What Does It Mean to Leverage Your Skills? How-to Strengthen Your Soft Skills and Improve Life! Pt.2

Here are the remaining 7 of 13 curated soft skills that industries are looking for in employees, contractors or partnerships.

Introduction:

Do you know what your networking, team leadership and branding skills are worth?

Do you have an idea of where you stand in relation to other employees or would-be-employees of your company? If not, I have some bad news for you: it could be costing you a lot.

What are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are generally thought of as personal traits or characteristics that help a person get along with others.

Being able to relate to and interact with people effectively is critical in today's business environment. For example, knowing how to approach someone and leave a good impression can be invaluable in many business scenarios.

Skill 7: Working in Gigs

Working in a gig economy can be incredibly rewarding. But it’s also a bit of a double-edged sword.

The gig economy is a fast-growing part of the workforce that offers many benefits.

Working in gig economy can be an excellent way to make extra money, gain new skills, accumulate experience, build a strong network of contacts, flexibility, freedom and the chance to make money doing something you love. In addition, there are no financial obligations or commitments required to work in this type of economy because you only work when you want to.

But there are drawbacks too.

Some people find it hard to get hired or keep their jobs because they lack the right skills and experience. Others want to work in the gig economy but can’t because they don’t have a car or smartphone or other equipment needed for certain jobs. And some people just don’t like working for themselves (or being judged by other people).

There's no denying that the gig economy is here to stay. As businesses are forced to become more lean and efficient, they are increasingly turning to freelancers and contractors for short-term work.

This shift has created a huge opportunity for people who want to work in the gig economy. But it's not all rainbows and butterflies. Many people are wary of taking on freelance work because they believe it will be difficult to find clients and make money.

But there are actually many benefits to working in the gig economy — if you know how to leverage your soft skills to sell yourself:

Skill 8: Adaptability and Flexibility

Flexibility and adaptability are important when looking for employment, contracting or partnering with a company.

As an employee or contractor, you need to fit in with your company’s culture, while at the same time be able to work in other ways when required. As a partner, you’ve got to be flexible and adaptable if your partner goes through business changes that impact your relationship.

Your adaptability allows you to find creative solutions that keep both of your businesses on track and prospering.

However, many people fail on these two critical skills. Why? Well people are often stuck in their comfort zone and unable to adapt to change and take risks when necessary. If you want to succeed as an employee, contractor or partner then you will need to be adaptive, flexible and willing to try new things all the time.

Skill 9: Cultural Intelligence and Diversity Consciousness

It’s a fact that business leaders today recognize the importance of diversity, but many struggle to put diversity into practice.

Diversity is more than just hiring people who are different — it’s about understanding the ways those differences impact teams and organizations, and how to leverage those differences to achieve goals.

Cultural intelligence builds on four characteristics: awareness, influence, impact and knowledge. Using a tool like Cultural Intelligence helps individuals get past the differences and appreciate what drives us all: our complex brain wiring; our diverse perspectives; our shared humanity.

This is where true change begins, in every sense of the word. Cultural intelligence is a unique combination of aptitudes and skills, not just one or two. When you can see differences, understand different motivations and behaviors, interpret situations appropriately and adjust your approach based on what someone needs in the moment — you can move seamlessly through cultures and help your team do the same.

Skill 10: Ethical Awareness

Ethical Awareness helps to build trust and loyalty amongst employees, partners, and customers. This is one of the most important skills for working in a global economy and plays a terrific role in any business.

It is the foundation of making ethical decisions and it allows to assign the value of a commodity or service to your customers with respect to their own values.

By doing so, you will be able to provide them with the best product and service tailored for their needs based on their possible value structure. Moral reasoning helps you become aware of the consequences of your actions on others as it promotes reasonable thinking in every aspect of life!

Despite the fact that business guidelines and laws may be enforced, it’s not difficult to find enterprise groups who don’t follow these. All in all, a company must be conscious of the ethical constraints on its way of acting, hiring and partnering.

Skill 11: Leadership Skills

A leader is someone who helps people do their best work.

Leadership skills can help you in your career, whether you're an employee, contractor or partner.

As a leader, it's important to have strong leadership skills. These skills will help you inspire others to follow you and achieve great things together. The benefits of leadership skills include:

- Increased productivity. When people are inspired by their leaders, they are more likely to work hard and stay motivated throughout the project or task at hand — which leads to higher productivity overall.

- Greater efficiency. When all members of a team contribute their ideas, it makes for better problem-solving processes and decision-making strategies. This helps teams complete tasks faster than if only one person made all the decisions for everyone else on the team.

- More successful projects and tasks completed. To highlight as well that the tasks are usually completed successfully with less stress and frustration for everyone involved because conflicts between team members are resolved quickly before they get out of control and cause unnecessary delays in getting things done.

As a leader, it's important to have strong leadership skills. These skills will help you inspire others to follow you and achieve great things together. So don't neglect the development of your leadership skills because they can make you more valuable as an employee, contractor or partner.

Having strong leadership skills can also help you increase your own personal satisfaction and happiness which leads to a better quality of life!

Skill 12: Branding Skills

Branding is the process of creating a unique image for a product or service It is a very important aspect of marketing and the cornerstone of any business. It is the way to express your company's identity and values to the outside world, and in turn, build strong consumer relationships.

Branding is an art that can be learned by anyone. It is a skill that you can develop over time, with practice and experience. The execution of branding can be done in many ways such as designing logos, slogans, colors and other aspects that make up the brand identity.

Benefits of branding skills:

- A brand identity helps you stand out in the crowd.

- It can help generate leads, sales, and traffic to your website or blog.

- It helps you build trust with your audience or customers by showing them who you are as a person or business.

Branding makes it easier for people to recognize your business. When they see your logo or slogan, they will know immediately which company you are talking about. Branding also helps people remember your company name and what it stands for. It also creates an emotional connection between them and your business, which means they will have a positive attitude towards it.

Branding makes it easier for customers to identify with your product or service because they feel like they are part of something bigger than just buying something from a store. This way, customers can feel like they belong to something special and that their choices matter more than just being another customer in line at the grocery store buying milk and bread. They want to feel like their purchase matters more than just making money off them quickly so that they can move on

Skill 13: Networking Skills

The importance of networking skills is one of the most underrated skills in the workplace.

Whether you're looking to get a new job or just want to build your professional network, developing strong networking skills will help you get what you want.

Networking is the process of making connections with other people so you can learn from them, share information with them and do business together.

This skill is beneficial for both employees, contractors, freelancers or partners because they give you an advantage over other candidates. These days, networking is more important than ever because there are so many opportunities out there for people who know how to network effectively.

Networking skills are the most important skill for success in business. I'm not talking about the ability to network online, but rather the ability to build strong relationships with people.

The benefits of developing your networking skills are pretty obvious. You can:

* Get more referrals from your network

* Develop strong working relationships with key people

* Learn from others' experiences

* Find mentors who can help you grow and improve as a professional

and that's just to name a few of the positive outcomes that result from sharpened networking skills!

Conclusion:

Leveraging your skills as employees, contractors or partners is a great way to put your talents to work. You can also use your knowledge and expertise to start a business on the side.

If you have a skill that you can teach others, there are likely people who will pay for that too.

You can leverage your skills in several ways:

Teaching classes or seminars on topics such as how to cook or how to manage social media. You don't need lots of money or a fancy office space – just a room where you can hold the class and a computer with internet access (which most places today offer).

Providing consulting services for small businesses in areas where you have expertise, such as marketing or accounting. You could even provide these services remotely via phone or email if they don't require face-to-face meetings.

Creating an online course about something that interests you and then selling it online through platforms like Udemy or Skillshare.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain from leveraging your skills, especially in this current economic state.

Broaden your opportunities by putting yourself out there and using your knowledge, skills, abilities, and other competencies to fill needs in your industry.

************************************************End Of Year Note******************************************

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