ROLES IN BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Role 1: Management Consultant
Reading 1
Be The Best Consultant Ever: 6 Things That Will Make You Great
You may have noticed that the consulting industry is full of high performers from top
schools with great grades and interesting work experience. So, what does it take to
succeed in such a competitive industry among the best of the best?
From my experience, there are a number of qualities that top performers adopt that are
much more important than a golden resume. Whether you’ve just started a consulting
job or are considering it as a career path, think about how you can develop the
following qualities that will help you go from being a good consultant to a great one.
1. Being A “Safe Pair Of Hands”
This essentially means that you will do exactly what you said you were going to do,
when you said you were going to do it. Sounds simple, but it’s the number one quality
needed to build trust and credibility among your team and your clients.
For example, in the beginning of your career, your team will lean on you for support in
the more rote areas of consulting work, such as creating PowerPoint decks, taking
notes, and organizing projects, and it’s important for you to be able to do these tasks
without errors or much oversight from your manager. Make sure you keep your
promises, be consistent in your quality, and master the basic skills in Excel and
PowerPoint. The more trust you build early on, the more opportunities you will be
given in the future.
2. Having Attention To Detail
This is such a crucial skill in consulting because one of the ways we build trust with
clients is by producing error-free deliverables, which shows that we’re thorough and
our recommendations are solid. Ensuring there are no grammar, spelling, or
calculation-related mistakes are in your work is essential and ultimately reflects on your
entire team.
If you have a natural attention to detail, congrats! But if, like me, you are more of a big
picture thinker, there are a few tricks I’ve learned to help build this important skill.
First, when it comes to math, show your work. I know this sounds like your high-school
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teacher talking, but this always helps to ensure you’ve thought of everything and
allows you to show your manager the steps you took to get to your answer (and find
any errors before it reaches the client).
The second step—and the one that has turned me slightly OCD—is to create lists of
things to double-check before submitting anything. For example, I have a PowerPoint
check-off list that includes things like adding page numbers to every slide, recalculating
all numbers, and making sure a consistent font is used throughout.
3. Being The “Go-To” For Something
During your first few years of consulting, you’ll likely be floating between industries,
areas, and clients. Despite your broad experiences, it’s a good idea to start developing a
skill that allows you to differentiate yourself from all your rock star peers.
While being a jack-of-all Microsoft trades (Excel, Word, PowerPoint) is definitely
needed, the consultants who perform best always have an area that they truly excel in—
one that’s in demand and that nobody else seems to have. Whether that’s advanced
financial modeling, communications skills, or a particularly deep knowledge in an
industry, take the time to find out what you can become the go-to person for.
4. Knowing How To Think Before You Do
As mentioned before, almost all consultants are A-type personalities with enough
ambition to last a lifetime. But what really distinguishes a good consultant from a great
one is the ability to not only focus on the tasks at hand, but also to think critically about
the work.
For example, your client may be asking you to find cost savings in a supply chain, but
first, try to understand why this is critical to the business. Are profits declining? Is the
competition lowering product prices, forcing your client to compete? Knowing how to
think this way will help you develop better insights and solutions for your client. Try
spending a little extra time thinking through your task before jumping in, interpret the
numbers you’re crunching (don’t just be an Excel monkey!), and challenge your
manager’s requests (when appropriate, of course).
5. Having Resourcefulness
In consulting, you will be asked to solve problems that may be completely new to
you—or even completely new to the industry. And when you’re faced with these tough
problems or challenging requirements, it’s your resourcefulness that will help you
succeed. While this isn’t quite Outward Bound, you should develop the ability to
quickly and creatively solve problems.
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As a general rule of thumb, when you need help, you should approach your team and
manager first, followed by your peers and internal experts, and then other external
resources. There is likely someone who has done what you are trying to do before and
can help you find the answer—or at least help you think about new ways to tackle the
problem. Be sure to not give up too quickly, be creative in your research efforts, and
show your team that you’re willing to do whatever it takes.
6. Not Being Afraid To Ask (Good) Questions
Asking questions is at the core of how a consultant works, so much so that there are
times when I feel like Sherlock Holmes! Questions help ensure you understand what
you are being asked to do and the issues your client is facing, and they can also help
you to demonstrate your understanding. Never be afraid to ask for clarification—it’s
better than doing something wrong. Even if you don’t have a question to ask, restating
what you’ve been told to clarify your understanding can inspire confidence with your
manager or client.
Of course, be sure to ask questions in a helpful, non-annoying way. If you have
multiple, send them in a single, structured request rather than repeatedly approaching
your manager or client. Also, take simple questions on items such as acronyms or Excel
formulas to your peers or Google
It takes a lot to succeed in the consulting world, but focus on these key skills. You’ll
have everything you need to shoot above and beyond your peers.
Author: Alex Nuth is a Management Consultant at Accenture[/entity] and has worked across a
number of industries and functional areas helping clients solve some of their largest and most
important challenges. She graduated from the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of
Commerce in 2011 where her courses focused on Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She enjoys
traveling and has worked in both China and Colombia.
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Reading 2
This Is What It Takes To Become A Successful Management Consultant
Terina Allen
Do you think you might want a career as a management consultant but aren’t quite sure
if you’re cut out for it? Are you currently a management consultant but desire to
broaden your portfolio and gain the necessary credibility to advance to the senior
ranks? In order to build a successful career in the management consulting profession or
elevate yourself beyond your current consulting role, you need to understand what
management consultants actually do. It’s also helpful for you to know the education,
experience and skills needed to get hired and promoted in the profession over time.
I don’t know if it’s due to the expansive categories of consultants, the often ambiguous
and varied career paths or the lack of defined competencies within the profession, but
people tend to have difficulty understanding what management consultants do. Even
current consultants sometimes have difficulty describing it themselves. If you ask my
friends or family what I do for a living, they’d probably tell you something like I travel
a lot to help executives accomplish goals or that I help organizations maximize
performance. Throughout nearly two decades of being a management consultant, I have
obviously shared more details than this with those in my life, but this is how I hear
them summing it when they talk with other people.
As with many professions, the average person’s eyes starts to glaze over if you go much
beyond a simple descriptor. But this is surely not the case for junior-level management
consultants, those aspiring to become one and those who want to advance up the ranks.
When these ambitious consultants or candidates ask about my management consulting
career, they really do want the nitty gritty details and can’t seem to get enough
information about how to succeed as a management consultant or—even better—how
to stand out for upward mobility and career advancement. And the inquiries never
surprise me because while management consulting is an extremely demanding career
choice, it is a massively rewarding one as well.
A general overview of the management consulting profession.
Management consultants work with domestic and/or global clients (organizations,
executives, leaders and teams) to identify and solve complex business, organizational
and operational problems and define and improve processes. And though it can be a
highly competitive and demanding profession, it can also provide many long-term
benefits and career perks. Management consultants have opportunities to work with the
senior teams and top executives within organizations, and this helps with cultivating
powerful relationships and building a supportive network. The profession is typically
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dominated by frequent and heavy travel schedules, long work hours, continual learning
and development, close team collaboration and a focus on short and long-term projects.
What do management consultants actually do?
The core work of a management consultant tends to fall within one or more of these
three categories:
1. Functional Expertise and Specializations. Management consultants
provide industry counsel, advice and functional expertise in specialized
areas such as strategy, mergers, governance, reorganizations, organization
design, strategic leadership, operations, finance, risk management, digital
transformation, information technology, organizational change
management, organization development, human resources, talent
management, advertising, and marketing to name a few.
2. Objective Analyses and Assessments. A management consultant serves
as an objective third party to conduct in-depth research and analysis and
then provides an unbiased opinion and perspective on difficult matters
and complex business problems and issues.
3. Project Management. Management consultants work directly with senior
leadership and internal project teams to deliver hands-on project
management and leadership consulting to include project
implementation, execution and measurement.
Though management consulting is interchangeable with the concept of advising, it’s
actually distinct from the professions of executive coaching and training. Still, each of
these professional disciplines should have a sustainable—albeit different—
methodology or framework by which to deliver services. High-quality management
consultancies will have developed a sound management consulting methodology by
which to inform the work of their management consultants. To maintain a competitive
and differentiated competitive advantage, this methodology tends to be proprietary and
serves as a guide that management consultants adhere to as they effectively conduct
assessments, perform analyses, diagnose issues, test hypotheses, intervene and make
recommendations and deliver follow-up services for clients.
What distinguishes highly successful management consultants from the rest?
It’s been my experience that the mindset of a management consultant makes all the
difference. Whether it’s from my own management consulting experiences or the
success—or lack thereof—of those I’ve worked with or hired, it is abundantly clear that
the mindset you have for this kind of work is critical. The best management consultants
are those who have a propensity for strategic thinking and a bent toward statistical
analysis, critical thinking and process improvement. Management consultants who are
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best at analyzing issues, diagnosing problems, executing substantial interventions and
designing focused solutions are those who:
•
are strategic thinkers with an ability to focus on the whole system and
consider the interconnections and interdependencies within it.
•
help other leaders and teams to not only define what success looks like
but also to ascertain whether operational capacity exists to deliver it.
•
apply a process-improvement mindset and methodology so as to
effectively solve problems but also to evaluate the systems and processes
beyond it to limit the likelihood of unintended negative consequences or
experiencing long-term harm down the line.
•
comprehend the full scope of strategy and ensure the right strategic
outcomes are defined, and then lead navigational efforts to help execute
and measure the results.
•
have deep understanding of performance metrics and are able to define
which data align with which metrics, how to turn the data into actionable
intelligence that decision makers can use and how, and in what format,
the information should best be communicated.
What education and experience do you need to become a management consultant?
The education and experience requirements vary depending on which level of
management consulting you work in or seek to occupy. In general, there are basically
four different categories on the career ladder. Within my firm, we hire in at the first
three levels. Regardless of whether you work for a large or small firm, the consulting
level you end up in will depend largely on your education and experience and then
your competence.
1. The first consulting level is entry level, and it’s typically a business analyst
or associate consultant role and usually requires an undergraduate degree
with very little (if any) experience.
2. The second level tends to be known as the actual management consultant
level. My firm requires an undergraduate degree and four years of
consulting experience or a graduate degree and two years of consulting
experience for this management consulting level.
3. The third level is what’s known in the industry as a senior consultant or
project lead. It usually requires the equivalent of a graduate degree and
seven years of experience or an undergraduate degree and 10 years of
direct consulting experience.
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4. The fourth level is a partner or principal, and this level usually calls for a
graduate degree and more than 10 years of directly-related consulting
experience.
While I focused here on the most common management consulting jobs where a degree
tends to be a minimum requirement, it should be noted that not all consulting jobs
require a college degree. Some organizations will permit individuals to substitute
relevant work experience in lieu of a degree, and there are also many other types of
consulting jobs where college may not carry the same weight. There are entrepreneurs
who have started consulting businesses without a college degree as well. The college
degree requirement, however, is more of a factor with traditional consulting
organizations where the official work is that of a specialized management consultant or
strategy consultant.
What skills and expertise do you need to succeed as a management consultant?
The required skillset varies depending on the different industries and the specific client
base that a particular management consulting firm targets and works with. But you
should know that you will be expected to finely tune your functional expertise and
specializations (see above) around your assigned industries, and you’ll be expected to
develop your skills and expertise in any area where you want to deliver consulting
services and strategic advice. The higher up the career ladder you go, the stronger
skillset you need to have and the more you need to know.
To reiterate, management consulting work typically requires extensive travel, lots of
time with clients and—even still—lots of additional time processing and analyzing
work even when you aren’t with clients. In addition to specialized expertise, you will
also need many of the following skills, and these will vary depending on the consulting
level.
Intellectual competence
•
consulting and advising (in your defined areas of expertise)
•
strategic thinking
•
analytical processing
•
action research
•
problem solving and process improvement
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Communication competence
•
communication (writing, speaking and listening)
•
conflict management
•
presentations
Leadership competence
•
judgement and decision making
•
emotional intelligence
•
executive presence
•
client engagements and relationships
•
managing ambiguity
Technical competence
•
analytics and data interpretation
•
statistical thinking
•
critical thinking and analysis
•
project management
•
business systems
•
marketing and sales
•
contracting, budgeting and financial management (for senior-level
consultants, partners and principals)
If your goal is to build a successful career in management consulting, I recommend you
enhance your education, experience and skills to align with what I have detailed above.
I also recommend that you thoroughly engage in interview prep, and study up on
the case interview method. This method is often applied during at least one phase of the
interview process.
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Role 2: Product Manager
Reading 1
What Product Managers Do And How To Become One
Sophia Matveeva
Product management is becoming increasingly popular as a profession. Not only is this
a career path at Big Tech companies, it is also an important part of traditional
businesses that choose to embrace technology. If a business has an app or a website,
then there is probably somebody doing the product manager’s job.
Product management in its current form is a fairly new profession, which is why there
is a lot of confusion about what it really is. While many product managers start with a
technical background and have computer science degrees, this is not at all necessary to
succeed.
Focus on the user’s problem
Rags Vadali, who currently works as Product Manager at Facebook, says “product
management is sometimes art and sometimes science of building products.” According
to Vadali, the product does not have to be an app or a website, and in fact he argues
that this it the wrong focus.
“A product is a clearly identified solution to a people problem.” That solution could
take many forms, but the main focus is always the user and the problem that they need
to solve.
Diverse teams
Product managers work with a diverse set of professionals including engineers,
designers, user researchers and data scientists. This list expands depending on the type
of product they are building.
For example, product managers working on Facebook’s Instagram adverts will also
work with marketers and business development teams. Product managers who help
create apps for newspapers work with journalists.
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All carrot and no stick
Product managers do not have the expertise to tell their colleagues how to design an
app or write code, but nevertheless have to make sure that a great product is created.
This potentially puts them into a very tricky position of ultimate responsibility and zero
control.
Unlike a typical boss, product managers cannot mix the carrot and stick approach of
incentives and admonition. Instead, they have to be collaborative and persuasive,
because all they have is the carrot.
How to get started
The best way to get started in product management is to build a product. This is why
startup founders often go on to roles in product management after they leave their
business.
Another way to get relevant experience it to help a startup in your spare time. While
you would not be driving the product, you will be seeing how it is made and taking
part in building it.
You could also get involved in your existing employer’s product. I recently met a
product manager at a major U.K. newspaper who began her career as a journalist. While
working as a reporter, she often shared her ideas with the product team on how to
improve the interface journalists use. As she got more and more involved, she made the
transition from reporting the news to creating a product to help reporters. This example
shows that understanding the user’s problems is far more important than having
technical skills.
Vadali says he looks for user focus when interviewing candidates. He asks candidates
what their favorite products are and why. If they only talk about app features without
saying how they help solve a problem or create a positive fun experience, then they do
not have the right mindset.
The skills product managers learn can be helpful for careers in senior leadership or
investing. In fact, this is how Marissa Mayer former CEO of Yahoo, Sundar Pichai, CEO
of Google’s parent Alphabet and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz all started their
careers. This is also why product management is becoming one of the most sought after
careers for MBAs, displacing consulting and banking.
Good product managers understand the target user and have the influence skills to
bring the best out of their colleagues. None of this requires technical knowledge, which
means that it is one of the best options for non-technical professionals to join the tech
boom.
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Reading 2
Try These Four Tips For Effective Product Manager Upskilling
The job of a product manager isn’t getting any easier. The introduction of continuous
improvement processes, the ubiquity of rapid agile product development and release
cycles and increasing competitive threats across most industries have made it even
more important for product managers to have a broad range of skills. From conducting
customer interviews to identifying and sizing market opportunities, developing
product strategies and prioritizing postlaunch product enhancement requests among
many stakeholders, the challenges product managers face are ever present throughout
the product lifecycle.
It’s not surprising that many of the product management leaders Forrester speak to
pinpoint improving their team’s competencies as a key priority. Although signing up
for specific training sessions is certainly better than no training at all, limiting upskilling
to a one-time event is unlikely to produce the desired results.
It’s been clear for well over 100 years that learning that’s not immediately repeated,
leveraged and used is forgotten. In the late 19th century, German psychologist
Hermann Ebbinghaus found that we forget most of what we learn — 90% — within the
first month, but retention can be improved through more dynamic and continuous
learning. Today, programs aimed at improving retention include engaging content,
examples for learners to follow, opportunities to practice new skills and continuous
reinforcement and feedback.
At Forrester, we’ve been upskilling product management teams for years and have
identified the best training approaches for driving the understanding and adoption of
best practices for product managers. Below are four elements of best-practice upskilling
product management leaders should consider when selecting training or implementing
a program for their team:
•
Incorporate a broad range of learning approaches. The program should
present information in various formats, not just through articles or textheavy presentations. To appeal to the range of learning styles and ensure
information interest and clarity, look for different ways to communicate
information using diagrams, engaging videos and interactive elements
such as gamification. For product managers, information delivered via
videos from interviews with customers and sales reps will likely be more
memorable, providing a stronger foundation for capability improvement.
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•
Show learners what good looks like. Learning programs should include
demonstrations of what good looks like for activities and deliverables.
Videos of well-executed customer interviews and examples of strong
business cases — along with the criteria for evaluation — help learners
better understand specifically what to aim for. Provide examples,
templates and checklists that clearly show what good looks like, including
relatable examples of best practices being applied in scenarios that
learners would encounter regularly.
•
Allow learners to practice. Individuals who have the opportunity
to apply new skills and receive feedback on their progress are much more
likely to retain, leverage and build on what they’ve learned. Product
management leaders must identify opportunities for team members to use
their new skills and get feedback. Recruit learners who have
demonstrated success to support practice and provide specific and
constructive feedback. Suggest that mentors and other learning
champions offer office hours as a forum for casual discussion of
challenges regarding new learning and an opportunity for feedback.
•
Establish a culture of learning and skill building. When learning and
upskilling are directly related to accomplishing business goals and driving
business results, learners take mastering new competencies more seriously
and senior management can provide better support. Focus on building
skills that are critical to achieving growth objectives. For example, if the
goal is entering a new vertical market, improve competencies around
understanding new buyer and user needs, typical use cases, and marketspecific competitors. Make continuous training a key component of the
growth strategy — as critical as investing in new sales reps and marketing
campaigns.
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Role 3: Business Development Executive
Reading 1
Five Skills To Look For In Business Development Professionals
Kit Merker
What makes a business development candidate stand out? It’s not always a prestigious
school or ultra smarts. I’ve interviewed and hired many individuals for business
development roles. While there are lots of people who are extremely experienced and
who would do a great job, there are certain counterintuitive traits that make certain
candidates stand out from the pack. If you keep your team intentionally small like I do,
each hire matters a lot.
I think everyone should have a strong work ethic, experience, good communication and
organizational skills, a huge network, and a great reputation. Over the years, I have
tried to identify the X-factors that will make a business development manager exceed
expectations. This list may not fit your style or situation, but perhaps it will give you an
idea you can use to expand your perspective as a business development professional
seeking employment. Or if you are hiring, you can use it to find differences between
seemingly similar candidates.
1. Slightly Optimistic
While some might say that optimists see the glass as half full, and pessimists see it as
half empty, my slightly optimistic friends would say, “Can I please have some more
water?”
In business development, we are occasionally pleased but more often disappointed, and
we have to keep moving on. As a business development professional, you can’t give up
at the first, second or 10th sign of adversity -- even from your boss or the CEO. You
should demonstrate that you can continue to imagine a world that is better, even when
the data indicates otherwise. But at the same time, this should be tempered with the
realism that comes from experience. As a hiring manager, when you meet people who
can jump outside the choices you give them, see a better future and take action to make
it happen -- they're who you want on your team. To identify these people, present a
scenario to candidates that seems negative (i.e., a layoff or market drop), and ask them
to discuss what opportunities such a situation could create.
2. Demonstrates Wisdom
Life is full of difficult tradeoffs; wisdom is understanding where to place the balance. To
identify this, you can pose questions that force a business or financial trade off and see
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how a candidate handles it. Try something like, “Let’s say you have a new piece of
technology. Should you open-source it or sell it as a product?” The easy answer is that it
depends. You might discuss the tradeoff (gaining adoption versus monetization), the
options and the factors leading to a decision. This is all great. But what is the
recommendation? If you can’t get to a wise decision that elevates the decision in
context, you may constantly be talking through dilemmas with this candidate. Business
development professionals should understand how this technology fits with the
moment in the industry, the strategy of the company and the customer's expectations,
and then make a concrete recommendation.
3. On A Mission To Learn
Some people are on a mission to change the world; some are on a mission for
themselves. Others are following whatever path unfolds in front of them. These are all
reasonable approaches to life and work. But what makes someone stand out to me is
their determined journey to learn. I am always pleasantly delighted to hear a story that
goes something like, “I had no idea how this worked, so I spent the next two years
doing that job, and then I got really curious about this other thing, so I started doing
that on the weekends.”
It can be beneficial to work with people who have a sense of purpose and take the
initiative to get smarter. They should know they don’t know everything (I know I
certainly don’t) and be constantly working toward improving their understanding of
the world and themselves.
4. Gambles On The Future
I spend a lot of time with my team in open conversations about what will happen in the
future. While we don’t put “real money” on the line, we do discuss the chances of
certain conditions presenting themselves in the future. For example, you can play
strategy games, draw up maps, imagine various scenarios and try to put odds on them.
Ask candidates and employees to look for ways they can hedge, diversify or otherwise
manage risks in their actions. While I don’t specifically look for real-life poker stars (I’ve
met a few), I do recommend looking for a mindset that is about playing the long game,
placing strategic bets and understanding that uncertainty is a certainty.
5. Finds Connections Where None Exist
It may sound like a common trait of conspiracy theorists, but the ability to identify
unexpected connections between events, people and topics is a key skill I cherish. Many
times, the connection is imaginary, and this presents an opportunity: You can fill in the
gap with a partnership, investment, collaboration or acquisition. Sometimes the
connections employees see below the surface emerge later and open up doors we never
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expected. If they are too careful or unwilling to be wrong, they may never identify
what’s really going on or what’s possible.
To identify this trait in a candidate, give them a scenario with two random events. Then
ask the candidate to brainstorm connections between them, evaluate how real those
connections are and determine how they might leverage them to create an opportunity.
Conclusion
In order to get an edge, you should seek out talent that has a mindset and skill set that
will give you fresh energy and perspective. And if you’re thinking about growing your
career in business development, you may want to consider how to go beyond the basics
and really hone your counterintuitive skills and experiences.
While my list of unexpected traits may not match your next interview or what others
are looking for, I hope this at least sparks some ideas for how you might stand out in
this ultra-competitive technology job market.
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Reading 2
15 Essential Skills Every Modern Biz Dev Leader Should Hone
Business development professionals are key players in driving a company’s growth and
value over time. Leaders in this sector must also take on additional duties, including
leading projects and managing teams.
With these essential responsibilities, it’s important for biz dev leaders to hone the skills
necessary for success—especially in an ever-evolving business landscape. Below, the
members of Forbes Business Development Council share 15 vital skills that biz dev
leaders should hone and why.
1. Self-Awareness
If you are not aware of your own strengths and flaws, it is almost impossible to really
understand your employees or clients. This is more important than ever as the
opportunity to connect in person is limited. It also makes you more aware and
empathetic towards other people's motivations. - Nicholas Constantino, 680 The Fan
and The Atlanta Braves Radio Network
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2. Active Networking
Without hesitation, I can say that actively networking with new and current contacts is
necessary. I believe that biz dev leadership should set aside time each week that is
solely dedicated to engaging new contacts and reconnecting with existing customers.
For example, look through your current LI connections, find key people whom you
have not had a one-to-one discussion with and deepen that connection. - Kirk
Barnes, TransPharMed
3. Listening
Biz dev leaders should be listening to their team, their vendor partners and their
customers. Listening will allow them to understand the needs versus the wants. This
will keep them in touch with where the markets are trending, where customers are
focusing and where their teams need to address and solve core issues. Those needs will
drive new business and help grow their individual business as well as the companies.
- Angie Barnes, NAVCO
4. Engaging Audiences Through Video
Today's business development leaders must be skilled at using and engaging audiences
through video, whether it be Zoom, MS Teams, YouTube Live, etc. The business
development leader who connects with others through video regularly and always
offers value will be actively sought out as a thought leader and trusted advisor; leading
to increased sales. - Nathan Ives, DataGlance, Inc.
5. Virtual Engagement
Perhaps obvious, I believe the No. 1 skill leaders need to practice and master is virtual
engagement. Whether working internally or externally, the world is different now.
Face-to-face engagement levels will never be the same. We've all learned how efficient
virtual activity can be, so now it's time to master the technological tools, content and
messaging to differentiate ourselves. - Michael Bouchard, Domino Amjet, Inc.
6. Knowing When To Walk Away
Biz dev leaders should know when to walk away from a deal. Too often the clear
benefits of a partnership or engagement, or even its potential conflicts, are poorly
understood. This results in wasted time and resources as teams try to support biz dev
leaders who haven't done their piece. These skills are even more important today
because opportunities for partnerships have exploded. - Vijay Sundaram, Zoho
Corporation
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7. Radical Adaptability
Long-term planning is key to setting the direction you want to lead your team in, but
being agile and willing to change direction when circumstances change can help you
achieve your goals with less struggle. Have a plan B (or more) that you can implement
when the situation changes dynamically and be ready to use that shift to your
advantage. - Anna Jankowska, RTB House
8. Empathy
As biz dev professionals, especially in our current environment, we need to offer
customers our deepest listening, greatest flexibility and innovative collaboration skills
to meet their needs. To be honest, we need this skill honed and deployed with one
another as well as with our customers. - Melanie Hicks, InPursuit Research
9. Maintaining Human Connections
With teams working from home, it’s important to maintain a human connection. When
face-to-face meetings aren’t an option and email updates seem impersonal, business
leaders need to figure out new ways to stay connected to their teams. Adopting
asynchronous video is one way to share news and updates while allowing a team to
interact on their own schedule, resulting in greater team engagement. - George
Donovan, Allego
10. The Ability To Coach
A key skill that biz dev leaders need to constantly study, practice and improve is the
ability to coach. It's important to get to know individual personalities, goals and
improvement areas on your team—and have a plan that matches. The same approach
won't work for everyone on your team. This is especially important with more work
being done remotely. - Chris Johnson, Gorilla Logic
11. Honing And Communicating Business Outcomes
Faced with uncertainty, buyers have enacted additional reviews and exec scrutiny on
most purchases. A Rain Group report indicated that 66% of buyers say making a clear
ROI case highly influences their purchase decisions, but only 16% of sellers are effective
at this. Sellers must hone their business outcome focus, communication skills and the
ability to quantify business value with every opportunity. - Tom Pisello, Mediafly
12. Virtual Selling
Business development leaders need to learn to sell virtually. Most biz dev professionals
are great at face-to-face networking events or sales presentations, but many have little
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to no experience selling using video and the phone as a primary means. It is a different
skill set but one that can be learned. The question is how many people are making the
effort to evolve? - Vincent Burruano, JK Moving Services
13. Authenticity
Finding true and authentic voices in today's landscape is rare and inspiring. We
consume fake celebrities on rented yachts pretending to have beliefs they think will
make them popular. Authentic voices stand out and separate leaders from the pack.
Your team is hungry to follow a true North as you set it. Those that don't like your
direction will weed themselves out. - Chris Yount, Independent Board Advisor
14. Driving Innovation
Business leaders should hone the skill of driving innovation. In today’s world,
innovation is a must for the survival of anyone. Innovation doesn’t come by chance. It
has to be systematically developed for the self and for the organization. As a leader one
must ensure a culture of innovation, look for new ideas from everywhere and be highly
aware of new things and new ways of doing things. - Shyam Kumar, AST LLC
15. Being A 'People Person'
Personal relationships and building them are more critical now than ever due to the
current pandemic. Finding ways to give a personal touch and construct positive
communications between you and potential customers is difficult. By being creative and
finding a way to bridge the gap, you will ultimately find success. - David
Strausser, Vision33
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Role 4: Marketing Manager
Reading 1
15 Things All Marketers Should Do to Be Effective
Marketing has numerous elements to it, and often times there are important skills and
habits that are overlooked. In order to be an effective marketer, it may be obvious that
you should be proficient in SEO, social media and ROI, but that's simply just scratching
the surface.
We've asked 15 experts from YEC to share what they think are some of the most
important things you should do -- whether they are habits, certifications to obtain or
skills to refine -- to help ensure your marketing skills are top-notch. See what they have
to say here.
1. Study Neurolinguistics
What changed the game for my clients and myself was getting my master practitioner
certification in neurolinguistic programming. I've studied SEO, social media, marketing,
etc. -- all marketing topics needed for a social media marketing company. But what
made the difference was this certification. I understand the psychology of my
employees, the brands we serve and myself on a much deeper level. - Klyn
Elsbury, Shark School
2. Perform A Risk Analysis
Before pursuing new customer acquisition and engagement channels or campaigns,
marketers should evaluate the challenges and risks of each opportunity. This enables
you to manage better expectations regarding the performance of new initiatives. By
understanding the challenges early on, you can also design solutions to mitigate those
risks and improve your campaign success. - Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep
3. Be A Great Storyteller
At the end of the day, marketing comes down to being able to tell a story well. One of
the most valuable and often overlooked skills a marketer can have is being an excellent
storyteller. Learn how to craft a narrative, capture your audience’s attention and drive
home important messages. This can take the form of writing and oral storytelling,
totally outside the confines of the marketing world. - Ryan D Matzner, Fueled
4. Practice Empathy
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A personal game changer in business and marketing for me was mastering social
dynamics. Marketing is all about putting yourself in someone else's shoes, and
understanding their wants and needs. This requires tremendous empathy, which is
largely a learned skill, like any other. You can build empathy, and therefore your
marketing prowess, by always seeking to understand others and giving value.
- Frederik Bussler, bitgrit Inc.
5. Be Proficient With SEO
SEO is so important these days when it comes to marketing that if you overlook it you
are going to slowly kill your business. Every single business should have an online
presence if they want to succeed. It is extremely rare that a company does not have a
legitimate website and presence that isn't successful. It also casts a much wider net for
you to get clients from. - Ben Walker, Transcription Outsourcing, LLC
6. Stay Up To Date On Current Trends
It's always important to stay updated on social trends. Customers have active
expectations from brands they engage with to represent their voices and concerns
regarding broader society. Your marketing should always realize your CSR in
accordance with social issues your clientele is most affected by and take a stand through
your marketing, increasing trust and likability within your audience. - Abeer
Raza, TekRevol
7. Ask The Right Questions
Being a master at asking questions to clients shows that you are their strategic advisor
and not just another person who takes orders and implements marketing tactics. It's
easy to get caught up in the day to day and forget the “why” behind what marketers are
doing. Learning to ask better questions helps marketers stay true to the "why" to
achieve better results for their clients. - Josh Meyer, Got It Digital
8. Reverse Engineer Competitors
The best thing I've learned in my 10-year marketing career is reverse engineering
competitors. Marketing becomes a whole lot easier when you know exactly what
landing pages work for your competitors, what keywords they're bidding on, which ads
they're running and how long they've been running them for. Everything is there for
you if you know how and where to look. - Karl Kangur, Above House
9. Leverage Analytics Tools
As a marketing manager, you're communicating with a target audience with certain
communication preferences. One way to identify and measure the effectiveness of the
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style of communication you are using is to implement an analytics tool, such as Google
Analytics. Understanding what types of strategies work for your company allows you
to use your platform for direct and real-time customer service. - Shu Saito, Fact
Retriever
10. Walk In Your Customers' Shoes
Anyone can learn to collect and analyze data, but knowing how to use that data is the
key to marketing success. Even if you aren't a member of your target demographic, you
have to create marketing material for that audience. Allow yourself to become your
audience as you work. Be "in character" as you develop content or make social media
posts and your audience will respond. - Jeff Pitta, Medicare Plan Finder
11. Implement The Scientific Method
Too many marketers "try things" just to see what sticks and what doesn't, with no
tracked metrics. Instead, all professional marketers should learn to practice the scientific
method: Start with a hypothesis, figure out a micro-experiment that can test it, run that
experiment with an eye towards tracking spend and ROI. Then, regroup to form a new
hypothesis or continue iterating on the previous one. - Keith Shields, Designli
12. Be Aware Of Your Grammar
No matter what marketing field you go into, writing is a constant skill you’ll use daily. I
see so many marketers who don’t know how to properly use “I” and “me” and use too
many adverbs and adjectives in their writing. I recommend any marketer read William
Strunk Jr.'s "The Elements of Style." In this short book, you’ll learn everything you
missed in sixth grade English class. - Brian Greenberg, True Blue Life Insurance
13. Understand How Your Customers Think
Marketing at its most basic level is about building a connection between a solution and
a customer's problem. The best way to understand this connection is to understand the
consumer's problem, how they think and ultimately their overall psychology. Their
psychology will determine how they perceive your message, how you make an
emotional connection with them and even how to best reach them. - Andy
Karuza, Relm Wellness
14. Have Experience In Sales
The best marketers I've ever met are the ones who started their careers in sales. It
doesn't matter if they were selling cars, television packages or cutlery sets door-to-door
-- the skills and experience gained in these environments are invaluable to all other
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aspects of marketing. If you approach any aspect of modern marketing with the
mindset of a career salesman, you'll find success. - Bryce Welker, Beat The CPA
15. Obtain A Digital Marketing Certificate
I think a digital marketing certificate is valuable to have because it tells people -consumers, employers, etc. -- that you know digital marketing enough to understand
how it can amplify your business. Sometimes sifting through articles on Google simply
isn't enough for you to grasp everything that marketing entails. There is a lot of
information, so a certificate may be helpful. - Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
Retrieved from https://forbes.com/sites/theyec/2019/08/02/15-things-all-marketersshould-do-to-be-effective/?sh=3f863968d50f
Reading 2
Five Skills To Help Make The Cut Into Product Marketing
Ajit Ghuman
By 2023, software as a service (SaaS) is expected to represent 45% of the enterprise
software market. The rise of product marketing as a profession is closely aligned with
the growth of SaaS companies. With roots in Silicon Valley, product marketing jobs are
now going global with opportunities expanding across Canada, the United Kingdom,
the European Union and Australia.
Students and professionals have also been quick to recognize the potential of this
profession and are looking to educate themselves on how best to capitalize on the
prospects, and position themselves to start their product marketing careers.
So what does it take to make the cut?
I'm a product marketer with experience working in this role in five different Silicon
Valley companies, and a few skills come to mind. First of all, a common instinct for
applicants is to get an MBA, which is actually not necessarily needed. Instead, what
companies often value more is experiences in customer-facing roles in similar
technology companies — sales engineering, customer success, customer service or
professional services. This is because these roles let early career professionals gain some
key skills that help them shine as a product marketer. The reality is that any
professional who can demonstrate some of these skills can give themselves an edge.
Let's investigate these key skills in more depth:
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Influence
A product marketer's role is cross-functional, and gaining people's trust and partnering
with people is essential. Effective communication and the ability to influence positively
are cornerstones of this profession. The role requires intensive collaborations with
teams and clients, which can be built and sustained only with high maturity and tact.
Impactful go-to-market launches and sales enablement activities are achieved on the
back of these strong alliances.
High IQs and special analytical skills are important for engineers, but for a product
marketer, I find it is a higher emotional intelligence (EQ) that sets one apart.
These skills are difficult to learn, but there are resources available to help cultivate
strong communication and influence techniques. Robert Cialdini's works, Influence: The
Psychology of Persuasion and Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, as
well as Scott Adams's Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter, are key
primers in this space.
Bringing Order To Chaos
A high degree of chaos is intrinsic to technology companies. They routinely encounter
changing scenarios and competing priorities. These include market slowdowns, the
sudden infusion of new business or responding to a pandemic. Successful product
marketers typically accept the chaos, bring some method to the madness and approach
the scenario as problem-solvers.
Product marketers work on varied priorities and workflows simultaneously and switch
between multiple projects effortlessly. Their job scenarios demand initiative and the
ability to multitask. Product marketers proactively interact with customers,
understanding their priorities, while possessing an in-depth understanding of the
product on offer. The ability to take responsibility is a trait that will define success in
this role.
An Understanding Of How SaaS Companies Work
Before donning a product marketer's hat, the candidate must possess a basic level of
understanding of key dynamics within a technology/SaaS company: product
development cycles, funding, customer success, growth and churn. Typically, an
individual who has some experience in product management, engineering management
or professional services tends to understand the dynamics involved.
The key to success in this role is the ability to understand how the customer can become
successful with the product offered. This is why an entry-level, customer-facing job in a
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tech company is valuable, as it helps to understand what truly drives success in these
environments.
Domain Expertise And Experience
Strong domain knowledge about a product and the associated market opens doors in
new industries. For example, an individual with experience in e-commerce can
transition into a product marketing role in a company that sells to e-commerce.
Conversely, deep expertise and understanding in development and IT operations
(DevOps), analytics and databases will be valuable for companies that build products
using these technologies.
For any product marketer, the biggest challenge is to know both the product and the
market deeply. If you can demonstrate expertise in either, you can get your foot in the
door. Many great product marketers were once technologists who brought their
expertise and fused it with knowledge of the market.
Storytelling And Positioning
Core skills inalienable to this role are the ability to simplify the complex, demonstrate
relatability and empathy, and communicate for impact. Not everyone has an innate flair
for impactful communication, but it is a skill that can be learned. There is no dearth of
opportunities, resources and spaces to practice this skill. Toastmasters sessions, improv
classes or even just recreational blog writing can all help.
Everything boils down to a few words that resonate with people and move them
emotionally — team members and customers alike. Honing the skill to do this will yield
rich dividends down the road.
I encourage you to take the initiative and position yourself for an exciting role by
showcasing these skills. For some, the journey may start at customer-facing roles; for
others fresh out of school, there are associate/junior product marketing roles at large
companies that are designed to mold the next generation of product marketing leaders.
I have also seen professionals make the move from careers in political campaigns and
communications.
There are many paths to a career in product marketing, and I hope the journey is as
rewarding for you as it has been for me!
Retrieved from
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Role 5: Project Manager
10 Essential Skills For Project Management
Dana Sitar & Adam Hardy
Some people naturally possess project management skills. You know who you are. The
innate ability to keep things in order and keep people on task is valuable in a team
environment, and you can actually make a living out of it. To formally turn those
strengths into a career as a project manager, identify and hone these in-demand project
management skills.
What Are Project Management Skills?
You need a variety of both hard and soft skills to be a successful project manager.
The soft skills are those you can develop through any education or work experience,
and they help you shape the right temperament for project management. The hard skills
are those you need to learn specifically for this role, and you can learn them through
formal project management training or on the job as a project manager.
You’ll also need to learn common project management techniques and tools, which you
can pick up through training or work experience. We didn’t include those in the list
here (but they are in the FAQs below) because the exact techniques and tools you need
depend on preferences in your industry, company and team, and you have a wide
variety to choose from.
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Hard Skills for Project Management
Aside from learning specific project management methods and tools, these are the hard
skills you can gain from formal training or on-the-job experience in project
management.
1. Risk Management
The process of making conscious decisions to maximize the upsides and minimize the
downsides of actions in your business is known as risk management.
As a project manager, you have to be aware of a project’s potential for profit or loss and
the decisions that could lead to either. Throughout the project, you should be attuned to
the stakeholders’ measures of success and how each person’s decisions and actions
could contribute to—or detract from—achieving those aims.
You should understand your company’s (or the department’s) risk tolerance—do they
have a budget dedicated to experimentation, or does every project need to yield a
profit? With that framework, you can mediate decisions about the project’s timeline,
resources and goals.
2. Cost Management
You’ll either receive a budget for a project or be tasked with presenting a cost estimate
for decision makers to approve. It’s your job throughout the project to stay aware of the
costs and keep the project from going over budget.
Cost in project management is one part of what’s called the “triple constraint” or the
“project management triangle”—the three boundaries of cost, time and scope that
define the project.
Managing cost includes balancing that constraint with the other two. You have to stay
within budget while keeping the timeline on track and fulfilling but not exceeding the
scope.
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3. Reading and Writing
Reading comprehension and clear writing are vital skills for project managers. Strong
reading and writing skills are important for just about any job, and they play a
particularly prominent role in project management.
You may be tasked with reading and interpreting technical documents or legal jargon
with which you have no subject matter expertise. Then you need to turn that
information into briefs everyone involved with the project can follow.
4. Planning and Forecasting
One of the key roles of the project manager is creating a roadmap for the project that’ll
guide all other stakeholders in their roles.
You should have a penchant for order and organization; a quiet love for clear,
measurable goals; and an understanding of tools like a Gantt chart and other visual
representations of project timelines and milestones.
Forecasting involves providing a prediction of project outcomes—profitability, in
particular—for managers and company leadership. You have to be comfortable with
data analysis so you can interpret how past projects have performed and use the
information to inform the future of the current project.
Soft Skills for Project Management
You can’t learn specific processes or practices for these project management skills, but
these innate strengths are important to your success in a project management role.
5. Leadership
Though you don’t spearhead projects yourself in this role, your entire job is guiding
others through a project. That requires management and leadership skills to feel
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comfortable doing things like facilitating meetings, holding participants accountable
and enforcing constraints.
A project manager faces a particularly tough task in this role, because you have to be
able to provide leadership for the project without being in a leadership or decisionmaking position.
6. Communication
Hand in hand with leadership is strong communication. You’re the point of contact for
parties in a project who may have no other contact with each other, and you have to
facilitate cohesive teamwork within that environment.
You should feel confident interpreting the needs of one group or department and
explaining them to another.
You’ll likely also mediate conflicts among stakeholders and handle negotiations about
time, cost and scope. You have to be able to understand everyone’s role and perspective
while diplomatically communicating them across the project.
Project managers should be masters of written, verbal and visual communication. You’ll
face instances of all three, and mastering them all lets you communicate effectively with
a diverse group of project stakeholders.
7. Time Management
In addition to learning hard skills for planning, forecasting and scheduling projects, you
should possess or develop a personal strength for time management.
Do you feel comfortable juggling multiple deadlines, constraints and stakeholder
needs—or do you become overwhelmed when you’re faced with too many priorities at
once?
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Learning to calmly and consistently manage a complex timeline and help others stay on
task is a vital skill for project management. So is the innate ability to foresee
complications that could derail your timeline and suggest solutions to stay on track.
This is a soft skill you can learn, but project management is probably best suited for
those who have a natural tendency toward organization and order.
8. Patience
Being at the center of multiple teams attempting to work together toward a common
goal can be rewarding—and it can be frustrating.
You’re in charge of managing disparate expectations and objectives, all while mediating
conflict,communicating needs and helping everyone around you work within the
constraints you’re given for a project. All of these require serious patience.
You can’t help a project achieve success if you give into frustration when challenges
arise or milestones aren’t met. You can’t facilitate communication and teamwork if you
absorb the frustrations or resentments boiling among teams.
Your ability to remain a calm, neutral party is vital to your success as a project manager,
as well as the success of a project and the success and satisfaction of the people working
on it. Your patience through challenges can inspire persistence and diffuse conflicts,
while your impatience or frustration could equally demoralize and exacerbate
problems.
9. Adaptability
Tools and strategies for project management are constantly evolving toward better
efficiency, teamwork and communication. You should enjoy and excel at learning new
programs and methods quickly and encouraging others to get on board.
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A measure of tech savviness is important because much of your role is understanding
and properly using project management software, as well as other tools for things such
as analytics, document creation and sharing and communication.
Soft skills like adaptability and flexibility are equally important here, too. You have to
exhibit a willingness to learn and adopt new technology and techniques before you can
learn the hard skills to use them. A nimble mindset sets you up for success with
anything new that’ll be thrown at you, regardless of your starting level of tech knowhow.
Your mindset is also important for the success of the people you work with. You need
their buy-in to keep communication clear and tasks on track, and you can only get that
if you’re fully onboard with new tools and methods yourself.
10. Critical Thinking
Key for any management role, critical thinking will come into play daily in project
management. You have to be able to make quick decisions within a set of constraints,
foreseeing the potential implications for the future of a project.
Critical thinking in project management supports your ability to analyze the data and
information you’re given to make decisions in the planning stage then carry that
knowledge throughout the project as conditions change. It helps you make calls as
needed to negotiate constraints and hold stakeholders accountable.
How to Develop Project Management Skills
You can hone your skills and knowledge through formal education,work experience or
both.
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PMP Certification
A common route in project management is to earn your Project Management
Professional Certification (PMP), which is administered by the Project Management
Institute (PMI).
The certification shows you have the soft skills, technical knowledge and understanding
of business strategy necessary to succeed as a project manager, including specific
experience or training with the most common project management methods: agile,
waterfall and hybrid.
To prepare for the exam—and learn the necessary project management skills—you
must gain work experience and project management training. The required number of
hours for each depends on whether you have a four-year degree or not.
You can take PMP training through PMI or other online courses, which are focused on
things like project management methods, the process, tools and more.
A certification validates your skill set for potential employers, so it could make you
more attractive to companies and improve your pay. But a certification isn’t required to
do the job, and it’s not a guarantee you’ll find work or success in the field.
Free Online Courses
You can learn project management skills through free online courses that may or may
not contribute to required training hours for PMP certification, but they will teach you
the hard and soft skills needed to do the job.
Find university-led courses on project management skills, tools and techniques through
sites that offer mass open online courses (MOOCs), including Coursera and edX.
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Work Experience
You can get started as a project manager without any formal training or courses. Your
natural strengths might set you up for success in the role and make it easy for you to
adopt the tools and techniques you need.
To gain skills on the job, pay attention to projects you’re involved with first. Keep an
eye on the project manager’s day-to-day work, and ask them questions to understand
what they do. Being attuned to the process can give you great insight into the skills you
need to do the job.
Then, take advantage of any opportunities in your existing role to lead projects, manage
people or organize any processes or events. The skills and experience you develop in
this kind of work can transfer to success in a project manager role, even if it doesn’t
follow formal project management processes.
Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/project-managementskills/
Role 6: Business Analyst
The Five Most In-Demand Skills For Data Analysis Jobs
Jeff Kauflin
Data and statistics seem to be making their way onto every avenue in the workforce,
and there are hundreds of programming languages, tools and methods for practicing
the craft. But which skills are in highest demand in the job market?
Trilogy Education, a New York-based startup that partners with universities to offer
continuing education classes in technology, did research to identify the most in-demand
skills for data analysis jobs. Trilogy works with 24 universities, such as Berkeley,
Northwestern, and UNC Chapel Hill, to teach classes on web development, data
analytics and online user experience. For the research, Trilogy used a database created
by job analytics firm Burning Glass. It looked across more than 25.6 million positions,
evaluating the number of times specific skills appeared in descriptions for jobs across
the country.
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1. Data Analysis
No, seriously, data analysis is the most in-demand skill. Granted, it’s a strange one to
appear on a list of the same name, but Trilogy defines it as the critical-thinking ability to
interpret numbers. “It’s the ability to tell a story that gives insight into a problem,” says
Dan Sommer, Trilogy’s founder and CEO. In other words, in addition to knowing how
to use specific programming languages and tools, employers need you to discern when
patterns in data are meaningful, so that you can draw accurate and actionable
conclusions.
2. SQL
SQL, the second-most in-demand skill, is a programming language used to retrieve
information from a database. It was first developed in the 1970s and is ubiquitous. If
you want to be a business analyst, data analyst, data engineer, data scientist, web
developer, software engineer or database administrator, it’s important to know SQL,
Sommer says.
3. Data Management
Data management relates to how you structure databases, which can have complex
rules around who can access different pieces of information. And there are different
approaches to storing data as efficiently as possible. A common job requiring data
management skills is database administrator.
4. Business Intelligence
Business intelligence is the practice of gathering data to inform business decisions. For
example, a company using direct mail and Facebook ads to market its products can use
business intelligence software to help understand how well each marketing tactic is
working. Business analyst, business intelligence developer and customer insight analyst
are a few jobs requiring business intelligence skills.
5. Data Warehousing
“Data warehousing is the process of combining large amounts of data (usually from
disparate sources) into one place to enable analytics,” Sommer explains. Companies
today often have large amounts of information coming from different places, and a data
warehouse lets it all sit in one happy location. A common data warehousing job is data
engineer.
Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2017/07/20/the-five-mostin-demand-skills-for-data-analysis-jobs/?sh=15a5a912c7ce
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Role 7: Sales Manager
Eight Essential Qualities Every Great Sales Manager Need
There are many different ways to lead a sales team. Some managers get down in the
trenches and keep a hand in the day-to-day operations; others take a "lead from afar"
approach and give their teams greater control over their daily tasks.
Whatever your leadership style, it's important that it moves you toward your ultimate
goal of motivating and guiding your team. This is especially important for sales
departments, where missed quotas and high turnover can take a significant toll on
morale.
There are a few key traits that, if developed properly, can make your job as a leader
much easier. According to Forbes Business Development Council members, here are
eight qualities every great sales manager needs to have if they want to be an effective
leader.
1. Gravitas
The quality most important in any manager -- sales managers included -- is gravitas.
Like obscenity, as defined in the famous Supreme Court case Jacobellis v. Ohio, when
someone has gravitas, "you know it when you see it." Sales professionals will listen to
the feedback, advice and guidance of a manager they respect and disregard one they do
not. - Adam Mendler, Beverly Hills Chairs
2. Empathy
At their core, sales managers are people managers. Having the ability to empathize with
your direct reports will show them you actually care, and that they are more than just a
revenue stream. Each team member is different. Demonstrating the ability to
understand current life situations, motivations and goals help a manager get buy-in and
trust, which easily drives productivity. - Christopher Kingman, TransUnion
3. The Ability To Forecast
There are many facets to sales management -- numbers, headcount, attrition,
development needs, etc. -- and the inability to have a grounded pulse on all aspects of
your business results in your company being unable to plan for the impact your team
has on business. It's important to maintain a level of predictability at all levels. - Nico
Marroquin, Logikcull
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4. Active Listening Skills
Active listening is a skill that determines the effectiveness of any manager and their
team relationships. Being present and in the moment with people you lead is crucial to
trust. Nobody wants to repeat themselves, and knowing you remember important
information helps them give their best. Active listening helps you focus on what is most
important and can show signs of issues emerging with a team member. - Chris
Lukasiak, MyHealthDirect
5. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is important for salespeople but critical for sales managers. In the
field, you need it to overcome objections with potential clients, and in management, you
need it to find the most effective way to motivate your team. Knowing how and when
to motivate, support, console and even reign in your team are essential to maximizing
their performance. - Timothy Moore, Blue Haus Group
6. The Ability To Challenge And Inspire Growth
An effective sales manager should be a mentor who challenges and inspires growth in
all of their team members. They should be someone who is respected and has an
outstanding and accomplished history in their vertical on top of amazing interpersonal
skills. They must also have brutal honesty, as salespeople tend to respect those who
explain their thought process versus directing without explanation. - Dane
Matheson, Sourcebits
7. Adaptability
The profile of your sales team can vary from person to person. You may have seasoned
sales professionals with decades of experience sitting alongside passionate, ambitious
college grads starting their first sales role. We look for sales managers who can adapt
their leadership style to motivate sellers with different levels of experience and
backgrounds. - Rakhi Voria, Microsoft
8. A Great Understanding Of Their Team’s Core Job
The best managers in the world never forget where they came from. Many of the least
likable managers we’ve all had are ones who forgot how hard their first years in sales
were. The best leaders understand our struggles and stay in the trenches. If your
managers are ready to keep getting their hands dirty and win and lose with their team,
they’ll be great. - Joey Holt, Amerisleep
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Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2017/10/20/eight
-essential-qualities-every-great-sales-manager-needs/?sh=757cc67927d3
Role 8: Data Analyst
Top 7 Skills You Need To Have As A Data Analyst
Eva Murray
With so many businesses today relying heavily on data about their customers, products,
processes, inputs and the market, these organizations are increasingly in need of
talented, skilled people who can extract information and insights from the data.
But what skills are employers looking for? In data analytics, there are some skills and
qualities employers require of all applicants, regardless of the position.
Education will hone some of these skills and abilities. Others can be sharpened with
experience and practice.
Let’s look at some of the top skills below.
Business acumen
If you want your role as data analyst to be broader and to have more impact, you need
to gain a solid understanding of how the business works. Look beyond KPIs and last
month’s top 10 selling items.
What is the business strategy, what is its position in the market, and how does it
differentiate itself from its competitors? What are the critical processes in the
organization and how are the different products, departments and people connected?
Where do dependencies lie and what are the threats to success?
While you cannot know everything, building your business knowledge through your
work and your relationships will make you even more valuable as an analyst
Business knowledge will improve your understanding of the company’s data, helping
you to identify early warning signs, and seek out the right people to answer questions
and share information with.
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Technical know-how
As a data analyst, you work with software, systems and data. Putting these elements
together in a way that extracts meaningful insights from raw data requires technical
skills and a willingness to continue growing these skills to keep up with the
developments of technology.
Technical understanding grounded in curiosity and interest will serve you well in this
industry. Does the idea of using data and analyzing, shaping and transforming it into
visible insights excite you? Do you like the idea of taking the raw inputs and turning it
into something meaningful for the business (or the public) that tells a story about a
certain topic or discovery? That’s a great foundation to build on.
Understanding the data value chain helps you to put everything into context. Many
systems and touchpoints are involved in the end-to-end process and it will make your
life easier to understand how they are connected and who is responsible for which part.
•
Where did the data come from?
•
Why was it data collected, how and by whom?
•
What transformation steps did it go through?
•
Where is it stored?
•
How can you access it and who has access to it?
•
What tools do you have available for analysis?
•
What questions do your stakeholders have?
•
Who is the audience for your insights and what actions do they intend to
take based on your findings?
•
What happens with your findings once you share them?
•
What impact has your analysis had? Are there visible results in decisionmaking?
Communication skills
As data analyst you don’t just communicate through and with data but also with
stakeholders, colleagues, data suppliers, system owners and many others in the process
of developing insights for decision-making.
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When you share information, it’s important to consider the right medium. Does your
organization embrace digital, interactive and exploratory dashboards for decisionmaking or are you required to provide print-ready materials for ‘reading through’?
Who is your audience and what are they looking for? Where is your audience and how
do language, culture and dispersed geographical locations influence the way you
communicate your findings? What are the timeframes for sharing information?
Improving your communication skills, verbally, written and through the use of data,
will serve you well in the long-run.
Stakeholder management skills
Your stakeholders are your customers. Their need for information is what drives your
analysis. Stakeholders are an important piece in the puzzle and the larger the group
gets or the bigger their influence, the more difficult it can be to find the solution that
addresses their needs.
When you work with your stakeholders and gather their requirements through
discussions, interviews and research, it is important to understand their expectations
and to manage these with regard to timeframes, available data, people and resources.
Show your stakeholders how to use what you have created. On the one hand, it should
be intuitive and simple to do so, and including instructions is recommended. On the
other hand you cannot foresee all possible paths a user might take through an
interactive data visualization, so an introduction for your audience will be helpful.
In your engagement with stakeholders, try to foster an ongoing exchange of ideas and
information so you stay close to their business and their needs for insights while they
receive input from you on data and systems.
Critical thinking
Critical thinking involves going (and thinking) above and beyond that task at hand.
When you ask yourself questions like ‘what does this mean?’ and ‘what impact could
this have on process x?’ you start going off the beaten track and diving deeper into the
data in front of you.
Looking at outliers should always prompt further investigations. What does a spike in
the data indicate? Is it an insignificant anomaly or could it be something important that
you need to evaluate further?
Visual analytics can support your critical thinking processes because it allows you to
look at data from different perspectives in a short amount of time. When you find a
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particularly interesting data point, you can easily and quickly investigate it using
different chart types, introducing time dimensions or details about other parts of the
business to give you a new view.
Exploring different angles for the same situation helps you answer some of your
questions and assess whether you should pursue things further. Consider yourself a
researcher and an investigator.
Presentation skills
Many analysts can share their work digitally with a broad and large audience through
the click of a button. There are situations, however, when you need to present your
insights and reports in person to a live audience.
For this reason, it is important to hone these skills, so that your findings are shared
effectively, in a polished manner. A clear structure that is easy to follow and
communicates key insights in a logical order sets the right tone. As you present, focus
on what’s important and know how to navigate your way around interactive
dashboards.
A very valuable approach to take is to not limit your answers to the obvious questions
that led to your analysis in the first place, but to also anticipate potential follow-up
questions. This comes back to knowing and understanding your business and your
stakeholders. What are they interested in, what are their priorities and dependencies
right now?
Having answers to questions that they might ask comes in very handy during question
time. And if you don’t have the answer, be prepared with a follow-up process you can
propose to them. Know how and when you will be able to find and share the answers to
their follow-up questions.
Preparation is key and listening to your stakeholders and anticipating their needs will
help you build your credibility and brand internally.
Data visualization skills
It does not matter what tool you use and whether you share insights digitally or on a
whiteboard. Being able to paint a comprehensive picture that shows what’s going on is
a very important skill to have.
This can be as simple as drawing a process flow on a whiteboard. Many disagreements
can be cleared up when there is a picture that serves as a starting point.
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You will often communicate your insights in a report, interactive dashboard or chart. To
do this most effectively, make sure you pick the right chart type for the data and design
your work in a way that shows key findings clearly and quickly.
Pay attention to context: Reporting numbers in isolation can make them less
meaningful. How are they related to previous periods, to other departments, to
industry benchmarks? Put results into perspective to guide your audience on whether
they are good or bad and whether action is needed and how urgently. Make yourself
familiar with data visualization best practices and apply them where possible.
Your journey starts now
Congratulations on your choice to enter the analytics industry. Working with data and
helping organizations improve their decision-making processes is an exciting field that
offers many career opportunities.
To make a start on improving your skills, identify some areas from this article and set
yourself realistic goals for working on them. Professional growth and development take
time and you won’t reach the top level overnight, but it all starts with the first step, so
all the best for your analytics career.
Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/evamurray/2019/02/19/top-7-skillsyou-need-to-have-as-a-data-analyst/?sh=528051d6368f
Role 9: Generalist
The Value Of Being A Generalist
Paul Genberg
Over the course of my life, I’ve been a professional skier, designed and launched
cookware lines for Giada De Laurentiis and Martha Stewart; created shoes sold at
Walmart, Sports Authority, Dick’s and others; done corporate strategy for a slew of
organizations; and now I’m the interim chief executive officer at Studio X, an innovation
studio that launches products around the future of work in exploration. My career
continues to be a crazy and adventurous ride.
I didn’t set out to help lead a company owned by Shell. How did I get here? By being a
generalist, the “hub of the wheel” that leads our experts and keeps our projects rolling
forward toward success.
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Specialization Is A Golden Cage
There has been so much talk in the corporate world about specializing that we’ve
forgotten the value of being a generalist. We tell our kids, “Find what you’re good at,
and stick to it.” But what if that industry goes away? What if the kid figures out 10
years after graduation that they hate what they do? With no other skills in the armory,
we trap ourselves in the golden cage of specialization. We can only move up and down
on a single trajectory.
The world needs specialists. I work with brilliant subject matter experts every day. But
specializing is not the only way to get ahead and make a name for yourself, contrary to
popular opinion. Businesses need generalists to connect the dots.
What Is A Generalist?
A generalist is a dabbler, an explorer, a learner — someone with broad knowledge
across many topics and expertise in a few. Generalists are likely to have a meandering
career path like mine. Although the life story of a generalist can look a bit disjointed, if
you were to draw a Venn diagram of their experiences, you’ll find a great amount of
overlap as one opportunity leads to another, like throwing a stone into a pond and
watching the ripples spread out concentrically. I’m specialized in product design and
development, but over time I’ve stretched myself and my expertise to encompass
venture finance, operations, engineering, etc. All knowledge builds on itself, and the
generalist takes his suitcase packed full of wide-ranging experience with him wherever
he goes, offering companies a tremendous amount of value.
The Benefits Of Being A Generalist
Broad experience has its benefits. Generalists have a more diverse collection of
knowledge to draw from, so they can see connections and correlations that specialists
might miss. They tend to have a higher EQ, too, because becoming a generalist means
interacting with many different kinds of people in all sorts of situations.
Generalists are the conductors that lead the orchestra.They have a high capacity to
collaborate effectively and facilitate collaborations between teams because of their high
EQ. Generalists also tend to have a higher level of situational awareness and can see the
bigger picture. Where specialists tend to have a high degree of awareness in their own
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area, they may not be great at understanding areas outside their fields. They need a
generalist, a big-picture thinker, to bring it all together.
I know enough about a lot of things to have intelligent conversations with all kinds of
experts, facilitating deeper dialogue that leads to better solutions. I can challenge their
assumptions, or at least ask the right questions and use their lingo to better frame the
problem and solution. You know that feeling when a car mechanic tells you it’s going to
cost thousands to fix your car, and you panic, wondering if they’re taking advantage of
you? Well, I still get that feeling at the mechanic, but I don’t get that feeling at work.
How To Become A Generalist
It’s never too late to become a generalist, even if you’re already well-established in your
career. In fact, if you’ve been doing the same type of work for years, committing to
becoming a generalist now might be exactly what you need to boost your motivation as
well as your skill set. Here are some ways to broaden your experience.
1. Say “yes” to new opportunities. A lot of the meandering on my life path has been
opportunistic. An opportunity presented itself, and I said “yes,” whether it was within
my current skill set or not. Take the trip, go to the conference, collaborate on the project,
go rock climbing for the first time, etc. New experiences of any kind help you
understand your world better. I love the movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey, because he
commits to saying “yes” to everything, and his life changes for the better.
2. Learn the language. If you’re interested in pursuing a new career or specialty, start
by learning the lingo. You’ll impress the people who can open doors for you.
3. Dabble in different things. I’ve always been a dabbler. Today, I can have reasonably
intelligent conversations with coders, executives, designers, athletes and lots of other
influential people because I can always find common ground. Learn something new
today, and you can use it to connect with someone that can help you tomorrow.
4. Never stop improving. There is always a new subject to learn that branches out from
what you already know. Remember the Venn diagram I mentioned above? Start adding
circles to your own.
5. Mind your gaps. Think of what you’re really good at now and what areas of
expertise you’re missing. Connect with people, take classes, read books, and create
experiences that help you fill those gaps. Ask for feedback from people who know you
and who will tell you the unbiased truth about yourself. They may have an outsiders’
perspective about your strengths and weaknesses that helps you grow.
6. Start a side hustle. Side projects help you explore new territory without the pressure
of your higher-ups calling the shots. Even if your side hustle is completely unrelated to
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your current job, you’ll learn valuable skills you can use at work. You’ll learn a lot
about the most important person influencing your career path, too — you.
Becoming A Generalist Is An Adventure You’ll Never Regret
There are a lot of benefits to becoming a generalist, but there’s one I forgot to mention.
It’s also a lot of fun. I’m always invigorated when I test my own limits, acquire a new
skill, and use it to make something great happen at my company or in my career.
Make today your first day of becoming a generalist. Find one small way to branch out
of your comfort zone. The first step is always the hardest, but pretty soon, you’ll be
running toward opportunities and enjoying the adventure along the way.
Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/06/03/thevalue-of-being-a-generalist/?sh=13a6804b2fc8
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