Vanya Wryter Consulting Services

Tag: Business

  • How to Find the Perfect Mentor

    How to Find the Perfect Mentor

    Updated post

    When you’re busy building a business or career while juggling family and social life, it’s hard to find time for career-related training. One way to improve your knowledge is by taking a course or program. Another is to read books. Another effective way is to learn from a mentor who has already reached a level of success that you want to achieve. Finding the perfect mentor is not easy, but there are some tips you can follow to find the right one for you.

    Determine your mentor’s teaching style

    To learn from someone who has an online presence, start with an online search. Follow this person on their social media platforms, watch their videos, or subscribe to their newsletters. If they have free seminars or workshops, sign up for them. Does their teaching style and what they teach resonate with you?

    Whether your mentor is a well-known celebrity or someone you know personally, ask yourself if your mentor challenges you. For example, if you just became an entrepreneur and your potential mentor started a business six months ago, your mentor may not be able to guide you. However, if your potential mentor has owned a successful business for ten years, you have a greater distance to climb to catch up to that same point.

    Take action after you choose a mentor

    When you’ve found someone you like as a mentor, ask yourself if your mentor can motivate you to get results.

    Your mentor should inspire you to take action when you watch their video or teach you about a new concept. Their message should excite you so much that you want to learn and change.

    Their mentorship should have you thirsting for more knowledge about the same topic or have you madly taking notes. You should be excited about applying what they are trying to teach you as soon as possible.

    To get the best results from working with a mentor, have some goals in mind. The worst scenario is to be too general about what you want your mentor to teach you. If your mentor posts a lot of learning material online, focus on one topic at a time, not getting your hands on everything they have ever published. If your mentor wants to help you improve your skills, don’t set a general goal, such as, “I want to get better at my career.” Set specific goals and share these with your mentor.

    Choose a mentor who chooses you

    Getting feedback from your mentor is important. I’ve taken online courses from experts whom I respect as mentors. I understand their lessons, but I’m unsure whether I’m interpreting their learning points correctly.

    At a workshop or live webinar, choose a mentor who answers questions and provides feedback to participants. This style helps you to gauge if you understand what they teach.

    If you can schedule an hour with your mentor, have your hour planned in advance. Prepare questions to ask your mentor, or list what you’d like to improve on before your meeting. Set clear expectations and outcomes to show your mentor that you respect their time.

    For example, if you want to improve your presentation skills, ask your mentor if they can give you some pointers and feedback on the way you speak at a presentation. Be prepared to show them part of your presentation so they can provide you with specific tips and feedback.

    After receiving feedback, take some time to reflect on what you’ve learned. Was the feedback valuable? Can you use the feedback to make improvements? Did your mentor seem genuinely invested in you? A mentor who is genuinely invested will encourage you, tell you what progress you’ve made, be honest in their critique, and help you set goals for next steps.

    Keep moving forward

    Finding the right mentor is like an investment. You want someone who is approachable, excited about what you want to learn, and honest when mentoring you. It will feel uncomfortable and even painful to be told that you aren’t doing something well.

    In life, the best direction to keep moving in is forward. After you reach one milestone in the road, aim for a new one. Always keep challenging yourself and you will grow as a person.

    Key takeaways

    Finding the perfect mentor is a search for a two-way relationship. Your mentor should be someone you are inspired to learn from, but also someone who is excited about seeing your career grow.

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    How to Find the Perfect Mentor
  • 5 Tips on Working for a Virtual StartUp

    5 Tips on Working for a Virtual StartUp

    Nowadays, it’s possible to go to an office address and find that the company you’re looking for doesn’t physically exist there. At all. Technology has enabled the employees of an entire company to work from home. 

    Some of these companies are startups that are 100 percent virtual. These companies are great if you hate commuting and love working in your own space. But, as startups, they also have their drawbacks.

    Keep these five tips in mind if you’re thinking of working for a 100% remote startup company. These tips can improve your success at working for such a company in the long term.

    1 Believe in the mission and vision

    Look into the company’s mission and vision before you go to your job interview. The company’s goals should completely line up with yours. Of course, you want to work for a company with a purpose you believe in. With a startup, it is even more crucial that you aren’t working for the paycheque. Here’s why.

    Startups are start-ups. The journey can be bumpy as the company experiences growing pains. Roles for each person may constantly change. Policies and procedures may frequently update as the company tries to determine what works and what doesn’t. Even the company’s products and services may change as it adjusts to become a better fit for its ideal customers. 

    If the company’s goals are goals you fully support, it makes the constant shifting and adjusting easier to bear.

    2 Be flexible and open to change

    If you’re going to work for a startup, you absolutely must embrace change. As the company grows at a rapid pace, more people will join the team. Roles and responsibilities will shift. You may find yourself working with more team members or find yourself managing a team. You may have more tasks on your to-do list. Or you may have fewer, more specialized tasks as your role becomes more defined.

    Procedures may also improve and change over time as the company experiments with different types of software. Instead of tracking your hours on a simple spreadsheet or table, you now need to learn to use customer management software (CRM software) such as Salesforce. Instead of casually mentioning in a chat that you finished a task, you’ll need to write your update in a project management tool, such as Trello, Asana, or Click Up.

    3 Take initiative

    A startup company is still figuring out many things. Just picture a company that is settling into its office on moving day. Office equipment and office furniture are everywhere as people try to figure out where everyone will sit and what will go in each room.

    Some startups don’t have a human resources (HR) department or a clear line of authority. In these cases, you may need to be more assertive than you’re comfortable with. For example, if the person you report to is disrespectful to you, you’ll need to figure out who you could talk to about your boss. Similarly, without an HR, you won’t have someone to speak to about disrespectful treatment by a coworker. You will also have to take the initiative about getting a raise because the company is still figuring out what the pay raises, bonuses, and benefits should be.

    4 Be prepared to put in extra hours and effort

    Working for a startup could mean working extra hours and putting in more effort. Depending on how established the startup is, the company may require you to work longer days to get procedures set up. They may be short staffed, so you’ll find yourself taking on the role of more than one person.

    At some companies, they will appreciate the extra effort and reward you with a promotion, such as a change in job title or responsibilities, or better pay. At other companies, particularly those that aren’t well organized, your extra effort will be required but will go unnoticed. They will expect you to work weekends and evenings in addition to regular office hours.  

    5 Invest in yourself

    If you’re working for a virtual startup, you may feel a bit disconnected, especially if you’re a social extrovert. You may only know the person who brought you into the company after the job interview. You’ll also know the people who you work with regularly. But everyone else will be just a name in a chat group. You don’t get to meet people casually in the hallway or during lunch break. 

    The people you work with may not remember to introduce you to key members of the team or remember to show you how to use the software you’ll need. 

    It’s up to you to reach out and remind them of your skills if you want a promotion or pay raise. Your supervisor may not remember these details, especially if the team has been growing and your supervisor has changed and there is no HR department. 

    Learning new skills is important, especially when it comes to technology. No one from the IT Department is going to knock on your door to help you set up your computer or connect to your internet. If you lose your internet connection or your computer breaks down, you lose your lifeline to your virtual job. 

    Key Takeaways

    Not all startups are the same. Leadership affects how the company treats its employees. If there is strong leadership, the startup will grow quickly while providing the support that each person needs. People will feel acknowledged and appreciated for their work. If you’re considering working for a virtual startup, be prepared to put in extra effort and be ready for rapid and constant change.

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  • Let’s Un-invent the Handshake

    Let’s Un-invent the Handshake

    Daily writing prompt
    If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
    View all responses

    If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

    It’s a competition and it’s awkward. Those are just two reasons I would un-invent this one thing that most people in the world consider as polite interaction.

    Let’s find ourselves a time machine and travel all the way back to ancient Greece, ancient Babylon, and ancient Rome, when handshaking was practiced. Then let’s remove all memory of the first handshake! It was a form of greeting, like tipping a hat, or showing that you weren’t carrying hidden weapons.

    Let’s un-invent the handshake! I’m more in favor of the courteous bow for many reasons. 

    1 Handshakes reveal a power imbalance

    Enough of men seizing my hand and squeezing so hard that my small fingers become crunched together in a triangular shape, reminiscent of the painful process of Chinese foot-binding. My sole impression of this person is pain. Do those men have no control over their bodies? Do they grab a sandwich with the same force as pulling a car?

    I also question the intention of men who immediately twist my wrist to the side like we’re arm wrestling, so that his hand is on top as he shakes my hand. Why the gestures of dominance? Handshakes were a form of greeting, not a moment to show who’s the boss.

    And on the other end of the spectrum, I feel so domineering when I shake a woman with a spaghetti grip: the kind of grip where her fingers are like limp string.

    2 Handshakes are awkward

    On more than one occasion, I’ve been sitting in an air-conditioned room, or just stepped in from the cold, and my hands are freezing. I can see the other person trying to look polite and calm (and not electrified) as I offer them my ice cube hand. 

    Let’s not forget about the times when an introduction takes place at an awkward moment. For example, when I wash my hands in the company kitchen and a coworker introduces me to a new employee before I can find the towel. Awkward! Damp-skin handshake after I do a quick pat down on my own clothes.

    Or the time you watch someone enter the room and touch door handles, sneeze and use a tissue, and grab a sticky muffin. Then the meeting starts, and handshakes are exchanged. If you’re germophobic, do you now use your handshake hand to grab a muffin from the table too?

    What do you think? Do you like the handshake as a form of greeting?

  • Let’s Normalize Privacy and Discretion

    Let’s Normalize Privacy and Discretion

    You don’t know me. But I know your name and I know where you live.

    Scary, right? Recently, I saw a video about protecting your personal details like your birthday, phone number, and address when businesses won’t do that for you. Scams are becoming more common, and businesses don’t need to make a criminal’s job easier for them.

    The Potential Harm of Sharing Details

    Sharing personal details can be harmful. Here are some examples: a doctor’s office or pharmacy that calls out your full name to everyone in the waiting room. Or the receptionist who asks to confirm your details by getting you to say your birthday and address so the whole room can hear it. 

    Another example is the bank teller who confirms the large amount of cash you’re withdrawing by saying it loud enough so the people behind know how much cash you’re about to carry out the door.

    A woman commented on the video that a staff member at a medical office said her full name out loud. After the appointment, a man she didn’t know called out her full name. He had been watching her earlier in the waiting room. He started to follow her out of the building. 

    Can We Protect Ourselves?

    We can be proactive, but the business needs to work with us. People have written their personal information on a piece of paper, only to have the receptionist read out all the details to confirm the details with the patient. 

    Another method is to show a driver’s license. Some people have tried this, and said they got unhappy looks from the employee who seemed to think the method was a lazy way to avoid speaking (and for not sharing personal information with everyone in the room).

    It’s not very discreet if you write down the amount you want to withdraw and the bank teller shouts out each one hundred dollar bill for everyone around you to hear. By the time you leave the bank, you will feel like a rob-me-I-have-cash target is marked on your back. 

    One suggestion is to check in with reception at the doctor’s office, the pharmacy, or whichever office you’re waiting at. They quietly take your name and then give you a number. When they call you, they call your number, not your full name. It’s not as personal or friendly, but it’s definitely more discreet. More offices should try this.

    Key Takeaways

    Businesses aren’t doing enough to protect our personal information. They like to confirm our identity by asking us to say our full name, address, or phone number in a room full of strangers. Our safety from scammers or creepy people is not safeguarded. We can use some techniques to protect ourselves, but the business needs to cooperate for those techniques to work.

    What do you think about how businesses protect your privacy? What methods have you tried?

  • Product Bias: What You Buy May Not Be For You

    Product Bias: What You Buy May Not Be For You

    Here’s something to think about the next time you make a purchase.

    For me, it started as an innocent observation. I was looking into buying a planner when I noticed that the full, page-sized planners were commonly in pink shades or floral patterns. What statement are the makers of these planners trying to make?

    I started to do some digging and found examples of product bias. Product bias results from items made for a specific group of people, with little to no research done to ensure that the product is meant for a larger group of users. For example, products made for right-handed people, or equipment designed for men, but used by any person. 

    The following are just some examples of product bias.

    Right-Handed Products for Left-Handed People

    Products designed for right-handed people can cause inconveniences for left-handed people. For example:

    • Almost all doors are designed to open using the right hand and hand rails are usually on the right side.
    • The measurements on a measuring cup will need to be read upside down or backward if you are left-handed. 
    • The buttons on watches are on an inconvenient side of the watch.
    • People at your dinner table are likely right-handed so all the tableware is set up for right-handed diners. Left-handed diners need to remember which side their cutlery and glasses are on.
    • Jobs are likely to supply you with a right-handed mouse. 

    Biased Design

    Everyday things are designed in a biased manner, from seatbelts to voice assistants.

    • Period tracking apps are pink. Just search “period tracking apps” and you will see pink logos and pink designs.
    • Seatbelts (until recently) were tested using crash test dummies with body shapes similar to the average male body, so female drivers are more likely to be killed or injured in car crashes.
    • Voice assistants such as Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana & Apple’s Siri have female names and voices. These products are described as “helpful,” “supportive,” and “humble” by the company.

    “Shrink It and Pink It”

    The saying “shrink it and pink it” refers to products that were originally designed for men and later made in a smaller size for women. In other words, those products were not originally designed for women (or for use by all adults).

    • Running shoes were designed to fit the typical shape of a man’s foot and later made in a smaller size to fit a woman’s foot.
    • Personal protective equipment (PPE) that fits women properly is hard to find. In healthcare, women deal with gowns that are too long. They wear masks that are too big to fit their face properly. 
    • “Women represent over half of the global population and in the US, they influence nearly 90% of all purchasing decisions. Yet only 19% of practicing industrial designers, also known as product designers, are women.”

    Racial Face Misidentification 

    Products designed for light-skinned faces encountered unexpected issues when the products were used with a wider range of human subjects. Some specific stories:

    • Mr. Alciné, a software engineer, used an A.I. in a Google online photo service six years ago to organize his photos into topics such as “birthday.” He noticed a folder labeled “gorillas.” Curious, he opened the folder and “found more than 80 photos he had taken nearly a year earlier of a friend during a concert in nearby Prospect Park. That friend was Black.” The photos had been mistagged. 
    • An Amazon facial recognition technology service had difficulty identifying the sex of female and darker-skinned faces. “According to the study, the service mistook women for men 19 percent of the time and misidentified darker-skinned women for men 31 percent of the time. For lighter-skinned males, the error rate was zero.”

    Key Takeaways

    Biases exist in the design of products designed specifically for one group of people, but sold to a wider group. For example, products designed for men and then marketed for use by all people. 

    What is your experience with products? Have you bought a product that you felt was biased?