Now what? You’ve read all the blog posts about what to expect in your entry-level position: Low pay, long hours, grunt work, and low pay. But what about advice on how to do your job well, or be noticed, get ahead, and get paid slightly more? Here are six counterintuitive ideas to help separate you from all the other Assistant Junior Account Coordinators.

1. Never Promote Your Clients

It’s a sad truth, but the media doesn’t care about your client. Never. Except if your client is Apple, in which case, disregard this pointer and go enjoy a drink with an umbrella in it.

Media cares about the story. They care about how Bob was an expert wood carver, lost his hands saving 100 orphans from a fire, but through a miracle prosthetic operation, just won the National Whittling Championship. The fact that your client designed, manufactured, and donated the prosthetic hands that made this possible is immaterial.

Learn to craft your pitches as stories. While the media might not care about your client, they will be included in the coverage. It will be hard to train your clients to think this way, but in the long run they will have more success with stories than self-promotion.

2. Get Drunk

Maybe not drunk but at least go out drinking. Drinking is a social activity and a time where you can talk shop while not looking pushy, absorb knowledge without seeming clingy, exchange cards without feeling awkward, and buy a round for someone from whom you might need a future favor. It helps build your social and professional networks in a setting that connects you to people in a deeper way than any email or LinkedIn invitation can.

A night out might help you pay rent, too. Study data shows that those who drink earn 10-14% more than their teetotaling counterparts.

Tweet-Ups, media happy hours, journalist hangout bars, beers with the boss. Drink them all up.

3. Learn to Say “No”

You want to be a team player. You want to be someone who can be trusted, that looks for and accepts extra responsibility, and can be counted on to say, “Yes.” But you can’t be everything to everyone, so learn to say, “No.”

Don’t say “No” because you are lazy or scared.

Say “No” because it is the right thing to do, for yourself and your agency.

Say “No” because that client request is outside the scope of retainer.

Say “No” because that “can’t-miss” story idea is really marketing fluff that will damage your reputation with media for future pitches.

Say “No” because you already over-serviced that account by 15 hours this month and it is eating away at your agency’s profit margins.

Say “No” because you are an individual who has a right to a life outside of work.

4. Be Seen Less Around the Office

I was always taught that to be noticed by the boss, I needed to follow the George Costanza rule: Be first in and last out of the office. Except actually do it. Don’t just lock your keys in the car and leave it parked out front.

In reality, if you want to be loved by the people who need you most, your clients, become a ghost around the office. Every time someone asks, “Where’s Bill?” the answer should always be given with a shake of the head, “He’s out with the client again.” Being out of the office will get you noticed, in positives ways you wouldn’t expect.

It is easy to “defriend” someone you rarely see. Make it as difficult as possible for your clients to do that to you. Remember, your boss hired you, but it is your clients who will get you fired.

5. Be a Terrible Multi-Tasker

There will always be more work to do than you can get done. Trying to do two or three or seven things at once won’t change this. What will change is the quality of your output. And it will be worse.

Turn the cell phone to silent, or better yet, off. Block the time-suck social media sites and set a schedule for checking your email. Prioritize your day and block out time of each project. Client emergency? They can call.

6. There Is Such a Thing as a Stupid Question

From kindergarten, teachers have told us there are no stupid questions. They were lying. There are stupid questions and it will reflect poorly on you if you ask them.

How do you know if you are asking a stupid question? Good question.

Stop for a moment and think: If someone else asked me this, would I reply with a “Let Me Google That For You” email? If the answer is yes, don’t ask it. Save your boss’s time, and patience, for organizational or institutional questions that demonstrate you are thinking about the big picture and not struggling with the minutia.

As much as I would like to say these tips always work, probably only 60% of the time do they work every time. So, use them when you can and don’t be afraid to create your own ways of doing things.

Adam Curtis
Account Executive, Abel Communications
Twitter: @curtissays

While any great product will stand on its own merits, no product will be successful if no one knows about it. Coverage of CoPilot GPS in Macworld, ReadWriteWeb, Maclife, iPhonelife, and 148apps helped expose the app to a wide audience that has been looking for a superior alternative to Google Maps for iOS.

CoPilot GPS tops App Store's list of free navigation apps

Could you run 3,080mi in 3 weeks?

Most of us feel very satisfied, and tired, after participating in a charitable 5K race. Now, imagine how you would feel running six or seven of these races every day for a month. While sleeping with 10-12 other people in a constantly moving van. All to raise funds for young adult cancer programs.

This is exactly what a group of extraordinary cancer survivors, volunteers, and staff members of the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults (UCF) accomplished. In partnership with REVOLUTION3 Triathlon, UCF completed a 3,080-mile run from Oceanside, CA to Washington, DC, in only 21 days. The Run Across America raised over $40,000 for UCF programs designed to help meet the unique needs of young adult cancer patients.

Thanks to George Mesthos from All News 99.1 WNEW for his coverage of the finish-line event, held April 16th at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

UCF Run Across America on All News 99.1 WNEW1

UCF Run Across America on All News 99.1 WNEW2

Also, thanks to Anne Claire Shilton for her piece chronicling the involvement of Debbie and Charlie Patten, Sr. in the Run Across America. Debbie and Charlie and the parents Charlie Patten, Jr., REV3′s founder. The Pattens did just about everything on the journey, from driving the van, cooking breakfast, doing laundry, and even stretching their legs to run a few miles along the way. Ms. Shilton’s story appears in the Fort Meyers News-Press.

Unless, of course, it’s not, and you’re one of those people who rely on a substandard app on your phone that makes you take your eyes off the road and almost wrap yourself around a telephone pole while looking for directions that would be more easily followed with better maps or the spoken word.

Enter CoPilot Live, an outstanding GPS app that Abel Communications has represented since the start of the year. What we love about CoPilot Live is that its technology and interface really are outstanding – so when we’re pitching the media on a review, we can stand behind the product confidently and say, “This is great technology, you really should give it a try.” And that’s what CNET did. Auto tech reviewer Wayne Cunningham gave CoPilot a spin and came away impressed, saying, “Its most compelling feature are the full set of maps it includes, making it possible to navigate without a data connection.”

Here at Abel, CoPilot has become more than a client; their GPS app is on all of our phones and it’s our ‘go to’ for navigation. If you’d like to learn more, visit their site at www.copilotlive.com/us and give the CNET review a read  by clicking the image below.

CNET praises the quality of CoPilot's maps and navigation interface

Janel Leymeister made her Huffington Post debut this week

Conrad Siegel’s Janel Leymeister is an investment advisor and benefits consultant, specializing in defined contribution retirement plans including 401(k) plans, ESOPs, and profit sharing plans. In our work with Conrad Siegel, Abel has helped the Harrisburg, Pa-based firm create and share expert commentary about employee benefits and financial planning in media outlets large and small. This week, we helped Janel crack the writing staff at the Huffington Post, with a contributed column about how to prepare for the potential end of the Bush era tax cuts, as they related to investments for some of the highest earners. Have a look:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janel-m-leymeister-cebs/are-your-retirement-benef_1_b_1413343.html

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/oceanside/oceanside-cross-country-run-supports-young-adults-with-cancer/article_d65e8cdb-bd2f-576c-be0f-c26bbd5c9056.html

Sudhir is VP of Consulting Services for Force 3

This week in Federal Computer Week, Force 3′s Sudhir Verma, VP of Consulting Services, explains the fundamentals of VDI – Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. In the article, Verma explains that the the proliferation of personal mobile devices in the workplace has reinvigorated VDI adoption.

“VDI started to grow and hit a plateau,” he said. “Then iPads and mobile devices started to come into the workplace. Users started to demand access to their own devices, and that has…accelerated the pace of VDI adoption.”

Full the full article, please click here. Great job Sudhir.

The Dover Post came out to the event and wrote a great story, including a video of the residents taking part in a singing competition. Check out the story here: Dover Post feature on Masterpiece Living at Westminster Village