10 Tips to Help You Build and Navigate a Successful Career Path  

A successful career doesn’t happen overnight nor does it happen by chance. Time, hard work and careful planning are the foundation for building and navigating a successful career path. But, no path is a straight-line, no one’s path is the same and everyone’s definition of success is different. Still, you can learn some helpful and insightful advice by listening and learning from those who have experience in navigating their careers. We’ve pulled together out top ten. 

Know What Your Leadership Values
While climbing the corporate ladder, success is rarely about what you want. It’s what your leadership team and the company wants. So, it’s important to know what their goals are. Is the company looking to grow revenue by x% over the next year? Do they value margin over revenue? Are they looking to acquire new customers or retain and development their top customers? Understanding the company’s overall strategic goals and also some of their tactical Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will help you align your own goals to build a successful career. Also, take note of your team members’ and direct manager’s goals and KPIs. Is someone up for a big promotion? Can you help them with that promotion by helping them hit their KPIs even if they’re not directly aligned to yours? Helping others on the path to success is a pathway for your own success. 

Focus on Execution & Impact
Aligning to the overall strategy is important, but building a plan that has tangible, executable activities that have real impact on your business and/or the overall company are the keys to success. If you’re in a new role or you’re starting a new quarter or year, sit down and list out weekly and monthly activities with goals that you can track. Some examples:

• Goal: Acquire 100 New customers each month.
• Activities to Reach Goal: 1. Host two lunch & learn events each month. 2. Call 5 new contacts/partners each week 3. Call 10 customers each week and ask for referrals.
• Goal: Increase Email open rate by 5%.
• Activities to Reach Goal: 1. Test a new email format each week with a subset of contacts. 2. Test new days and times to send emails 3. Outbound to contacts to update old contact information.

Having a list of activities you’ve executed and the impact they had makes your performance reviews and promotion discussions easier. They also look great on your resume when you’re looking to move roles. New hiring managers want to understand what impact you will have on their business.

Create and Track KPIs
Similar to the above on focusing on execution and impact, when you put together your activities plan, you’ll likely have a list of things that are tied to your company’s goals and/or given to you by your manager, but also build out your own KPIs and track your progress against them. They can be basic goals that align to your job (Acquire X new customers, increase social media impressions by x%, etc.) and they can also align to your likes and preferences. Do you enjoy meeting customers face-to-face? Make a goal to talk to a new customer every week to solicit feedback on how to optimize your programs. Do you love analyzing the numbers and discovering new data? Set aside two hours a week to dedicate to data analysis and keep track of your discoveries and how they impact the business.

Ask, Listen and Learn
Enough can’t be said about the importance of listening and learning. Ask for advice and insight from people who have done your job before or partners who might see your job from a different perspective. Ask your external and internal customers for feedback (good and bad). Fix the bad and enhance the good. Reach out to other departments and teams to understand how they have an impact on your business or how you have an impact on theirs. Don’t ever stop asking, listening and learning.

Build Your Network
Building a team of mentors and supporters at your company is extremely important in advancing your career, they are the core team to advice you on climbing the ladder and campion you to your leadership team. But don’t forget about the other people in your network. Your peers and team members might have an impact on your next promotion or the success of your job. Team members and cross-functional partners are routinely asked to provide feedback on your performance. Especially during promotion season. Don’t forget about people who have left your company. They could be an industry expert who can share valuable insight or even recommend you for a new career/job. Your network is everyone you interact with or could interact with. Don’t leave anyone out when thinking about your career.

Take on Special Projects
Doing an amazing job and checking off all of your KPIs isn’t always enough to get you to the next level and make you’re at the top of the list during promotion season. Going the extra mile and taking on a special project, with real value and business impact, will help catapult you to the top of the list. Leaders want to know that you’re not just coming into work every day and checking a box, but that you’re thinking about the bigger picture and you’re willing to go above and beyond. So, seek out special projects within your team or with cross-functional teams. Try to take on a leadership role within the project team, even if you’re not the direct leader or the highest ranking team member. Remember that special projects are using about working as a team and succeeding as a team, so leverage that opportunity to build your leadership skills.

Get Away from Your Desk
It can be easy to get stuck at your desk as work and projects get busy, but getting up from your desk to talk to your team members, peers, and cross-functional partners can be beneficial for your career (and your sanity). Be mindful of other people’s time, but at the same time get up and talk to people. Do you need feedback from a Marketing or Sales Director on a new program you’re launching and were considering sending a lengthy email on the topic? Instead, maybe ping them on IM or email and ask them if they’re free for 10-15 minutes to grab a quick coffee, so you can ask them for their feedback on a new program you’re working on. They likely could use a quick break from their desk as well and you’ll both benefit from the facetime. Our on the marketing team, working on new customer programs, and you haven’t spoken to a customer in 6-12 months? Ask one of your account managers is you can attend a customer call with them. Try to make a point to get away from your desk (and computer) and talk to your co-workers and customers.

Always Offer to Help
The success of your career is not entirely on your job performance. Your team’s performance and the overall company’s performance can have a significant impact. If you’re succeeding in your individual role, but your team is struggling or the overall company is struggling, your future job prospects could be limited or nonexistent. If you see a team member or partner struggling, offer to help. Maybe they have a new product launching soon and are struggling to keep-up with all of the action items before launch. Or maybe they’re not strong in financial acumen, but you excel at it. Offering to help your co-workers and partners will always benefit you in the long run.

Be Patient and Persistent
A successful career doesn’t happen overnight, nor will it happen in a perfectly linear path. It might take you three years to get your first promotion, but then your second and third promotions happen within two years. Or you might need to take a couple of lateral jobs before you get promoted to a manager, director or VP. Every successful executive will tell you that they had to take several wrong turns and few deviations to get on the right path. And even some dramatic changes before they got to where they are now. There’s no perfect career path and it’s never easy, but hard work, patience and persistence will help you get there.

Never Stop Learning
Last but not least is to never stop learning. This is the number one rule for some of the most successful CEOs. Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Warren Buffet all frequently talk about how important it is to never stop learning. Bill Gates reads 50 books per year. And most of what he reads is nonfiction that explains something about how the world works. So make sure you prioritize your continuing education with professional development classes and a good book.