Is this you?

You know networking works. Everyone says it's the best way to get a job. Maybe you even got a previous job through a contact. But you've been too busy doing your job to keep your network alive. And now your network is nowhere.

You're afraid that your job may be in jeopardy, that you're being passed up for a promotion, that you're stagnating where you are, or that you need more professional visibility.

Or maybe, the worst has happened — you've lost your job and you need a network now.

Jump-starting is your answer

Building a vibrant network of professional and personal contacts doesn't have to take years. You can jump-start your network — even if you've not networked for months or years. Even if you haven't ever networked.

You can create an action plan that will get you out there, get you known, get you traction, and get you set for powerful and satisfying networking. Follow these five simple steps to jump-start your network and create career momentum:

1. Be your own advertising agency
2. Be your own PR organization
3. Become visibly involved in industry groups
4. Get personal with one-on-one calls and meetings
5. Go virtual to get personal

The steps are not hard, but you will have to work hard to make this happen in a compacted timeframe. Remember — you have a lot of catching up to do! But with a plan and with passion, you can make it happen, and faster than you think.

Here's the first step:

Become your own advertising agency

Successful networkers project clarity, emotional appeal and ROI value, just as great ads do.

People respond to clarity. Employers respond to ROI value. Before you jump-start your network, you need to know your personal brand, your fit for your target audience, and your value to that audience. You need to prove you can pay your own salary and then some.

• Determine your top selling points. You need to be able to say what you do, for whom you do it and what you deliver (the classic branded elevator speech). Until you can do that, you're not ready to network.
• Think carefully about your top personal and business attributes. Get feedback from trusted friends and associates. Choose the top five or so to guide you in determining your professional persona — your personal brand.
• Consider your best successes — write at least five for your personal use (these will be very helpful later in interviews), and do so in classic CARS format — challenge faced, action taken, results delivered, strengths demonstrated. Analyze them as representative of your body of work. What strengths do they show? What impact to they present? What do they say about your ability to produce meaningful, beneficial work for your current company or next company?
• Finally, get strategic. Decide what you are going to 'advertise.' All products have many features (what they do) and benefits (what they provide). People buy benefits not features. They buy differentiation. What is your benefit? What is your differentiation? Prove it by describing three top-benefits (value propositions) that you provide. Then go even deeper and prove it with just one absolutely irresistible benefit, the single most important thing that would cause you to be hired by the right company.

Then, and only, then, will you have the mental magic needed for jump-start networking (or any resume writing or job search activity). In jump-start networking there is no time to course-correct, or re-establish first impressions. You need to know who you are and why you're hirable from your very first contact.

Jump-start tip:

Don't be tempted to skip this first step. Do your brand homework and a create powerful brand statement and 30-second elevator speech.

Take a look at these two examples to get you started:

• Within traditional financial services firms people know me as a visionary and ethical rainmaker who gets great satisfaction from conceiving ideas for new businesses and new products and then making them happen. I'm a bit of a rebel when it comes to ideas, but I always use them to produce. It's not unusual for me to propel triple-digit advances in growth and revenue from a concept that did not have a lot of early support. Most effective in a core leadership role (VP or above) — in growing, forward thinking financial services firms — I'm at my best creating or revitalizing products, client relationships, and internal groups.
• Crisis leadership is where I do my best work. I'm most energized when I'm called upon to meet challenges that baffle the experts or must be tackled yesterday. My best fit is with companies struggling in downtrending markets. In fact I recently revitalized a failing $27 million organization, taking it from a $9 million loss to a $1 million gain within a year.

This should be enough to get you started and last you this week. Stay tuned next week for step 2!