Ideas for "Prospering Despite a Downturn Market"

As I mentioned last week in my post on Free Continuing Education, Career Directors International offers free monthly "Best Practices" teleclasses to help resume writers and career coaches brainstorm best practices.

Yesterday, I cleared my schedule for an hour to listen to the most recent one, "Best Practices in Prospering Despite a Downturn Market." There were some great ideas. I was particularly interested in some of the strategies shared by career coach Laura Drew, of Carolina Career Coach, Inc.

One of Laura Drew's best practices is quite attention-getting. She ordered double-sided business cards from VistaPrint. On the back side is a list of teleclasses she offers. She also ordered a baseball cap that has "JOB HUNTING?" in all capital letters. On the business cards, she wrote the word "Hat" in the corner. When she wears her hat out in public (while she's running her errands, she notes), people ask her about the hat, and she gives them her "elevator pitch" and business card.

In one recent outing, she took 50 business cards with her; by the time she got home, she had distributed 47 of them. Those 47 cards turned into 13 paying clients.

That's just one of the ideas from the teleclass. There were more. Members of Career Directors International can access the MP3 audio files from all previous calls, including:

• Background Investigations Mega Trends
• Best Practices in Career Services Pricing
• Best Practices in Coaching Clients Using SWOT Analysis
• Best Practices in Creating Resume USPs
• Best Practices in Millennial Resume Writing
• Media Strategies Tips Seminar
• New Trends in Interviewing
• Paperless Resumes Mega Trends Report
• Resume Fraud Mega Trends Report
• Selling Career Research Services to Clients
• Social Networking Mega Trends Report
• Toast of the Resume Industry (TORI) Q&A
• 2008 CDI Conference (Seattle, WA) Q&A
• World's Best Resume Writer Competition Q&A
  

And here are the upcoming free teleclasses from Career Directors International:

• July 22: Best Practices in Advertising Your Career Service Business
• Aug. 12: Best Practices in While Life/Office Organization
• Aug. 20: International Resume and Career Services Q&A
  
• Sept. 16: Best Practices in Resume Data Mining (Client Information Gathering)
  

Laura DeCarlo is offering a special CDI membership offer for Resume Writers' Digest readers: Join CDI by July 31 and save $25 off the regular membership. Use this link: JOIN CDI and type in "Resume Writers Digest" in the comments box. The cart will show $150, but your credit card will only be charged $125 (you save $25).

Here's another quote from a CDI member who also listened to the best practices audio:

"I just finished listening to the recording of the 'Prospering Despite a Downturn Market' teleseminar. WOW!!! An hour of my time well spent. Thanks, Laura, for giving us such an extensive list of great, mostly free, ways to market and build business. I'm glad I was keyboarding everything you said, so I didn't miss much. You offered a number of specific things to do and places to go to get them done -- things I can get moving on right away. Some are things already on my to-do list, some are new ideas to me. A terrific push to be proactive and work thorugh slow times. I'm all fired up and anxious to get started."
-- Meg Guiseppi, Executive Resume Branding

A Cinderella Story

Wow, what a story of persistence. As I wrote in yesterday's post, the Georgia Bulldogs took on the Fresno State Bulldogs in game three of the College World Series, college baseball's national championship. Down 5-0 in last night's game, the Fresno State team battled back to win 19-10, evening the series to 1 win apiece.

So it all came down to tonight's game. Fresno State took a 6-0 lead and never looked back, winning the national championship 6-1. This was a true team effort -- pitching by committee, no first round MLB draft picks (although Georgia had 2 on their side, including ace closer Josh Fields), two of their best players battered and bruised (two playing with serious hand injuries) -- and their star pitcher had been injured earlier in the year and didn't even make the trip to Omaha.

Called one of the "greatest sports stories in recent years," the unseeded Fresno State team was an unlikely national champion. But they gutted it out.

"Fresno State was forecast to be a Top 25 team coming into the season, but the Bulldogs lost 12 of their first 20 games. They needed to win the Western Athletic Conference tournament just to make the NCAA field of 64, fought off elimination in regionals and super regionals, and became the first No. 4 regional seed to reach the CWS since the tournament expanded in 1999."

I tell you this story because it's an inspirational tale. Sure, your client may not have the qualifications on paper, but if they can just get the chance to do the job, they can "hit one out of the ballpark." In the end, the one that wins is not the one with all the credentials, but with the guts.

Congratulations to the Fresno State Bulldogs...



(The 2008 College World Series theme song -- with some great shots of Omaha -- oh, and cornfields...)

Omaha, USA

Keep your eyes on Omaha this week -- my hometown is a hotbed of sports activity this week as college baseball's national champion will be decided tomorrow in the College World Series as Georgia takes on Fresno State -- go Fresno State!

Then, from June 29 to July 6, Omaha's Qwest Center is the home to the Olympic Swim Trials. Michael Phelps will be here!


Omaha's a great place to live ... I can't help but brag. Maybe we'll get one of the professional associations to hold their conference here someday ...

Starting Up, Starting Over

For many years, in my daily planner (I love my Franklin Covey planner), I had a page I called, "If I Had to Do It Over." On it were the steps I would take if I were starting my resume writing business all over again. I get a lot of inquiries from new resume writing businesses, wondering about success secrets from those who are making it work.

Here are a couple of ideas for those who are getting started -- or thinking about reinventing themselves.

• If I were starting this business today, from scratch, what would I do differently?
• If I ran a competing firm, how would I beat us? How would I distinguish myself? What weaknesses would I attack? (Price, service, customization, turnaround times?)
• What are you known for?