or how to be persuasive, and it’s a no-brainer when it comes to your day-to-day job. But we forget about the same concept applying to our own career growth goals, and it can lead to stagnancy. If you work for a company, your customer is your company and your day to day manager and his/her/their boss. If you have your own business, your customer is your existing clients and the opinions that matter with those clients. If you are need a new company, a new boss, and new clients, think of your customer as the ideal audience who would reap the benefit of your time and work.
When you are clear on how you create value, you get better at delivering it. Here’s the thing though, you cannot determine or decide how value is created. Value creation is determined by those who consume the fruits of your labor. A lot of you may ask questions like, how can I make more money, or how can I get a promotion, or how can I sell this thing. And those are great questions to ask, but what you want to get very clear on, is to whom does this matter and why? Value is determined by those who are consuming the impact of your efforts, and those whom you have to rely on to collaborate with you, hire you, work with you, in order to get the thing you want to get done…
Have you ever had the experience where you felt like you were working your tail off, and yet you were stagnant in your career growth or you provided feedback that you weren’t hitting the mark? Typically, this is a result of not providing value in alignment with your boss’s vision of how you provide value.
If you aren’t where you want to be, usually the value and/or audience are misaligned. It’s important for you to understand this. There are times when you may not get a promotion, or you may get let go from a job, and it can be tempting to criticize yourself. If you instead think of these set-backs of situations where there was a value misalignment, it becomes a lot easier to move forward and find the people and places where what you offer is highly valued. A lot of you are frustrated in situations and you’re beating yourself up about this, or you are playing the victim and indulging in complaining. What you really need to do is have a good old value-talk with the person who is paying you and check any assumptions.
Successful people who grow in their careers and in their business have determined how to create value that people are willing to pay for- whether that value comes in the form of ideas, behaviors, actions can vary… what is always true, is that the person who needs the value is the one that defines it and pays for it.
Ask yourself questions like…
Who am I helping?
What would make their life/job easier?
What could I offer that they would pay a premium for my providing?
How is the work done in a way that delights my customer?
If you know the person, ask them. If you don’t know the person (because you’re trying to land a new gig or client), make some educated guesses and see what sticks (aka test and learn). You won’t regret doing this exercise. And here’s the great news, if you don’t like some of the answers to your questions (let’s say they want you to ride in the trunk instead of drive the car), you have the knowledge, power and freedom to find a new customer who does need a driver.
The choice is yours.
Own it.
And go get the damn thing.
