Karen Post

Many possess skills, talents and attributes that come easier to them than others. This stuff doesn’t feel like work, and it’s fun.

For some it is writing, rain making, negotiating, playing sports, singing, public speaking or even solving problems.

Many believe people who have these traits are considered naturals. They think gifts are included in the DNA, and are passed down when they got their set of genes.  Or  they are just lucky.

That may be true in a few rare cases. But I’m of the opinion there are no gifts of talent, and luck is extremely over rated, too.  Gifts and luck happen, when you really love something, are passionate, invest in practicing a craft and continuously developing “the whatever”,  they become a very natural, effortless act.

The origin of the gifts is really not so important. What you do with them is.

Here is the big, bad habit that will steal from your bank account every day if you let it.
Under valuing stuff you do that is easy.

This means:

• Discounting the value of your skills, attributes and traits, because it is not hard work.
• Don’t charge enough if you are in business or ask for enough when you work for someone else.
• Or you don’t get your fair share in a collaborative deal.

The value of your skills, talents and abilities and what they will earn you is partly up to the market. Will they pay and what will they pay? But, even more important is what you believe you and your stuff are worth as you control this part of the equation that often ends up in your bank account.

Don’t be guilty of under valuing stuff that comes easy to you. Be grateful it’s fun and do enjoy the experience.

Don’t short change your worth, your bank account or your future.

Internet photo police are a real thing. I learned this lesson the expensive way last year. I received a formal letter from Getty Images citing that an image on my blog from 2007 was copyrighted and the image company had no record I paid for use of the photo. Apparently, big photo houses now have teams of professionals watching the web and also use special image tracking software to find illegal photo usage.

I immediately looked into their claim and found that the blog article and photo in question was posted by an intern who had worked for me. I was not aware that there was a violation as I trusted that the intern knew the rules of copyright protected images and usage.

The Getty representative explained that ultimately the company that is using the photo is responsible for fees on any copyrighted image. While the representative believed that I was not aware of the violation and that one of my employees posted the image, the fee of $800.00 was due regardless.

So I paid the bill and removed the image.

If you are using images in your blog, make sure they are copyright free or in fact you have paid the source to use them.

The Wall Street Journal ran a good story called “A Guide to Happy (and Legal) Tumblr-ing” about blogging, images and content usage. It’s worth reading as they share some excellent places to source all.

Here are two sources I use often.
iStock.com -Low cost, quality images (most images for low res and blog usage are under $10.00).
Picasa.com – Owned by Google offers many images for free usage in blogs (this is good source but takes more time to find good quality and free images).

Plus, don’t forget to tap your own creative work and shoot original photos when you can, there’s no cost, other than the camera. And if you shoot a killer image, just give yourself a bonus!

For more information on photo copyrights and to get free stock photography, view:
Stock.Xchge – Free stock photography

When I was a rookie headhunter in Tokyo I often made the mistake of limiting my questions to a candidate’s interest in changing jobs. What I failed to realize, however, was that these candidates, even if they weren’t interested in my opportunities, were invaluable storehouses of information, information that could help me find a candidate who was interested in changing their job. Eventually, I shifted my focus from determining a candidate’s interest, to downloading as much potentially valuable information from them as I could.  When I realized how valuable the information was, “downloading people” became my number one priority.

When meeting a candidate, I’d usually spend the first ten minutes asking questions like:

• How many people are in your department? What are their names? (Find more potential candidates)
• Is everybody happy at work? (Is this company a good target? Are people willing to move?)
• I know you that aren’t interested in changing companies right now, but if you were interested in the future what kind of job will be ideal for you? (Make a note, and call the candidate if such a job pops up)
• I’m looking to know more people in your industry. Do you know anyone who is well connected and would be willing to meet with me for a cup of coffee? (Almost everybody knows a well connected person. A ten minute meeting with someone like that can be pure gold).

I could think of plenty more questions off the top of my head, but you get the idea.
Another example of how asking lots of questions helped me was the last time I went on the job hunt. I sent a job inquiry email to a web startup company that I guessed had little funding and probably wouldn’t hire anyone for a long time. I didn’t want to prejudge, so I asked if they had any open positions just to be sure.

It was a small company, so the president got back to me right away. He told me that there weren’t any positions and that they didn’t plan to hire in the near future. I thanked him for his time and asked if he knew anyone I could talk to who might be hiring, and he let me know of a networking event where startup entrepreneurs often met. That networking event turned out to be a very good place to find new job leads.

If I only asked if the company was hiring, I probably would have had a very short conversation. Instead, I asked as many questions as I could, and ended up with valuable information. I’m sure I could have found out about the networking event through Google, but it probably would have taken me a lot more time, and I wouldn’t have known if that event was worth going to or not.

It’s important not to get into the trap of focusing on narrow objectives. Doing so will blind you to all the great opportunities that you hadn’t thought of. Download as much as you can from everyone you meet and sort it all out later. When it comes to downloading people, it doesn’t matter if the person you talk to is a CEO or the intern who waters the office plants. Everyone has valuable information. All you have to do, is ask.

Kenji Crosland is a web entrepreneur who does SEO/Blog Outreach work for Teachstreet.com, a website that provides course listings on many subjects, including small business skills classes.  In his free time he blogs about entrepreneurship  and career development at Unready and Willing.