“Being an irreplaceable employee is non-fiction. It’s the way and reward for those who are willing to pay the price.”
Cristina Imre
Bonus! The audio version available at the bottom.
What’s your job description?
Because in this post I don’t care about your title, I care about what you’re doing. In order to become irreplaceable at your job as an employee, you need to know two things at first.
- What is expected of you to do?
- What are you actually doing?
Keep this in mind.
“Your clients pay your bills. Put them first.”
It doesn’t matter if you are an employee who has nothing to do with sales, or you are an athlete or even a celebrity hired by a brand. Your clients are those who pay the brand or the company you’re representing and work for, so they are your first responsibility.
Coworkers
Next on your list are your colleagues with whom you interact on a daily basis. Are you aware that you most likely spend extra hours with your coworkers than your family? Wouldn’t matter if the relationship with them is stunning? For obvious reasons.
Thing is humans should be rational creatures, but the reality proves us otherwise. We all know so many basic things. But still, we act like the hoard, even if the behavior denies any logic or common sense.
But what all these have in common with being irreplaceable? Everything. Let’s begin. Only allow me one more crucial thing.
Your Future
In the nearest future, this question will become at the most importance. Because if you are aware of the seasons in business or economics, you should see many warning signs about a new winter. No, it’s not about the Game of Thrones, although the new season is coming too, and the message is the same. Winter is coming. If you’re not aware of the concept you can look around, or see the Tribute video I prepared with my dearest mentor – Jim Rohn – on my YouTube channel here.
The good news?
Not for all.
Why not be you?
How? Let’s see.
You’re here because something about the word irreplaceable clicked in your head. If that’s a thought going through your mind, it’s a sign that you’re probably sensing something about your job. The security you once had, the opportunities and options go a bit shady. Our senses are always right. We can detect the seasons, but we also make a good job ignoring them if the majority acts as such.
Your salvation for the winter
Think about yourself as a brand. That’s it.
In the new era, you’ll want to be a brand no matter what it takes and no matter the hard work you’ll need to put in. Your survival is to stand out when the hard times come. Everyone can succeed in quiet waters; everyone can enjoy a happy time.
But as I said there are signs out there when old practices are giving their last breaths. People get replaced by machines, and everything you do that can be standardized or easily learned by others is a dead end for you.
It’s inevitable. As I said, the internet came to save us drowning into a sea of human waste. Literally? Well, pretty much. Don’t you believe me? I’ll take the challenge.
Entitlement
Look the new generation biggest problem. Entitlement. We have a generation of the smartest people, continuing the route of the evolution cycle. They are also techy, which is excellent. But most of them were raised with the magic pill formula. And that’s on education. Both, at home and at school.
Once they got out the school, the entitled ones suffer depression or confusion that suddenly they are not the rock stars anymore, and there is no red carpet for them. They are not willing to put in the hard work. But will buy those magic titles. Lose your weight in 30 days | one week or while you sleep, eat, and eventually go brain dead. If that’s you – wake up!
On the other hand, there are all the marketing formulas where you’ll find similar titles for everything. The mass targeting for quick rewards transformed a collective mind into the illusion that everything they want is one corner away.
It’s not. And when reality hits the fan, terrible things happen. Most of all, the unhappiness level reaches new levels, so substitutes and addictions win the game. It’s a quick fix. Right? Taking drugs, drink, fight, all these things give a quick compensation to someone who was raised under such messages.
So I mentioned education and marketing. The family part became something like, give the kid what he needs to leave you alone because you’re too busy. Don’t prepare them for life, but leave it all in the hands of the mandatory schooling and entourage. Let them teach how to comply in a world where compliance will eventually kill dreams, lives, and destinies.
Marketing now is on the verge of a tipping point. The old techniques, media, the TV will have a significant shift, and mass targeting will become impossible. Only for those who prepared for the winter for decades or at least some years before.
Now, this is the reality you’re in as an employee.
It’s actually a great reality. Like I said and will continue saying, it washes out a vicious road we’ve left in our lives and brings up the need for excellence, humanity and all those characteristics that define us as a higher species on this Earth. And here you come in.
Your mission and the safe bet
I’ll give you a magic formula. Isn’t this sounds nice? I just complied with the norm to make my message reachable. Be kind.
But seriously do this, and you’re on the right track.
The Formula
Think about your job description, but most of all think about what’s expected of you and do 1% more.
That one percent is your brand. Your differentiator. That extra mile makes the difference, and you know the saying, “it’s never too crowded.” At least not yet.
Let’s take an example:
Your industry: Customer Service
Job description: greet the customers, give them all the information they need and help them when they have an issue.
What’s expected?
Here things change a little.
Your boss expects you to make the customers feel welcomed, attract new customers to grow sales. You need to document your work and keep data on the customers for the CRM.
Your customers expect to treat them like they are the most important person you ever met.
Your extra 1% (ONLY after you’ve met the initial expectation)
You’ll know that the next customer who’ll enter is Marry, she has two small children, Adam and Steve, divorced. She’s always depressed and apathetic. She works part-time as an accountant. When Marry opens the door, you’ll greet her:
“Hello, Marry. So lovely to see you again – and genuinely smile because you care. I was wondering the other day about you. Do you know that there is a new center for kids in your area? I was thinking about Adam and Steve. They would love it. The personnel is excellent, they are very flexible with the arrangements and also connect parents through special events. Here are the name and all the contact data you would need. I just wrote it down for you knowing that you’ll come.”
Do you think that’s much? No, it’s not. You have opportunities to find out those data pretty quickly, and then focus on how you can provide extra value to that particular person.
Of course, you can do other kinds of 1 %s. Like: “Ooh, your bracelet looks so nice. I didn’t saw this before. Is it new?” and loosen up the conversation making your customer feel better, appreciated and more relaxed.
Your 1%
The ways you can do it are infinite, but keep in mind that giving extra value will always win instead of a nice chit-chat, although many don’t do that either.
Imagine a society where every working person thinks about its customer this way. How wonderful that would be. Everywhere you go, you know they have you, not a regular John Doe, in their mind. Imagine the possibilities the quality of our lives in all fields.
And now the question. If you like it why not initiate it around you? If not you who? If not now when? It’s not always the bad apple ruining the bunch. Sometimes it’s reversed. A true empathetic leader who changes the entire organization. Why not you be that leader? Show others the way.
You as your brand
If you consider yourself as a brand, things will change for you. You are not your title; you are not a sheep. You have an immense potential with a mission. I won’t talk about your mission in this one, but that’s something you should figure out soon.
Now I want to save your job. Not precisely the one you’re having now, but any role in any waters. This article is pragmatic with valuable rewards on the sideline. The central part is to see your job with different eyes. It applies to whatever you’re doing.
It could be any specific moment for you, a transition between jobs, or something you just took for any other reasons that support your family. Or you could experience a new beginning now.
It doesn’t matter. If you want better, you need to change first. And you can do it anywhere, doing anything. With that extra 1%, you can gain popularity, respect, friends, fans, a like-minded, more money, self-confidence and this is exactly what a brand stands for.
Isn’t this cool?
And now an extra. Again, doesn’t matter what you do in order to become a brand in the new era. You need to be online.
The TOOL
Technology and the internet will force any business, any employee to be out there. For so many reasons. Everything will run from there. And when things get hard for a company, even if it’s your own company, guess who will stay or will find another good or better job/opportunity when most of the others will be laid off or will struggle?
The one who already has a brand. Since everyone will need to be out there an employee who already has a brand, already has a community of people around, will win.
The future is full of communities. Smaller ones, but more closest every day. The saturation of too much data and spam will have this effect also. People will just cut out things from their lives and focus on their nearest groups, nearest mindsets, and like-minded people.
Attention! I am not telling you to build a huge social followers network, maybe even buy some followers and such. Artificial inflation has the same toxic effect as the magic pill. It will vanish, very fast, in a hideous way.
Here is the good part. You need to be YOU, make your voice heard. That’s the way. In the meantime you’ll find yourself, your true self and everything is for the better. Who wouldn’t believe that? Being who you are, performing and growing one day at a time, living your life not others. This is the future for the winners. But it takes work – NOT magic pills.
YOU and YOUR JOB
And while constructing a genuine brand of yourself – with effort and a lot of time investment – you need to translate that into your workplace. Doing that extra 1%. Finding your authentic voice should already help because we tend to get better in all segments when we are on the right path. Our happiness level grows, self-confidence, determination, all those cool inner resources get activated. And eventually, you’ll find yourself and your mission. But until then you’ll transform as a person, as an employee.
Meaning, you’ll care about the client, and regardless of where you are through the funnel, you’ll have them in mind while making your contribution. You’ll do that extra 1% to make sure the quality is good; the package is excellent, the numbers add up. You’ll build up each step day after day doing a better job than yesterday. Armed with the inner positive state which triggers your mind that you did a good job you’ll translate that into your brand, your online presence. Naturally. You’ll help and inspire others this way. Your community will grow.
Another day you’ll be focused on your colleague whose son got sick and who’s very troubled at work. You’ll go to him and put your hand on his shoulder. Ask if you can do something for him. Or even better, tell him that you’ll take over his responsibilities for the day. No strings attached.
And you’ll do this every day, for one colleague at a time. In six months, guess who’ll be the most popular, loved, trusted employee in that circle? And imagine who will find out about it? Yes, your boss, your network. Your family will also be happier sensing someone who’s feeling good about himself. We cannot have a happy family without being happy about ourselves as a person.
It’s a spiral.
The same way we got into this mess, we can get out with some common sense and awareness.
Imagine a world where everyone acts this way, showing their strength and their personality in the best way possible. A time when you can find everything about everyone online and the opportunities will follow their unique traits.
It will come. Maybe not tomorrow. In the beginning, there will be struggles because as I mentioned at the beginning people tend to wake up with some decades delay. But not you.
Building a brand, YOU – takes time. Time for self-discovery, getting better, becoming a better listener with attention to details to help your client for example. Helping them before they even know they need it. You’ll have THAT irreplaceable leverage in the winter. You’ll be ok. The majority will suffer, so you’ll need to be an example and show the way. But later on, after this revolution that’s coming, good things will happen.
YOUR WINTER
So let’s synthesize it for you. Your uniqueness in who you are and which transcribes in what you’re doing is your brand. That 1% extra you’ll invest each day from now on building your GENUINE BRAND by carrying and evolving as a human being and with your skills too as mentioned will determine you’re nearly future.
It will also save you, your family, and your closest community. Depending on how much effort and work you’ll invest you’ll be able to stand out more and create a bigger or smaller impact around you. But that’s your mission. And you have two options.
- You’ll do it now and transit the winter in right conditions.
- You’ll do it anyway, but forced and following the sheep pattern and after a harsh winter.
Becoming irreplaceable means YOU, that extra mile you’ll invest in showing who you are and what you can do.
See you in a better world. And please don’t make me say, “I told you so.”
Download the audio version here.
Originally published at platinum-development.ro