Thursday, March 15, 2012

Interview Questions - Answers for Marketers

1. Tell me about yourself.

This does not mean tell me everything. It means tell me in a few sentences why you’re the most suitable candidate for the job. Talk about your relevant education, experience, key results and achievements. Remember to tailor your answer to the specific job using an example or two to back up your answer. If this was your one chance in the interview to sell yourself and tell the interviewer what you can do for them, what would you say?

2. Why do you want to work for us?

Here’s where your research about the company will help you to stand out from the other candidates. Explain how you’ve always wanted the opportunity to work with a company that, for example, is a leader in innovative products. The best source for research is the company’s website. Read through their annual reports, look at their products and services and try to gain an understanding of the structure of the company (size and number of employees) and the market it’s in. Also research the company’s competitors and other organisations operating in the same field.

3. Can you give me an example of a marketing campaign that did not work out as you had planned?

It is important that you are able to recognise why a plan went wrong and to learn from the experience. Campaigns often fail due to poor research and groundwork, poor planning and follow through of objectives and goals or ineffective communication. Be open about why the campaign failed, take accountability and focus on what you learnt.

4. Tell me about a marketing project that you brought in on time and under budget.

Focus on your planning and organising skills to get the best return on the marketing budget. Detail what controls were put in place to track and stay on top of expenditure and how plans were adjusted when necessary. Discuss your ability to react quickly and accurately to meet new demands and constraints.

5. Describe a situation in which an innovative course of action was necessary?

Talk about how you gained a clear perspective before deciding on the focus of your innovation. How you took into consideration the available resources to determine the best course of action. Explain the action taken and why it was innovative.

6. Give me an example when you’ve convinced someone to do something they didn’t want to do.

Consider a situation when you convinced someone to do something which they initially had severe doubts about. Talk about the methods you have used to convince someone as well as how persistent you needed to be. Show that you enjoy influencing other people as well as being good at it.

7. Which of our products/services most appeals to you and why?

For any marketing interview you must familiarise yourself with what the company does and it’s successful products/services. This will allow you to identify its appeal and then describe how the marketing strategy has worked. An example might be Walker’s crisps tasting nice and through the good marketing strategy are now also perceived as good fun which is obviously important when one of their biggest markets is children.

8. Tell me about a brand that you think is an example of good marketing.

Identify one of your favourite brands and it’s positioning and target. In other words, who is the brand trying to reach and what are they trying to tell them. Discuss how the brand uses the marketing variables to support its positioning using the 4 P’s (product, price, place and promotion) and give examples about how your brand delivers against each.

9. Analyse this advert and pretend that you are the client looking at it for the first time. What do you think?

Look closely because the advert won’t be perfect. Begin by defining that a great advert makes people want to run out and buy the product. Great adverts might not win awards but they sell products. The most effective adverts tend to have a unique, relevant product benefit, a strong link between the brand and the benefit and are engaging through use of words and colour.

10. If you were a brand, which brand would you be and why?

Here is your chance to market yourself. You know what the interviewer is looking for as you will have done your homework so now is the time to pull out an example that shows you have it. This is also your opportunity to differentiate yourself from other candidates.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Forex Trading

Forex - The biggest market on earth today within a daily turnover of
over US$4-5 trillion!!!










Due to the higher demand, the EUR/USD gives an investor plenty opportunities to make money.

The daily average movement is nearly 1% and with the leverage of 100:1 provided by us you can turn a 1% change into 100%.

You may have unlimited profits, but by using the 'Amount to risk' function, you can control the amount you wish to risk on each trade.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Public Speaking

Presentation Tips for Public Speaking

Know the needs of your audience and match your contents to their needs. Know your material thoroughly. Put what you have to say in a logical sequence. Ensure your speech will be captivating to your audience as well as worth their time and attention. Practice and rehearse your speech at home or where you can be at ease and comfortable, in front of a mirror, your family, friends or colleagues. Use a tape-recorder and listen to yourself. Videotape your presentation and analyze it. Know what your strong and weak points are. Emphasize your strong points during your presentation.

When you are presenting in front of an audience, you are performing as an actor on a stage. How you are being perceived is very important. Dress appropriately for the occasion. Be solemn if your topic is serious. Present the desired image to your audience. Look pleasant, enthusiastic, confident, proud, but not arrogant. Remain calm. Appear relaxed, even if you feel nervous. Speak slowly, enunciate clearly, and show appropriate emotion and feeling relating to your topic. Establish rapport with your audience. Speak to the person farthest away from you to ensure your voice is loud enough to project to the back of the room. Vary the tone of your voice and dramatize if necessary. If a microphone is available, adjust and adapt your voice accordingly.

Body language is important. Standing, walking or moving about with appropriate hand gesture or facial expression is preferred to sitting down or standing still with head down and reading from a prepared speech. Use audio-visual aids or props for enhancement if appropriate and necessary. Master the use of presentation software such as PowerPoint well before your presentation. Do not over-dazzle your audience with excessive use of animation, sound clips, or gaudy colors, which are inappropriate for your topic. Do not torture your audience by putting a lengthy document in tiny print on an overhead and reading it out to them.

Speak with conviction as if you really believe in what you are saying. Persuade your audience effectively. The material you present orally should have the same ingredients as that which are required for a written research paper, i.e. a logical progression from INTRODUCTION (Thesis statement) to BODY (strong supporting arguments, accurate and up-to-date information) to CONCLUSION (re-state thesis, summary, and logical conclusion).

Do not read from notes for any extended length of time although it is quite acceptable to glance at your notes infrequently. Speak loudly and clearly. Sound confident. Do not mumble. If you made an error, correct it, and continue. There is no need to make excuses or apologize profusely.

Maintain sincere eye contact with your audience. Use the 3-second method, e.g. look straight into the eyes of a person in the audience for 3 seconds at a time. Have direct eye contact with a number of people in the audience, and every now and then glance at the whole audience while speaking. Use your eye contact to make everyone in your audience feel involved.

Speak to your audience, listen to their questions, respond to their reactions, adjust and adapt. If what you have prepared is obviously not getting across to your audience, change your strategy mid-stream if you are well prepared to do so. Remember that communication is the key to a successful presentation. If you are short of time, know what can be safely left out. If you have extra time, know what could be effectively added. Always be prepared for the unexpected.

Pause. Allow yourself and your audience a little time to reflect and think. Don't race through your presentation and leave your audience, as well as yourself, feeling out of breath.

Add humor whenever appropriate and possible. Keep audience interested throughout your entire presentation. Remember that an interesting speech makes time fly, but a boring speech is always too long to endure even if the presentation time is the same.

When using audio-visual aids to enhance your presentation, be sure all necessary equipment is set up and in good working order prior to the presentation. If possible, have an emergency backup system readily available. Check out the location ahead of time to ensure seating arrangements for audience, whiteboard, blackboard, lighting, location of projection screen, sound system, etc. are suitable for your presentation.

Have handouts ready and give them out at the appropriate time. Tell audience ahead of time that you will be giving out an outline of your presentation so that they will not waste time taking unnecessary notes during your presentation.

Know when to STOP talking. Use a timer or the microwave oven clock to time your presentation when preparing it at home. Just as you do not use unnecessary words in your written paper, you do not bore your audience with repetitious or unnecessary words in your oral presentation. To end your presentation, summarize your main points in the same way as you normally do in the CONCLUSION of a written paper. Remember, however, that there is a difference between spoken words appropriate for the ear and formal written words intended for reading. Terminate your presentation with an interesting remark or an appropriate punch line. Leave your listeners with a positive impression and a sense of completion. Do not belabor your closing remarks.

Thank your audience and sit down.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

A True Leader

8 tips for becoming a true leader

By Jeff Wuorio

On the surface, the difference between a step and a stumble seems obvious.

But in business, plotting long and hard to climb into a leadership role often is indistinguishable from inadvertently falling into one. The fact is, whether you take a deliberate step toward an objective or immediately trip on a shoelace, you may end up in the same spot. Put another way, many people who have a laser focus on getting to the top make it there no faster than those who have a leadership opportunity thrust upon them.

Yet knowing the difference between thoughtful business leadership and the kind that happens seemingly by accident is critical—not only in your ability to grow and develop as a leader, but to establish a pattern of success that's deliberate, not miraculous.

Here, then, are eight attributes that separate genuine leadership from leadership that's more a matter of chance:

1. Real leadership means leading yourself. Passing out orders is as easy as passing out business cards. But a prudent leader also knows how to lead himself or herself—not merely to provide a genuine example to others, but to become a working element of the overall machinery of your business. "It's important that leaders have the ability to focus and motivate themselves as they motivate others," says Larraine Segil, an author and consultant who teaches executive education at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

2. Don't be a monarch. Thoughtful leadership likely means you already have a talented work force in place. That's terrific. But be careful not set up a throne room in the process. Accidental leaders often inadvertently establish a system of guidance that's unnecessarily restrictive. Guide employees, but don't implement more parameters than are absolutely necessary. "It's important to influence the people with whom you work," says Segil. "Don't see your business as a hierarchy."

3. Be open to new ways of doing things. One potential land mine of a prosperous operation is to repeat anything that proves successful. It's hard to argue against that, but an inadvertent leader will put far too much stock in sticking with what always works. By contrast, thoughtful leadership acknowledges success but also recognizes there are always ways to do things better.

4. Remember that white males are fast becoming a minority. Statistics show that white males now make up only a small fraction of the workplace population. Couple that with growing partnerships across borders, and it becomes obvious that blending a variety of cultures and backgrounds in a work environment is an essential leadership skill. A thoughtless leader will try to cope with this as best as he can. One with more vision will work to take advantage of differences. "Competition—the constant push for faster, better, cheaper — mandates that we learn to effectively deal with differences in the workplace," says career consultant Susan Eckert of Advance Career and Professional Development in Brightwaters, N.Y. A company that weaves an appreciation of diversity into its cultural fabric will make itself "unbeatable," Eckert says.

5. Establish a genuine sense of commitment. I must admit this is a personal sore point with me. I've seen too many company slogans and catch phrases whose import is no deeper than the paper they're written on. Want to be "committed to superior service"? More power to you, but a genuine leader will see that as words and little else. Instead, put some meat on those bones—establish how to quantify excellence, design a cogent plan to achieve it, and set a reasonable but real timetable for its completion.

6. Finish the job. Many business leaders yak about their complete game, but how many actually finish what they say they're going to start? A thoughtless leader who never genuinely finishes anything loses the confidence of clients and customers. That lack of follow-through isn't going to be lost on his or her employees, either. Instead, set goals and establish pragmatic, accountable measures to actually finish what you start. "The ability to complete things is critical," Segil says. "Nothing's useful unless you actually complete it."

7. Show genuine appreciation. Thoughtless leaders must have forearms like Popeye's, what with all the back-slapping they do. That's fine, but good performance requires a more substantive response. Leaders with an eye to the future hand out praise but augment it with real rewards: promotions, raises, bonuses, and other tangible tokens of appreciation. That motivates your people, not only to apply themselves with enthusiasm but to stick around your company longer than they might otherwise.

8. Know that leadership skills come from learning, too. Far too many business executives believe leadership skills stem from some sort of wondrous epiphany or other such flash of insight. Sure, great ideas can come to any of us, but being a bona fide leader also means study. Read books on effective leadership, attend seminars, and pick the brains of colleagues to see what works for them. It can be a long education, but one with rewards that multiply with the more knowledge you have under your belt.

I love the above observations by Jeff Wuorio - Prathap G.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Things to worry about

In 1933, renowned author F. Scott Fitzgerald ended a letter to his 11-year-old daughter, Scottie, with a list of things to worry about, not worry about, and simply think about, as follows.

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about:

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Things to think about:

What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:

(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?

With dearest love,

Daddy

(Source: F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters )

Monday, February 06, 2012

Alpha and Omega

Lord Jesus Christ.....

“And I saw a great white throne, and I saw the one who was sitting on it ... And the one sitting on the throne said ... ’I am the Alpha and the Omega - the Beginning and the End.’” (Revelation 20:11; 21:6)

It is the Lord Jesus Christ who rules from the great white throne. Jesus had already told his disciples that he would be the final judge of men. He promised that those who put their trust in him would be saved from the judgment of sin, but those who reject him will be judged.

So did Jesus claim to be God, or was he simply misunderstood. Let's take another look at Jesus' claims and ask: would Jesus have made such radical claims if he was not God?

• Jesus used God's Name for himself

• Jesus called himself "Son of Man"

• Jesus called himself "Son of God"

• Jesus claimed to forgive sin

• Jesus claimed oneness with God

• Jesus claimed all authority

• Jesus accepted worship

• Jesus called himself the "The Alpha and Omega"

• Jesus called himself "God"

Some might say, "how can we believe Jesus' claims? What proof did he leave?" Three days after his crucifixion, his disciples claimed they saw him alive. If their story was a hoax, it would have died out as the Romans submitted them.

“What is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again.”[16]

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Specialization is for insects

A human being should be able to :

1. change a diaper,
2. plan an invasion,
3. butcher a hog,
4. conn a ship,
5. design a building,
6. write a sonnet,
7. balance accounts,
8. build a wall,
9. set a bone,
10. comfort the dying,
11. take orders,
12. give orders,
13. cooperate,
14. act alone,
15. solve equations,
16. analyze a new problem,
17. pitch manure,
18. program a computer,
19. cook a tasty meal,
20. fight efficiently,
21. die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects.

Robert A. Heinlein,
science fiction author, in Time Enough for Love.

I love it – Prathap G., Sharjah