Kit Prendergast, PCC
Kit brings you a wealth of expertise and experience as well as a wonderful spirit, energy, and a gift for inspiring you to create the life you truly want for yourself.Kit's Tips & Books
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Tag Archives: Career
The Secret to Knowing Your Own Talents
It’s actually easier than we think. A natural talent is the way we think, act or behave that comes easily to us with genuine enjoyment.
It’s almost like “second nature”.
Ask yourself these five powerful “what” questions and then confirm your answers by simply watching yourself when you are the happiest and “at your best”. The answers are right there in front of you.
- What do I gravitate toward?
- What appeals to me spontaneously?
- What comes easily to me?
- What attracts others to me? What do they say about my talents?
- What do I genuinely enjoy doing? Who do I enjoy being?
And our natural talents often have a central theme to them – like a red thread running through them. The next step of clarifying this theme(s) will be the single most important work you can do for yourself as you are growing and developing your professional career.
Posted in Kit's Tips
Tagged Career, change, strengths, Talent Development, Visioning
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StandOut: Find Your Edge at Work
StandOut: Find Your Edge at Work, by Marcus Buckingham, One Thing Productions, Inc.
This brand-new book and assessment continues Buckingham’s reputation as the national leader in the strengths movement. For 20 years, Buckingham worked for The Gallup Organization studying what makes the real difference in exceptional performance for both employees and their managers. Since then he has written and presented extensively on the power of knowing your own natural strengths and those of the people who work for you and with you.
This newest addition to the strengths movement is particularly good for people who have not taken the original assessment because this is more targeted. Out of nine strength roles, you will learn your top two and then receive specific advice on how to maximize these strengths in your career.
It’s simpler and more applicable than the earlier assessments. I would recommend it!
3 Tips to Build Referrals
It’s not hard to build a referral-base business if you are strategic about what you want for your business and how best to use your time and energy. Having your previous clients continue to buy from you and to refer to you is a very cost-effective way to grow your company.
Research shows that the average business owner spends about 30% of their time trying to engage new clients but the person working primarily from referrals spends about 5% of their time. So let’s get smarter about this so we all can enjoy the phone ringing with requests for our services. Here are three strategies I have found particularly helpful over the years. They work!
- Identify your most valued “referral partners”. Who is out there in your professional network that sings your praises and recommends you often? Nurture those relationships by staying in frequent contact, thanking them personally when they refer and returning the favor by passing on the good word about them and their services when appropriate.
- Develop a reputation “personal brand” so you are known as someone who is easy to work with, visible & available, reliable & dependable and most importantly you can be trusted to offer top quality services at a reasonable price.
- Ask for a LinkedIn recommendation (2-3 sentences) from clients who are wildly enthusiastic about your work. Get their permission to cut & paste the recommendation into your website using their name or initials, name of company or geographic location.
Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies
Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies by Joshua Waldman, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2011.
There are lots of books out there on social media but this is the first I’ve seen that specifically addresses social media and the job search. It’s well written (like many of the Dummies books) and tackles one social media resource per chapter. It even covers personal branding and the nuances of weaving your brand into your internet presence. And of course, my favorite chapter is on LinkedIn.
Waldman keeps it simple, strategic and smart. Perfect for professionals like me!
Posted in Kit's Resources & Book Reviews
Tagged Career, change, Networking, social media, strengths
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Be Enchanting – Learn How to Smile Like George Clooney
The first step to enchanting anyone is “likeability”. Coming across as a grumpy old man too tired to learn new tricks (now that’s a personal brand no one wants) is not going to help you enchant anyone to go over and beyond. Instead, we need to ensure that people like us and we start with the most basic skill – smiling.
Try to smile like George Clooney. He has a smile that radiates from his eyes. Yes, the muscle surrounding our eyes is called the orbicularis oculi muscle and this muscle is what squeezes together to create those crow’s feet or laugh lines (as my sister calls them). A smile that uses all of these eye muscles has its own name – the Duchenne Smile – named after Guillaume Duchenne, a French neurologist.—
It’s actually not hard to have a radiating smile if you practice this simple tip – as you are walking into a room this holiday season think about some pleasant memory or upcoming fun plans. Let yourself dwell on those thoughts to give yourself that nice lift. Now keep them in mind and let your smile shine through!
Posted in Kit's Tips
Tagged Career, communication, entrepreneurship, Networking, Relationships
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