January 23, 2012

11-Questions To Ask a Job Hunter

You are about to interview a candidate for a job with your organization. Doesn’t matter what job.

Here are 11 questions you should ask to determine if he has what it takes to help you build a Unique and Distinctive organization.

1. Tell me about a Project you led where your Execution was brilliant. What did you do to make it so? The words passion, clear vision, shared purpose, recognition and relentless focus on the goal should be sprinkled through his answer.

2. Define Marketing. Make sure his answer contains the following words: Value Creation. Fans. Packages. Personalization. Unique Wants and Desires. Give him the heave-ho if he constantly references Marketing 101 stuff like The 4 P’s and customer needs.
3. Define Leadership. Listen for the concept of “Serving People”. If you don’t hear it, wave to him as he leaves your office.

4. How much CRAP have you eliminated in your previous jobs? If he doesn’t understand the question, you could be looking at a good candidate for someone else.

5. Do you like Human Beings? Watch for a confused look on his face like he knows it’s a trick question but doesn’t know where you are leading him.

6. Tell me a Story that would prove that you DO love Humans He will either leave you cold with his answer or he will give you goosebumps. If he gives you goosebumps you have a winner.

7. Have you ever developed a Service Strategy? What did it say? Listen for words like Experience, Memories, WOW and Dazzling.

8. Define Sales. If he says anything that resembles the Flogging notion AND if he doesn’t talk about building deep relationships, throw him out!

9. Have you ever worked for a company that had Dumb Rules - Rules or Policies that made no sense to customers? If he says “no” he’s lying. What did you do to help eliminate them? If he doesn’t say he was instrumental in changing them stop the Interview. It’s over.

10. What would he do to help you make your organization Remarkable, Unique, Distinctive and Gaspworthy? Look for stuff done to serve customers. Ignore technology answers.

11. How are YOU DiFFERENT from anyone else? What makes you special? If he can’t define how HE stands out from the Herd, what makes you think he will be able to so it for your organization?.
Anyone who gives thoughtful answers to these questions is a keeper. Send the others packing.

P.S. Notice there are no questions on education. Formal learning credentials are irrelevant. Table- stakes really. Earns you the right to have the interview. Value to an organization is MUCH more.

Cheers,
Roy
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Posted 1.23.12 at 05:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 18, 2012

Guest Blog - Frankly Speaking / What Keeps You up at Night?

What Keeps You up at Night?
Are You Staring at a Blank Canvass?
The Power in Saying Hello

This is the third “Weekly Message” from Frank Palmer , Chairman and CEO of DDB Canada. 

“I’m absolutely sure that the answer to this question is very different for all of you. It’s usually a question that’s asked in a interview with a highly accomplished or talented person. The interviewer I’m guessing is that they believe that these business people or movie stars have all the answers we are all searching for or wanting to know? For me I’m always interested in hearing the answers from both business people and individuals. If I was front of a judge and asked under oath I’d have to be truthful with my personal and business answers. When the judge asked: “What keeps me up at night?” Thinking that I will end up living under a bridge in a cardboard box, broke!  I believe that all of us are only two mistakes away from poverty.
In other words, what worries you about your career or your personal life is very different from the next person. 

What worries me and keeps me up at night in business is different than it is in my personal life. But somehow they are both connected. In my career at the agency I’ve always worried about a vast number of things. I worry about losing accounts, I worry that we didn’t get our work in front of the right people who make the final decision.  I worry about not having enough interesting business or career opportunities for our people for their career growth. I worry about why there isn’t enough brave clients that will take a small risk in going with our strategy and creative recommendations. I worry that I failed to deliver the closing lines in a new business presentation that might have made a difference.
I’m sure that each of your have your own anxieties that cause you loss of sleep. I think that the answer to the advertising agency question of “what keeps you up at night?” for the most of us are:  Why didn’t they hire us? Why don’t they like me or us? Why don’t they see our point of view? Or simply, “Why don’t they love us?”
 
I read in a article a super answer to the question of “What keeps you up at night.”  “It was not wanting to die with their music locked up inside them”. Isn’t that a great answer?  It was about people who have a tremendous talent or gift yet allowed it to remain locked safely inside them and they remain locked in a miserable job. They are desperate to escape but can’t make the first step.

I believe that the questions above are the ones that we ask ourselves the most! When we win a new account the client sees something in us that they must have. Our excitement, our passion and our commitment to perform for them shows.  Isn’t our job is to get our clients more sales results through the best sales and marketing strategy’s and creative execution that excites the consumer to purchase their services or products?

Of course it is. When we win they have seen wonder in our eyes and actions. What keeps me up at night is not seeing us win enough and the potential client missing something that I know that we all have.
Frank”

Posted 1.18.12 at 05:44 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 11, 2012

Guest Blog - Frankly Speaking / Are You Staring at a Blank Canvas?

Are You Staring at a Blank Canvass
The Power in Saying Hello

Thanks to Frank Palmer for this second Blog post from his “Weekly Messages” to his Team at DDB Canada…

“I recently read a interesting article about Professional Hockey Players who just retired. One player said: “I considered myself as well prepared to leave pro hockey as anybody and it was still quite a shock to me. Suddenly you are staring at this blank canvas that is the rest of your life. And it’s time to paint something different.” The lesson learned here is that we all need to be prepared to be thinking about what to do or where to go in life all the time. Hockey for most players can be a blessing and a curse. They get to live their dream and passion, then when it’s over they find it tough to find a second passion.

I have a passion for business. It’s my first and second passion. For the majority of my working life it’s been advertising and communications and it’s been a life-long passion. Finding your passion might mean that you need to let go of your current fears in order to experience more joy, freedom and fun.

My question to you is: What would you do if you weren’t doing what you are currently doing today? What career would you seek out that would ignite you all over again?

There’s many new businesses that excite and ignite me. If you are looking to find your passion you must let your true purpose guide you. I’m not sure that all Hockey Players truly wanted to be Hockey Players. I believe that it was their parents dream for some or most of them. No different than a lawyer or dentist wanting their children to follow in their footsteps.

Author/poet Carl Sandburg said:
“Time is the coin of our life. It is the only coin we have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spent it for you.”

I think that far too often we get stuck in a comfort zone and before to long it gets too late to do anything about it. We become at ease being in a place or zone where we can’t shine.

And in some cases the people or companies they work for won’t let them shine. I have loved what I’ve done, but there’s also many other businesses where I know my passion can shine.

We need to always ask ourselves a few questions:
-What motivates me?- What fulfills me? -What is it that keeps me passionate? -What comes naturally to me?-What can I do that includes having Fun?

Seems to me that in order to fill up that life canvas of yours with happiness and passion you will need to “Do what you Love and be able to have Fun at it.”

Remember you’re your own problem - you’re your own solution. So don’t leave your life canvas blank.

Frank”

Posted 1.11.12 at 05:34 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 4, 2012

Guest Blog - Frankly Speaking / The Power in Saying Hello.

The Power in Saying Hello

Frank Palmer is the Chairman & CEO of DDB Canada and is known as the “winningest” man in Canadian advertising. From his humble beginnings in Vancouver over 40 years ago, Frank has created Canada’s most creatively acclaimed marketing communications agency, remade DDB into a powerhouse brand, and changed the face of Canadian advertising.

Frank is DiFFERENT. He is an amazing guy with out-of-the-box thinking and relentless energy to pursue his many innovative projects. He is a Leader who shows his people the ways to better themselves and realize their potential.

Every week Frank sends a personal message to his Team on something he believes will make a difference to their lives enhance the performance in his organization.

He has graciously agreed to allow me to post a selection of his “Weekly Messages” in my Blog. This is the first Post. “Listen” to Frank’s words and add them to your repertoire of Learnings that will certainkly make you DiFFERENT, successful and a better person.
Frank Palmer...
“Truly noticing others is fundamental to their self-worth.

I believe that the word ‘Hello’ is a very important one.
It’s a word that doesn’t get worn out because it’s not used as much as it should be. It’s as important as saying ‘Good-bye’.

Let’s face it, we all need recognition. We need to feel important and that we need to feel that we matter. Unless we were born with no feelings, every human has a basic and natural desire to be acknowledged. What we need to realise is also that saying hello is just plain “good manners.” It displays respect, caring and consideration. Far too often today in our age of self-satisfaction and instant internet gratification it seems that we all care more for our BB’s, iPads and iPhones etc than we do for those that we work with?
In good soil where we nurture plants, they usually grow better. It then would seem to me that if we display good manners by taking the time to recognise others with a simple hello it will help in making their day as well as help growing it.
It’s a simple greeting that says that we hope that they will have a good day.
Try saying hello more often.. and say it while giving them eye contact.

It will help nurture them to grow healthier.
Frank”

Posted 1.4.12 at 05:03 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (1)