“You will be more valuable every year you are in business.”

This was a favourite saying of a managing director who was a mentor of mine.

He believed:

“For every year worked you will have greater depth of relationship with your existing network, know more people and have crafted more expertise.”

How many of us live by this great advice and invest in ourselves?

During a recent encounter I asked a newly appointed CFO, how the business he had joined was going. He said very well except, his greatest difficulty was damping down the expectations of the sales team who were urging him to spend too much money on asset acquisitions. He stated as an accountant I am keen to ensure they focus on sales and be prudent with decision making.

I could not helped but think, as a CFO you are a business leader first. Your role is to lead the business to deliver optimal shareholder and stakeholder value. To seek opportunities and evaluate risk appropriately and not constrained by only one perspective.

I believe we have a choice we can stay fixed on the skillset and mind-set we learnt some time ago or we can commit to growing and evolving – which will you choose this year? As they say, what got you there won’t keep you there in this rapidly changing world.

I believe by committing to developing your knowledge and being a giver to more people, you are likely to be more valuable over the next year. This action opens up the potential for mutual giving and receiving.

Adam Grant - the Harvard Organizational psychologist - advises to network strategically. He admires the way serial entrepreneur Adam Rifkin organizes his time. "You don't have to be Mother Teresa or Gandhi to be a giver. You just have to find small ways to add large value to other people's lives."

A client of mine was becoming frustrated by the lack of opportunity in his organisation, so decided to move on. He is someone who is always looking to support other people. This usually involves him connecting two people who could benefit from a mutual introduction. Alternatively, he may offer some valuable insight to help an individual reach a better decision. Either way he is always helping others. So when it came to the time for him to call in these favours, he was able to gain a number of quick introductions to decision makers.

This led to him gaining seven job interviews and finally achieving four job offers. Of course he is an overachiever at his role but ‘the difference that made the difference’ was his networking ability. By investing in others consistently, he did not look needy when it came to utilising his network to achieve his next role. His forward actions opened up mutual giving and receiving.

There are three truisms of the UK’s professional job market; the pillars on which I have built successful careers for my clients:

Job roles don’t go to the most qualified - they go to the most connected.

You don’t get paid what you are worth - you get paid what you negotiate.

All business skills are learnable via deliberate practice - no one is born accomplished at any skillset.

I urge you to take five simple steps, to make yourself more valuable in 2019:

Confidence precedes competence, start by making small simple gestures that could help connect others together.

Identify how you can help more people by listening to their needs.

Know specifically what it is you want in your career.

Believe you will get better at the key skill of networking, by consistently connecting, with the people who will most accelerate your career.

Ask for the reward you are worth.

I know these first steps can be tough, but I encourage you to take them. Be great to hear how you are going, mail me [email protected]