How to Forge a Growth Engine for your Own Career

In business settings, we often torment ourselves about gaining control and achieving high-end goals. What if we managed our professions with the same obsession and practised the same principles to build successful companies? This article will aim to challenge you to consider your career as a commodity and create a sustainable, predictable, and fulfilling growth system that focuses on you.

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We can do this by going over three main areas:

• Retention
• Defining your career usage
• Your Narrative

Let's unpack this...

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FOCUS ON RETENTION

Retention, in this case, refers to the ability of an establishment to maintain its employees. Many consider employee retention as relating to the methods by which employers will go to retain the employees within their workforce.

So why is the retention of yourself essential? Let’s first go over why a company needs to retain their employees. And then, we’ll discuss how it relates to you as an individual.

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RETENTION = GAIN

Retention has a dual effect on many products. As you retain more visitors to your company, those additional users will take on more critical actions that accelerate further acquisition, either through sharing, inviting, word-of-mouth, or creating their own content related to yours. As more of those new users stay, more will be acquired – creating a positive-reinforcing cycle that continues to drive acquisition.

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RETENTION = MONETIZATION

When it comes to monetization, two critical things happen with improving your retention – you can maintain a more significant proportion of an associate, and in doing so, make more money from that partner within a given period.

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RETENTION = COMPETITIVE EDGE

As you increase retention and monetization, you can afford to pay more to procure a customer. In doing so, you’re more easily enabled to push competitors out of procurement channels, open up new tracks that were previously too expensive, and grow faster.

So how does this transpose to your career? Engaging at a company while showing progress within your abilities – through new skill growth, product development, or ongoing promotions — pays forward to an extent we often underestimate, especially in the long-term.

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DEFINING YOURSELF WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR WORK

Once you’ve successfully researched applying retention methods to yourself, you’ll need to create your personal retention canvas. Just like establishing a high growth company, producing a high growth career takes a strong will and state of mind. Which areas will you need to focus on?

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YOUR PURPOSE

What dilemma are you solving with your career? Virginia Tech walks about a career with a mission behind it will seem different from a job only driven by lifestyle needs. A career can serve various values, but being honest about your primary predicament will help you hone in on your current positioning and prioritize fresher opportunities. Remember, the uses for the product you sell can change, especially for those that have been around for a while, so be sure to check in with yourself. Has your initial use shifted over your career?

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YOUR OPTIONS

Once you’ve figured out what initial problem your career solves for happy clients, think about what else you could do to solve similar problems. Just like our product assists with Demand Generation, we are likely to examine other alternatives. Often, these options ended up revolving around outbound marketing such as advertising and similar outreach programmes (Mail, LinkedIn, etc.)

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YOUR WORTH

If you’re not using your talents to deliver value to you, you won’t do your best work. Discovering and optimizing your time for your growth will lead to solid retention and be the framework for your exponential maturity.

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YOUR NARRATIVE

Most flourishing labels have a novel, however still relatable brand, and helped with a compelling story. Do you have a clear recognition of your personal, professional brand? Do you deliver that label with a straightforward yet intriguing tale? Step one is becoming happy and trusting the person you are and who you are developing into – your positioning and communication to others will evolve from there.

Most people’s career placement and story are not determined by themselves but instead interpreted by others’ analysis of your LinkedIn profile or CV. It would be best to steer the tale by styling it yourself and then repeating forcibly into the matrix until that becomes the main narrative.

That story is not about your roles or the brands you’ve worked with; those are just the pieces of the story. Your description is about how all the experiences you’ve had to date guide you to becoming a unique fit for the next great opportunity that comes your way.