Jeff Olson's Linkedin Analytics

After 25 years of corporate communications, I set out to determine where I can help the communications community the most. That led to my two focus areas today: 1) Being a fractional communications leader or leadership/project fill-in 2) Helping communications professionals with their candidate narrative so they can elevate their careers Regarding the first: When I was leading corporate comms for a Fortune 150, my life was full of meetings, fire drills, issues, and spinning plates – no time to work on communications plans execute, coach ... you get the idea. Sometimes executives just need a little help from someone that’s been there/done that and with the know-how to jump in on most anything needed. I wish I had someone when I was leading corporate comms. That’s why I’m that someone now. Regarding the second: As a “good karma” action, I offered to help people with their candidate narrative to help them stand out in interviews The number one finding: Communications professionals are terrific at driving a narrative and messaging for their company or clients. And they are terrible at doing it for themselves and their career. Simply, you can't read the label from inside the jar. Long-winded stories, no key messages about themselves or their work, honing in on what they think others want to hear versus what makes them unique, few results (though they are there), and not driving a narrative that's "sticky" with recruiters and hiring managers. Through these coaching sessions I've found consistent themes and a process has organically come together. ➡️You are the CEO of your career. As such, I treat you like I would treat the dozens of CEO’s and C-suite leaders I’ve worked with. I’m the Chief Communications Officer, you are the CEO. ➡️I pull out every trick I’ve learned in 25 years of corporate communications, including leading comms for large organizations and well-known CEOs, and apply it to the candidate. ➡️ We work through a series of right and left brain questions help us develop unique message threads. ➡️ We focus on results as either transformations (from/to) or Situation-Action-Result that work with the threads. We make them tight and memorable. The outcomes: I’ve found we get to four C’s: clarity, compelling, concise and confidence. A big win: helping you see that you are a badass and tapping into that “when I was flying” feeling. Of course, the ultimate outcome is landing the job and/or making a strong transition.