Covid 19 has changed the world of business and everyone in it. The careers of many executives, managers and others involved in the global business community have been altered in ways that nobody could have imagined.
Unfortunately, this crisis has highlighted the lack of planning by many. Everyone working for a company anywhere typically assumed that the company had a plan for them – as well as for the long term growth and profitability of the firm.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. Most companies, except for the biggest, do not have a current business plan. Even the largest don’t have well thought out contingency plans for pandemics.
Additionally, their employees do not have career plans. So in many cases there were people – working for companies without long term strategic plans for their continued growth and profitability – who did not have a plan for their careers either.
Now many of these companies and those that worked for them are wondering, “What do we do now”?
Add to this the perpetual advances in technology and we have the new world of work.
Underlying all of this is the fact that many people have become accustomed to somebody else taking care of them. From birth through their education around 22, Mom and Dad took care of them and then when they started working the company took care of them. Now that this historical security blanket is disintegrating, many will now have to determine how they are going to survive in the new world of work.
Another fact that very few realize is that they are a brand and have to market themselves in the same way the brands that they buy are marketed. The 4 P’s of marketing -product, promotion, price and place – apply to them as much as a product.
In effect you are the product and have to package yourself. Who is promoting you? No one! You have to promote yourself.
Likewise, you have to price yourself for what you are really worth – the value you provide. And lastly, you have to be out there at the right place, which today is largely the internet.
If you are going to survive and prosper in the new world of work you have to develop your unique value proposition i.e. your personal brand. You must market yourself.
What is your unique value proposition?
