Visibility Archives - Success With Savitha

Visibility

Why networking is important for your career

By Bhumika Ramesh

Your Networth is your Network. Are you networking enough?

We all might have heard that networking is an essential task. It is – for many reasons, such as to keep up with connections. The right people can lead you to the right places.

It is one of the most important assets in your business. Apps and websites such as LinkedIn and Clubhouse make the process of building an expansive network much easier. In this article, we’ll be looking at some of the various benefits networking can provide to an individual.

1. A channel of knowledge

A great advantage of having a big network is that you regularly get to meet new people and transcend the boundaries of having to work in the same environment every day. The more people you meet from different backgrounds and paths, the more you learn about trends in the market and gain plenty of substance to work with as you actively engage with these connections.

2. It can help you go a step further

Many jobs are hardly advertised and this proves to be a hurdle for the common person. Having a large network can get you in through some of those doors, as opportunities usually travel by word-of-mouth.

Such a network can also help you acquire a promotion by recommendations.

3. You acquire self-confidence

The more people you create connections with, the more frequently you step out of your comfort zone and in this process, you definitely improve your communication and social skills – this adds to your self-confidence and influences all the other spheres of your life. By venturing to keep trying out new things and meeting new people. You constantly improve your skillset.

4. It builds relationships

The most important part of networking is building those deep connections and constantly investing in them over time. This results in presenting many deep conversations, changing perceptions and giving advice among other factors. Having an invested relationship is never a waste of time – there is always a silver lining.

5. It helps you to better your pitch

With the number of people you meet growing higher, your preciseness to pitch what you do in a very short period of time improves exponentially. Often known as an elevator pitch, your intro of who you are, is a great conversation starter you attend networking events or other conferences. Using an effective pitch has a lasting effect on the conversations you have a role in.

Building networks can assist your journey in plenty of ways and some of the relationships you build last for a lifetime. A wonderful part of the experiences you undergo is probably due to the opportunities provided by your network. It’s never too late to start investing time to develop your networking skills and get a headstart!

Continue Reading
5 ways to deal with criticism

By Anusha Bapat

A tough but essential part of everyone’s career is receiving feedback. It can be difficult to hear that you haven’t succeeded at a task especially if you have put a lot of effort into it.

However it’s important to realize that sometimes criticism is delivered not to attack you but to help you improve. It’s perfectly normal for negative feedback to bother you but it will keep coming and you need to learn to come to terms with it.

Here are 5 ways to deal with criticism:

1.Listen to what the person is trying to convey – We are quick to cut them off and defend ourselves. Remain calm and avoid getting aggressive. Evaluate the person’s intentions honestly and then politely offer your side of the story. It is important to be respectful at all times or you might end up saying something you will regret later.

2. Avoid taking it personally – The majority of the time, they’re criticizing your work, not how you are as a person. One comment does not mean they dislike you. Thank the person for giving you feedback to improve and tell them you will work on it even if it hurt you on the inside.

3. Take constructive criticism as an opportunity to learn – This is a cliche but no one is perfect. You have to keep improving in life. Acknowledge the criticism and decide whether it is constructive without a bias. For all you know, your work might instantly ameliorate after taking their suggestion.

4. Allow yourself to feel disappointment and anger – Give yourself a break and try self-care techniques like journaling. If it bothers you too much, go to someone you trust and vent about it. Don’t allow criticism to affect your self-confidence. Remind yourself of all that you have achieved and that one setback does not mean you’re incompetent.

5. Schedule a follow-up a week or two after you’ve received criticism – This can give you a chance to show that you have made an attempt to improve and inquire whether you need to change anything else.

At the end of the day, criticism is inevitable. You will receive it in some form nor the other. You need to distinguish between the constructive and destructive, take it with a grain of salt and focus on improving.

Continue Reading
5 things to keep in mind while choosing a mentor

Mentoring is a great way to create support for you while scaling in your career or business

“A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you, than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you.”
– Bob Proctor

Oprah Winfrey once said, “Surround yourself only with people who will lift you higher”.

When it comes to building a strong, successful business, brand, career or life, you need to have a mentor in order to push yourself to achieve all those big, hairy, audacious goals you set for yourself. No matter your industry or niche, finding a great mentor can really help leverage your experience to build your business and your personal brand. Good mentors inspire you, stretch you and open up your mind. They give you a safe place to experiment, ask questions and save you time by helping you find the pathway you need quickly. They give you the confidence and assurance you need to know that you’re going the right way. In fact, 87% of mentees found that they feel empowered by their mentoring relationship. Good mentors save us mistakes and open us up to their networks.

So how do we find the right mentor?

1) Know your goals. Be clear about what you’re trying to achieve in the next 12 months. 90 days is too short for a strong mentor relationship and five years is too long. Focus on what you want by the end of the year.

2) Look for a person who has achieved your goal. Ask your friends, colleagues, Facebook mates, LinkedIn connections or even Google it or tweet it. Industry bodies can also be a good place to start.

3) Ask if they mentor people. Sometimes you may want someone to be your mentor but they may not be into mentoring at all. They might not have the time or bandwidth to do that. Reach out to them and ask them if they want to mentor you. Once you’ve found the right person, you may have to pay them for their time. This is an investment in your future. A coffee or buying lunch for them is not going to cut it always. Alternatively, you can offer to do something for them, like helping them on a project.

4) Be respectful of the value they bring. It has taken them years to work out what you want to learn in an hour. Listen to them, pay attention and then go in with the questions.

5) Rapport is key. Make sure you like and trust them. You may start the mentoring relationship but then find that your energies don’t match. Make sure you like and trust them before you begin this engagement. They don’t have to be your best friend, but you need to be comfortable enough to have open conversations. You can have different mentors, to guide you in different areas of expertise and different skill sets.

Every mentor-mentee journey is unique. A good mentor can help bring you out of your shell and help you get closer to the goal you are chasing.

Continue Reading
5 ways to grow your connections on LinkedIn

Relation capital is the most important asset you can have

By Bhumika Ramesh

LinkedIn is the top site for expanding and building your network. It’s the evident leader in social media when it comes to developing connections. The more people you are connected to, the faster you grow on LinkedIn – which increases the net you cast. It is a great field to interact with professionals. However, it might be intimidating for the beginner.

In building an efficient network on LinkedIn, connections are the most important element to be taken into consideration. Strategically building your first connections leads to a much wider reach to the second and third connections of everyone else.

Here are a few ways to increase those connections and make sure you reach the next tier in your business network!
- Post regularly
Being active ensures your posts are seen by the LinkedIn community. There are more opportunities for people to interact with you through liking, sharing or commenting on your posts. Posting images or videos ensure greater attention and participation and expose you to more relevant and potential connections.
- Personalize your connection requests.
When sending connection requests to those in your industry or simply in the process of expanding your network, personalization goes a long way. Personalised messages show invested time and the recipient has more chances of accepting the request.
- Engage with your feed
A simple like or comment on your connections’ posts is a nice way to show you’re interest in their content. By joining a few conversations on posts, you can build an audience too. This gives you visibility and greater outreach, and all this while becoming a familiar face in your community!
- Utilize keywords in your profile.
LinkedIn segregates user’s searches based on keywords in their profiles. Having optimized keywords direct searches to you and increases the amount of audience reaching your profile. Completing your profile and adding details such as education, skills and projects undertaken will also contribute.
- Join or create LinkedIn groups.
Creating or joining a LinkedIn group allows you to connect with various professionals in the same industry as you. You could meet Business partners and clients here. These groups allow you to build a relevant network. You can share information and opinions from articles and current news to enhance your views and in turn build your engagement.

Start today! Building quality connections on LinkedIn is a good way to begin. Using these tips might just get you those viable connections!

Continue Reading
3 ways to build your network in 2021

By Bhumika Ramesh

Your success might just depend on those people you know!

Most of us know that networking is an essential task to keep up with connections: The right people can lead you to the right places. It is one of the most important assets in your business. Before progressing any further, let’s take into account the years 2020 and 2021, where a lot of social meetings couldn’t take place due to the restrictions. How do you go about building your network then, especially if you aren’t a people person?

To help you build a stronger network, here are a few tips:
- Stay up to date in your field!
As you start building networks, it’s important to stay on top of the news in your relevant industry or field. Read those newspapers, subscribe to newsletters and keep up with some of the big speakers and influencers in your field. Use Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn regularly. Interaction can help you develop new networks and possibly acquire new clients.

By staying up to date, you can effortlessly bring these topics into conversations with new people online or start them out as ice-breakers!
- Construct win-win situations.
When both parties gain something from the interaction, it’s a much more beneficial situation. In doing so, both parties feel useful and the other person may reach out to you for more opportunities in the future. Building these long-term relationships goes a long way, especially in a business-oriented field.
- Re-connect.
Nobody likes that one friend who decides to contact us after years for a small favour. We typically don’t want to go out of our way for them. To avoid this situation, follow up with people you meet. Talk with them regularly, and stay in contact with them.

Social media can help you do so too. Sustaining relationships makes the other person turn out to be more favourable to you in the future.

A strong and huge network can very well lift you to heights. Interacting with different people from different walks of life gives you an understanding of diversity. Different points of view help you expand your knowledge and so do your communication skills improve. To conclude, the process of networking is a pivotal factor in the life of any businessperson.

Continue Reading
How to be a LinkedIn top voice?

By Deepti Satish

LinkedIn is commonly known as an “online resume”. It does resemble a resume, it exhibits your schooling history, your work experience, skills, strengths, weaknesses etc.

But LinkedIn has emerged to be more than that, it’s a networking site for business individuals and entrepreneurs helping them develop a brand, self-branding etc.

Every person on LinkedIn creates a chance to make their opinion known. They get to write article, posts, show off their skills, voice their opinions on certain situations.

Every year, LinkedIn honours over 300 writers by compiling a list known as the “Linkedin Top Voices.”

The LinkedIn top voices is a LinkedIn initiative that recognises influencers who succeed on the social media platform. They’re the ones who took advantage of every blogging feature—articles, posts, comments, and so on—and made their voices and viewpoints heard by everyone

The Top Voices on LinkedIn are chosen based on a set of parameters related to app engagement, including:

However, just posting consistently will not help you reach the top voices list. It’s all about connecting with people, communicating, networking, and creating a tribe.

People on the list have been very engaging and interactive with their audiences over the year via their posts.
- Engagement provided by posts, including responses, comments, and shares across all content created by each member)
- Follower growth over time-based on posting cadence – that is, how often and how much they post to LinkedIn
Linkedin has top voice lists for various categories. Such as:

Data Science and AI, Design, Education, Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Equity in the Workplace, Finance and Economy, Frontline Health Care, Frontline Retail, Job Search and Careers, Marketing and Advertising, Sales, Sports, Technology

Things to consider if you want to be a top voice:
1. Consistency is key: The more you write, the more your audience will recognise you. As a result of your consistency and interaction on the website, more users will reach out to you. People like it when you try to bring out more content and socialise with others, and this will draw them to your page.
2. People crave real content: Viewers want to know how you feel and what your thoughts are on the topic. Raw content piques their interest further. They aren’t interested in reading any more cliched stories or blogs. Your audience will want to come for more if they savour your authenticity.
3. Use hashtags to join in on public opinion. To join new, relevant audiences with your content, use three to five relevant hashtags in your posts. You will also join a feed and react/comment on discussions from the viewpoint of your company when you connect your LinkedIn Page with related hashtags in your Communities Hashtags panel, further introducing your brand identity to new, relevant audiences.
4. Share a lot of video and visual content: Make sure you have a lot of eye-catching graphics in your marketing mix. Unique imagery, especially videos, stands out more on feeds, making your brand (and Page) stick out.
Some of LinkedIn top voices 2020 are:
1. Hansi Mehrotra – Founder, The Money Hans
2. Kamalika Paddar – Manager – Business Intelligence, Axis Bank
3. Nischala Murthy Kaushik – Global Marketing Director – CTO office, Wipro
4. Ritu Anand – Chief Leadership & Diversity Officer, TCS
5. Sugandha – Project Manager, Title operations, Netflix
6. Roopa Kudva – MD. Omidyar Network India
7. Abhijit Bhaduri – Founder & CEO Abhijit Bhaduri & Associates
8. Aditya Vivek Thota – Software engineer, Visa
You can look at their pages for inspiration as to how to improve your LinkedIn profile.

Continue Reading
How to create a good bio?

By Athena Joseph
1. INTRODUCE YOURSELF
It is very obvious that people who view our bio would spare only a few seconds to look into it. And these few seconds marks the first impression. So, it is very necessary that we introduce ourselves in a short and crisp way but also makes ourselves clear to the reader. Clearly communicate who you are and what you do in a line or two.
1. SHOWCASE THE “CAREER EXTRAS’
Adding a few extra points about your career helps you to stand out from the rest. This may include civic activities, awards and recognitions, volunteering, or cultural skills like language or travel. It may also include other interests or activities that may show leadership, character, or qualities you feel are beneficial to your career.Feel free to add an extra bulletin for these.
1. USE STRONG ACTION WORDS
Action verbs start each sentence off with a bang! Writing long sentences full of dull descriptions does nothing to capture interest. Strong action words, however, are a far more persuasive language tool that allows you to be concise and impactful. They paint a vivid picture of your experience and achievements in a different perspective.
1. START OR END WITH YOUR STRONGEST POINT
Most of the readers tend to start reading the bio and eventually skip the content right in the middle and jump to what’s on the last. Hence, it is important to lead or end your bio with the strongest points about yourself or the work you’ve done.
1. STAY DISTINGUISHED
It is equally necessary that you stay out distinguished from your fellow mates and peers. This could be done by including points like describing a challenge or problem that you overcame, naming the tangibles that you have produced i.e products, publications, brand etc. The most necessary point is to be specific about yourself and everything else that you’ve written in your bio.

Continue Reading
Why Client Testimonials are pivotal to your Business?

-By Deepti Satish

“Average players want to be left alone. Good players want to be coached. Great players want to be told the truth.”
DOC RIVERS

Before buying a product or availing of a service we don’t just instinctively believe what the marketing says about the brand. Instead we go down to read the client testimonials or reviews that prior customers have left for us.

What are client testimonials?

Client testimonials are endorsements by pleased customers or clients who validate the reliability of a product or service.

Building trust and credibility is very important for a business. The business must not only give their clients solutions to their problems but also be the best at it. Clients would be motivated to stay and bring more patrons with them when they have a sense of trust and credibility. Your company thrives and grows in this way.

Client testimonials play a vital role in establishing them. People are more likely to trust what other customers have said about a service or product than what the company claims.

Testimonials add more weight and authenticity to your brand. Marketing is crucial for the success of a brand. Along with great marketing tactics, optimistic brand testimonials are a game-changer that helps the brand succeed. They influence customers and clients to spend more and avail themselves of more services and spread the word about your business once they are satisfied.

According to studies, client testimonies are proven to be 89% effective. It is more effective than hired third party reviews, as they are more genuine and bonafide. They significantly influence purchasing decisions.

How to get client testimonials?
1. Ask them to: sometimes clients either forget or just don’t write reviews. In that case, it’s best to just ask them to do so. You could also ask social media influencers who’ve bought products or services to mention you on their social media.
2. Use a listing service: google, yelp and many other websites allow clients and customers to rate and review the companies that have registered with them.
3. Allow Clients to Leave Ratings and Reviews Directly on Your Website or social media: Although using a third-party review system is great, it might be more useful for your clients to leave ratings and reviews directly on your website. Visitors will be able to quickly read the feedback that will influence their buying decisions.
Finally, client testimonials are more genuine and legitimate, and potential clients will trust them. Third-party feedback and bots can be very transparent and phoney at times. Raw, truthful, and voluntary testimonials are valued by the public.

Continue Reading
Elevator pitch a.k.a Your Online intro

-By Sowmya Narasimhan

One of the powerful tactics of business is your own story, if you know how to say it. In a business, it is very important to possess great communication skills and to put through your views in the most persuading manner. And today we are referring to, the elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is a brief, persuasive speech that you use to spark interest in what your organization does. In our current digital world we use this to introduce ourselves online.

Here is all you should know about creating an interesting and memorable online intro.

Identifying your goal

Pick out the right objective of your pitch. Figure out what’s more promising about your business that can reach your target audience. Make sure you include all the important points in your intro.

Elaboration

You can start by explaining how your organization works. Ask yourself what you want your audience to remember most about you. Make sure your pitch isn’t too complicated and long because as the name suggests a good elevator pitch should not last longer than a short elevator ride of 20 to 30 seconds.

Creating engaging content

You can also add a question, at the end, to engage your target audience. The question should be related to your pitch so that you don’t deviate from your intro. It’s advisable to frame open-ended questions and make sure you’re ready with a satisfying answer to the question.

Syntax of sentences

Once you’re ready with your pitch, put it all together and structure it well. You can also check the timing and remove few sentences if you feel they’re unnecessary. Avoid adding the question in-between your pitch because you might end up losing time while discussing it.

Communication

The way of conveying your ideas equally matters. You have to be humble and confident. Make sure you use professional words and do not include sentences that could hurt someone’s sentiments. Remember to highlight what makes you and your company unique.

Have a quick run-through

“Practice makes a man or woman perfect”

Once you’re all set with your pitch rehearse it until you are confident and it feel elegant to your own ears instead of awkward.

Make sure it doesn’t seem like a rude or aggressive sales pitch. Beware of your body language too. You can practice it in front of a mirror or ask your colleagues to give you their suggestions and feedback.

These are some simple steps that you can follow and create your own elevator pitch and make your first impression the best impression.

When will you use your Online intro?

When you create a video, host a live, join a meeting on Zoom, make a Facetime or Skype call for work and create videos for social media.

We recommend this book for more on Elevator Pitches –The New Elevator Pitch: The Definitive Guide to Persuasive Communication in the Digital Age -By Chris Westfall

Continue Reading
Why having a podcast is good for your business

By Sowmya Narasimhan

Learning through listening is far better than learning by reading. It’s just not my opinion it’s a fact. Research states that regular listening increases reading accuracy by 52% and also expand vocabulary improving fluency. So the best way to put across your thoughts would be by starting your podcast.

A podcast is an episodic series of digital audio files that a user can download to a personal device for easy listening. It’s an effective method of communication that can help you build your ongoing relationships with your audience and community.

Having your podcast can have several benefits that can serve your business.

I’ve listed a few below:

Personalized platform

You would be directly talking to your customers and there will be an active engagement from the listeners. Moreover, it’s a much more devoted way of providing information than sending it in word form.

Easy to use

The biggest advantage of digital platforms is that they are portable. This allows your clients to listen to your podcast from anywhere in the world on any device. Since the podcast is a digital platform it has a reduced cost of publishing. They are also easy to edit and update. You can also use this to grow your credibility and authority with your friends and colleagues.

Promotion of your podcasts

Once someone subscribes to your podcast they will be notified about any new podcast you share. This way they can always listen to your podcast without missing any of it. It’s easy to share your links and advertise your podcasts.

Time-efficient

“A stitch in time saves nine”

Podcasts do not require a lot of effort to listen to. You can listen to podcasts and simultaneously indulge in other tasks. It’s also very easy to create a podcast. This saves time and also helps you to be productive.

Your podcast subscribers are the core of your community and over time, they will be your best prospects for deepening the relationship through cross-selling and loyalty tactics. Well, it’s always better to deliver your content through a podcast rather than writing it on an e-mail or document. So what are you waiting for?

Get started with your own podcast soon and also don’t forget to check out mine below!

Link: Podcast – Success With Savitha

Continue Reading

Visibility

Mentoring is a great way to create support for you while scaling in your career or business

Relation capital is the most important asset you can have