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6 Mistakes to Avoid When Helping Clients

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Helping Clients: A man is shown engaging with a client at his desk.

Imagine you have an issue and you decide to share your problem with a friend. How would you feel if the friend responded with any of comments below?

  • “Let me tell you exactly what you need to do.”
  • “That has happened to me and I did ________ to solve the problem.”
  • “Tomorrow will be a better day.”
  • “Everything happens for a reason.”
  • “You are not given more than you can handle.”
  • “Think of this as a learning opportunity.”
  • “Have you considered doing _______”
  • “There must be a lesson here for you.”

The list above includes a few examples of common mistakes that people in the helping profession use. At first glance, these responses appear to be helpful and are used when there is a problem to be solved. However, these comments don’t invite further conversation but rather discourage communication. The best approach is a collaborative one: helping the client define their problems and goals and assisting them in finding ways to solve problems and achieve goals.

According to Chang, Scott & Decker (2013), here are the 6 common mistakes professionals make when developing working relationships with clients.

Offering Advice

Offering advice is only appropriate once you fully understand the client, situation, and the challenges faced by the client. You should know the individual’s short- and long-term goals. Otherwise, offering advice prematurely “reinforces the practitioner as the authority and expert instead of demonstrating the belief that the client is able to solve problems and is the expert on his/her situation” (Chang, et.al. pp. 99).

Being Too Reassuring

Reassurance is not an appropriate response to someone’s concern. Saying “it will be OK” is not based in reality – unless you know for certain that it will be OK. Reassurance is offered to reduce someone’s pain. But the pain a client feels can also motivate them to solve the problem. Downplaying someone’s pain can make them feel misunderstood or disrespected. Comments such as, “Don’t worry!” are also ineffective as they minimize an individual’s concerns.

Offering Excuses

Offering excuses for a client’s situation may indicate understanding, but it doesn’t motivate a client to look for ways to solve the problem. It’s more productive to help the client set goals and find ways to achieve those goals.

Asking Leading Questions

Unless the client and helping professional have established clear goals, asking leading questions is like offering advice. The advice is embedded in the question, “Have you considered speaking in a calm voice to your child?” Leading questions do not lead to the client feeling a sense of empowerment (aka the Eureka effect), which should be one of the principal goals.

Dominating through Teaching

Communicating in a dominating way can create numerous detrimental reactions from the client. The client may feel ashamed, rebellious, defensive or argumentative. Teaching in a dominating or pushy way can appear as though there is only one correct solution. It does not stimulate the client to think for themselves and to search for their own solutions (Chang, et. al. pp.100).

Interrogating

Asking a client one question after another makes clients feel as though they are being interrogated. Helping professionals just starting in their careers tend to ask too many questions rather than listening and expressing empathy. “Why” questions can be problematic as they can be viewed as judgmental.

I found this information valuable, not only for professionals but for lay people as well. Regardless of who you are or what field you’re in, I believe these concepts can be applied to any and all relationships whether they are friends, family, colleagues, customers or clients. Next time you’re meeting with someone, try out some of these ideas and observe how it changes the conversation!

 

Reference:

Chang, Scott & Decker (2013), Developing Helping Skills: A Step by Step Approach to Competency. Belmont, CA. Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.

Irma LeBlanc is a Business Development Specialist with The Career Foundation’s Canada-Ontario Job Grant (COJG) Program. 

Think Like a Business: Promote Yourself with a Personal Website (Guest Blog)

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Decades ago you were able to get a decently-paying job straight out of high school. If you went to college or university, you had even greater prospects. I wish that were still the case.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here. We all know that it’s harder than ever to find work. You’re up against steep requirements and fierce competition. There’s no quick fix, but there is one big truth: you need to stand out. What does Google say about you?

Have you searched for yourself on Google recently? What comes up? Is it good? (Is it bad?) Is it something that you have control over?

These are the same questions I’ve been asking small business owners for the last ten years. So many of them still don’t have a website, and they’re missing out on a ton of potential growth because of it. The same is true for the rest of us who aren’t running a business. We’re missing out on growth. The only time we promote ourselves is when we’re hunting for a new job.

But what if we thought of ourselves as more than only candidates for a position? What if we thought of ourselves as businesses? What if potential employers were our potential customers? Think of yourself as a business. There are a lot of parallels between running a small business and developing your career.

Let me explain.

Many small businesses are a single-person operation, e.g. freelance designers. They’re responsible for every aspect of their business. They do their own marketing; their own sales; their own product or service development. They’re up against stiff competition: other freelancers, larger companies, and alternative solutions.

You’re in a similar position. You’re responsible for your own career. You have to get on the radar of potential employers. You have to prove that you’re the right choice for the company. And if you land the job, you have to deliver on the work. And you’re also up against competition, e.g. new hires, outsourcing, and automation.

So what can we learn from small businesses that we can apply to our own career development?

Let’s start from the beginning.

How do businesses find new customers?

There’s a framework I’ve been working on for the last few years called Reach Teach Sell. It’s a way of thinking about how businesses find and keep their customers.

It’s seven steps, and it goes like this:

  1. Reach your ideal customers where they already are.
  2. Teach, entertain, inspire, or inform them to build your reputation & credibility.
  3. Sell them something useful by understanding their goals & challenges.
  4. Support new customers with a great onboarding experience.
  5. Keep customers by delivering value over time.
  6. Refer your customers to others and encourage customers to refer others to you.
  7. Reward your customers for their loyalty and ongoing business.

Now, you might be looking at that and wondering how it applies to career development. So, let’s make some tweaks:

  1. Reach your ideal employers & colleagues where they already are.
  2. Teach, entertain, inspire, or inform them to build your reputation & credibility.
  3. Sell them on your ability to meet their goals & overcome their challenges.
  4. Support your new employer & colleagues by getting up to speed on your role.
  5. Keep your position by delivering value over time.
  6. Refer your employers & colleagues to people and resources that help them.
  7. Reward your colleagues for their support.

The Reach Teach Sell framework, in this case, is all about finding and keeping your ideal job. Potential colleagues and employers replace potential customers. Getting hired replaces making sales. Keeping your job replaces keeping customers coming back. (You get the idea.)

Where does the website come into play? A business website promotes the business.

Your personal website promotes you.

Reach your ideal employers and colleagues by joining online communities and participating in discussions. Showcase your projects and publish blog posts that show what you’re all about. If a potential employer likes what they see, give them a way to reach you, e.g. through a contact form.

Here’s the thing: Customers research businesses before they buy from them. Employers do the same. A personal website that covers this information is a goldmine for recruiters. It provides a level of context and depth that a cover letter and résumé never could.

In other words: Make it easy for potential employers to find you!

A personal website is a long-term investment in yourself.

Your personal website is a collection of your greatest hits. You have total control over what gets published. Even when things go wrong, you can turn those experiences into stories about what you’ve learned.

And the hits keep on coming.

If you’re early on in your career, your website will reflect that. Your content will focus on what you’re learning and doing. As you gain experience, your website starts including more advice and stories. Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, your personal website is actually yours. You don’t have to worry about something beyond your control changing or happening to the platform.

Which leads me to the next point: how do you actually build a personal website?

It’s easy to get started. Here’s how you do it.

Building your personal website in 3 steps:

1.  Register a domain name. Everything starts with your domain name. You’ll use it for your professional email address and for your website. Try to grab your full name if you can. But if you have a long name that’s often misspelled, you may want to come up with a variation or abbreviation of it. For example, my last name “McIlwain” is often misspelled. So, I’ve used the abbreviation “andymci” for years. It’s easier to remember. The annual registration cost will depend on the domain extension you choose, e.g. .COM or .NET or .CA. On average you’re looking at something around $20 to $30 per year.

2.  Set up your email address. I recommend setting up an email address on your own domain name. It’s far more professional than a free @gmail.com or @outlook.com email address. And you can change your email provider without changing your address.

The cost of professional email will depend on the service you use. On average you’re looking at something in the ballpark of $5 to $10 per month for Office 365 or G Suite.

3.  Set up your WordPress website. This is the final part of the personal website hat trick. I recommend WordPress because of its massive library of free plugins and themes. This gives you more flexibility than anything you’ll find on a website builder service.

The cost of web hosting varies depending on the plan you choose. For a personal website on basic hosting, expect to spend between $5 to $10 per month.

All told, you’re looking at a total investment around $250 per year. This covers your domain name, email, and website.

Keep it going.

After you’ve built up your website, you need to give people a way to find it, and a reason for them to keep coming back.

Aside: You may have heard of the term “search engine optimization”. It’s another beefy topic beyond the scope of this post. If you’d like to learn more, check out the beginners guide to SEO from Moz.

For your personal website, there are a few small actions you can take that don’t need a lot of effort:

Connect your website to your social media profiles. Link to your social media profiles from your site, then link back to your site from your profiles. This cross-linking helps other people find your website. It also gives Google a better idea of your presence on the web.

Update your site once a week. Your website isn’t a one-and-done project. It should be growing and changing all the time. Your site updates could include a new blog post, a new portfolio entry, or even a minor tweak to your site’s design. The important thing is that you get into a habit of keeping your website fresh.

Share your site updates on social media. You’ve given people a reason to visit your website by making updates. Now you need to let people know about it! Make some noise on social media. Ask for feedback and suggestions from your friends, family, and followers. You never know – their comments could spark new ideas for you to build on.

The bottom line? Your website is a valuable asset.

Think like a business and promote yourself with a personal website. For a business, a website is like an employee that works 24 hours a day for 365 days of the year. It’s helping them with sales and marketing (and more). Wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of support?

Get out there. Build your website. Control how you show up in search engines. Give potential employers an easy way to find you and learn about you. It’s one of the best investments you can make for your career.

Andy McIlwain has spent the last 10 years helping people get online through his work in web development, training workshops, and community groups. He currently wrangles technical content and special projects for the GoDaddy blog. You can find Andy on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and his personal website.

3 Reasons I’ve Loved Working in the Skilled Trades

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Made in the Trades - Female student participating in The Career Foundation's Pre-Apprenticeship Arborist Program.

If you have a mental image when you see the word “arborist”, it’s probably not a mental image of me. For those who don’t know, an arborist is a skilled tradesperson who specializes in cultivating and managing trees and woody plants – sort of like a specialized lumberjack.  I’m 5’7”, I’m smallish by most standards, and I couldn’t grow a beard to save my life, so archetypal lumberjack I am not.  I have ended up with a career in the skilled trades, however, and would recommend anyone who likes working with their hands to give the skilled trades a shot.

The major impetus for me happened in fall 2012, when I spotted an ad for The Career Foundation’s Arborist Pre-Apprenticeship program, to which I applied for, was accepted and successfully completed. When the General Carpenter Pre-Apprenticeship program at The Career Foundation started in early 2016, I encouraged my brother, Will, to apply, and neither of us have looked back.

What has working in the trades done for me?

1) CONFIDENCE

Learning to safely use, maintain, and repair a chainsaw changed me, and not just because it’s one of the coolest power tools out there.  Before I got into the trades, I’d probably held a drill once or twice, hammered a few nails, and would have looked for someone else to do anything more involved than putting together Ikea furniture.  The first few dozen times I used a chainsaw, the uncertainty of whether I’d be able to get the thing to start put a knot in my stomach.

Fast forward a few years, and I’ve been in more situations than I can count where I had the most training and experience with tools on a job site, and was best prepared to tackle a job safely, or troubleshoot a problem effectively.  Beyond the obvious practical applications of having gained this level of skill, it also made me realize that, just because something is an enormous challenge at first, doesn’t mean I can’t overcome and eventually master it.  That feeling is infinitely transferable to other tools, to sports, to hobbies, and to challenges at work and in life.

2) EMPOWERMENT

With a couple major exceptions, most of the skilled trades have traditionally been male dominated. (Kudos to chefs and hairdressers!)  Today, the world is changing.  Every day I know that by showing up for work and being a professional in my field, I am setting an example: for my bosses and coworkers, for other women, for other skilled trades companies, for clients, for the public.

I really believe that tapping a broader pool of talent is beneficial: for individuals faced with a wider range of options, for industry, and for society.  Working in a male-dominated field as a woman certainly has its challenges, but I do so with the knowledge that I’m helping to pave the way for non-traditional demographics, including women, people of colour, and LGBT+ people, to take a shot at this really rewarding career.

3) RESULTS

Working in the trades, there is never any question at the end of the day as to what you’ve accomplished.  Your achievement is right in front of you, whether it be a tree pruned, a section framed, or a pipe laid.  As a tradesperson, you have made a measurable and tangible contribution to society by the end of every day at work.  In many cases, it will be a contribution that you’ll be able to physically show your children and grandchildren.

Kate Raycraft currently works as Pre-Apprenticeship Project Assistant with the General Carpentry Pre-Apprenticeship program at The Career Foundation’s Hamilton office. For anyone interested in our General Carpentry Pre-Apprenticeship program, please visit our website. 

Navigating a Networking Event: 8 Tips That Will Make Even a Shy Person Comfortable

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Nervous woman at networking event

For some of us, walking into a room full of strangers can be intimidating, especially if you’re one of the quiet types. With every step, the lump in your throat gets more constricting and your stomach feels like it could bottom out at any moment – much like climbing Mount Everest, I assume. While you can live happily-ever-after never having climbed Everest, networking is something you can’t really avoid if you want to make connections with the “Who’s Who” of the business world. Being able to network effectively is a great tool to have in your arsenal for career success.

Here are eight tips to help you step out of your comfort zone and network like a boss:

Research

If you’re attending a networking event, do a little investigating beforehand. Find out who the host is and search their name on Google or LinkedIn. They could be an old schoolmate or maybe they recently achieved a milestone. A quick search can help you find a way to break the ice with the host of the event.

Dress like a boss

Ensure you are dressed professionally. Iron everything!

Just do it

Take a deep breath before walking into the room. Keep your head up, shoulders back and stand up straight. Stepping into a room full of strangers gets easier each time.

Perfect you elevator pitch

No matter what you do or the purpose of the event, always come prepared with strong talking points. If you’re a job seeker networking with potential employers, ensure you’re able to convey how you would be an asset to the company. If you’re a business owner, who knows your business better than you?

Be prepared to talk about yourself or your business if the occasion calls for it. Keep your pitch short and to the point – no more than 30 seconds.

If you’re simply trying to make connections, go with casual talking points; something current or newsworthy like a new book or movie release will do. Try to steer clear from politics and religion.

And don’t forget to bring your business card if you have one!

Don’t go alone

Go with a colleague or friend. Having someone you know in the room can help calm your nerves.  However, don’t treat your buddy like a crutch – be sure to mingle on your own as well.

Ask for an introduction

If you know the host of the event, ask them to introduce you to some of their guests. Don’t be afraid to ask someone you know to introduce you around.

Focus on the person standing alone

You might be a nervous wreck, but you’re not the only one. There’s usually someone standing in the room by themselves, likely just as nervous about networking. Make eye contact with him or her. Smile and introduce yourself. Find something to compliment, such as their shoes, briefcase, watch, and so on (but keep it professional, of course!)

Practice

Use your colleagues as guinea pigs! Don’t shy away from work events and staff meetings. Practice your networking skills by talking to people from different departments. This will help you get comfortable speaking with people and will also help improve your conversation skills.

Practice makes perfect, so implement some of the tips above to help you navigate any networking event.

PS – Keep in mind that a lot of people like to talk in general, so you’ll often find that sometimes all it takes is a smile, friendly introduction, and quick icebreaker to steal someone’s attention – and ideally lead to the next stage in your career!

Jodi Darby is a Business Developer with The Career Foundation’s Canada-Ontario Job Grant (COJG) Program, and has successfully navigated her way through dozens of nerve-racking networking events over the past few years. Connect with Jodi on LinkedIn.