Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
[00:00:00] Danielle Cobo: Do you want to advance your career but are not sure how? I'm your host, Danielle Cobo, a former Fortune 500 senior sales manager who led my team to number one through downsizing, restructuring, and acquisitions. My 20 years of sales experience, including seven years leading teams were key to developing the expertise in leadership, change management, and burnout prevention.
[00:00:24] Danielle Cobo: After a successful career working in corporate, I started a consulting and speaking business, helping others develop the grit, resilience, and courage to thrive in a rapidly changing market. In this episode, I'm sharing the ultimate guide to creating your dream career. With actionable tips and insights, you'll be able to develop a career plan to achieve your short-term and long-term goals.
[00:00:49] Danielle Cobo: I'm sharing from firsthand experience from several of my team members who have been promoted into new roles, whether it's lateral moves within their organization, or promoted into leadership roles and other various roles throughout the organization. Over the years, I've worked with people from all different backgrounds, helping them create their own unique career plans that led to tangible results.
[00:01:14] Danielle Cobo: Earlier this year, a woman, we will call her Emily, for the sake of confidentiality agreements that I have with my clients reached out to me during our initial conversation. She mentioned feeling stuck and uncertain about her career. She had worked in her role for over five years and consistently exceeded her sales targets.
[00:01:33] Danielle Cobo: Her colleagues and our managers admired her work ethic, dedication, and ability to close deals. She enjoyed her work, but she felt like there was something missing. She had hit a plateau. She wanted more, but she didn't know what that meant or where to go next. Do you ever get that feeling like, what the heck am I doing with my life?
[00:01:54] Danielle Cobo: You've been chugging along in your job for years, and now you're questioning, should I stay or should I go? Do I pursue a role in management or marketing, or do I take the plunge and start my own business? Well, you're not my friends, my loyal listeners, because you are not alone. It's a common dilemma. I hear often many professionals find themselves in this crossroads.
[00:02:19] Danielle Cobo: There are loads of professionals out there who have hit that crossroads in their career and have no idea which way to turn. By creating a career plan, you gain clarity and explore opportunities for career growth and actionable steps that will help you stay on track. When Emily decided to reach out to me to help her figure out her next career move, during our first session, we had worked to gain a better understanding of her career goals, her aspirations and values.
[00:02:48] Danielle Cobo: After our session, she realized that personal growth and making an impact on others was important to her. Emily shared that she wanted to challenge herself, grow professionally, learning new skills, and helping her team succeed. However, she was unsure whether she should stay in an individual contributor role as a sales consultant or promote into a management role.
[00:03:11] Danielle Cobo: We began to outline a career plan for her, and today I'm sharing with you the steps we took to help her gain clarity on what she wanted in her professional and personal life. And you are gonna be able to do the same. So I'm taking you through step by step how you can build your career plan. Step one, gain self-awareness.
[00:03:32] Danielle Cobo: Reflect on your career goals, aspirations, and your core values. Understand what truly motivates you and what kind of impact you want to have in your professional life. One exercise is to grab a piece of paper and draw a line down the center on one side. Write down the roles and responsibilities you currently have in your job.
[00:03:55] Danielle Cobo: On one side, you're gonna write down what you love about the roles and responsibilities in your current role, and on the other side, you're gonna write some of the unfavorable roles and responsibilities that you have in your role. Make a list that's gonna help you gain clarity. You can also grab your resume as a reference and go through step by step each of the roles that you've had throughout your career.
[00:04:20] Danielle Cobo: What did you like and dislike about each of these roles? That's also gonna help you gain clarity and self-awareness of what motivates you. Step two, assess your skills and identify areas of improvement. Take stock of your strengths and your opportunities for growth, both technically in terms of leadership and strategic thinking.
[00:04:43] Danielle Cobo: Determine which skills you need to develop further. So is that skill communication? Is it strategic thinking? Is it leadership? Is it technical skills within your current role or perhaps the roles that you wanna promote into? It's important to always look and identify where your strengths are so you continue to leverage those strengths.
[00:05:03] Danielle Cobo: Those are also your motivators. Also identify the areas that you can improve. We all have areas that we can improve. I know firsthand that there's areas that I need to improve on, and I constantly am taking courses, listening to podcasts, reading books to develop the skills that I want to succeed, and you can do the same.
[00:05:23] Danielle Cobo: Step three. Explore different career paths and gather information. Reach out to colleagues, mentors, and professionals in various roles. Seek their insights and learn from their experiences. This will help you understand the expectations and challenges of different career paths. Research the different departments within your company and network with people in those departments to gain a better sense of what they do.
[00:05:50] Danielle Cobo: So if you wanna step into a marketing role, reach out to the marketing director. Ask if you can schedule time with them. Perhaps it's shadow them for a day or schedule a one-on-one call and explore some questions that can help you gain a better understanding of your role. Some questions might look like, What is your favorite aspect of the role?
[00:06:10] Danielle Cobo: What did you do to prepare to step into this current role that you're at? What advice would you give to somebody who wants to pursue a role in marketing? Also, what advice would you give? If you can go back five years as you were in this role or preparing for this role, what advice would you give? You'd be surprised at what information you can really gather by taking the time to speak to your colleagues, ask them about their roles.
[00:06:37] Danielle Cobo: That will also help you gain some clarity on whether that role is excites you, and it's maybe something that you wanna explore or maybe not. Step four, align your values, aspirations, and research. Take into account what you've learned through your conversations, the research that you've taken about yourself and options available to you.
[00:06:59] Danielle Cobo: Consider the pros and cons of each path and evaluate how they align with your personal professional goals. One example might be when I took the leap into a leadership role, I realized that I was gonna be on the road a lot more than I was now. When I started my role in leadership, I was okay with it. I didn't have kids.
[00:07:21] Danielle Cobo: I didn't have necessarily any obligations to be home by a certain time, and I enjoyed traveling. I enjoyed being on the road. Now when I had expanded my family and definitely through the pandemic, and I realized how much I enjoyed being able to tuck my kids in every night and read them bedtime stories, I realized that being on the road every single week, spending the night in hotels for the current phase in life that I was at, Wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do, but that's okay because I started a business and yes, I still travel, but a lot of the times they bring my family with me when I have speaking engagements.
[00:07:59] Danielle Cobo: So as you're exploring these different roles that you possibly might be pursuing, understand what the roles and responsibilities are, how does that align with your strengths, the skills that you wanna develop, the professional goals that you have? Also look at how does that align with your current phase in life and what you want your lifestyle to be.
[00:08:23] Danielle Cobo: Some roles don't require as much travel, but they do require working on the weekends that may or may not be important to you. So really take into account not only what phase in life you're at currently right now, what are your short-term goals? What are your long-term goals, and how does the different various roles that you're doing research on.
[00:08:44] Danielle Cobo: Align with your core values and what you want your lifestyle to look like. Number five and step five is align yourself with mentors, sponsors, and coaches. And I'm gonna briefly explain this,
but
[00:08:59] Danielle Cobo: episode 82 really takes a deep dive into what the difference is between a mentor, a sponsor, a coach, a consultant, and why it's important to have all of them in your pocket, specifically the sponsor.
[00:09:16] Danielle Cobo: So align yourself with people that are gonna help guide you and who have had similar success and will guide you on what steps to take, what steps not to take. Be able to ask exploratory questions that are gonna help provide some clarity on what you want or don't want to do. Somebody that can provide some perspectives on the various rules that are out there.
[00:09:38] Danielle Cobo: Also somebody that can advocate for you, hold some accountability to you. I know that a lot of times when I'm working with my clients, there's some clients when they're looking for a new job, and we may have just a couple sessions. It may be looking at their LinkedIn profile and ensuring that we're representing a brand representation online.
[00:09:58] Danielle Cobo: And then also with their resume, it may look like interview coaching. Also salary negotiations. This is a big step because a lot of times people will be offered an offer for initial compensation package and they'll say, okay, yep. They're so excited to have the role, but then they realize they just maybe could have possibly asked for more, or they find out eventually that their peers are making more than them.
[00:10:22] Danielle Cobo: Their colleagues are for the same role. I just had a client who had accepted a role, which was very exciting and we were celebrating her success, but through the process, there was an opportunity and I knew there was an opportunity to negotiate her compensation package, and we were actually able to increase her salary by $20,000.
[00:10:42] Danielle Cobo: So it's important that when you're, especially if you're gonna be taking that next step, and either you're looking for a new job or you're promoting into a new role, you definitely wanna have somebody side by side with you that can help you prepare for these conversations that are crucial to the long-term success of your career.
[00:11:02] Danielle Cobo: But even if you're not in that position right now where you're possibly looking to promote into a new role or you're looking for a new job, having somebody that can help guide you throughout your journey and your long-term career is extremely valuable Also. Then moving into step six is set long-term and short-term goals to develop new skills.
[00:11:25] Danielle Cobo: In the next episode, we're gonna be exploring courageous goals, and we're gonna be discussing how do you identify goals? How do you hold yourself accountable? How do you take the steps to really achieve your goals? So in the next episode, we're gonna dive into a little bit deeper on how to do that. I encourage you to subscribe to the podcast, ensure that you are getting notified when each episode airs, which is.
[00:11:52] Danielle Cobo: Every Wednesday and hear about next week's episode, which is all about goal setting, setting courageous goals too. I actually go into this in a deeper level in my upcoming book. So in my upcoming book, I'm gonna be exploring how to develop a career plan, how to gain clarity on what that looks like, how to identify your unique strengths.
[00:12:14] Danielle Cobo: Also help understand what motivates you. Also looking at courageous goal settings. So whether you are. Setting goals professionally or personally. It breaks down step by step how to set and achieve your goals. Most importantly, to break through the seven roadblocks that stand in our way of achieving our goals.
[00:12:37] Danielle Cobo: So step six again is set long-term and short-term goals to develop new skills. We will explore how to do that in next week's episode. Step seven, get involved in special projects. So if there's a particular role that you are exploring, possibly wanting to pursue, get involved in special projects, you've taken that time to meet with somebody who's in that role.
[00:13:02] Danielle Cobo: You've asked them the questions you've explored, what is it that, the roles and responsibilities for that particular role? Now take it a step further and ask, Hey, is there any special projects that you can get involved in? To help me develop the skills that you want for that role. Not only is it gonna help you develop the skills you're gonna get exposure to some of the roles and responsibilities of that.
[00:13:27] Danielle Cobo: Also, because you're working with this special project, you are going to be working side by side with the people that are in that role, who then can eventually be your sponsor and advocate for you when that role opens up. Again, I explain the difference between a mentor and a sponsor and episode 82, so I invite you to go back and listen to that episode.
[00:13:50] Danielle Cobo: But getting involved in special projects is not only gonna help you with developing new skills, it's gonna get you exposure to various departments. It's also a really good resume builder. I can share firsthand from my own experience. I have been involved in a lot of special projects throughout my years.
[00:14:10] Danielle Cobo: It's helped me get on advisory boards. It's helped me develop new skills. I've had exposure of working behind the scenes at a very high level corporate level where I've had conversations with some of the key decision makers in the organization and have been able to develop relationships with them, which has really propelled my career.
[00:14:32] Danielle Cobo: I've also done the same when I was a senior sales manager, anybody on my team that we were developing a career plan with, and we were looking at where do you want your career to be today and where do you want your career to be tomorrow? We would always identify special projects that they can get involved in.
[00:14:51] Danielle Cobo: We would also align them with a mentor. And any time that I knew of some special projects that were coming up, because I had taken the initial step of meeting down with each person on my team on a consistent basis, I knew immediately, Hey, this particular project's coming down the pipeline with marketing.
[00:15:11] Danielle Cobo: I'm gonna ask if this particular person can get involved in it. Hey, I know this particular role or this special project is gonna be a leadership opportunity. I'm gonna reach out to this particular person on my team and get them involved in the special project. So you definitely want to get involved in special projects.
[00:15:28] Danielle Cobo: It's going to propel you in your career. Are you feeling burnt out and overwhelmed? Wanna advance your career or find a new job? Maybe you wanna build an impactful and profitable business. I left a highly successful Fortune 500 sales career to help people develop the grit, resilience, and courage necessary to thrive in a complex and changing market.
[00:15:51] Danielle Cobo: In the show notes, you will find free workbooks with tips and strategies for attracting your dream job, advancing your career, preventing burnout, and building a business. Take advantage of your free workbook by downloading it now. Step eight, develop your brand. So when I was working with Emily, we updated her LinkedIn and her resume to reflect her skills, accomplishments, and we worked on building a personal brand strategy.
[00:16:21] Danielle Cobo: Now, I know that a lot of people, we've had this perception, and this is based off of the history of LinkedIn, that LinkedIn is, you only go on that site when you're looking for a job, and that was the case several years ago. But that is not the case now. I'm seeing more and more CEOs, high level executives that are on LinkedIn on a consistent basis as a way to communicate.
[00:16:47] Danielle Cobo: With customers, with their employees, with stockholders, and by you developing a personal brand strategy, you'll be able to clearly communicate what your skills are and also be able to engage in conversations whether you are commenting on their posts or you are posting something that is engaging in a conversation with them.
[00:17:12] Danielle Cobo: And it's a way of developing your personal brand, especially with the people that you may or may not interact with on a consistent basis, depending on the people, the decision makers, and how often you're meeting with them. So we're gonna discuss how to build your professional brand in a couple episodes.
[00:17:30] Danielle Cobo: So again, be sure to subscribe so that you can get notified when new episodes air every Wednesday. And definitely look forward because the next episode we're doing is gonna be on courageous goal setting. An episode right after that is gonna be developing your personal brand strategy, and whether you're looking for a job or you're looking to get promoted, or you're just looking for developing your brand for long-term career success, I definitely invite you to do so.
[00:17:58] Danielle Cobo: I will share in that episode. Two clients who have had major successes by taking the time to develop their brand on LinkedIn. And without going into too much detail, cause I'll explain in those episodes, but I had one client who had been looking for a job for six months and she had a proven track record for success.
[00:18:18] Danielle Cobo: By the time her and I had jumped on a call when she reached out to me, she was in tears. She was absolutely just defeated. She had a lot of self-doubt. She just. Felt like she was in a rut and she was really struggling and feeling and frustrated over the situation that she had this success. She was more than qualified for the positions that she was going for.
[00:18:41] Danielle Cobo: However, she wasn't getting the job. She was even getting interviews. So we worked on developing a brand strategy and within one month of working with each other, She was extended an offer. She was so excited, which was amazing. And then I had another client who was not necessarily looking for a job, but was kind of exploring what was out there.
[00:19:02] Danielle Cobo: And we worked on developing their brand strategy. And they started posting and they started working on different skill sets that they wanted to communicate within their organization and then online. And within a couple months, they had a recruiter reach out to them and, Was given a huge opportunity to promote, ended up being with another organization, but promote into a very high level position, all because they had clearly communicated not only what the skills that they had in the role that they were in, but based off of their previous experience and various roles, why they were more than qualified to promote up into higher levels.
[00:19:42] Danielle Cobo: So, I'll go into the details of those in that episode, but developing a brand strategy is extremely important for the long-term success of your career. And finally, after you've taken all those eight steps, which may seem like a lot, but I promise you they're absolutely worth it. I've seen it firsthand from the success of people on my team and also a lot of my clients, is make a informed decision.
[00:20:10] Danielle Cobo: Prioritize what matters to you most, and choose a career path that excites you, that challenges you, and allows you to make a positive impact in a way that aligns with your values and aspirations. I was sitting in on a meeting not too long ago, and the gentleman that was on the panel was talking about how some of these younger generations have been speaking up and they said, yeah, this newer generation, basically, if they feel like they don't like their job, they're willing to quit.
[00:20:40] Danielle Cobo: And this person behind me goes, well, don't they know what work is? It's called a job for a reason. And I was just taken back by that because yes. There is an aspect of certain work that needs to be done, and that's part of the roles and responsibilities. But I have never been in a job that I didn't truly enjoy and love and felt fulfilled.
[00:21:03] Danielle Cobo: And yes, there have been times that have been very difficult and there's times where I've gotten frustrated and then there's been times where maybe. I didn't necessarily like the job at that moment. Maybe I was putting out a lot of fires that were going on, but overall, I've enjoyed every role that I've been in, and I've always believed that we spend more time at work than we do with anywhere else in our life.
[00:21:25] Danielle Cobo: Mine is sleeping, I guess. But what we do spend a lot of time at work and it's important that we choose a career that we love, one that is fulfilling. And there's so many different roles that are out there, organizations that are out there, different roles. And when you understand what motivates you and what your values are and what excites you, you can absolutely choose a career, a job that you enjoy.
[00:21:50] Danielle Cobo: You should not sacrifice your time that you spend every day just saying, well, this is work. This is just a job I gotta do. No, you should really, truly enjoy what you do. You're gonna have hard days. You're gonna have days where you may not love your job entirely, but overall, choose a career that you enjoy.
[00:22:08] Danielle Cobo: Don't settle on anything less. I was really taken back by that comment behind me and just said internally in my head, wow, yes, we need to do our job. And I wouldn't encourage everybody to job hop every couple years because they are just like, I don't like this job. I'm out. No. It's important to be in a role and build some traction, but I also don't believe in staying a role that you don't enjoy or with an organization that is not aligned with your core values.
[00:22:35] Danielle Cobo: So it's important to make informed decisions. Remember, building a career development plan is not a one-time event. It's an ongoing process of growth and self-discovery. So stay open to new opportunities, continue to learn and develop new skills and reassess your goals periodically to ensure that they.
[00:22:55] Danielle Cobo: Still resonate with who you are, where you want to go, and what phase of life that you are in. When I'm working with my clients, a lot of times maybe they have found that new job or they've achieved that, the goals that they've wanted. They've been promoted into these new roles, but they still wanna work together because they realize that the success that they've had in working with each other has propelled them to a higher level.
[00:23:17] Danielle Cobo: And they're like, why stop now? Let's keep going. So remember that as you're working towards your goal, it's not a one-time event. It's something you do consistently. And by applying these steps and taking action, you have the power to shape your career and create a path, a career path that brings fulfillment and success.
[00:23:38] Danielle Cobo: Now, since working together, Emily, her career goals have become clear and we have worked to develop new skills for her. Since working with each other, she has earned President's Club for top performance and was promoted into a leadership role. She has this new level of excitement and motivation, and she's got a higher level of confidence, and she has just felt like.
[00:24:01] Danielle Cobo: Now that she has clarity on what she wants to do, the sky is the limit. There is nothing holding her back from
achieving
[00:24:08] Danielle Cobo: what she wants to achieve. And we continue to work together, which is amazing cuz I get to be part of that journey. So she really has been grateful for the guidance that she received.
[00:24:17] Danielle Cobo: And Emily's story is a reminder that it's okay to feel uncertain about your career path and seek guidance with the right direction and support you can discover your passion, your goals, and achieve success in your professional journey. In my upcoming book available in the fall, you will be able to gain clarity on your career goals.
[00:24:40] Danielle Cobo: You are gonna be able to break through the seven roadblocks, standing between you and your goals, and develop a career plan for long-term success and live a life with purpose. I'm gonna be releasing some episodes coming up focused on career development, focus on breaking through our roadblocks that are standing between our goals.
[00:25:01] Danielle Cobo: I'm gonna be talking about how to prevent and overcome burnout, and these are just small, small little segments from my upcoming book, which I'm so excited to share with all of you. I have been working on this book for the past year while juggling a thriving business while speaking engagements, while being a.
[00:25:21] Danielle Cobo: Soccer mom coaching my kids' soccer team, my five-year-old twins. I have been dedicating so much time to this book, as you can imagine, about 20 hours each week for an entire year to really ensure that I am sharing with you something that is gonna make a positive impact. In your life and help you achieve everything that you wanna achieve in your life and not just in your career, your whole life.
[00:25:45] Danielle Cobo: Cuz who we are as a person should be aligned. What we do professionally and purpose and personally
should
[00:25:51] Danielle Cobo: always be aligned with our core values and living in a life of purpose. So thank you for tuning into today's episode to learn the tips to create your dream career plan. If you know somebody who's maybe feeling stuck or in a rut or unsure, like where they wanna go in their career, I invite you to share this episode.
[00:26:12] Danielle Cobo: Share it with your colleagues, your friends, your family members. You know, at one point or another we all kind of get into that rut. We feel a little stuck. We feel like we just don't know where we wanna go. Or maybe you know, somebody who's very early in their career and you wanna help them set themselves up for success, share this episode with them.
[00:26:32] Danielle Cobo: Also, I'm gonna be including a link in the show notes where you can download the Career Accelerator Workbook, which is actionable steps to help you gain clarity on your career and build the ultimate career guide. Many of the steps I shared in this episode today, but how amazing would it be if you had a workbook where you can actually work these steps one by one?
[00:26:56] Danielle Cobo: With this free downloadable guide and remember to subscribe and tune in to next week's episode. Well, I will share courageous goal setting strategies for success, followed by how to have an unstoppable career growth by building your professional brand on LinkedIn. Again, whether you are looking for a job or not, you absolutely wanna tune in to that episode and really learn how to build your professional brand.
[00:27:26] Danielle Cobo: Also coming up in the podcast, I am gonna be doing a series on burnout. How to overcome burnout, because it seems to be a growing challenge. It's actually the number two reason why people are leaving their organizations is burnout. So I'm gonna be having a series coming up on how to overcome burnout, how to prevent burnout.
[00:27:49] Danielle Cobo: So again, tune in, subscribe, and thank you so much for. Tuning in and listening. I hope you have an amazing day, and I'd love to hear from you some of the successes you've had. So please tag me, Clement, let's follow each other. Let's connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. I'm on all the platforms. I'd love to hear from you what some of your successes are from listening to these episodes.
[00:28:16] Danielle Cobo: Also, if there's any topics that you wanna hear in the future. So thanks for tuning in and make today an amazing day.