Using Your Client List

If your appointment book isn't full, the first place to turn to is your existing client mailing list.

Here are some tips for how to use your client list to generate repeat business as well as stimulate new clients.

• Find New Customers Like Your Best Customers. Look at your mailing list and analyze our customers. Are you doing a lot of business with 35- to 45-year-old women who are looking for MORE out of their careers? Think about how you can reach these women and you'll tap a whole new group of prospects.

• Do More Of What You Do Best. Look at your last 50 projects -- what kind of work were you doing for these clients? You might find that there's an opportunity to target a niche of prospects. For example, if you did a handful of follow-up letters for these clients, you might decide to contact ALL of those past clients and offer them a special on follow-up letters.

• Get Feedback. "Out of sight" is out of mind in business too. Contact customers to ask how their job search is going. You can write a letter or send a survey. These types of contacts help keep you top of mind and bring customers back (and generate referrals!)

• Offer an Annual Check-up. Your dentist does it ... so does your car repair shop. Contact your customers at least once a year to offer a resume "tune-up" so that they're prepared if the perfect opportunity comes around ... or the unthinkable happens, and they lose their job unexpectedly.

• Reactivate Inactive Customers. If someone hasn't done business with you in a while, send the person a special offer. It reminds them of your business and may help spark a renewed business relationship -- or a referral.

Career Bloopers

Rosa Vargas has put together an entertaining collection of "Worst Resume Mistakes" on her blog.

Feel free to use the "Comments" section on here to share yours!

Presidential Resumes

I've been wanting to do this kind of a project for quite some time -- a "mockup" of a resume for a famous person. (On my to-do list: Santa Claus).

Monster's Resume Expert, Kim Isaacs, has produced resumes for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Take a look!

Nick Corcodilos Takes On the Ladders ... Again

I've seen a lot more commercials recently for The Ladders, and so I was intrigued when I was catching up on some old(er) e-mails this week and came across this column by Nick Corcodilos ("Ask the Headhunter") about The Ladders.

Resume writers will be especially interested in this comment:

At first TheLadders coaxed its market by contracting with independent professional resume writers to actually do the writing. But once this resume business was launched, TheLadders dumped its stable of professionals and started recruiting "writers" the same way it recruited customers -- indiscriminately. (I know: They tried to recruit me.) Soon I started getting stories from disgruntled resume clients complaining that TheLadders wouldn't let clients talk to the "resume writers" about their $900+ resumes. Then I heard from the resume writers TheLadders dumped. They claimed the operation shifted from professional staff to greenhorns.

Indeed, there was quite a bit of discussion a while back about resume writers who were contracted with The Ladders who suddenly lost their contracts (or had them scaled back).

Resume writers were also concerned about the boilerplate resume critiques being provided by The Ladders -- I wrote about this last June.

Corcodilos reports that the actions of The Ladders suggest they are gearing up to sell the company; whether that pans out is yet to be seen. But given the number of individuals that are contracted to write for The Ladders, it's something to keep an eye on.