Career Math 101

Adding value to what you do at work…

Mathematics isn’t just the study of numbers and shapes. Math (or Maths for my UK & Aussie friends) also concerns itself with patterns. Of particular interest to the career minded are the ‘patterns of value’ associated with what we sell and the worth of our professional contributions.

Value Math for Sales

Once upon a time calculators demanded top dollar. Now they are available at the Dollar Store – or free in specially marked cereal boxes!

But wait there’s more!

Value Rule: The more your product or service is like other offers, the greater the need to wrap what you sell with added value.

Value Math for Your Career

If you are depending on the functional value of your job to propel your career, prepare for disappointment.

The Rule: What got you here, won’t get you there.

So, to keep your stock rising on the job, find ways to wrap your functional output (marketing, accounting, clerical, whatever it is you do) with additional value.

Here are three ways to add value to what you do:

  1. Connect the Dots:  Be the one that knows who’s who and how things REALLY get done in your office.
  2. Living THE Way:  More of what you do every day is in your head than is written in a manual. Becoming the center of process knowledge – knowing how to do what needs doing – is among the highest career value adds.
  3. Prepare Before They Focus:  Executive A.D.D. continues to run rampant across the globe. If you know your boss or someone on your team isn’t focusing on a looming deadline, take the lead and help.  Sure they may come to depend on you… But isn’t that the point?

This week is cheers to former Southwest Airlines President, Emeritus Colleen Barrett: the Community College Graduate and Executive Assistant that turned being amazing at her job into a career that made her one of America’s most powerful executives!

It’s all about value!

Stay connected,

-Jeff