Preparing Yourself

Welcome to this second module, focusing on laying the foundations to prepare you to become successfully self-employed

Tackle the module in bite size chunks, don’t feel the need to do everything in one go and allow plenty of time to digest and apply the information covered

The module includes helpful ‘Activities’ for you to complete, it is strongly recommended that you undertake them to get the most out of the content and the key learning points

Allow yourself time to reflect and take on board the advice, key messages and suggested tasks in the programme to enable you to move forward with your self-employed campaign

This module will enable you to

Ensure that your self-limiting beliefs are not a barrier to self-employment

Identify and understand your core values and their market importance

Become conscious of your key skills and strengths and experiences

Develop strong achievements that visibly demonstrate your market value

Design powerful differentiating CVs for target clients and customers

It is crucial that your self-limiting beliefs do not inhibit or stop you from becoming successfully self-employed, so what are they and how can you manage them?

Self-limiting beliefs

Are the negative tapes that play at the backs of our minds

Develop from childhood onwards, they’re learnt not innate

Strongly influence how we think, speak, act and behave

Often originally had a useful purpose e.g. to protect us

For example 'I mustn’t speak out' previously helped to avoid feeling embarrassed

But the negative impact now outweighs the protective value of the belief

Are unique to each of us, but some of the more common ones are

We can replace our self-limiting beliefs with self-liberating beliefs

Below is an example of how a self-limiting belief can be replaced

Replacing self-limiting beliefs with self-liberating beliefs takes practice and determination, but is incredibly emancipating if you can

Practise the new belief in small matters to see how it goes

Use a physical object (e.g. pocket coin) to remind you of the new belief

Some of the more frequently experienced self limiting beliefs in relation to becoming self-employed that you can change and re-programme if needs be might include

'I don't feel comfortable selling so nobody will buy from me'

'I'm not a real entrepreneur like the ones you see on TV'

'I've never done this before so it will probably fail'

'I have always needed somebody else to manage me'

'If I make mistakes or it goes wrong it will all be my fault'

'I'm not a natural networker so new people may not like me'

Your values are

The basic beliefs that guide your words, thoughts and behaviours

What is important to you, one way you judge yourself and others

Values are important because, like oxygen

They’re vital to well being, yet you don’t consciously think of them

You only realise their importance when they’re restricted or stifled

Knowing your values is crucial as

Customers and clients buy you ‘the person’ as well as your abilities

You need to know and feel comfortable projecting your values

Being able to spot and understand your client or customer values

Will enable you to understand how they like to be treated and do business

Will enable you to successfully 'tune in to' and empathise with clients and customers

We are not born competent to be self-employed, we learn competencies

We 'unconsciously' use our skills and abilities – on 'auto pilot'

We need to take a step back to identify and articulate our abilities

By being 'consciously' competent not 'unconsciously' competent

We can then identify, articulate and 'sell' our abilities confidently

Doing so feels awkward, it isn’t what we usually do while in a job

Essentially, the way we learn can be described as follows

Recognising, identifying, and valuing your saleable skills is vital

Below is a small selection of some of the skills clients and customers often seek

Recognising, identifying, and valuing your saleable strengths is critical

Below is a small selection of some of the strengths clients and customers often seek

How many skills and how many strengths did you identify in total? Probably a lot more than you thought you would!

How many skills and strengths could you have identified without the lists? Probably a lot fewer!

The reason why it can be more difficult to do it ‘from a blank sheet’ of paper is that you are currently unconsciously competent - on automatic pilot - as we saw when we looked at how people learn

Which is why you need to take a step back and become consciously competent i.e. become self-aware and do something about it

All of the words in these and any other lists are there for you to use to start building a clear picture of what you have to offer

When painting a visual picture of your skills and strengths

You may wish to attach a describing or qualifying word first to describe them

There are many different ones you can use, provided you are comfortable with them

The following are a small sample, that you are very welcome to use as appropriate

Action words are important 'doing' words in describing your achievements

Below is a small selection of some of the more useful action words you could use

Recognising achievements raises your self-awareness and self-esteem

Articulating achievements differentiates you from other job hunters

Strong achievements answer three questions clearly and concisely

So what was the achievement?

Ensuring the reader understands, recognises and values it

So what benefit(s) resulted?

Confirming the key quality and/or quantity measures of success

So what does it say about you?

Demonstrating the skills and/or strengths that you used to make it happen

'Don’t get it right, get it written' – focus on capturing the key 'so what' info

You may find it easier to start off with your most recent achievements

You may find it useful to print off the 'Word Bank' by CLICKING HERE

Having brainstormed the ‘raw material’ of your achievements, they now need honing into strong, concise, attention grabbing bullet points

This is an iterative process, you will not get where to you want to be first time, it usually takes several goes to get them right

Once drafted, it can be very useful to share your achievements with one or more others to get their feedback and suggestions

Some example achievements that might help you with drafting your achievements are provided below

Where safely possible, once you have honed the achievements, share them with others to seek feedback on how to improve them further

Feel free to use any words or phrases in the achievements that are useful to you as well as any of the words in the 'Word Bank' PDF

Project managed a £1.5m office refurbishment meeting all time, budget and quality targets using strong leadership and consultative abilities

Used excellent networking and communication skills to identify and win new customers resulting in £1.3m p.a. additional gross sales

Won numerous multi million pound contracts including MOD, NHS and Lloyds using effective analytical and negotiation skills with determination

Generated excellent customer feedback managing 11 high volume catering venues and 150 staff by being motivational, energetic and fair

Consistently met high volume parcel van delivery targets with good customer feedback by being highly organised, accurate, diligent and friendly

Regularly received excellent manager and customer feedback for front desk reception cover by always being efficient and professional

Designed and presented a new, more informative, Excel spreadsheet at monthly meetings that measurably improved reporting and shortened meeting length

Negotiated and implemented a new defined benefits staff pension scheme with two unions resulting in a 9% p.a. business cost reduction

The key purposes of your CV are to

Generate interviews, meetings, sales conversations/presentations or other interactions

Differentiate yourself from the other applicants – to get you 'ahead of the pack'

Tell the reader – 'I did a great job for them and I can do a great job for you'

Raise your self-awareness, self-esteem and confidence in your market value

To increase your understanding of your potential target markets and opportunities

A good quality CV

Uses achievements not responsibilities

Is clear, meaningful, relevant and concise

Has the most important info as early as possible

Doesn’t use any 'I', 'my' and 'we' phrasing

Only uses jargon readers will know and expect

Is social media, email and online friendly

Minimum content

Contact details
Social media links

Personal profile
Employment history
Achievements

Qualifications
Memberships

Education
Training

Recommendations

Two or three pages maximum

Specialist CVs can be longer

Simple uncluttered format

Bullet points and punchy

Good white space usage

Spell/grammar checked

Omit, unless requested

Photos or pictures – 2% of the population is photogenic, are you one of them?

Reasons for leaving any job – not relevant to getting an interview and difficult to explain ‘on paper’, best explained and discussed face to face

Age or date of birth – it's superfluous info and, due to age discrimination legislation, some organisations disqualify CVs that include the info to protect themselves

Referees or testimonials – leave until asked for them, then you can choose who you use and give them some advance warning and guidance

Family or marital information – irrelevant info that shouldn’t affect decision making either way

Health/weight/height – if you have any related issues, they are best discussed verbally, if they ask about them

Optional, if congruent and relevant

Interests and hobbies

Charity or NFP etc. activities

Driving licence information

A personal profile statement

Is circa 30 words long and appears at the beginning of the CV

Summarises the key attributes and experience you have to offer

Is your first impression - and you only get one chance to make it

Is not a compulsory feature, but many readers expect to see one

Some readers don’t like them so, for them, keep it short and sharp

The following are a couple of examples of effective profile statements

Reverse chronology CV

The most common and most traditional format

Starts with most recent role and works backwards

Emphasises most recent achievements and experiences

Particularly favoured by recruitment agencies

Good if seeking to stay in similar roles and sectors

Functional CV

Useful if trying to move to a different job and/or sector

Allows you to tailor the order of skills sets as you wish

Focusses on skills and achievements rather than roles

Enable career gaps to be de-emphasised

Academic/teaching/scientific/medical

Either above formats work, but reverse chronology is usually used

Usually much longer than two pages and much more detailed

Below is the an example of a 'typical' two page reverse chronology CV

Let's take some time looking at some of the features and benefits of this type of CV

The following functional CV contains the same info as the previous reverse chronology CV, but by function rather than from most recent job going backwards

It is a format that is most useful for networking, consultancy and when trying to change sector or types of roles

It is least east helpful with recruitment agencies and headhunters who, almost always, prefer to see to see a reverse chronology CV

As we have seen, the best achievements answer three ‘so what’ questions

‘So what’ was the achievement

‘So what’ success measure(s) did it generate

‘So what’ skills and strengths of yours made it happen

It doesn’t matter in what order the three questions are answered, as long as they are

It does matter that

Automated online readers can identify key words and score you to the next stage

Human readers can quickly understand, recognise and value your three answers

Now for some related maths – there are six different ways of ordering the three ‘so what’ answers in a punchy sentence

Let's have a look at real example to see how the six different ways work out in practice to see how they actually read

The three ‘so what’ elements of an example achievement we are going to use are

THE ACHIEVEMENT – ‘successfully led and trained a sales team of 10’

THE MEASURE – ‘exceeded annual sales target by 20% over 3 consecutive years’

THE SKILL(S)/STRENGTH(S) – ‘used excellent coaching and motivation skills’

The six combinations of the three ‘so what’ answers could look something like this

ACHIEVEMENT + MEASURE + SKILLS/STRENGTHS

Successfully led and trained a sales team of 10 to exceed annual sales target by 20% over 3 consecutive years using excellent coaching and motivational skills

ACHIEVEMENT + SKILLS/STRENGTHS + MEASURE

Successfully led and trained a sales team of 10 using excellent coaching and motivational skills to exceed annual sales target by 20% over 3 consecutive years

SKILLS/STRENGTHS + ACHIEVEMENT + MEASURE

Used excellent coaching and motivational skills to successfully lead and train a sales team of 10 to exceed annual sales target by 20% over 3 consecutive years

SKILLS/STRENGTHS + MEASURE + ACHIEVEMENT

Used excellent coaching and motivational skills to exceed annual sales target by 20% over 3 consecutive years by successfully leading and training a sales team of 10

MEASURE + SKILLS/STRENGTHS + ACHIEVEMENT

Exceeded annual sales target by 20% over 3 consecutive years using excellent coaching and motivational skills to successfully lead and train a sales team of 10

MEASURE + ACHIEVEMENT + SKILLS/STRENGTHS

Exceeded annual sales target by 20% over 3 consecutive years by successfully leading and training a sales team of 10 using excellent coaching and motivational skills

As you can see, they can all work, its simply a matter of deciding what works best for you

As you build more achievements you need to use all of the 6 different options for variety

The variety is needed for human readers, of course, not the automated online readers!

You might find it useful to print off the 'Word Bank' we looked at before by CLICKING HERE

Additional example CVs can be accessed by CLICKING HERE

In relation to preparing for your self-employed campaign, this module has enabled you to

Understand and overcome any significant self-limiting beliefs

Recognise and assess your values and their market significance

Appreciate how we learn to prepare you for a steep learning curve

Increase your self-awareness, self-esteem and self-confidence

Express your skills, strengths and achievements powerfully and effectively

Create and update your CV as a powerful self-employment sales tool

Go to the next module by CLICKING HERE

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