Good at Maths = Good at Getting Jobs

Good at Maths = Good at Getting Jobs Being good at maths is a skill everyone wants. It often means you have a more analytical mind, can do quick sums in your head and understand how to work out percentages in order to pay the restaurant bill! Does mathematical ability actually predict how successful you will be in your career? Does possessing the Im good at maths gene from childhood, automatically set you up for a successful future? This infographic by Tutoring Expert asks the same question and provides us with the answer: Breaking the curve In the 1970s = sample of US 13 year olds who were good at maths. Results: 2.3% became top executives 7572 academic articles were written by 25% of the students. The problem Children have a lack of opportunity to learn substantial mathematics. Children begin with a negative trajectory towards mathematics. Findings There is predictive power in early mathematics. Pre school maths knowledge predicts success in high school. Mathematics predicts later reading achievement! Teachers underestimate childrens ability. Children with maths problems were 13% less likely to graduate from high school. All students need a maths intervention. 58% of adults cannot compute a 10% tip on food bills. 78% of adults cannot calculate miles per gallon. People on reddit How children should learn math Buy children lego. Ask children questions that involve estimation and math. Get children music lessons. Teach them to play chess. Let them cut the pizza. Teach them Origami. Buy them card game sets.

How to Use LinkedIn for Social Selling

How to Use LinkedIn for Social Selling Social media  is a marketplace of  potential buyers, so  how are you selling to them? Recruiters sell socially every day, proactively  headhunting  their next superstar  candidate from LinkedIn and marketing roles to them. This  strategy is  the same whether youre selling a role, product or service, so how  do you implement social selling in a B2B organisation? What social networks should you use? How can you  help people to  visualise your product offering? In this interview we  put Santander under the Spotlight to learn how  its done in a bank. I speak  to Mike Davies, UK Head of Business Development at  Santander UK Corporate Commercial. Have a listen to the interview on iTunes,  Soundcloud or keep reading for a summary of our conversation. And make sure  you subscribe to the Employer Branding Podcast. How did you implement social selling at Santander? Weve used LinkedIn for a long time at Santander. I think we were one of the first  banks to use Sales Navigator. What we did was, in a very methodical way, identify people in the organisation with a front line sales section, and then look at the tools that we could use or deploy to support them in building their portfolio of customers. So once we got that functional piece out of the way, we looked across the market to identify the right sort of support and tools for our sales guys. And LinkedIn obviously fits very well because it is a social platform and it allows us to put people in touch with the right prospects at the right time. Do you use any  networks beyond LinkedIn for social selling? We dont. We limit ourselves just to LinkedIn. The reason for that is currency of message. So were looking to build real relationships. So LinkedIn allows us to, with InMail to sort of make a one-on-one contact. Santander is an organisation that uses Twitter and has various Twitter handles but in terms of our social selling, we do them ourselves, just LinkedIn. Does your #SME face challenges breaking into new overseas markets? https://t.co/L7pKBj3Nge pic.twitter.com/pCohrWK9OJ SantanderUK Business (@santanderukbiz) April 6, 2016 What challenges have you  come across and how have you addressed  them? I think the biggest challenge was change. Banking is quite a stable industry.  We employed guys whove been in relationship roles for 10, 15, 20 years. So you know, theyve got very established ways of doing things. Social selling is a new concept, a relatively new concept, and LinkedIn is a new tool, so it was a process of education, but also best practice sharing that allowed us to move from the novelty of having a LinkedIn Sales Navigator account to becoming just part of peoples day to day routine. How do you go about measuring success and what  results  have  you seen? Okay, so we started off, as all good sales companies do, with specific targets. First, that was of social media activity. The edges of that got really, really blurred because the sales process when youre on boarding a corporate business isnt just a function of social media activity or marketing. So weve taken a much more blended approach to the return on investment statistic, which I think everybody defaults to. So we will include social media activity with our overall business development activity in terms of measuring success. There have been tangible  increases in terms of volume or quality of sales that weve driven through businesses and Santander as a whole. And I think probably the best indicators, if you think that three years ago, our market share was about three and a half percent, weve embraced social media, weve embraced a lot of changes in our business development activity, were now somewhere at 7% market share. So that isnt all attributable  to social selling but social selling has played a real significant part in reaching that number and were expecting that to continue. Do you look at the Social Selling Index? It is. It does bring out the alpha sales person as opposed to the alpha male. Its a really useful measure because all of the constituent parts that form the SSI also contribute to good business development so we do use that. And the quest for bragging rights in Santander SSI can be quite fierce. The last time I looked, the highest score we had was, I think it was 87, and it was our business development director in London, whos not backwards  in coming forwards and letting us all know he has the highest SSI score. Check your Social Selling Index score here:  linkedin.com/sales/ssi. What will happen next to social selling? I think the one thing I predict is it will stop thinking of social selling as something distinct from sales market or business development.  It will and should become business as usual. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeDaviesd67  and subscribe to the Employer Branding Podcast.

Dont FREAK OUT!

Dont FREAK OUT! Who  made those Keep Calm and Carry On posters?    I wonder if they work in a big office and found the key to keeping it together when you want to LOSE IT on someone.   Its normal.   Sometimes we want to FREAK OUT! on the job but it never leads to anything productive or positive.   Here are a few ways to stop yourself from the big FO! 1. Picture the Day Before It Starts.   Visulalize yourself moving through your day with a smile.   Any challenge that comes your way will be addressed with that smile in a calm way.   Sound corny?   It works. 2. Workout Before Work.   Duh.   Get your release before work so you arent unloading your pent up frustrations on the job. 3. 24-hour Email Response.   Receive a ridiculous email that deserves a put you in your place response?   Give it a day.   They can wait.   I promise your response will look a LOT different after you sleep on it. 4. Just Walk Away.   Sometimes its not one particular email or person that sets us off but many tasks or requests piling up.   Its OK to go outside for 10 minutes and take a breather.   Its magical how the small tasks feel so much smaller when you arrive back at your desk. 5. Its OK to Say You Want Time.  Everyone wants answers RIGHT NOW.   Its OK to say you want more time and you will get them an answer within 1-3 days.   Dont let others pressure you about important topics like career changes or large projects because its in their own self interest.   Stand up for yourself and make a well thought-out decision. MOST IMPORTANT:   48 hours if you still feel as strongly as you did during the initial FREAK OUT! phase about a particular topic, its likely your views will not change.   You will need to find a calm way to communicate your stance and stand beside your viewpoint.   The objective is NOT to let someone walk all over you by not communicating how you feel.   The goal is to keep emotion and initial feelings at bay because their interpretation is often questionable. Truly, the only place to FREAK OUT! is on a dance floor ??