As I wrote in an email to a friend this morning, “this week’s episode of ‘Nicole’s Life’ has been an interesting one. ”  How about yours? 

Without getting too juicy (I really wish I could) I’ll say that this week was full of unexpected and exciting surprises at work and in my career beyond my day job.  In addition, this week I tried to stay true to my efforts of curing “the pleasing disease” and trusting my gut. 

Cheesy Lessons and Quirky Thoughts that were part of my week

• Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same results.  Apply this to just about anything- dating, relationships, work and your general habits.  (Maybe we should substitute this one with the saying, “some things never change.”)
• The principle of “good timing” is a huge lie.  There is no such thing.
• Simple changes to diet and exercise have a big impact on my mental clarity and outlook. 
• Mint green nail polish is really interesting. I can’t decide if I love it or if it looks more like fungus. 
• My iPhone isn’t as magical as I once thought.  Apparently others at ihatemyiphone.com and the iPhone critics at the NY Times agree. Just like dating, when the honeymoon stage ends and the rose colored glasses come off, things look a bit different.  I’m pretty disappointed and also pretty shocked that I bought into Apple’s iPhone4 marketing as much as I did.  In real life, it has been an absolute disaster.
• Every woman should read, “Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office” by Dr. Lois Frankel.  It’s shocking how many little habits we women have that give off a totally different impression than we intended.  I’ve tried a few of these simple changes already this week.  They really did produce results.  I wish I could elaborate, but for now let’s leave it at that.  I even tried them out on my boyfriend (shhh!).
• When it rains, it pours. 
• I really, really love cheese.
• Silence or a pause can change the course of a conversation.  I had my mid-year review this week.  I did more listening than talking- a change for me in this setting. I felt better about the meeting in the end.
• The Metropolitan Club’s junior membership is pretty awesome for $100 per month. I’m surprised at all the benefits and opportunities that could be gained through joining a private club like this. 
• Thank God for mentors like John Head or I wouldn’t get to go to cool places like The Metropolitan Club.  And thank you, John, for introducing me to Christine this week.  You both gave me so much to “chew on.”
• 5 inch heels at the office did nothing but solicit comments and make my back hurt the next day.
• You don’t need to smile all the time. In fact, in certain work situations I think it is a bad thing.
• I decided that most women appologize way too much for no reason (both at work and at home).   Let’s come together and ban this bad habit.
• A 20″ pizza is HUGE.  Katie and I ordered one this week because that was the only size the place had.  A pizza that big is pretty funny for only 2 girls.
• If in doubt, 100% authenticty is the way to go.  Plus a few “positioning” tactics from Lois Frankel’s book of course.

Your turn.

How was YOUR week? 

What did you learn? 

What were you reminded of? 

What can we learn from you?

There are many ways of being a star in your office, but one thing that I really struggled with is attitude. I don’t have a problem doing menial labor, even getting my boss lunch…in the very beginning. It got to a certain point, 3 years to be exact, when I just couldn’t deal anymore and I started to pout. I was 26 and pouting!

I had taken on more responsibilities, but I was still doing the filing, fetching coffee and scheduling doctors’ appointments. I started to resent my job and the people around me. The smile and positive attitude that I once had turned sour and I was short with everyone. On some level I thought that if my boss saw how miserable I was she would give me a promotion.

In reality, if your coworkers see how miserable you are, they probably won’t want to be around you and will assume that you don’t want to be there. I ended up leaving that job before I changed my attitude or got a promotion, but at my next job, I brought a positive attitude and got 3 promotions in 1 year.

How to change your attitude at the office

Ask yourself why you’re feeling bad. Is it a poor relationship with your boss? Do you want a raise? Or have you just been there too long and you’re ready for a career change?

Start the day with something you enjoy doing. I was in charge of blogging at my last job and I loved reading reader responses every morning. It made me feel like I was truly making an impact. What is that for you?

Meet with Human Resources. Your company most likely doesn’t want unhappy employees. Touch base with someone in HR and really figure out the best way to approach your boss. This is good because it gives you a chance to cool off and get your thoughts together.

Have a conversation with your boss. Once you’ve gathered your thoughts and you’ve taken a few deep breaths you will probably be ready to take care of business. In my last job I outlined the responsibilities that I started out with and how my responsibilities had grown. Most bosses like to see this type of organization and thought.

You will hear people say a job is a job and you’re not supposed to be happy 24/7. This might be true, but just be mindful of how your attitude impacts those around you.

• What are some ways you’ve adjusted your attitude in the workplace?

I’m a firm believer that you don’t just need to have one career. I graduated from college thinking that I wanted to be Editor in Chief of a teen magazine. Three years after I worked in the magazine world I decided to give marketing a go. Then I decided that I wanted to go back to school and now, at the age of 28, I am an entrepreneur.

There was a time when I thought I was floundering, but now I truly believe that I was following my heart and finding my strengths.

So how do you figure out what you want to do? I recently interviewed a 30-year old HR manager and owner of her own networking business and here are some tips she gave:

Listen. Your friends are your best critics, so if they tell you how brilliant you are at throwing parties, giving speeches or whatever, listen to them. They might be onto something.

Journal. Journal. Journal. I could not stress this enough. This is for your eyes only, so don’t worry about grammar or what you put down. Some things to think about: what was fun that happened that day? What do you look forward to? What was the worst part of your day?

What makes you glow? A lot of people believe they have to have a 9-5 job, but there are a lot of successful women out there who set their own hours. Ahem, most entrepreneurs. Is that what you want? Or do you crave the structure of a 9-5? Think about the times when you’re the happiest.

What do you think about switching careers?

What is your advice for women who feel like they’re floundering?

“Give a man a fish; and you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”. -Unknown

We have all heard this proverb and have probably used it many times.  It is one of my favorites and I personally utilize it with my family when I am sharing my thoughts on the importance of education and training.  Whether you are a business owner or an individual, continuous education and training improves your ROI-Return on Investment.    The key is to have a plan that can be implemented and measured.

THE COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS PLAN

Everyone who owns a business should have a plan that encompasses goals and the strategies and tactics to achieve them.   They should encompass education and training not only for product and processes but for the softer side of the business.  Does your plan include sensitivity training around gender, diverse cultures, and age stages of life training?  How are you preparing your work force to interface with the ever changing demographics in the marketplace?  For that matter does your work force reflect the marketplace in which you do business?   Do you have an advertising agency that understands diverse relevant messages with an effective media plan that also includes Social Media Marketing?  Do you know the language preferences and ethnic characteristics of your market place?

Have you analyzed your strengths and weaknesses with respect to both your business and your employees?  What do you know about your competitors and how do you compare with them?   What can you do to make your products and your services relevant to the market or for that matter how are you differentiating yourself from the rest of the competition?   With all of the various communication avenues available, Reputation Management is the issue in today’s environment and having a workforce that treats everyone like “mom” is critical for repeat business and building consumer loyalty.

Included in your Business Plan should be an objective evaluation of your enterprise.  Utilizing Mystery Shoppers to gain a 3^rd party vantage point of your brick and mortar, to understand the employee handling of your customers, and to evaluate your messages in the market place is a very inexpensive and accurate way to get a true appraisal of the face you are presenting to the public.  (I.e. BESTMARK is a premier Mystery Shopping Company that does business in the USA, Europe, Asia and CANADA.)

THE PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN

If you do not own a business, you still need a plan.  Today’s world is more competitive, more fluid, and changes very rapidly.  Continuously upgrading and improving skills is a must to stay in the competitive arena.   Are you prepared for the field in which you currently compete?  Are you prepared to change fields of interest?  What does your personal educational plan look like? How will you know if you have met your plan?  What are you doing each day to co-exist in today’s society?

MEASURE-MEASURE-MEASURE

Most importantly track and measure your plan.  Everyone must support the plan to make it work and if it is not measured and course corrected as required opportunities will be lost to grow the business and thus improve your ROI.

Today’s marketplace and workplace is not like yesterdays.  There is more consumer diversity, more product diversity, and a much more informed consumer.   In today’s environment, everyone can be an expert on the product or service they want to buy due to the accessibility of the internet.  Give consumers a reason to buy from you with employees who are educated and trained in product knowledge as well as in people skills.

THE VALUE PROPOSITION

The Business Training and Education Value Proposition is “To have an educated and trained workforce who can successfully attract, sell, retain and increase the loyalty of consumers who are diverse in culture, age, and gender”.

What are the components of your education and training plan?

What are you doing to prepare yourself or your workforce to meet the ever changing environment of today?

You’ve heard the statistics before…

Gen Y doesn’t trust advertisements; we trust the people in our social networks.  But overall, Gen Y doesn’t trust much at all.  If you’re a big company of any kind, you will have to work much harder to win over the 70 million Gen Y consumers living among us.

How Should Marketers gain Gen Y’s trust?

Well, besides Corporate Social Responsibility, you’ll need to prove your brand to us.  Let us touch it, try it and talk about it.  And let us hear about it and experience it from “real” people. In order to gain our trust, you’ll need to focus on experiential marketing.

Experiential marketing 2.0 means offering your product or service to the right people at the right time. A simple example is the nice lady at the grocery store who hands you a sample of fantastic cheese spread while you are exiting the cracker aisle.  Do that online. 

Technically, paid search campaigns attempt to reach the right customer at the right time. When I Google “smart phone” for example, paid ads for Sprint, Verizon, ATT, wirefly.com and Apple appear. There is one huge problem though:  a vast majority of Gen Y consumers will never look at, trust, or click on sponsored results.

Nor will most Gen Y’ers take the time to go through each of the companies’ websites.  We like instant gratification and that takes way too long. Plus, we’d much prefer to read a short aggregated review of the phones on a blog and buy based on a “real” person’s opinion anyways. 

Here are some ways that companies have used experiential marketing to catch me at the right moment and convert me into a customer.

• WalMart.com.  I thought hell would freeze over before I bought any furniture from Wal-Mart (and then blogged about it) but I did.  And I love my $99 kitchen table.  Why? Because I knew exactly what I was buying before I bought it. Walmart.com had great multi-view pictures, tons of honest reviews and they were willing to ship the product to my local Wal-Mart for free so I could see it before I brought it home.  
• Groupon.  Groupon is the best way to experience something that you never would have tried thanks to HUGE discounts on local products and services.  If I were a marketer, I’d make sure my stuff was on Groupon so people could experience it with for little risk, talk about it and experience it again.
• MattChevy.com. A long time ago I sent out a frustrated tweet saying “can anyone in the Chicago area help me with Wordpress?!” Matt responded immediately with a friendly (and calm!) tweet saying he could help me.  He caught me in the right place, at the right time.  He gained my trust.  We are now close friends and I refer people to him all the time.
• Amazon.com: “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” and “Best Value.”
• Ulta,  Hairuwear.com, YouTube demos, Ulta.  Worst hair cut of my life + obsession with Ulta + panic = temporary solution via J-Simp’s “Hair-Do.”

Readers, where have companies presented themselves to you at the right moment?

What’s the best example of experiential marketing you’ve seen?