Finding a career path is one thing, achieving a career growth is a different ball game. Every year, youths graduate from the University full of anticipation and vigor to venture into a chosen career path.
Unfortunately, many get lost on the due to frustration, lack of employment, but mostly due to lack of guidance. Things about the corporate world are not taught in school, therefore articles like this will be quite useful.
Whether it’s your first job or you are experienced in a particular industry, these points would be useful.
Successful career professionals1. Passion
Now this is the first step to achieving a successful career .Choose a career in what you love doing, I mean get paid doing what you love.
One way to know if you have passion for something is how happy you get while doing the job. When you have passion for something, the motivating factor wont be money.
Most times , people dump their passion and go after the reigning occupation simply because of the pay. However, money is not everything.
Without job satisfaction, you will not be happy with your life, because 80% of our day is spent at work. Be diligent and consistent in what you enjoy doing and it will pay off soon.
In the past, nobody paid attention to dancers, make-up artists, musicians. However a few were consistent and today it has paid off. The good news here is it’s never too late to chase your passion. Forget how many years you have spent in the University studying one course or the other.
Many people probably didn’t know their left from their right when they were in school. Haven’t you heard of trained a lawyer turned musician? or pharmacist turned actress, fashion designer etc.
They were probably not happy with their previous jobs despite the huge pay. Be encouraged to build your career around your passion no matter how odd it might seem, you will excel.
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2. Have a Mentor
A mentor has experience in a particular field and and has less experienced ones learning under him or her .So keep an eye on someone who does exactly what you want to do and learn from them.
If you are lucky enough to have access to them, that makes it easier. You can follow them on social media, watch their shows on TV or listen to their interviews.
Another way of keeping in touch with your mentor is through emails. They can give advice or guidance concerning a new project or a challenge in the course of your work.
Having a mentor makes it easier as they have walked these parts before you, so you can learn from their mistakes.
Its also important to note that you can have more than one mentor. If you are an employee you can have a colleague as a mentor within while you have another person outside. It doesn’t matter if your mentor is younger than you in age just bury your ego and learn.It is for your own benefit.
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3. Networking
This is another important step to take when you plan to achieve career success. No man is an island ,so you need to socialize with like minds and always seek information concerning your industry.
Join groups on social media and share ideas, learn from your colleagues. Each one is gifted in one way or the other; it will also help you get referrals.
Someone in the group might have a project that needs more than one hand to execute and might just contact you to assist, for fee of course. Join groups in your place of worship; let people know what you do. Introduce yourself and what you do at any opportunity you get.
When was the last time you attended any conference, forum or conventions that has to do with your field? Try as much as possible to attend at least one conference every year.
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4. Carve a niche
As you grow in your line of business, choose your target customers and do your best to maintain that market share. If your goal is to serve everybody then you might end up wasting a lot of resources .
Make a proper analysis of your type of business and different customer needs. After this, take time to study the lifestyle of the different categories of customers .
This will help you choose those that will earn you more profit and keep you afloat in business. This explains the reason why some products doesn’t come with all the features you expect them to have. The truth is they are not meant for everybody.
An example of this can be seen in mostly electronics .As a businessman ,choose the kind of customers you want to serve ,as an employee choose the employers you want to work for .Oh yes !,you can do that.
Develop your skills and put it out there, be rest assured they will come calling. In the midst of this problem of unemployment , some companies are liaising with an individual from another organization to join them.
Here is another example of carving a niche. Tailor A decides to focus on sewing just school uniforms, while Tailor D sews everything without any area of expertise. Who do you think will excel more in the industry? Your guess is as good as mine.
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5. Research and improve
Never get too comfortable with your present situation in life, change is a constant thing. The world evolves every minute, therefore to be successful; you need to move with time. Seek for information, acquire new certificates, go for training, send your employees for trainings too (if you are and employer).
When it comes to doing research it involves studying your competitors .This will help you know their weakness and strength as it will help to win the market.
Don’t just sit down and bad mouth them or get green with envy. That would only worsen the situation rather find out what they are doing and imbibe their culture.
This applies to employees too .Find out how your colleague meets his or her target, make friends with them, study them. You might be surprised it’s something very simple ,you too can do it
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6. Be professional in everything
In the business circle, presentation matters a lot and people want to be sure of who they are exchanging money with. This is mostly the case if your company is a startup or still on its way to being popular. Therefore, always be conscious of how both potential and already existing customers perceive you. It could be through your social media accounts.
The world is a global place now, your next customer might be online. To be great, you have to be disciplined. You can’t be the MD of a company and go around posting immoral pictures or using curse words on social media. It will not tell good of you and might come haunting you later in life. Do not say when I get there I will change, unfortunately, it might be too late then and you may start finding it difficult.
Following these steps is not a guarantee as due to other factors ,but it will surely help achieve significant growth.Good-luck!