Bøger af Jim Anderson

At the heart of what it means to be a product manager lies the ability to market your product. No matter if you are trying to get people inside of your company to provide you with the resources or funding that your product needs in order to get out the door or if its customers that you are after, you've got to be able to paint a picture of your product that makes people want it. What You'll Find Inside: PRODUCT MANAGER MARKETING MISTAKES HOW TO USE WEB 2.0 TO BE A BETTER PRODUCT MANAGER HOW PRODUCT MANAGERS CAN GET BETTER AT CREATING POWERPOINT SLIDES PRODUCT MANAGERS & THE SECRET OF THE COLOR WHEEL Product managers are not perfect and when it comes to marketing our product we do make mistakes. However, the key is to learn from both our mistakes and the mistakes that other product managers have made in order to ensure that we won't be repeating them. Not making mistakes is even more important now that the Web 2.0 has arrived. Everything that we do in terms of marketing our product can now be instantly seen by the rest of the world. When we meet with customers, we present out product in the best light possible. More often than not we use either PowerPoint or Keynote slides to do this. However, have any of us ever gotten any training on how to make really good slides? If not, then we should seek it out in order to help our products. How our products look on those slides is key to getting a customer to want the product. This means that we need a basic understanding of the color wheel and how different colors either work together - or don't! When economic times get tough, inside of your company they are going to be looking for people who can help the company out. This is the time for a product manager to step up and show the company how his or her product can positively impact the company's bottom line. One way to go about making this happen is to create a website for your product that actually works and is not just another online advertising brochure. For more information on what it takes to be a great product manager, check out my blog, The Accidental Product Manager, at: www.TheAccidentalPM.com

All too often public speakers think that all that they have to work with are the words that will tumble out of their mouth during their next presentation. Whereas these words are important, a speech offers you many other ways to connect with your audience by demonstrating what you are talking about. What You'll Find Inside: TOOLS TO HELP VISUALIZE YOUR NEXT PRESENTATION MASTERING THE POWERPOINT BEAST IN 3 EASY STEPS SPEAKERS LEARN TO MAKE TASTY SPEECHES BY ADDING JUST THE RIGHT SPICES ACT UP OR SIT DOWN! The arrival of the PowerPoint and Keynote software programs suddenly made creating slides simple and easy to do. The result of this is that almost all speeches these days seem to include some form of slides. That being said, all too often the slides are not well made and actually end up taking away from the presentation instead of contributing to it. However, giving a speech that will be able to rise above just the words that you say involves a lot more than just creating and using the right set of slides. It turns out that every speech is actually a performance. What this means for us as speakers is that we need to take some cues from actors and start to deliver more than just a speech - we owe our audience a show. The words that you use in your speech carry a power all of their own. Yes, you can choose just any old words and you'll be able to get your point across to your audience. However, will they remember what you said? Probably not. If instead you spend the time researching and picking just the right words then that will make all the difference in the world. Combining powerful words with impressive visuals can transform a run of the mill speech into an event that your audience will be talking about long after you have stopped speaking. This book has been created to provide you with insights into how you can add different ways to demonstrate what you are talking about to your next speech. We'll discuss the right way to create PowerPoint slides, how to put on a performance for your audience, what it's going to take to add some color to your next speech. For more information on what it takes to be a great public speaker, check out my blog, The Accidental Communicator, at: www.TheAccidentalCommunicator.com

When you became a product manager, did anyone take the time to mention to you that you were signing up to become a member of your company's sales department? You might have thought that you were joining the marketing department, but if your product doesn't sell, then you won't be holding on to your product management job for long! What You'll Find Inside: HOW TO WORK WITH SALES PRODUCT MANAGERS & RFPS: IT'S A LOVE / HATE THING HOW PRODUCT MANAGERS CAN MANAGE A COMPLEX SALE A 3-STEP PRODUCT MANAGER SYSTEM TO MAKE YOUR PRODUCT SUCCESSFUL Every product manager needs to take the time to discover how to work closely with the members of their sales department. Yes, you control the product, but they control how well it sells and in the end, that's all that matters. Your product is competing for their time and attention with all of the other products that your company wants them to sell. You've got to find a way to get their attention and motivate them. The sales process is a fixed thing. Customers realize that they have a problem, they go searching for solutions and then they encounter your company's sales teams. When this happens your sales teams have to know about your product. They have to understand how it works. They have to know who it competes against and why your product is better. No two products are the same. This means that the responsibility of training the sales teams ultimately falls on your shoulders. No matter if you are selling a physical product, a license, or a service, you need to teach your sales team how to sell it correctly. In most companies, the sales teams won't report in to you. However, you are going to have to build a relationship with them that will allow you to work closely with them. When they encounter a problem or a new competitor, you are going to want them to feel comfortable enough with the relationship that you have built with them so that they'll come to you for help. In this book we're going to cover just exactly what a product manager needs to do in order to create a working relationship with his or her sales department. We'll discuss how complex sales processes can be managed, how to deal with RFPs, and how extra services can be added to an existing sale. For more information on what it takes to be a great product manager, check out my blog, The Accidental Product Manager, at: www.TheAccidentalPM.com

What is a product manager without a product? Nothing. That's why it's so very important that when a product is being developed that the product manager be involved. Now exactly how best to go about doing that is an entirely different question. What You'll Find Inside: TRACKING YOUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN'T HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR PRODUCT IS ON TRACK OR IN THE WEEDS? A NEW WAY FOR PRODUCT MANAGERS TO DISCOVER BREAKTHROUGH PRODUCT FEATURES ADVANCED JOB MAPPING FOR PRODUCT MANAGERS The process from having an idea for a product to actually having a product is a long and treacherous road. So many things can go wrong that either cause the schedule to have to be extended or cause a product with the wrong features to be developed. A product manager needs to discover ways to stay involved in the process while at the same time not slowing things down. That being said, a product manager is not a project manager. There can be a number of similarities between the jobs, but a product manager is responsible for so much more than a project manager. The difference between the roles has to be understood and communicated to everyone who is involved in the creation of the product. The good news about product development is that it is something that has been done many times at other firms. By taking the time to study their successes and failures product managers can learn what they need to be looking for in order to detect development issues before they derail a development project. Creating a way to map how a customer performs their job can provide the input that is needed for a development program. It can be all too easy to include or exclude features from a product that the customer will feel strongly about. Taking the time to understand how your customer will use the product that you are developing is the key to creating a successful product. This book has been created to pull all of these ideas together into one place for product managers. By reading the book you will be able to discover just exactly what the role of a product manager should be during the product development process. By doing this, you can ensure that when it's all done, you'll have a product that your customer will want to buy. For more information on what it takes to be a great product manager, check out my blog, The Accidental Product Manager, at: www.TheAccidentalPM.com

I happen to think that being a product manager is one of the best jobs out there. I find it to be very satisfying because I'm in charge of the success of a product. If I do the right things, then my product will be selected by a large number of customers and it will solve their problems. If I don't do my job right, my company will probably decide to stop offering my product after a while. Ultimately, my career is in my hands. What You'll Find Inside: * YOUR MOTHER WAS RIGHT: HOW PRODUCT MANAGERS DRESS FOR SUCCESS * GROW YOUR CAREER - WHAT PRODUCT MANAGERS NEED TO DO FOR SUCCESS * HOW TO BUILD A MENTOR NETWORK FOR YOUR PRODUCT MANAGEMENT CAREER * TO GET YOUR NEXT JOB, YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW FIRMS HIRE PRODUCT MANAGERS As product managers, we all control our careers. What this means is that we need to always be networking because you never know when you may find yourself looking for your next job. As we move through our career, it will soon be important that we learn how to not only manage products, but people also. The way that we land a product manager job is by having a resume that does the work for us. How to create such a resume is a skill that we all have to learn. We don't know it all and so in order to help us to make the right decisions, it can be helpful to find a mentor who is willing to give us good advice. Once we've landed the right job, our work is not over. We need to understand how to get things done effectively and multitasking is not the answer. Additionally, if despite our hard work we get passed over for the next promotion we need to have a plan as to what our next steps are going to be. For more information on what it takes to be a great product manager, check out my blog, The Accidental Product Manager, at: www.TheAccidentalPM.com

Words are what lawyers use to accomplish their job. Sure, when we think about lawyers giving speeches we often think about a lawyer standing in a court addressing a jury. However, it turns out that lawyers get called on to give speech in a number of different situations: sharing insights with peers, participating in negotiations, settling estates, etc. Since we're going to be called on to deliver so many speeches, it sure seems like we should take the time to determine the best way to go about doing this speech giving thing. What You'll Find Inside: "ONCE UPON A TIME..." - THE ROLE OF STORYTELLING IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION HOW TO MAKE A TECHNICAL PRESENTATION RIVETING PERSUADE AN AUDIENCE USING 3 SECRETS USED BY PRESENTERS KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW MAY HURT YOU Just think of all of the great speakers who have gone before you Dr. Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Steve Jobs, the list goes on and on. Now you've been give your chance to change the world! I can well image what you are feeling right now - fear, doubt, uncertainty. Don't worry about it. I've got some good news for you - all of those great speakers felt the very same thing. However, they were able to muster up the courage to go out there and give the best speech that they possibly could. They did change the world and you just might end up doing the same thing. However, before you go doing that, we've got to make sure that you've got a well-planned speech to work with. Planning a speech is the first step in creating and delivering a powerful and effective speech. In order to plan a speech you need to take the time before you start to write out your speech and think about who you'll be speaking to. When planning a speech you need to make sure that you understand the purpose of your speech. Why are you going to go to all of the effort to create and deliver this speech? After you know that, take the time to think about your audience: what do they want from your speech? You're going to have to choose what type of speech you want to give. You can choose to deliver an informative speech, a demonstrative speech, an inspirational speech, or a humorous speech. More often than not the speech that you end up giving will draw from all four types of speeches. The good news is that I know that you're going to give a great speech and it's all going to start with the planning. Take the time to read this book, learn what you need to do in order to plan a great speech and then go out there and knock 'em dead!

Those of us whose calling in life it is to help others to achieve more have a great deal of work to do. We need to craft a message that we can share with people that will cause them to wake up, realize that they need to change their lives, understand what they have to do, and then be motivated enough to actually go out there and do it. Once we have our message, we then need to find ways to share it with others. One of the most effective ways to go about doing this is for us to give speeches. However, just giving a speech is not enough. Our speeches have to be powerful speeches that connect with our audiences and change their lives. What this means for us is that we need to learn how to give a great speech every time. What You'll Find Inside: "ONCE UPON A TIME..." - THE ROLE OF STORYTELLING IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION HOW TO MAKE A TECHNICAL PRESENTATION RIVETING PERSUADE AN AUDIENCE USING 3 SECRETS USED BY PRESENTERS KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW MAY HURT YOU Just think of all of the great speakers who have gone before you Dr. Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Steve Jobs, the list goes on and on. Now you've been give your chance to change the world! I can well image what you are feeling right now - fear, doubt, uncertainty. Don't worry about it. I've got some good news for you - all of those great speakers felt the very same thing. However, they were able to muster up the courage to go out there and give the best speech that they possibly could. They did change the world and you just might end up doing the same thing. However, before you go doing that, we've got to make sure that you've got a well-planned speech to work with. Planning a speech is the first step in creating and delivering a powerful and effective speech. In order to plan a speech you need to take the time before you start to write out your speech and think about who you'll be speaking to. When planning a speech you need to make sure that you understand the purpose of your speech. Why are you going to go to all of the effort to create and deliver this speech? After you know that, take the time to think about your audience: what do they want from your speech? You're going to have to choose what type of speech you want to give. You can choose to deliver an informative speech, a demonstrative speech, an inspirational speech, or a humorous speech. More often than not the speech that you end up giving will draw from all four types of speeches. The good news is that I know that you're going to give a great speech and it's all going to start with the planning. Take the time to read this book, learn what you need to do in order to plan a great speech and then go out there and knock 'em dead!

How your next negotiation is going to turn out will be determined by how you open the negotiation. No matter if the other side is a push-over or a tough customer, you are going to have to decide how you want the negotiation to start and then you are going to have to take steps to make it happen. What You'll Find Inside: USE THE "REVERSE-GODFATHER" APPROACH TO WIN A NEGOTIATION WHY PROVIDING A "BEST AND FINAL OFFER" IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA NEGOTIATING: MEN VS. WOMEN - WHO WANTS TO WIN MORE? DO YOU HAVE THE PERSONALITY NEEDED FOR NEGOTIATION? What makes an opening so very important in a negotiation is that it lays the groundwork for everything else that will follow. No matter if you are planning on using the "reverse godfather" approach or just want to duke it out like Howard Stern did with his employer, you are going to have to make sure that you have a set of guiding principles that you follow. The other side will see how you are starting out and they will work to counter you at every step. They may hit you with a "best and final offer" - will you know what to do when this happens? You have the ability to hit them back by using status symbols or perhaps even physical intimidation. A key part of any negotiation that you open is to understand who is going to be doing the negotiating: boys or girls. This is critical because they do negotiate differently. As the pressure starts to build in your next negotiation, you are going to have to make sure that you know how to handle a high-stress negotiation. Not every negotiation that you open will be the same. Some will be extreme and you'll have to deal with that when it happens. If you are a good negotiator, then you'll know how to use testing in order to find out what the other side is really up to. In the end, it's all going to come down to your personality. Do you really have what it takes to be a great negotiator? For more information on what it takes to be a great negotiator, check out my blog, The Accidental Negotiator, at: www.TheAccidentalNegotiator.com

At the heart of being a CIO is the responsibility to manage an entire department of technical professionals. It is your job to provide an overall direction for the department to move in and when problems arise, and they always do, you are going to have to work with your staff in order to create solutions. What You'll Find Inside: CIO LESSONS FROM THE WAR IN IRAQ RISK MANAGEMENT IN IT: HOW DO YOU DO IT CORRECTLY? WHY TOYOTA'S IT DEPARTMENT IS BROKEN & WHY THAT'S OK 3 SECRETS THAT OIL COMPANIES USE TO RUN A GREAT IT DEPARTMENT How to accomplish all of this can be a real challenge. However, clever CIOs realize that they can get helpful tips from the military based on the how they've handled the conflict in Iraq. CIOs also understand that running an IT department is filled with risk - many things can and will go wrong. This means that they need to become adept at risk management. Nothing is going to get accomplished if you don't have the funding to accomplish it. This means that a critical CIO skill is the ability to get funds allocated to you from the CFO. This is what you're going to need in order to keep everything up and running like it should be. Taking the time to look around can provide you with an opportunity to discover well run IT shops that can provide you with suggestions on how you can run your IT department. A great place to look is Toyota's IT department which does a fantastic job of dealing with change as it happens. In order to keep an IT department operating correctly, we need to understand what could cause it to be run into the ground and then avoid doing those things. Once again, looking for suggestions from well-run IT departments such as those found at the large oil companies can show us the way. For more information on what it takes to be a great CIO, check out my blog, The Accidental Successful CIO, at: www.TheAccidentalSuccessfulCIO.com

Product failures are never something that a product manager wants to talk about. We all live with the secret dread that someday the product that we are responsible might turn out to be a failure. When that happens, we all expect that we'll be asked to leave the company. What You'll Find Inside: HOW DELL PRODUCT MANAGERS STOLE CHRISTMAS NEW COKE: A PRODUCT MANAGER CAMPFIRE STORY PEPSI FUMBLES A GATORADE MAKEOVER: LESSONS FOR PRODUCT MANAGERS FIRE SALE - WHAT HAPPENED TO CISCO'S FLIP CAMERA? It turns out that we're all missing an important learning opportunity here. Products do fail and they end up failing for a wide range of different reasons. Every product failure is loaded with fantastic learning opportunities for product managers. We just need to take the time an open our eyes to see what we can learn from each failure. Some of the biggest companies out there have suffered very public product failures. Talented product managers at companies like Coke, Dell, Pepsi, Cisco, and Microsoft have all done their best to bring a product to market with the hopes of having a runaway success only to fail. Given all of the resources that they had at their disposal, these failures are even more surprising. As product managers we need to carefully study what happened in each of these cases. There are lessons here for us. The better that we can understand what went wrong at these well-funded and well-staffed firms the better chance we have of avoiding making the same mistakes. Contained in this book are the tips and tricks that you are going to need in order to start to spot when a product is going to turn out to be a failure. As you read each chapter, take a moment to think about how you can start to use the information in your job immediately. I think that you are going to be both surprised and pleased with just how much this information is going to help you to avoid making the mistakes that have caused so many other products to fail!

As product managers it is our responsibility to create products that our customers will want and that will end up being profitable for our companies. It turns out that this is no easy task. Identifying what a customer really wants and then turning that into a feature that can be delivered to a customer is hard work. The key to being successful is to understand exactly what goes into world-class product development. What You'll Find Inside: HOW CAN PRODUCT MANAGERS PICK THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY FOR OUR PRODUCTS? HOW YAHOO PRODUCT MANAGERS ARE KICKING GOOGLE'S BUTT FAST PRODUCT MANAGEMENT LESSONS FROM A PORSCHE 911 WHAT EVERY PRODUCT MANAGER NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HADOOP DATABASE SOLUTION Every product uses some form of technology no matter if the technology is embedded in the product or if it is used to create the product. Product managers play a key role in selecting the correct technologies to use. Any product requires the company to make an investment in it. One aspect of this investment that is important to a product manager is the cost of capital. That money will be spent creating a product team. As product managers we need to realize that we'll have team members of different ages and we need to know how best to manage them all. As we look around different industries, we look for examples that we can follow when developing products. The competition between Yahoo and Google in the area of financial reporting provides us with some good examples of what to do and what not to do. Because creating a new product is such a risky undertaking, we need to look for ways to hedge our bets. One thing that can reduce our risk is to copy something that someone else has already done. We need to keep in mind the amount of risk that will be involved. Innovation is the key to creating new products that your customers will want. Examples from companies like Porsche can provide us with suggestions on how to go about doing this. The plan that we create to deliver a new product is just that - a plan. We need to make sure that we take action despite what the plan says in order to make sure that our product is delivered on time. New technologies, such as the Hadoop database, may play a key role in our ability to accomplish this. For more information on what it takes to be a great product manager, check out my blog, The Accidental Product Manager, at: www.TheAccidentalPM.com

If you want to be successful as a product manager than you are going to have to be able to create products that solve problems for your customers. In order to do this, you are going to first have to understand your customers - what are their wants and needs? What You'll Find Inside: HOW TO MOVE FROM CUSTOMERS TO PARTNERS WHAT PRODUCT MANAGERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CUSTOMER LOYALTY WHY PRODUCT MANAGERS NEED TO LEARN TO LOVE THEIR CRAZY CUSTOMERS PRODUCT MANAGERS DON'T LIKE SURPRISES: KNOW YOUR PRODUCT'S CUSTOMERS! In order to be able to answer questions like this, you may find out that you are going to have to fire some of your customers - they are just too expensive for you to try to keep happy. Ultimately you want to change the relationship that you have with your customers and move towards being seen as more of a partner than a vendor. In some cases, one of your customers may start to use your product too much. In these cases you'll need to be able to find a way to tell them to stop using it. You'll be able to do this if you've found a way to have a real relationship with your customer. However, along with this comes the risk of perhaps finding out too much about a given customer. Once you have a customer, you may not have them forever. Customer loyalty is a fickle thing that product managers need to understand. One way to increase loyalty is to customize your product and engage in some niche marketing. All customers are not created the same and so product managers need to take the time to understand their differences. This means learning to love the crazy ones or realizing that you may be selling primarily to grandparents. Take the time to study product managers who know how to do this right and in the end, make sure that you don't end up surprising your customers - nobody likes that!

No matter if the speech that you'll be expected to give is part of a role that you'll be playing or if it is for some event outside of a production, giving a good speech can be a real challenge. The good news is that as an actor, you have the skills that it's going to take to do this well. The same skills that you use to bring a role to life can be used to breathe life into a speech. What You'll Find Inside: "ONCE UPON A TIME..." - THE ROLE OF STORYTELLING IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION HOW TO MAKE A TECHNICAL PRESENTATION RIVETING PERSUADE AN AUDIENCE USING 3 SECRETS USED BY PRESENTERS KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW MAY HURT YOU Just think of all of the great speakers who have gone before you Dr. Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Steve Jobs, the list goes on and on. Now you've been give your chance to change the world! I can well image what you are feeling right now - fear, doubt, uncertainty. Don't worry about it. I've got some good news for you - all of those great speakers felt the very same thing. However, they were able to muster up the courage to go out there and give the best speech that they possibly could. They did change the world and you just might end up doing the same thing. However, before you go doing that, we've got to make sure that you've got a well-planned speech to work with. Planning a speech is the first step in creating and delivering a powerful and effective speech. In order to plan a speech you need to take the time before you start to write out your speech and think about who you'll be speaking to. When planning a speech you need to make sure that you understand the purpose of your speech. Why are you going to go to all of the effort to create and deliver this speech? After you know that, take the time to think about your audience: what do they want from your speech? You're going to have to choose what type of speech you want to give. You can choose to deliver an informative speech, a demonstrative speech, an inspirational speech, or a humorous speech. More often than not the speech that you end up giving will draw from all four types of speeches. The good news is that I know that you're going to give a great speech and it's all going to start with the planning. Take the time to read this book, learn what you need to do in order to plan a great speech and then go out there and knock 'em dead!

In order to be successful as an IT manager, you need to be able to show the company that under your leadership your team is able to deliver high quality products on time and under budget. If you want to have any chance of being able to pull this off, then you are going to have to discover ways to build a high performance IT team. What You'll Find Inside: DOES YOUR TEAM KNOW THAT YOU APPRECIATE THEM? WHY IT MANAGERS NEED TO BUILD TEAMS THAT ALL GENERATIONS WANT TO WORK ON WHY FAILING JUST MIGHT BE THE BEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO AN IT MANAGER THE 3 THINGS THAT YOUR TEAM REALLY WANTS FROM YOU The arrival of cloud technology now makes keeping your team together and informed that much easier. IT managers need to understand that not all of the challenges that they face are goig to require a team to solve. However, when a team is required, you are going to have to make sure that you have a good understanding of exactly what makes up a good team. If you want to interact with your team correctly, then you are going to have to first make sure that you have the correct skills that this is going to require. Something that too many IT managers don't realize is that their teams are constantly looking for feedback that tells them that you appreciate them. This is not hard to do and in some cases can be as simple as remembering to tell them "thank you". I'm not sure that there is just one secret to building a high performance IT team. However, the most important thing that you are going to have to do is to make sure that your team attracts members from all generations - you're going to need all of them to get the job done. One of the most important skills that an IT manager needs to develop is the ability to talk with your team. By doing this correctly, you'll have a much better chance to discover just exactly what your team wants from you. This will also make it easier when you fail - and yes, you will fail because we all do. However, with the support of your team you'll be able to get right back up and keep moving forward.

Mortgage matters are a prime driver of today's economy. Getting a mortgage with favorable terms is the goal of almost every American. Jim Anderson has been a licensed Mortgage Loan Originator in his own mortgage company for fifteen years, specializing in Reverse Mortgages. A graduate of The Real Estate Institute, he has taught the nuances of different types of mortgages as a major Realtor- Board Education-Chairman. A published author since 1970, he has written dozens of books and articles and was published in the prestigious Leaders magazine sent to Heads of State and corporate CEOs. He presently owns a mortgage refinancing company. His pet peeve is that seniors in particular are often taken advantage of financially by mortgage companies when discussing their home mortgage. He believes that reverse mortgages in particular are sold to seniors as the "best thing ever", and are anything but. Risking his career to help seniors avoid making a costly mistake, Anderson wrote Reverse Mortgage Dangers as a daring warning. Seldom are senior citizens given all possible negatives of this "free no-risk money", and told the many pitfalls they must seriously consider before signing anything. "Sometimes a reverse mortgage is a good idea, but most often it is not", declares Anderson. He explains the pros, cons, pitfalls, drawbacks and disadvantages of this poorly-understood financial instrument. This unique book explains the many secrets of this highly-touted "safe and secure free seniors' money", covering scams, frauds, and other problems. Is a senior's reverse mortgage ever a good idea? Is it a banking scheme or a government blessing? This unique fact-filled book has all the remarkable useful answers. Residential mortgages of the "forward" variety have for years led the market. But as our population ages, and more individuals reach the magic "62 years" switching out of conventional loans to home equity conversion loans (HECMs) has become a major financial planning tool. Getting a mortgage of any type requires serious study and comparison shopping. Mortgage brokers are not created equal! Mortgage loans come in all flavors. Morrtgage payments can vary greatly. Mortgage related issues will always be of primary importance to every consumer seeking the American dream.

If there is one thing that an announcer does, it's talk. However, most announcers don't give speeches. Instead, we're handed something and told to read it. When we are asked to give a speech, we can start to experience a sense of panic - what should we say, how should we say it, just exactly what will the audience be looking for. The good news is that there are answers to all of these questions. What You'll Find Inside: "ONCE UPON A TIME..." - THE ROLE OF STORYTELLING IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION HOW TO MAKE A TECHNICAL PRESENTATION RIVETING PERSUADE AN AUDIENCE USING 3 SECRETS USED BY PRESENTERS KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW MAY HURT YOU Just think of all of the great speakers who have gone before you Dr. Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Steve Jobs, the list goes on and on. Now you've been give your chance to change the world! I can well image what you are feeling right now - fear, doubt, uncertainty. Don't worry about it. I've got some good news for you - all of those great speakers felt the very same thing. However, they were able to muster up the courage to go out there and give the best speech that they possibly could. They did change the world and you just might end up doing the same thing. However, before you go doing that, we've got to make sure that you've got a well-planned speech to work with. Planning a speech is the first step in creating and delivering a powerful and effective speech. In order to plan a speech you need to take the time before you start to write out your speech and think about who you'll be speaking to. When planning a speech you need to make sure that you understand the purpose of your speech. Why are you going to go to all of the effort to create and deliver this speech? After you know that, take the time to think about your audience: what do they want from your speech? You're going to have to choose what type of speech you want to give. You can choose to deliver an informative speech, a demonstrative speech, an inspirational speech, or a humorous speech. More often than not the speech that you end up giving will draw from all four types of speeches. The good news is that I know that you're going to give a great speech and it's all going to start with the planning. Take the time to read this book, learn what you need to do in order to plan a great speech and then go out there and knock 'em dead!

Do you have the perfect product manager job? I'm willing to bet that the answer to that question is probably no. Every product manager job has a certain level of excitement and job satisfaction; however, sometimes we start to get interested in finding our next position. When we start to feel this way, we need remember just exactly how you go about finding your next product manager job. What You'll Find Inside: IS YOUR PRODUCT MANAGER RESUME IPHONE READY? 3 SKILLS THAT MOST PRODUCT MANAGERS ARE MISSING BREAKTHROUGH IN SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF HOW TO EVALUATE A PRODUCT MANAGER PRODUCT MANAGERS NEED TO LEARN HOW TO FAIL The first thing that we need to keep in mind is that we're going to need to create a cover letter that does a good job of introducing us and what we can do. Next comes, of course, our resume. This will be where we explain to a hiring manager why we're the right person for the job. The hunt for your next job may be different the next time that you kick it off. We are now living in the mobile age and what this means for you is that there is a very good chance that the hiring manager will be reviewing your resume on a cell phone or a tablet. Is your resume ready for this type of inspection? If we want to move our career along at the company that we are currently working for, there is a question about what's going to make us more valuable. One thing to consider is getting an MBA - in fact, a hybrid MBA might be the right choice for a product manager. We also have to realize that the success of our product is what will boost our career so we need to make sure that our team is not being silent about what they are doing. How to judge the performance of a product manager has always been a challenge. We manage many things, but we control precious few thing. There is a new way that has become available that can be used to determine how good of a job a product manager is doing. If we do choose to move on to a new job, we hope that we've made the right selection. However, if we've chosen poorly, what should we do then? Nobody is perfect and product managers are not perfect either. What we need to understand is that we will occasionally fail. We have to get over our fear of failure and understand that there is a correct way to fail that will allow us to grow as product managers.

It turns out that most negotiations are over even before they begin. The agent that has spent the most time planning for the negotiation, doing their homework, and collecting the data that they'll need is the one that's going to walk away from the table with the best deal and a sense of winning. Wouldn't you want that person to be you? What You'll Find Inside: THE 7 DEADLY SINS OF PREPARING TO NEGOTIATE DEALS THAT MAKE MONEY: HOW TO PLAN YOUR CONCESSIONS CLOSE MORE DEALS: UNDERSTANDING BUYER POWER & WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT SINGLE VS TEAM NEGOTIATION: WHICH IS BETTER? Planning is what happens before a real estate agent sits down at the negotiating table. There are no negotiating tactics or tricks at play here. It's just a matter of you doing your homework. At the same time you hope that the other side is NOT doing their homework so that you'll show up at the negotiation more prepared then they are. Just committing to doing the planning that your next negotiation is going to require is not enough, you also have to know just exactly how to go about doing it - you have to think about the offers and counter offers that are going to be made. That's what this book is going to teach you. Every negotiation is different and so the planning that you'll have to do for each negotiation will be different also. The planning that is required for a successful negotiation takes on many different forms. These can include planning where and when the negotiations will be held, what concessions you'll be willing to make to the other side, and understanding who has what power in the negotiations. The end result of doing the planning that a negotiation requires is that when you sit down at the negotiating table, you'll have a sense of being prepared. You'll know what you need to know about the other side of the table, what their goals are, what their constraints are, and what they hope to be able to get out of the negotiations. This is exactly the type of knowledge that every person who lives in the world of real estate is going to need in order to be able to reach the type of deal that will allow you to walk away from the table with a sense of having closed a deal that is good for both you and your client.

During a negotiation a lot of promises and agreements are made by both sides of the table. This is all well and good, but the ultimate goal of any negotiation is for both sides to agree on a deal that they can live with. As a negotiator, it's going to be your job to take a look at where things stand in the negotiation and then package up the agreements so that they can be included in the final deal. What You'll Find Inside: THE POWER OF DELAYS IN A NEGOTIATION LEARN TO THINK LONG-TERM IN YOUR NEXT NEGOTIATION WHY NEGOTIATORS SHOULD PUT A DEAD DOG ON THE TABLE WHY EVERY NEGOTIATOR SHOULD HAVE A "DEAL BOOK" As part of this process, you'll have to understand how delays can be used in a negotiation to get what you want. International negotiations can take a long time and be very complex, but they can show us how a deal can be packaged in a way that makes it agreeable to all. Issues are what a negotiation is all about. As we look for ways to package a deal, we need to understand that there can be multiple solutions to each issue. Additionally, what we do for the other side or what they do for us can help to move things along. Everything in a negotiation can have an effect on the bottom line of the deal that you are trying to package. You need to stay aware of this. In order to find the deal that both sides can live with, it helps to be able to focus on the long term. Often times during a negotiation there can be so many things going on that it is all too easy to get lost and confused. That's why skilled negotiators use a checklist and a deal book. This allows them to keep track of all of the details and maintain a scoreboard that shows them who has agreed to what.

When you find yourself in a leadership position, you'll want to make the most of it. This means that you want to be viewed as being both powerful and effective. In order to make this happen, you need to have a good understanding of what leadership is really all about. What You'll Find Inside: IT TURNS OUT THAT PERSONAL SKILLS ARE IMPORTANT FOR IT LEADERS MANAGEMENT SECRETS FROM THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION'S GLOBAL HEALTH PRESIDENT HEY IT MANAGER, ARE YOU SENDING THE WRONG SIGNALS? IT MANAGERS NEED TO LEARN HOW TO AVOID A CRISIS BEFORE IT HAPPENS One of the most important things that you'll need to understand in order to be effective is that leadership is not all about you. Rather, it's about the people that you are leading and what they are looking for from you. To lead a group of people you'll need to make sure that you have the personal skills that this kind of task requires. You'll need to use these skills to help you team make progress in implementing your company's goals. The good news is that you don't have to make all of this up by yourself. You can observe other leaders who are being successful and then emulate what they are doing. You'll need to make sure that the signals that you are sending to the team that you are in charge of are clear and easily understood. Although there are differences between business and sports, you'll still need to play the role of a coach in order to help your team be successful. As we are all too well aware of, on any given day a crisis can hit our part of the IT department. As an effective IT leader, you need to prepare for these events before they happen. One part of getting ready is to make sure that your entire team shares the same vision that you have for what the team is going to be able to accomplish. The good news is that this is all possible to do, you just need to master the IT leader skills that are going to allow you to make it happen. For more information on what it takes to be a great IT manager, check out my blog, The Accidental IT Leader, at: www.TheAccidentalITLeader.com

It's great for a CIO to have a good idea, but if it stops there then it's not going to do anyone any good. CIOs need to be able to communicate their thoughts with the rest of their department and the company in order to maintain credibility as a thought leader. How each of us communicates is a personal choice, we have many ways of doing this from tough talking to conversations. The most important point is that we share our information with others. What You'll Find Inside: A CIO ALWAYS HAS TO MAINTAIN CREDIBILITY WHEN CYBERATTACKED, SHOULD CIOS SHARE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE? HOW CAN CIOS TEACH THEIR EMPLOYEES ABOUT CYBERSECURITY? CIOS NEED TO LEARN HOW BEST TO USE EMAIL What to communicate is a critical question that every CIO is going to have to answer for themselves. When the company suffers a digital attack, what needs to be communicated, to whom, and how? When we need to connect with members of our team, is going for a walk with them the right method to get our point across? Effective communication is a set of skills that every CIO needs to develop. Our goal has to be to make any communication that we do be effective - we want to come across as being persuasive. We need to be able to get our information across when we are talking about critical issues like cybersecurity. CIOs communicate in a variety of different ways. We have opportunities to share both good news and bad news. We need to know how to do both well. Email is one of the most commonly used communication tools by CIOs. However, we don't always use it well. We need to take the time to make sure that our emails will be opened and that they will cause people to take action. For more information on what it takes to be a great CIO, check out my blog, The Accidental Successful CIO, at: www.TheAccidentalSuccessfulCIO.com

When we think about what it takes to be a successful CIO, there are a lot of things that probably come to mind. Staying on top of changing technology, anticipating security issues, and preparing the IT department for the company's growth. However, it turns out that there is something that is far more important than any of these things to a CIO's success: the ability to clearly communicate. What You'll Find Inside: CIOS SHOULD STOP SENDING EMAILS - NOW! CIO LESSONS FROM ZYNGA: DON'T MANAGE LIKE THEY DO! WHAT A CIO NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT CREATING A TWITTER STRATEGY HOW CIOS CAN MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA WORK FOR THEM, NOT AGAINST THEM One of the first things that any CIO needs to understand is that email is not their friend. It is a powerful tool, but it can be overused. We need to look at different companies and see what they are doing correctly - and wrong. We are living in the age of social media and as the company's CIO you are going to have to find ways to make these tools work for you, not against you. When it comes to social media, because there are now so many different tools, a CIO is going to have to take the time to create a plan for how to maximize the value of each tool. At the same time it is going to be the CIOs responsibility to make sure that each of the members of the IT department feel satisfied in their job. To make this happen, the CIO is going to have to become a good communicator in the office. Communication can take on many different forms for a CIO. One of the more common forms is that of negotiation. No matter if it is with workers, other departments, or vendors this is a skill that every CIO needs to have. Another communication skill that a CIO has to have is the ability to give a speech to a room full of people. This can be tricky to do well, but as with all such things, it is something that can be learned with practice. The job of CIO is something that is being done every day at just about every company. As CIO we need to understand that we can learn from the experiences that our peers have had and we can adopt some of their strategies inside of our companies. When we go to communicate with our teams and peers we'll have to keep in mind that the words that we choose to use will determine how much power and credibility we will be given. The good news about communication for CIOs is that this is a skill that can be learned. If we're willing to take the time and commit ourselves to becoming better communicators, then we can become more successful CIOs.

It turns out that most negotiations are over even before they begin. The legal team that has spent the most time planning for the negotiation, doing their homework, and collecting the data that they'll need is the one that's going to walk away from the table with the best deal. Wouldn't you want that legal team to be your team? What You'll Find Inside: THE 7 DEADLY SINS OF PREPARING TO NEGOTIATE DEALS THAT MAKE MONEY: HOW TO PLAN YOUR CONCESSIONS MAKE MORE SALES: UNDERSTANDING BUYER POWER & WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT SINGLE VS TEAM NEGOTIATION: WHICH IS BETTER? Planning is what happens before a paralegal sits down at the negotiating table. There are no negotiating tactics or tricks at play here. It's just a matter of you doing your homework. At the same time you hope that the other side is NOT doing their homework so that you'll show up at the negotiation more prepared then they are. Just committing to doing the planning that your next negotiation is going to require is not enough, you also have to know just exactly how to go about doing it. That's what this book is going to teach you. Every legal negotiation is different and so the planning that you'll have to do for every negotiation will be different also. The planning that is required for a successful legal negotiation takes on many different forms. These can include planning where and when the negotiations will be held, what concessions you'll be willing to make to the other side, and understanding who has what power in the negotiations. The end result of doing the planning that a negotiation requires is that when you sit down at the negotiating table, you'll have a sense of being prepared. You'll know what you need to know about the other side of the table, what their goals are, what their constraints are, and what they hope to be able to get out of the negotiations. This is exactly the type of knowledge that every paralegal is going to need in order to be able to reach the type of deal that will allow you to walk away from the table with a sense of accomplishment.

So just exactly what is innovation? It turns out that innovation is doing something new. It can be a new method, a new idea, or even a new product. In the world of IT, we have the ability to solve just about any problem. However, how we go about solving problems can become outdated quickly. What we need to do as CIOs is to find out how to bring the spirit of innovation into our IT departments. What You'll Find Inside: HOW CIOS CAN BRING INNOVATION TO THEIR IT DEPARTMENTS HOW CIOS CAN USE MOBILE AND CUSTOM DEVELOPMENT TO REDISCOVER INNOVATION SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE CIO - CAN WE TALK? WHY CIOS NEED TO WIN AT GAMIFICATION Your IT department needs innovation for a number of different reasons. First, the IT department these days is the engine that drives the company to successfully compete in its markets. In order to make the company go faster, your department is going to have to be finding new ways to do things both quicker and better than ever before. Innovation does not come cheap. This means that as the CIO you are going to have to get good at finding ways to make the funding that you do have work even harder. As the world changes new technologies such as mobile and even custom development are arriving and these both hold out the opportunity to introduce a great deal of innovation into an IT department. In order to innovate, your staff is going to have to stay current with the latest technologies. That means that it's going to be your responsibility to determine what level their skills are at. These skills may extend into the realm of social media and if so, you are going to have to make some tough decisions about how the company is going to participate in this new world. The secret to introducing innovation into your department may lie in changing how the department works. Embracing novel concepts like gamification may show you the way to make this happen for your staff. Ultimately, you are going to end up shaking everything up. No matter if it comes down to planning scenarios or creating contests to motivate your department, the old way of being a CIO has now officially been replaced by the new way of being a CIO. For more information on what it takes to be a great CIO, check out my blog, The Accidental Successful CIO, at: www.TheAccidentalSuccessfulCIO.com

It turns out that most negotiations are over even before they begin. The purchasing team that has spent the most time planning for the negotiation, doing their homework, and collecting the data that they'll need is the one that's going to walk away from the table with the best deal. Wouldn't you want that team to be your team? What You'll Find Inside: THE 7 DEADLY SINS OF PREPARING TO NEGOTIATE DEALS THAT MAKE MONEY: HOW TO PLAN YOUR CONCESSIONS MAKE MORE SALES: UNDERSTANDING BUYER POWER & WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT SINGLE VS TEAM NEGOTIATION: WHICH IS BETTER? Planning is what happens before a supply chain manager sits down at the negotiating table. There are no negotiating tactics or tricks at play here. It's just a matter of you doing your homework. At the same time you hope that the other side is NOT doing their homework so that you'll show up at the negotiation more prepared then they are. Just committing to doing the planning that your next negotiation is going to require is not enough, you also have to know just exactly how to go about doing it. That's what this book is going to teach you. Every negotiation that a purchasing agent or supply chain manager engages in is different and so the planning that you'll have to do for every negotiation will be different also. The planning that is required for a successful negotiation for the person that you are responsible for takes on many different forms. These can include planning where and when the negotiations will be held, what concessions you'll be willing to make to the other side, and understanding who has what power in the negotiations. The end result of doing the planning that a negotiation requires is that when you sit down at the negotiating table, you'll have a sense of being prepared. You'll know what you need to know about the other side of the table, what their goals are, what their constraints are, and what they hope to be able to get out of the negotiations. This is exactly the type of knowledge that every a purchasing agent or supply chain manager is going to need in order to be able to reach the type of deal that will allow you to walk away from the table with a sense of accomplishment.

As an IT manager one of your most valuable possessions is your career. At your firm, you are the only person who is going to be spending any time worrying about your career: how's it going, what is your next step, what could you be doing better? These are all vital questions for you to be able to answer if you want to advance in your career. What You'll Find Inside: HOW TO PROTECT YOUR IT CAREER FROM SABOTAGE WHAT CAN TOP ATHLETES TEACH YOU ABOUT BEING A BETTER IT LEADER? SHH! HOW TO KEEP YOUR IT JOB SEARCH SECRET... IT MANAGERS & THE SECRET OF THE COLOR WHEEL We do need to be careful as we manage our careers. Not everyone that we work with may have our best interests in mind. Sabotage is always possible if we are not keeping our eyes open. Stay aware at all times and perhaps even take a look at how top athletes manage their careers in order to better understand what you should be doing. The job that you have today may not be the job that you'll have tomorrow. That means that at some point in time you'll have to go looking for your next job. Do you know how to go about doing this without screwing up your current job? None of us is perfect, we all make mistakes. As an IT manager you need to have a plan in place for dealing with the mistakes that you know that you'll eventually make. To make yourself more valuable to the company, you may want to consider getting an executive MBA. Picking a school and a program can be a real challenge. One of the things that IT managers do a lot of is make presentations. The challenge that we face in doing this is that few of us have ever been trained how to do it effectively. We need to find out how to create better PowerPoint slides. A little bit of help in how to go about selecting the right colors to use wouldn't hurt either. If you find yourself in a situation where your job has gone away either due to a restructuring, a layoff, or perhaps a merger, your #1 job is going to be to find your next job. Outplacement services might be made available to you and if so, you're going to have to know how to maximize this valuable resource.

If there is one thing that a fundraiser does well, its talk. However, most of us spend our time talking to donors in small groups of one-on-one and just a handful. We don't need microphones for these types of discussions. However, our ultimate job is to get the word out about our organization and our cause. Before people can donate to us, they first have to know who we are. This means that you are going to have to go out and give some speeches to raise awareness. What You'll Find Inside: "ONCE UPON A TIME..." - THE ROLE OF STORYTELLING IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION HOW TO MAKE A TECHNICAL PRESENTATION RIVETING PERSUADE AN AUDIENCE USING 3 SECRETS USED BY PRESENTERS KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW MAY HURT YOU Just think of all of the great speakers who have gone before you Dr. Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Steve Jobs, the list goes on and on. Now you've been give your chance to change the world! I can well image what you are feeling right now - fear, doubt, uncertainty. Don't worry about it. I've got some good news for you - all of those great speakers felt the very same thing. However, they were able to muster up the courage to go out there and give the best speech that they possibly could. They did change the world and you just might end up doing the same thing. However, before you go doing that, we've got to make sure that you've got a well-planned speech to work with. Planning a speech is the first step in creating and delivering a powerful and effective speech. In order to plan a speech you need to take the time before you start to write out your speech and think about who you'll be speaking to. When planning a speech you need to make sure that you understand the purpose of your speech. Why are you going to go to all of the effort to create and deliver this speech? After you know that, take the time to think about your audience: what do they want from your speech? You're going to have to choose what type of speech you want to give. You can choose to deliver an informative speech, a demonstrative speech, an inspirational speech, or a humorous speech. More often than not the speech that you end up giving will draw from all four types of speeches. The good news is that I know that you're going to give a great speech and it's all going to start with the planning. Take the time to read this book, learn what you need to do in order to plan a great speech and then go out there and knock 'em dead!

You would think that the job of managing outsourced work would not require the person doing it to give speeches. However, if you thought this, then you'd be wrong. It turns out that when a company is willing to give up control over how work is performed by bringing in contractors, the relationship between the company and both the contractors and the firms that provide them becomes critically important. In order to communicate with both groups, the person who knows the most about what is going on, you, often gets called on to make speeches in order to update everyone at the same time. All of a sudden, a tough job just got even tougher. What You'll Find Inside: "ONCE UPON A TIME..." - THE ROLE OF STORYTELLING IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION HOW TO MAKE A TECHNICAL PRESENTATION RIVETING PERSUADE AN AUDIENCE USING 3 SECRETS USED BY PRESENTERS KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW MAY HURT YOU Just think of all of the great speakers who have gone before you Dr. Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Steve Jobs, the list goes on and on. Now you've been give your chance to change the world! I can well image what you are feeling right now - fear, doubt, uncertainty. Don't worry about it. I've got some good news for you - all of those great speakers felt the very same thing. However, they were able to muster up the courage to go out there and give the best speech that they possibly could. They did change the world and you just might end up doing the same thing. However, before you go doing that, we've got to make sure that you've got a well-planned speech to work with. Planning a speech is the first step in creating and delivering a powerful and effective speech. In order to plan a speech you need to take the time before you start to write out your speech and think about who you'll be speaking to. When planning a speech you need to make sure that you understand the purpose of your speech. Why are you going to go to all of the effort to create and deliver this speech? After you know that, take the time to think about your audience: what do they want from your speech? You're going to have to choose what type of speech you want to give. You can choose to deliver an informative speech, a demonstrative speech, an inspirational speech, or a humorous speech. More often than not the speech that you end up giving will draw from all four types of speeches. The good news is that I know that you're going to give a great speech and it's all going to start with the planning. Take the time to read this book, learn what you need to do in order to plan a great speech and then go out there and knock 'em dead!

It turns out that most negotiations are over even before they begin. The legal team that has spent the most time planning for the negotiation, doing their homework, and collecting the data that they'll need is the one that's going to walk away from the table with the best deal. Wouldn't you want that legal team to be your team? What You'll Find Inside: * THE 7 DEADLY SINS OF PREPARING TO NEGOTIATE * DEALS THAT MAKE MONEY: HOW TO PLAN YOUR CONCESSIONS * MAKE MORE SALES: UNDERSTANDING BUYER POWER & WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT * SINGLE VS TEAM NEGOTIATION: WHICH IS BETTER? Planning is what happens before a lawyer sits down at the negotiating table. There are no negotiating tactics or tricks at play here. It's just a matter of you doing your homework. At the same time you hope that the other side is NOT doing their homework so that you'll show up at the negotiation more prepared then they are. Just committing to doing the planning that your next negotiation is going to require is not enough, you also have to know just exactly how to go about doing it. That's what this book is going to teach you. Every legal negotiation is different and so the planning that you'll have to do for every negotiation will be different also. The planning that is required for a successful legal negotiation takes on many different forms. These can include planning where and when the negotiations will be held, what concessions you'll be willing to make to the other side, and understanding who has what power in the negotiations. The end result of doing the planning that a negotiation requires is that when you sit down at the negotiating table, you'll have a sense of being prepared. You'll know what you need to know about the other side of the table, what their goals are, what their constraints are, and what they hope to be able to get out of the negotiations. This is exactly the type of knowledge that every lawyer is going to need in order to be able to reach the type of deal that will allow you to walk away from the table with a sense of accomplishment.

It's not easy being an IT manager. There are constant staffing issue, budget issues, project issues, and the challenge of keeping your management informed about what is going on. The one thing that too many of us end up overlooking as we try to accomplish all of these things is that we have one more management job to do: manage our careers. What You'll Find Inside: EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION: WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU FEEL PASSED OVER BUT I WANT TO WORK 80 HOURS A WEEK...! 5 STEPS TO HELP AN IT MANAGER FIND A MENTOR HOW CAN AN IT MANAGER GET AHEAD AT YOUR COMPANY? It can be all too easy to forget about actively managing your IT manager career. In fact, some of us make a conscious decision that we're not going to spend any time on it - we'll just let things take care of themselves. It turns out that this can be one of the worst decisions that you'll ever make. For you see, if you ignore your IT manager career, there is a very good chance that everyone else will ignore it also. Time will pass and one day you'll look around and discover that you are right where you were a long time ago - nothing has changed! Instead, take charge of your career! How fast your career advances will be based on your personal performance and how well your team performs. In order to manage your career, you are going to have to take charge of both of these items. The good news is that it's not all that hard to do. There are several steps, like finding a mentor, which will speed you on your way to your next promotion. Take your time and carefully read each of the chapters in this book to get hints on what steps you need to start taking today in order to take charge of your career. Keep in mind that in this whole entire world, you are the person who is the most interested in you being successful. That means that you need to step up and accept responsibility for your career. Invest the time and I'm sure that you are going to be very pleased with the results that you are able to achieve! For more information on what it takes to be a great IT manager, check out my blog, The Accidental IT Leader, at: www.TheAccidentalITLeader.com Good luck!