With all the focus on layoffs and unemployment rates, it is sometimes hard to remember that the majority of Americans are still employed. Implement the advice below to give yourself the best shot at keeping your job, and not being on the top of your manager’s downsizing list if your company restructures.

You have a position in the market place.  A position you have either carefully crafted after much consideration or one that you’ve defaulted into unwittingly. 

Let’s assume you have actually done the work; the soul searching of the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats); the research and analysis of your competition – and, let me say that even if you’re developing a PERSONAL brand there is de-facto ‘competition’; the interviews with your customers, team and advisors.  You’ve labored and examined every word in that 100 word statement and feel satisfied that you’ve found ‘it’ – a positioning statement of which you can be proud.  A position you can support and in turn, can support you.  Let’s not forget that positioning statements provide a solid foundation to guide our actions – to keep us on course.  They give back ten-fold for all that hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth.

Martin Brossman, success coach, speaker, trainer and author incorporating social media training, (www.pronetworkingonline.com)uses my profile to demonstrate how to add video to your LinkedIn.com profile. To see this in action, head to my LinkedIn profile here and click on "View Full Profile".

For years I have been coaching sales professionals, discovering that they used to pay for similar information with less quality than the data that Linkedin is providing now at the free level.   More importantly, all sales professionals that I have personally coached have gained clear value and closed more sales when they began using Linkedin correctly.  However, I realize that there are many sales executives who are obviously not using Linkedin effectively, i.e., potentially leaving money on the table.  I hope this list of 5 Linkedin omissions gets the attention of all honest hardworking sales pros and spurs you into action.

“Does your positioning statement pass muster?”

Last month I wrote about the importance of creating a personal brand – that branding isn’t just for the mainstream consumer product companies.  If you buy into that concept – the idea that you are a brand and you either [i] let the market define what that is for you or [ii] take an active role in constructing something you take pride in representing; then you need a positioning statement.

Traditionally, companies use positioning statements to tell the market place what it is they provide, to whom, the benefit, and the difference between them and their competitors.  Geoffrey Moore’s positioning template is very straightforward. 

I interface with numerous HR professionals, hiring managers, and recruiters through my business as a resume writer and career consultant, and LinkedIn recommendations are a hot topic. While some LinkedIn members have none, others have hundreds. Can you have too much of a good thing? And, what makes a recommendation attractive to a company that may be interested in interviewing you?

Think about the networking events and trade shows you have attended in the past. Think about the amount of business cards and marketing material you left with. What did you do with it when you got back to the office? Maybe you scanned in the business cards and spent the time fixing OCR mistakes. Maybe you tossed the marketing materials. Maybe you manually typed in those business cards into your email client. Whatever the case may be, it is time consuming.

Your time is criticaly important to you. As a professional and/or a business owner efficency is what makes your job easier. Poken had solved a number of problems that are a drag on business owners and professionals.

A short guide to videotaping your little one

Remember when a picture was worth a 1,000 words?   Today you’re more likely to hear parents say that “video is worth 10,000 words” – especially if the video stars are their own precious toddler.

Ironically , many viewers of these “DVD moments” might have just one word for those timeless pieces of family history: BORING!!!!   What can a professional parent who is an amateur camera-hound do to capture those priceless moments so that they remain priceless forever?   It’s easy if you just follow a few camcorder rules.

You are already an expert.
If you watch television, you are already an expert in knowing what will capture viewers and hold their attention.   Television may not always offer the best programming in the world, but it does offer you insight into how to use your camcorder to take professional-quality video pictures of your toddler.