If there’s one thing we can learn from our politicians, it’s that you should always be on your best behavior because someone is always watching – especially now since most people carry cell phones that capable of taking still pictures and many can even capture high definition video. To spin that around and look on the bright side, that also means that you have a lot more opportunities than you often realize.

I can assume that if you’re reading this, you tend to deal with people frequently throughout your day. Regardless of whether you’re looking for work, trying to expand your business or simply looking to improve yourself, there’s a good chance that there are people out there that can help you. As I teach the people that take my networking courses, these people are everywhere and often in the places that you least expect.

I’ve connected with people that have helped me at conferences, seminars and professional networking events. That’s not a big deal because most of us have done just that. However, I’ve also connected with people at the gym, in an elevator, on an airplane, on vacation, while at jury duty and even in a waiting area (at a doctor’s office and while my car was having work done).

It’s our natural tendency to keep to ourselves unless we’re in a situation where we’re supposed to talk to other people. But you can often double, or even triple, the amount of connections you’ll make by just striking up a conversation with people who, like you, are stuck somewhere waiting for something. I’ve received tips on where to get hard to find products while waiting in line at the supermarket, learned about a company I was trying to get an interview with while waiting for an oil change and talked a woman into taking one of my classes during an elevator ride.

Even if you don’t make a connection where you exchange cards and set up a lunch meeting, you can still learn valuable tips and information by just being friendly. I met a guy at a gas station (while we were each filling up) who owned a nearby ski shop and told me about an organization he belonged to – I eventually spoke at one of their meetings.

So opportunities are everywhere – especially where you least suspect them. Be friendly, be professional and be kind to everyone you meet as you never know how you may be able to help each other.

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I figured this would be a great topic to kick off Super Bowl week. I once heard about a company that had multiple openings for similar positions and brought all of their candidates in for a day of interviewing at the same time. They had games and activities that the candidates worked on together – one such activity was creating a new cheer for the company. What was interesting is that some of the candidates figured that coming up with the best cheer, or at a least a cheer better than everyone else’s, would land them the job. Turns out it didn’t.

Interviews where all of the candidates are brought in together can be tricky – more so than even the dreaded “team interview“. On one hand, you at least know who you’re up against for the opening. But on the other, the way you present yourself and act around the other candidates says more about you than you realize. I once went on one such interview and found it to be weird. First, seven of us were all brought in to take a standardized test. It felt like I was taking the SATs all over again. A week later, we were all invited back to have lunch with the IT management team –all together.

When you’re in a situation like this, your natural inclination is to try to rise above your competition. You try to make yourself look like the strongest candidate and the others weaker. Being the strongest candidate is never a bad thing, and in some cases, it’s exactly what the employer is looking for. However, when employers use this technique, they are not just looking for people who perform well; they’re looking for people who perform well as part of a team.

Going back to the story about the cheerleading competition, while a good cheer wouldn’t hurt your chances of getting the job, focusing only on yourself would. In this particular instance, it wasn’t the cheers that were being watched by the hiring team – it was the audience. The people that were cheering on an encouraging the others got the highest marks while those that were clearly bored or not paying attention got the lowest. When you think about it, it kind of makes sense doesn’t it? If you were part of the hiring team, who would you prefer?

Needless to say, I didn’t realize this when I was part of what I call the “Team Player” interview. The other candidates that I was seated with during that lunch were all pretty quiet. I talked mostly to the management team, but in retrospect, what I should have done was interacted more with the other candidates and tried to bring the quiet ones out of their shells. Had I taken that approach, I think I would have come closer to landing the job.

So if you ever find yourself in this type of interview situation, remember to shine your best, but also try to bring out the best in the others. If the management teams sees you doing this, and sees you doing it genuinely, it’ll dramatically increase your odds of getting the job.

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Have you ever let an opportunity pass you by because the timing was never right? Is there something that you wish you could do but it just never seems like the right time? Hesitation is one of those things can either prevent us from making a decision that wasn’t well thought out or allow us to procrastinate our dreams away.

There’s a sales tactic related to timing that many people use to pressure potential buyers into purchase something they’re hesitant on. They say things such as:

• If you had waited until you could have afforded the perfect wedding, you would have been too old to enjoy your honeymoon.
• If you had waited until you could have afforded your dream house, your first house would be in a retirement community.

Yes, these are silly examples (and I have a lot more where they came from), but it’s a tactic that works because it’s common for people to wait until everything is perfectly in place before making a decision or taking an action. So I’ve been using this tactic a lot – on myself. It, like many other sales techniques, can be used for self-motivation. I discovered the effectiveness of doing this a few years ago when I used this very technique to push out the redesign for my web site.

I began working on the new site with a friend back during the summer of 2008 and I had a number of things that I wanted to include in the site. I listed out all of the things I wanted it to have, but then realized that there were a lot of things I needed to wait on. I was trying to finish up a few products I wanted to launch along with the new site (I had it in my head that it would be cool to co-promote the new site and the new products), there were some services I was relying on outside vendors on that weren’t quite ready and I was courting some other people that teach complementary topics about possible joint ventures. On top of that, I wanted to change the technology of the website to make it easier for me to update and maintain.

When I looked all of these things, I realized that I would be into 2009 by the time everything I needed was in place. The problem was that I needed it done by September of that year because I had a number of private speaking engagements as well as public classes offered in some new areas. My website, as it existed, simply wouldn’t do as it didn’t have a professional look to it.

So what we did was look at the list and weeded out all the features that were nice to have but didn’t provide any immediate benefits. Then, we focused on what was needed by the deadline and got those pieces in place. The two most important things that were needed was the new design (the old one just looked too amateurish) and the updated information and features to help me convert visits into revenue. Knowing what was coming up on the horizon, I also put some things in place to make it easier to add the additional features.

We ended up pushing it out by our deadline and I was extremely happy with the results. I got a lot of complements from people at my speaking events that had gone to my website to check me out ahead of time (my old site lacked things as basic as a bio on me). Shortly afterwards when my products were ready, I added that part of the site (and I add new products as they are available). Finally, during a slow period, I got the pieces in place to make adding dates for my classes easy. What used to be an hour long task now takes me about five to ten minutes and the information is now consistent throughout my site. Had I waited for the timing to be right, I’d probably be still planning my big site redesign.

I’m sure you can relate to this both personally and professionally. It’s so easy to put things off until the right time: “I’ll ask that guy or girl out when things slow down at work.” “I’ll start looking for a new job in the fall when everyone is back from vacation.” “I’ll start exercising in the spring when the weather gets nicer.” Have you ever caught yourself thinking these things? Throughout the years I’ve been guilty of all three (and many more).

This is where we can get stuck because you can always find a way to make something better. You need to differentiate your “must haves” from your “nice to haves” and get them done. The best time to do something (and complete it) is now.

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A while back, I read “How to Sell Anything to Anybody” by Joe Girard and one concept that stuck in my head was his point about throwing spaghetti at a wall. Joe says “if you throw enough spaghetti against a wall, some of it will stick.” He used this point to describe his philosophy on cold calling – if you call enough people, someone will eventually listen to you. The concept can be used in other areas of business such as sales, pitching ideas and even looking for a job – if you contact enough people, you’ll eventually find someone who is interested in what you have to offer. But wait, there’s more…

There is some truth to the fact that the law of numbers can help you. After all, many businesses use bulk mailings as an inexpensive way to reach new clients – if 1% of the people the items are sent to respond, then it’s considered a big success. The problem is that the bulk approach may or may not work for your situation. The big risk of the bulk approach is that repeatedly sending out mailings may tarnish your image. In the case of postal mailings, you may look like an environmentally insensitive junk mailer while repeatedly sending email may make you appear to be a spammer.

That’s why it’s sometimes better to use a targeted approach. After all, you’re much better off with a targeted list of prospects so that you’re not wasting your time (and theirs) contacting people that are possible duds. Now this doesn’t mean only contact the people that have a 100% chance of being interested in what you’re offering, but it does mean eliminating the people who have a 100% chance of not being interested.

For example, I offer workshops for professional organizations and recently came across a list of 2400+ organizations in my area. I could have sat down at the phone for a month contacting all of these folks or sent them a bulk mailing hoping that one or two might look at it and hire me. But instead of doing that, I spent some time trimming the list down to the 400+ that I figured I had a shot with. The ones I eliminated were groups that were too small, didn’t host conferences, had no budget for workshops or weren’t a good fit for the topics I give workshops on.

This approach has been successful for me as I mainly talk to people who may have an interest in my services at some point. On one extreme, some folks will refer to me to other groups they know of that might be a better fit. On the other extreme, someone will say that they’re simply not interested.

Again, it all depends on your situation. The targeted approach works best when you have a clearly defined target audience for what you’re offering – and if you’re looking for a job or selling a business idea, you’ll probably fall into this category. The bulk approach works well if what you’re offering has global appeal such as a pizza place or generic cuisine restaurant.

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