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The marketing experts use a terminology called USP – that is Unique Selling Proposition to describe a feature of product which is its unique proposition to be sold. The same way as an employee we need to have our PUSP (Professional Unique Selling Proposition) – something that makes you stand out from the crowd and this is a very important aspect which may decide your fate on the job.

All senior managers look for someone who can be their trusted soldier. Depending on these few trusted employees (on whom they depend for operational aspects) the managers try to rise up in any company. One of the reason you see many managers when leaving the job they tend to take their team also.

You may be highly skilled or qualified but of you are not visible to senior managers – you are nowhere. There are many ways to become visible in organization but the key is to position yourself in a place where these senior managers will notice you. Here are some of the ways to be visible:

Senior expect to recognize a rising star before they recognized by others in organization. The first step for this is to have a PUSP – professional unique selling proposition that you can talk about to show a potential new manager that you are different to the people around you.

Once you have identified the industry, or area that you want to work in, you need to brand yourself, be clear about your professional unique selling proposition, and practice selling yourself to the people around you who can help you get to the position you are aspiring to.

Note that positioning yourself is not a one day job – you need to do this day in & day out in your career. The dynamics of a successful career demands that you compete in you career every day – you compete when you go for a job interview, you compete daily for the best positions, promotion and pay rise.

So next time when you are in a position to speak in front of one of these managers will you take that positioning step. Yes and keep doing that always? Having an elevator pitch – a GE way in which you are prepared with small conversation pitched (small enough to get completed in elevator) which leave the desired positioning in senior manager’s mind.

Now let’s take an example of how positioning must have helped some of the industry leaders. Mr. Ramadorai CEO of leading software services company TCS has started off as a Trainee in the company and has worked his way to the position of CEO. This would not have been possible without the right positioning he made for himself ever since he was a middle level manager. This includes the way he positioned himself in the right area, networked with the right people, let them know where he wanted to go, and when the right positions came along. Earlier he was America head which is followed by being COO second only to visionary Mr. F C Kohli (one of the founders of TCS). What we need to notice here is that he was prepared for the position, the management at TCS knew he was prepared this position, and he himself right from start knew what he wanted, and he was an undisputed choice for the role.

Unless you put it in practice, then only you may realize the power of PUSP – Professional Unique Selling Proposition. I invite readers to share their experiences of own or people around them. Just add to the comments on this post.

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The above examples may sound unethical but they are a fact. And only those who fail to network pass such comments. Key to a successful career is networking!

The people whom you know and help will be the people who can help you in your time of need. Many of us ignore this critical area and fail to build a network starting early in our career. Of course you may be busy performing your day to day job? You may already know hundreds of persons? But note that knowing is not networking. Networking is creating relationships who can be of your help. Here are few tests to check your networking status:

Breadth of Network: How many diverse types of people are in your network? Do you have people from all professions in your network? Do you have connections in diverse geography?

Depth of Network: How deep are your relationships in network. How supportive the network connection will be in your time of need?

Networking is not a day’s job or a project which you do in a day or month. Networking is a continuous process. Networking is not only knowing someone – it is nurturing your relationships with whim you already know.

Tools to network: Here are some tools I use regularly to network:

• Gmail Contacts: A great place to sture your contacts categorize them in groups and have as much details about your contacts. Will be a great source to keep your contact innformation online.
• Plaxo: Online business cards – beauty is that they can be updated as people move and you always have updated information.
• Linkedin and Xing: Great place to network with people across Geography. Geographical networking was always a constraint earlier and with online networking tools like Linkedin it has solved all problems.

Networking will be even more critical in the bad econimic times that we see now and in near future. With layoffs becoming common everyday – your network will come handy in securing new jobs.

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