Grow Your Base, Today.

There are several ways to grow your base: whether you're running a campaign for a local political post (a lot of this right now) or expanding your network.

Some Food For Thought:

1. Be visible. If possible (sometimes it's physically or financially impossible), be visible in the area where you’re trying to expand. Assistant City Attorney Aaron Felton who's running for Polk County District Attorney, did just that when he traveled from Salem to Independence for the Fiesta Mexicana to increase campaign awareness and meet potential voters. If you’re trying to expand your banks products from behind a desk, there will be challenges. Prior to merging with Point West Credit Union, the Hacienda Community Credit Union, a Portland-OR based credit union prided itself with a fully bilingual/ bicultural staff and understanding the needs of the local Latina/o community. They made inroads with the Latina/o community because they had bilingual talent and provided that face-to-face client-customer approach in a culturally and linguistically tailored setting. As anyone can imagine the banking sector is a serious, and competitive industry (to say the least). Competing with the larger banks, more conventional banks can be challenging. Nevertheless, expand where your expertise is.


2. Nail first, then expand. First nail down your community, then expand and make inroads. If you’re trying to expand your network in a new area, call your local contacts and have them refer you to several people. An out of town business executive called recently, now he's on our e-Newsletter list. A few years back when I was going through the School of Infantry (Junior School for Boys) at Fort Benning, Georgia, I headed to mass every Sunday. And, every Sunday several of the Latin American Officers and I would head out to Columbus, or someone's home, BBQ and talk politics, law, and international development (of course if we weren't training in the field). In other words, find out what your passion is, commonalities and conduct outreach. It was easy for us-- all of us spoke Spanish. Make these connections life-long.


3. Provide world-class service. Take for instance my brother-in-laws, Izzy and Evodio of Ray Schultens Motors of the Dalles-OR. I don't say this because they're family, but because these two guys will do the impossible for delivering world-class service. They turn wrong into right; customers into repeated customers; sales associate to sales associate of the month (month after month). Month after month their pictures are on the billboard right above the McDonald's (as a token of appreciation). Several times a month these guys pull into our Portland office to stop and say "hi." They come all the way from The Dalles to drop-off a car to a customer. How do they do this? By keeping the customer in their decision-making process. What does the customer want, and deliver it.


4. Deliver unexpected impact. An advisor Jay Bloom of Bloom Anew (we used to gather for breakfast once a month) early on recommended, "have a lazer-like approach rather than a shotgun approach." At the time, our company was doing consulting/trainings, public relations/marketing and recruitment (a mouth full, I know). His recommendations, insight had a profound effect on our company. Today, we only do the latter, and that's connect employers with bilingual talent. To this day, Jay continues to deliver unexpected impact to organizations he works with.


5. Take calculated risks. Its not always easy to surpass organizational expectations. Most are used to doing business as usual. But consider this: remain in a fairly safe organization, or take a calculated risk on your organization's floundering units/departments. Choose the first and no one will remember your name after you're long gone (up for debate). Choose, or get selected/appointed to salvage the organization's floundering units/department's, deliver unexpected impact and you will quickly gain the attention of both those that work for you, and the bosses above you (if you're at the top, it's your customer base). Remember in a highly volatile employment marketplace choosing to stick it out at one organization can be detrimental to your career (unless of course it's where you're retiring from). Again up for debate. Key word here: calculated.


6. Practice and Execute. Extraordinary talent know something. They understand their position and career track impacts their organizations goals and objectives. When their organization is successful, they're rightly successful. I cannot stress this enough. Practice your delivery, just like anything else. It helps if it comes out natural. Practice speaking before your family, before your friends, before strangers. If you're in college take the helm and grab the organization or project by the horns; if you’re in the workforce, under promise and over deliver; if you’re in sales, remember world-class service; if you're in government, don’t just sit there. Exceed the expectations and don't get comfortable. Practice and flawlessly execute as if today was your last.


7. Become a subject-matter expert. If you work on closing health disparities in the Latino community then co-publish an article in the media; be a member, chair a committee; get on the radio. If you work in higher education and are working on closing the achievement gap, then... point made.

The fact is growing your base is not easy, but it's not impossible either. It take an enormous amount of dedication, homework, persistence and patience. But better to have 7 or more green lights, then to have several ambers, and reds.

This Morning.
This morning I received “Get Your Mending Done Now” by Chris Brogan, Social Media Expert. I couldn't have said it better-- I thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted to share it. If you enjoyed it, then subscribe to Chris.
---
Get Your Mending Done Now

You know, LinkedIn is an interesting thing to observe in an economic downturn. Watching people shift roles, change careers, and head back to school just warms the heart, doesn't it? We are at the beginning part, not the end part of some trying financial times, no matter where you're reading this, especially for those of us on the emerging technology front. And yet, there are opportunities that exist that weren't here before. Let's focus on those.

Before you're without a job is the time to nurture new relationships

You might be doing reasonably fine right now, but it doesn't hurt to have your social networks rekindled and warmed up, should a need arise. It's never good to contact people after several months (years) being out of touch. Why not make a point of sending out ten emails a day, a few paragraphs each, connecting and seeing how people are doing in your circle of friends?

Tidy up your LinkedIn Profile

Now is the right time to have your LinkedIn Profile amped up and ready. Not in case of losing a job, but rather, so that you're prepared for any opportunities that arise during all the turbulence. It might be that your specialties at your existing company are just what's called upon in a downturn (a guy I know who specializes in divorce law said that business is up sharply!), so be ready for it.

Connect, Connect, Connect

If you've been on the fence about starting a Facebook Profile, do it now. More jobs these days are found via personal connections than on search boards. Get back in touch with people from old jobs, with school mates, with people in your region.

Market Yourself

It's a great time to start a blog and get people to know who you are and what you stand for. Share your thoughts. Give people a sense of what you value, what matters to you, and what you're thinking comes next. Sometimes, this turns out to be a great way for people to do business with you. They learn about a side they didn't know about before.

Above All Else, Listen

Subscribe to more blogs. Learn about things outside your perspective. Not sure where to start? Get on Alltop and see what they have for you to learn. Make comments, read more, and learn about what other things you might be interested in pursuing, should it turn to that, or learn about how you can do more for your company, should you be lucky enough to keep soldiering on. This is a very empowering time for people, even in the face of the news. We have more tools to learn, to explore, to connect. Let's use them.

---
What else are you doing to advance your career? What are you doing to expand or mend your organization's base? Did you find these ideas and tips helpful? What did BilingualHire miss? As always, I look forward to your thoughts and comments. Thanks again for reading! -David Molina, Co-Founder/CEO, BilingualHire