Today on Thought Talk, I welcome Mark Herschberg, author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. Mark has spent his career identifying and studying the skill gap that exists for what he calls firm skills, including networking, negotiating, communicating, leading, and career planning. We tend to think of many of these as situational skills, but Herschberg says they are really life skills — none of which are formally taught in school.  

 

Join me for an interesting discussion on how leveling up your firm skills can lead to higher ROI than you ever expected and how a little bit of training goes a long way to creating a killer career.  

 

Getting Your Skills Up to Par

 

Networking is about building relationships and not just exchanging business cards. 

 

Negotiation is all around us everyday — not just with vendors and employees. 

 

Leadership isn’t just a title — it’s about influencing others, having a vision, and convincing others to go along. You can lead from whatever chair you sit in. 



About Karen Tiber Leland

 

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

 

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

 

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

 

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

 

About Our Guest

 

Mark Herschberg is the author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems, Mark has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia. He helped to start the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, dubbed MIT’s “career success accelerator,” where he teaches annually. At MIT, he received a B.S. in physics, a B.S. in electrical engineering & computer science, and an M.Eng. in electrical engineering & computer science, focusing on cryptography. At Harvard Business School, Mark helped create a platform used to teach finance at prominent business schools.

 

You can learn more about Mark Herschberg on his LinkedIn|Website

 

Mentioned

The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You, by Mark A. Herschberg

Negotiation Masterclass with Chris Voss

 

Resources

 

Do you need a LinkedIn or online presence upgrade? One of the easiest ways to do that is to book a Rent My Brain session. 

 

During this one-hour, high-impact consulting call we get to the heart of your social media and LinkedIn issues and you’ll come away with very specific recommendations for how you can upgrade and improve your online presence.

 

For more information or to book a session, contact me directly at [email protected] or visit KarenLeland.com.

 

Tweetables and Quotes to Share

 

"If you have a company of very good negotiators, you’re going to do better with your vendors, with your customers, with your partners and even intra-team dynamics in your company." — Mark A. Herschberg PODCAST: bit.ly/39o0yer @KarenFLeland

We think of these [negotiation, networking, leadership, communications] as situational skills, but they’re really life skills, and that’s a really interesting way to think about it. — PODCAST: bit.ly/39o0yer @KarenFLeland

"You can lead every day from whatever chair you’re in." — Mark A. Herschberg  PODCAST: bit.ly/39o0yer @KarenFLeland

"Most people have never had any formal training on how to interview others. But if you talk to a manager they will tell you that people are the hardest part of the job, hiring the right people is a key part of the job and your primary tool for hiring is interviewing." — Mark A. Herschberg PODCAST: bit.ly/39o0yer @KarenFLeland



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