Q: Who is the intended audience?
A: It is written for any front-line employee wishing to advance into management or someone in a management role believing that they should have been promoted. It’s also sound advice for someone in middle-management looking to continue to move up the corporate ladder.

Q: What is the book about?
A: Why Haven’t I Been Promoted? Because You Interview for Your Next Job Everyday empowers readers with effective advice for taking full advantage of those golden employment opportunities anytime they come knocking. The strategies include dos and don’ts that lead step-by-step up the corporate ladder. It breaks down the issue into multiple aspects, covering topics such as experience, goals, personal development, communications, results and even first impressions. It also addresses what to do when you get an interview and even how to handle the promotion rejection, should it occur.

“Why haven’t I been promoted?” is a common question in the business world. Many individuals feel confused. They have completed all the training, led projects, volunteered for extra responsibilities and did what they thought needed to be done, but still no promotion.

It’s not a simple equation. Your day to day activities, your results, your interactions, the way you present yourself are all things that can either help you or hurt you in advancing your career.

I have said many times that your career path is your individual responsibility, not that of your manager or your company. It’s not their job to make you what they want you to be. It’s your job to make yourself what they need. There is a huge difference between wants and needs. Your parents probably told you that growing up. Well, you know what, they were absolutely right. You have to take ownership of your growth and development, and don’t expect someone else to plan your career for you.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: I have over 20 years of management experience for Fortune 50 companies such as Wal-Mart and CVS Caremark, managing as many as 450 employees at a time. I received my bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Southwestern Oklahoma State University and my MBA from the University of Phoenix.

Over the past twenty-plus years that I have been in management, I’ve come to realize that it’s not just completing the task that gets you to the next level. From my experience, there are a lot of factors that should be taken into consideration for a promotional opportunity. There may be multiple reasons why you haven’t been promoted. But you can only impact the ones that you have control over.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: Why Haven’t I Been Promoted? is written from the company’s perspective, not the employee’s. What an employee believes is not always in line with what the company expects. It explains how your career path is your responsibility, not that of your manager or company. It stresses the importance of building relationships in advance by establishing a rapport with influential co-workers. And it answers the money question: Is it more who you know or what you know?

You interview for your next job every day. Plain and simple. That’s the key to getting promoted, but most people eliminate themselves from promotional opportunities without realizing it.

By following the advice in the book, readers will finally understand why they have been passed over for promotions they thought they deserved, and more importantly, they can confidently start laying the groundwork for their next job or promotion.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: Start setting yourself up for your next job today. Don’t wait until there is an opening and you apply. Your words, actions, results, and impressions up to that point might be what eliminate you from the opportunity. You might not even get an interview. They aren’t going to spend a lot of time putting you through the process if your track record tells them you aren’t the right choice.

Obviously I can’t guarantee you that next big promotion. But what I can promise you is that if you truly follow the advice in this book, you won’t eliminate yourself from those golden opportunities when they happen. Each of the assets and skills discussed in this book are things that you will benefit from in your professional life as well as your personal life. They are all 100 percent transferable, and will work with any type of business environment and at any level in the organization. It doesn’t matter if it is sales, operations, manufacturing, marketing, or even finance, each of these key suggestions will make you more valuable to the company. Once you have developed in many of these areas, you may find opportunities in areas that you never thought would interest you. Having transferable assets gives you that chance to make a change. They might open doors that you never knew existed. Areas that used to be foreign to you can now become a terrain of opportunities. Having all of these assets creates unlimited possibilities. That is the beauty of the business world. Leaders develop and evolve through numerous paths.

More information can be found at http://www.whyhaventibeenpromoted.com

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Marketing Your Career is a handbook targeted to professionals and business people who’d like to understand how to better promote themselves and manage their own career development. Seasoned managers, experienced professionals or those new to the business world can all benefit from the techniques discussed in this book.

Q: What is the book about?
A: The book assembles a collection of simple, succinct marketing methods and techniques to help business professionals more effectively promote themselves and manage their own career development. It helps professionals start to think of themselves in terms of their own product features and benefits, and teaches them how to properly package and promote those features so that they can help their target markets solve problems. Topics covered include how to understand the market and your position, developing a personal brand, strategies to upgrade your offering, and how to build and execute a good career marketing campaign. The book also discusses ways to market your career inside your existing organization and to external audiences, and how to use, and not use the web to promote yourself.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: Linda Popky is a veteran marketer, as well as a successful consultant, speaker, author and educator. Her company, L2M Associates, helps organizations dramatically improve their bottom line by more effectively leveraging their investment in marketing programs, processes, and people. She is the president of Women in Consulting (WIC), a collaborative organization of seasoned business professionals in more than 30 consulting specialties, a member of the Society for the Advancement of Consulting (SAC), and on the faculty of the Integrated Marketing Program at San Francisco State University’s College of Extended Learning.

Linda believes that businesses today do not place enough focus on proper development of people as a key factor for successful creation and execution of key programs and initiatives. This book combines her extensive knowledge of applied marketing concepts with her long experience developing professionals as both a manager and a mentor, and draws on her consulting experience in organizations from startups to Fortune 100 companies as well.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: Many career-oriented books focus on how to make the job seeker look good. This book, based on Linda’s popular workshop entitled “Marketing Product YOU,” asks the reader to consider instead how their unique set of features and benefits can help a potential employer succeed. Linda takes a novel approach to professional development: getting people to apply the same basic marketing principles that make products and services successful to their own work situations and careers. Whether you are selling toothpaste, coffee or yourself, what’s important are the benefits that meet the buyer’s wants and needs—-not the features the seller thinks are cool or exciting.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: You don’t need to be a marketing professional to benefit from this book. The marketing concepts are straightforward and easy to grasp, and the book is concise and succinct. Readers will learn why being good at what you do isn’t enough to get you noticed and promoted, and why it’s so important to develop a unique value proposition to differentiate yourself from others in the job market.

“This is a splendid example of just how these practices can work to promote careers across functions and industries. It’s an easy read, high energy, and full of tools that, used properly, can truly set you apart from your competition,” said Carol Emerson, Vice President Career Management at Right Management.

According to Karolo Aparicio, Development Director of International Rivers in Berkeley, California, “I’d recommend this book to anyone looking for a job or looking to move up in their current job.”

This is the first in a series of handbooks entitled the Leverage2Market Mastery Series. The Leverage2Market Model focuses on five key elements: Products: the goods or services being marketed; Programs: the marketing initiatives being created and delivered; Processes: the way initiatives are delivered; People: those who deliver the initiatives; and Positioning, the key messages to be delivered in a campaign.

Marketing Your Career: Positioning, Packaging, and Promoting Yourself for Success is available immediately from Amazon.com and from the publisher, Woodside Business Press, at www.woodsidebusinesspress.com, as specialty business press dedicated to publishing books on stimulating and thought-provoking business and marketing-related topics.