How Plan for Marketing Budgets Can Keep You Out of Business Trouble

Whether you run a small business or a big corporation, I would say that marketing is essential to your profitability and growth. Yet many small businesses don’t allocate enough money to marketing or, worse, spend it haphazardly. Marketing Budget is considered an important part of your marketing strategy. Your marketing budget will include all of the prices that you expect to pay for each type of advertising you do‭. ‬This would include graphic and web design‭, ‬printed materials‭, ‬website development‭, ‬ongoing maintenance and search engine optimization and all Social Media‭. ‬It would also include radio and commercials‭, ‬trade shows‭, ‬advertisements in newspapers and other publications‭, ‬mailings‭, ‬etc. 

There are many ways to create a marketing budget. Here are a few popular ones, with advantages and disadvantages. 

1. Fixed Amount or % of Overall Budget. This is easy to do; consequently, it's one of the most common methods. At the beginning of the fiscal quarter or year, a company determines how much it will spend on marketing. To determine this amount, they might use industry averages. 

For example, movie studios generally spend an amount equal to 30% of the film's production budget, so for a $1 million movie, the marketing budget might be $300,000. 

Aside from being quick and easy, the advantage of this kind of budget is that the marketing department doesn't have to ask for money every time they want to spend it. (Since most companies consider marketing an expense, the answer the marketing department usually gets when they ask for more money is "no.")

One other advantage: Knowing how much money you have in advance also helps you plan campaigns.

The disadvantage of this kind of budgeting: it's completely nonstrategic since it offers no flexibility. No one can truly predict what kind of challenges the market will offer, or what this particular product might need. For example, one movie gets a positive critical review, so it needs less advertising. Another gets a poor review (or the critic refuses to review it at all), necessitating more advertising.

Another issue is what the competition is doing. If you're in a highly competitive market, then you might need to spend more money on marketing than if you're in a stable, peaceful market.

2. % of Sales. To ensure a steady source of marketing funds without plunging the company into a deficit, some companies allocate a fixed percentage of sales to marketing. For example, a company might say 30% of all sales will be used for marketing, so if the company makes $500,000, then $150,000 is given to the marketing department. That way, marketing never spends more than the company makes.

The problem, of course, is that this model cannot be used by a company that's just starting or otherwise has no sales at all.

There's a more critical problem: A company should actually spend MORE money on marketing when it's struggling, and less when it's successful. This model says the opposite. Because of this model, many companies cut their marketing budgets during a recession, when they should be increasing their marketing to grab market share from weak competitors. If an entire industry adopted this model, then successful companies would become even more successful (since they would spend more and more money on marketing) while struggling ones would fail (since they would spend less than less).

Finally, basing the marketing budget on a variable number makes planning extremely difficult.

3. Goal-Based Budgets. This is more complex, and requires a lot of data, so it's not as widely used. The key advantage of this method is that it helps convince managers and clients to spend the money.

It starts with an ambitious but realistic goal. While some managers say, "Let's just do something and see what happens," as MBA's, you're expected to have a goal. If you're working with a new company or in a turbulent industry, then such a goal might be difficult to predict. But perhaps you can find a competitor or similar company with more experience and base your goals on their results. I would also suggest starting with short term goals -- perhaps just a month -- then slowly extrapolate from there.

Let's use a really simplified, fictitious example of a goal-based budget:

Let's say your goal is to sell 5,000 computers for $1,000 each -- a total sales of $5,000,000. Now, unless you simply want to liquidate inventory or steal market share, you wouldn't want to spend more than $5,000,000 on marketing to achieve those sales. So you know your limit -- and that's more than most companies know when they begin marketing.

When any business owner can effectively analyze and fund the sources of business success, the business and its revenue will grow. A small business marketing budget can be a powerful tool to put one in the driver’s seat of how to determine that growth and success

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Twitter is a good share and worth investing in

Twitter shares rocketed 85 per cent as they hit the New York Stock Exchange today, surging from $26 to $46 immediately and continuing on to hit the $50 dollar mark. Read our report here.  Twitter shares finally hit the stock market today as increasing hype over the social media website's float saw the float price shift up again to $26.  This follows Twitter having boosted the price range of its shares just days before its public listing, as high demand for shares overcame its fears of being caught by the spectre of the Facebook flop.  The micro-blogging service that has helped topple governments, attract presidents and prime ministers and promote celebrities  increased the share price range from $17 to $20, to $23 to $25, on Monday, echoing Facebook’s move up on the eve of its flotation in May 2012.  Twitter, however, is hoping to dodge the market's bullets in a way Facebook failed to do.

Facebook increased its target price from $28 to $35 to $34 to $38 per share and suffered as it initially rose in value and then sunk.  Silicon Valley and Wall Street are hoping for a decent float from Twitter, after the Facebook minor disaster. The value of Facebook dived in its first weeks of trading prompting criticism of its advisers, claims that investors were not given a true picture, and that there were too many shares on offer at too high a price.  Facebook’s share price has since increased to around $49 but Twitter has taken steps to avoid an #epicfail.  The social media service is listing on the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker TWTR, rather than Nasdaq, which Facebook used. The NYSE has tested its systems to avoid any technical glitches which plagued the first day of Facebook’s Nasdaq listing.  It has also sought to play down expectations and analysts suggest the shares are being priced at a level that could see them move up and stabilize.  

Should I buy Twitter shares? 

Twitter sold 70 million shares at $26 each, it said, raising a net $1.82bn. Including other stock, the price values the business at $18.1bn, according to Bloomberg.  The company has more than 230million active users, sending 500million tweets a year and has been credited with helping break news and coordinate protests, as well as prompt defamation cases and slang such as #YOLO (you only live once).    Brokers have been quick to point out that Twitter, unlike Facebook or Google, is yet to have made a profit.  It made a loss of $69m in the first six months of 2013, after reporting revenue of $254m.  Its plan to make money revolves around advertising to its huge number of users. But while Twitter has a direct line to their attention on computer screens, mobiles and tablets, it needs to balance promotions and the opportunity for targeting them with fears over invasion of privacy and intrusion.  A report on the IPO published by Eagle Alpha, a firm specializing in curating internet opinion, found that this was a widely accepted attitude towards advertising. Its research showed there would be 'outrage’ if Twitter was to add more intrusive advertisements to the feed. 

The same report also found rumors that the user experience may change as new features and partnerships are introduced, particularly around entertainment, television and e-commerce.  Eagle Alpha’s report also looked into advertising customer perspectives ahead of the IPO and the self-serve ad platform has been criticised for its lack of user friendliness. With advertising being critical to Twitter’s revenue stream, this is an area in clear need of improvement and something the marketing and advertising industries will be watching closely.  

How do technology stocks perform?

Many technology stocks such as Google and Facebook  have become household names which helps boost their initially popularity but isn’t always sustainable.  Analysis of previous technology and social media IPOs in the graph below by CMC Markets shows  while shares have tended to get off to a strong start, initial gains in those chosen have not usually stuck around. The chart plots the change in the share price over the following 100 weeks. Within 30 weeks all but Google were underwater. Baidu and Linkedin then climbed back above IPO value, while Facebook took until 66 weeks to get back into the black and Zynga and Groupon have still not made it there.  Colin Cieszynski, senior market analyst for CMC Markets, said it is important for traders to realize that opening day or even opening week success does not necessarily mean anything about the future prospects of the stock.

Written by  Marc Shoffman 

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How Did IT Outsourcing Strategy Become the Best Tool in The Market? Find Out

As industries become competitive, firms and organizations have been using their core competencies to gain competitive advantage. Outsourcing has become one of the strategies adopted by businesses to manage their Information systems (Gonzalez, Gasco & Llopis, 2006). In the same time using blue ocean strategy to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant is considered a magic framework for company's growth and success.

To begin with, changing business climate found many firms looking for alternative ways to provide improved quality in their products, improved service to their customers, reduce time and cost to achieve company’s goals and get profit and reputation. Furthermore, the global trade has opened the competition doors for companies, and placed these companies under unprecedented competitive pressure. Businesses thus must understand how to maintain their competitive advantage, remain competitive in a volatile consumer market and overcome the critical problem of global competition. Outsourcing IT functions was one of the tools that used for surviving in the market competition, and has become a popular source of competitive advantage.

As a result of both strategies, a major trend in evidence is the outsourcing of various organizational functions, and accelerated technological advances have substantially improved industrial productivity. So in the domain of information systems and technology, outsourcing has become a viable strategic alternative to acquire and managing costly as well as complex information technology (hereafter called IT) (Grover, Cheon & Teng, 1994). And in the domain of products and services, Blue Ocean has become a starting point for a company to win in the future. (W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne 2005) and works parallel with the outsourcing strategy.

The researchers have agreed that Information technology adoption offers a means of saving costs and increasing administrative efficiency. Krass (1990) indicated that outsourcing IT services can save 10-50% in IT expenditure. Based on that many companies nowadays have started to cut staffs, costs, and increasing efficiency by paying other companies and transferring some of an organization's recurring internal activities to outside providers (Maurice F , 1999) in order to run IT and other support divisions to remain competitive such as, telecommunications companies.

Those companies now are realizing the importance of developing their outsourcing capabilities and enter into arrangements with vendors to handle support processes (e.g., logistics, distribution, warehousing and information technology).

In truth, firms have outsourced since the industrial revolution, and Information Systems/Information Technology (IT/IS) outsourcing has become a basic strategy and has experienced considerable growth all over the world over the last several decades (King, 2008; Beasley et al., 2009) and this growth is expected to be continued and maintained in the near future (Gonzalez et al. 2006c; Beasley et al., 2009) – WHY? Because is considered an effective way to create competitive advantages by lowering costs, increasing productivity, and allowing the organization to focus on its core activities (Davis et al. 2006; King 2007; Can et al., 2009).

Overview of IT Outsourcing
Information Technology is considered as non-core functions of outsourcing, the idea of outsourcing is also applied for the procurement of IT services. Studies have shown that organizations have been outsourcing IT functions since the early 1960s (Due, 1992; Lacity, 1992). From data processing in the 60s, modern day IT outsourcing has made significant strides with a variety of business processes being outsourced. The use of outsourcing is becoming more sophisticated and nowadays more organizations are outsourcing business processes. As companies grow in size and operations, they outsource some of their business processes to focus on their core competences to remain competitive. Therefore, it becomes increasingly clear that their focus has to be redirected to their core activities while the non-core functions can be 'clouding' or 'outsourced' to suppliers or third party specialized in that particular function. Information Technology – Information System IT/IS one of such areas commonly outsourced in most of organizations.

IT Outsourcing as tool also has a challenge and has its downside. When functions are shipped elsewhere, the organizations will face risks from several areas. I would list some of these challenges that could affect negatively on organizations characteristics as follows:-

Firstly, security, privacy and confidentiality. Security can be a major issue. (Barthelemy and Geyer, 2004) maintained that outsourcing vendors’ reputations are not the best with information systems professionals. A company can better control access to information and protect equipment when it is on site (McDougall). Offshore assets and information in the server or possession of another company are much harder to protect, such as, customers background details, profiles and others. Therefore, customers’ information needs to be protected and, almost as importantly, feel protected (Thibodeau).

Secondly, the quality of personnel and work cannot always be guaranteed. Companies or organizations could face low quality or huge delays in work because they are at the mercy of the outsourcer. The contracting company does not interview and hire personnel, the outsourcer does. So If outsourcer hires poor skills workers just to fill seats, then quality is sure to suffer (Ross and Westerman)

Thirdly, High turnover at offshore providers is also another issue. Retention rates are very low overseas. The means large losses of efficiency as personnel are continually retrained (Overby).
Fourthly, Lack of flexibility, entering a long term contract with IT computer vendor may prove to be disadvantage when changing business or technological circumstances or even restructuring the firm which bring a need to migrate to alternative solution or process.

Lastly, Impact the local jobs and competence of IT functions Innovation and even. Outsourcing will reduce the organization’s capability for creative organizational development. Thus, it might face a reduced competence to innovate through synergetic interactions (Susan Cramm, 2010). Besides, from its distance position the vendor could have a limited potential or experience to acknowledge and develop some specific needs of the outsourcer, this in turn, will let competitors rapidly replicate offer same service or any advance upon any such innovations (Mata et al., 1995).

From other perspective, researchers have seen that without the ability to outsource, organizations could lose competitiveness. Outsourcing (IT) allows companies to rapidly add talented people and more capacity. A firm needs good process discipline to outsource effectively. As noted there were hundreds companies enter into outsourcing agreements without that. This can lead to escalating costs, poor results, and difficulties managing the relationship (Murphy, 2004).

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Sell Yourself As Brand And Get Much Traffic For Hiring!

Everyone looking to find a good job in a big company, and most of us are planning to fill up a good position as part of goals achievement, but is it easy for us to do that and reach this level?? I would say definitely NO. Nowadays not only skills and experience are considered essential elements in getting job; from my perspective sell yourself as brand (Logo) is playing a key role in promoting you to find a good job and position.

A logo is not a brand. A logo is a symbol that represents the company, just like your photo represents you. A logo is just one of the many factors that make up a brand, and it's not even the most important one.

So what is a brand?

There are as many definitions of "brand" as there are marketing books and marketing professors. Here is the definition that I have found most effective in discussing brands with clients.

A brand is your voice, design and reputation combined into one impression.

I like this definition because it can be applied to a person or an organization. (Yes, we all have personal brands.) It also contains elements that you can control and others that you can't:

Voice: You have a lot of control over your voice and the voice of your company brand. This is obviously how the individual or organization expresses itself (funny, serious, caring, etc.). We can also refer to it as "personality" or "attitude" or simply how the brand "sounds." The challenge for an organization is that it has many employees and representatives, each of whom may express the personality in a different way. So it will be workable on as individual and how you can behave and express your personality, characteristic and attitude when make your resume and do first interview. Body language is a core of your voice when you start sell yourself (applying for job)

Design: This is how an individual or organization physically presents itself. We can also refer to it as "style" or "appearance." Design is primarily visual: ad agencies create "brand identities" for companies, So when I am talking about persons it means your design could be the clothes you wear to work, your grooming and physical fitness, the quality of your resume, or the products you use. (Fair or not, we are judged by our looks and our possessions. If you drive a Porsche, people will think of you differently than if you drive a smoky old Yugo!!) Think about your appearance, and what you do every day to shape it.

Reputation: Your reputation is what other people think about you. It may be based on a number of factors: the quality of your products or service if we are talking about companies. If it is in personal case you shoud ware about how you treat others (including business partners, workers, and the environment), and most importantly, your values and goals as confident person and how you express them. 

While you can shape your voice or design, your reputation ultimately resides in the minds of other people. They make the final decision whether they admire you, fear you, respect you or love you OR Hiring you.

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Initiate New Idea and Differentiate In Your Business

In every business or firms and organizations, it is often easier to come up with a variety of ideas for new businesses and more difficult to actually implement those concepts. Most of us are looking to start their own business and be the owners of new ideas to run this business. A business concept is a bridge between an idea and a business plan. It focuses one’s thinking so that the entrepreneur can identify the specifics of his/her proposed venture.

From my point of view, converting an idea into a business concept requires thinking about how the product or service will be offered, presented and sold and who will buy it, the benefits of the product or service, how it is differentiated from similar ones, and methods of delivery. In the same time if we are working under employer we should apply same concept but from different view.

I would say before you kick off any new ideas, make sure that you have done your research. Know what your project is going to entail, inside and out. Whether you’re contributing to enhance your company vision or building your own business!

In fact, once you get an idea for a business, what's the most important trait you need as an entrepreneur? Perseverance. When you set out to launch your business, you'll be told "no" more times than you've ever been told before. You can't take it personally; you've got to get beyond the "no" and move on to the next person--because eventually, you're going to get to a "yes."

"The challenge with being an initiator of new ideas and work on it is that you are never, ever done."

Therefore, when we have an idea and we sure it will help us to come up with something new, we should work on it and paint a vivid vision for our new idea. Build up some excitement around what we are trying to do. After that we should develop it and know what resources do we need to get our idea off the ground.

Determining what you want to do is only the first step. You've still got a lot of homework to do, a lot of research in front of you. Don't sit back year after year and say "This is the year I'm going to start my business." Make this the year you really do it! Furthermore, you need to make sure that you have or you can create a suitable environment that helps to grow the idea and achieve its goals. 

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Through inbound marketing, switch the stranger to promoter

Inbound marketing is a strategy that adopting many tools of pull marketing – whether publish content, blogs, events, SEO, social media and more – to create and build up a brand awareness and attract new business. Therefore if you are planning to let people know about your product and the services that you offer, you should go through inbound marketing strategy because it’s a potential way to attract new customers. But we need to know from which point or base we should start in order to get efficient results that positively impact on business. So it’s difficult to know where to begin, many companies end up trying a lot of different inbound marketing strategies with little success. In short, inbound marketing requires focus and using proper channels to generate great word of mouth opportunities.

Below some tips that you can use to create a proper inbound marketing strategy: - Know your product and services that you offer
- Clearly define and differentiate your brand
- Focus on one ideal customer
- Let The Customers Tell You What Content Is Important
- Become a valued, engaged member of your chosen social communities 

 

Based on what we have pointed out above, I would say it is time to ensure growth and get advance record in sells and customers satisfaction! I know it not easy to convince people to buy your product & services, but it is time for a strategy that must be adopted throughout your company to make it truly effective. When a business is in alignment with an inbound marketing strategy, the effort is worth the gains they can see. In 2013, 41% of marketers confirm inbound produces measurable return on investment (ROI), and a staggering 82% of marketers who blog see positive ROI for their inbound marketing.

In order to apply this strategy you should start using digital media to publish highly valued content that is magnetic to your target audience and that helps your audience decide whether to buy or recommend your solution. Creating your content strategy involves considering your solution through the fresh eyes of your target audience, thinking about the questions that they have and identifying the information that they want to know.

Therefore, there are  4 stages of the inbound marketing methodology which are Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight. Following these steps will steer consumers away from being strangers and toward being promoters of your brand! At each stage there are specific methods by which this conversion is achieved. It is important that your marketing actions are timely and targeted, and this is what the methodology aims to help you accomplish.

The new Inbound Marketing Methodology covers each and every step taken, tool used, and lifecycle stage travelled through on the road from stranger to customer. It empowers marketers to attract visitors, convert leads, close customers, and delight promoters. The new methodology acknowledges that inbound marketing doesn’t just happen, someone with the right expertise and tools must do it.
 

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Social Media Lead Generation and ROI

One big topic we all hear is: “What is the ROI of social media?”. I agree with @CSPenn that ROI is a financial measurement period, end of story. I won’t get into “does the discussion of ROI for social media have value or not”;  @DMScott covers the "what is the value of putting on your pants in the morning" side very well. Your manager will probably cover the other side. Since my manager has a lot of influence on what I do, I try to accommodate.  Metrics  I keep a lookout for metrics that can help me prove the value of social media. Recently, I was talking to two of the campaign managers I work with on the topic. I laid out a plan and template for that team to promote events including webinars and also collect metrics. While explaining it to each separately they both told me that for recent webinars, they used social media promotion and had good results.  In both cases they used a blog post and a post on LinkedIn pointing to the blog and one to Twitter . In one case there was a high single digit percentage increase in webinar registrations. In the other it was low two digit percentage bump.  For this team, webinar registrations are lead generation because to register for a  webinar you need to fill out a registration form  including your contact information and, of course, the topic of the webinar clearly indicates which topic interests the person. 

ROI
The ROI is fairly easy to calculate. Investment equals the time to write the blog post and do the LinkedIn and Twitter post. It takes me 10 – 20 minutes to write a webinar announcement blog post because most of the text is already written on the web page, so it is mostly copy and paste exercise. The LinkedIn post, for me, is a sentence or two with a link to the blog post. So on the high end 1 hour of time.  What is your blogger’s fully burdened rate? Fully burdened means salary plus all the benefits - vacation, medical etc. 

If the person is you a rule of thumb is 1.5 times your salary in the US. Another way to get the answer is to ask someone in finance “what is the average fully burdened rate for the department” that the blogger reports into.  Your return is (average cost of a lead) x (number of leads). To make sure you are including only leads from your effort you need to use a custom URL. If you have a web analytics tool, like Omniture, you can get a URL with a JumpID that the tool will track for you. If not you can use a URL shortening service like Bit.ly that will count clicks for you (look at my post A bit.ly surprise, not in a good way for some tips).

By the way, get one unique URL for the blog and one for each other place you post so you will know which posts are working the best for you. If you find most are coming from LinkedIn, for example, maybe you can skip the blog post and just post in LinkedIn with a link to the registration page. 

Here is an example:
Average fully burdened rate for a person in the blogger’s department is $125,000 per year. There are 2000 working hours in a year (assuming 2 weeks vacation and 40 hours per week) , so 125,000 / 2000 = $75 / hour.  If your average cost per lead for all leads is $40 per lead and you are sure 50 leads came from your social media work, then you have ($40/lead x 50 leads) $2,000 in return. Return ($2,000) – Investment ($75) is $1,925 or as ROI% (2000-75) / 75 = 2567%. At first I thought this was a math error but if the return were $150 that would be 100% and our return is more than ten times $150.

Source: Michael J Procopio, digital marketing remix | Online  http://digitalmarketingremix.com/

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Get a Chance To Create Your Business

Everybody are looking to gain a money, increase his income resources and build up a portfolio that can meet the needs of living. Furthermore, establish your own business will create opportunity to enhance your financial income and thinking out of the box BUT how you can build this thought and work to achieve it.

I will highlight some point that might help to get a clear picture and start with

Always be on the lookout for ideas. From your work experience, a hobby, or even your experiences as a consumer when there is a demand on some existing product or service you will get a clear idea about what you should offer to enhance this product or service, so you should work to Identify a niche and find out the elements that can contribute to build the foundation of your business.

Work as much as you can to evaluate your idea but in the same time you need to keep in mind the following:

() Market research doesn't have to be complicated or expensive, but you must do it.
() Read the market in different way and try to sketch out the market as a map and you are planning to build your new city in this map
() Conduct research to determine whether there is an adequate number of potential customers to support your product or service.
() Nab the segment that you think it will push your services or product to the right direction and will create opportunity to extend to other segments (Your Target)
() Focus in Funding;  Plan ahead. A written financial plan - whether for a bank or internal use - is a major step in the right direction. A financing plan helps you avoid the causes of cash flow problems, anticipate financing needs (for growth or for survival), and helps keep your total borrowing under control.

My idea in bringing to you a simple great way to enhance your financial income and get multiple income resources. So, if you’ve thought about starting your own business, ask yourself – What do I so much believe in, so much want to do, that I will make effort to make it happen every day, and I’ll be OK with the success or failure of that idea resting squarely on my shoulders? If the answer to that is “nothing,” then don’t quit your day job.  But if something comes to immediately to mind…you might just have what it takes.

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Morgan Stanley has upgraded Dubai Financial Market to Emerging Markets status

Dubai Financial Market on welcomed the decision to upgrade UAE bourses to emerging markets status, saying the move was "overdue".

The decision by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) was hailed as a "significant step" by Essa Kazim, managing director and CEO, Dubai Financial Market.

In a statement, he said: "This significant step evidently demonstrates international institutions' recognition of DFM's pivotal role over the last thre years to further enhance the UAE market infrastructure.

"This development is overdue in light of the market infrastructure improvements made and ticking of all upgrade requirements a long time ago."

DFM spared no effort and has taken numerous initiatives to lay out the necessary frameworks for various development steps including the implementation of the "Delivery versus Payment" (DvP) mechanism since 2011 as well as the implementation of a Buyer Cash Compensation feature last May. Additionally, we have been actively engaged in productive discussions with various market participants including custodians and institutional investors via a series of meetings held in the global financial centers. The aim of these meetings was not only to explain measures taken but also to listen to their remarks and feedback on further initiatives to follow," Kazim added.

Furthermore, I would add Investors look to changes in MSCI indexes as they are largely followed as benchmarks for both mutual and exchange-traded funds. MSCI estimates that nearly $7 trillion is benchmarked to various MSCI indices on a worldwide basis. About $1.4 trillion is benchmarked to the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

Therefore, from my perspective emerging markets tend to have higher growth than developed markets and it is step to keep investors in safe position or in small risk even when markets fall. For these investors, emerging market stocks continue to provide important diversification benefits even during periods of significant market declines. 

Emerging economies are expected to grow an impressive two to three times faster than developed nations, according to April 2012 IMF estimates. As an investor, this is important because corporate revenues have the potential to grow faster when economic growth is higher. However, it's important to keep in mind that bottom-line profits also depend on keeping expenses low.

I hope it will be a good opportunity for UAE stock market to enhance its performance and reach levels that achieve good returns for the UAE market and investor.

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I really like this article - Act Like a Leader Before You Are One

If you want to become a leader, don't wait for the fancy title or the corner office. You can begin to act, think, and communicate like a leader long before that promotion. Even if you're still several levels down and someone else is calling all the shots, there are numerous ways to demonstrate your potential and carve your path to the role you want.

What the Experts Say
"It's never foolish to begin preparing for a transition no matter how many years away it is or where you are in your career," says Muriel Maignan Wilkins, coauthor of Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence. Michael Watkins, the chairman of Genesis Advisers and author of The First 90 Days and Your Next Move, agrees. Not only does the planning help you develop the necessary skills and leadership presence, it also increases your chances of getting the promotion because people will already recognize you as a leader. The key is to take on opportunities now, regardless of your tenure or role. "You can demonstrate leadership at any time no matter what your title is," says Amy Jen Su, coauthor of Own the Room. Here are several ways to start laying the groundwork.

Knock your responsibilities out of the park
No matter how big your ambitions, don't let them distract you from excelling in your current role. Focus on the present as much as — or more than — the future. "You still have to deliver results in your day job," says Jen Su. Adds Maignan Wilkins: "You always need to take care of today's business so that nobody — peers, direct reports, or those above you — questions your performance." That's the first step to getting ahead. 

Help your boss succeed

"You have to execute on your boss's priorities too," says Watkins. "Show her that you're willing to pick up the baton on important projects." Maignan Wilkins also suggests you "lean more towards yes than no" whenever your boss asks you to help with something new. Find out what keeps your manager up at night and propose solutions to those problems. 

Seize leadership opportunities, no matter how small
Make sure your "let me take that on" attitude extends beyond your relationship with your boss. Raise your hand for new initiatives, especially ones that might be visible to those outside your unit. "This will give others a taste of what you'll be like in a more senior role," says Maignan Wilkins. It doesn't have to be an intense, months-long project. It might be something as simple as facilitating a meeting, offering to help with recruiting events, or stepping in to negotiate a conflict between peers. You might find opportunities outside of work, too. You can sit on the board of a local nonprofit or organize your community's volunteer day. "These activities send the signal that you aspire to leadership potential," Watkins says.

Look for the white space
Another way to prove your potential is to take on projects in the "white space." These are problems that others aren't willing to tackle or don't even know exist. "Every organization has needs that nobody is paying attention to, or people are actively ignoring," Maignan Wilkins says. For example, you might be able to identify a customer need that isn't being met by your company's current product line, and propose a new one. Or you could do a quick analysis of how much a specific change would save the company. When you take on a task that no one else is willing to do, you make yourself stand out. 

Don't be a jerk
There's a fine line between being ambitious and acting like you're too big for your britches. "Don't try to exert authority when you don't have it," says Watkins. Practice what he calls "steward leadership": focus on what your team wants to accomplish instead of putting yourself first. Jen Su recommends "humble confidence," showing appropriate modesty in your role, while having the self-assurance to know that you will rise to the next level. 

Be cautious when sharing your ambitions
It's appropriate to raise your ambitions with your manager if you have a trusting, solid relationship, but frame them in a way that focuses on what's best for the company. Jen Su suggests you lay out your accomplishments for the past year and then ask something like, "As we look further out, where do you see me continuing to make a contribution?" Watkins warns that these conversations shouldn't come off as being all about you. Instead, engage in a two-way conversation with your boss. If you have the kind of boss who may feel threatened by your aspirations, it's better to keep your ambitions quiet and prove your potential. 

Find role models
Look for people who have the roles you want and study what they do — how they act, communicate, and dress. "Pick someone at the next level, someone similar to you, and find a way to work with them," says Watkins. Volunteer for a committee they're spearheading or offer to help with one of their pet projects. Identify behaviors that you can emulate while being true to yourself. "You don't want to fake it," says Maignan Wilkins. It might also help to study people who are stuck in their careers as examples of what not to do, Watkins says. Are they clumsy politically? Do they disrespect the lines of authority? Do they fail to make connections between departments? 

Build relationships
There's an old adage, "It's not who you know, it's who knows you." When you're evaluated for a promotion, it's unlikely your boss will sit in a room alone and contemplate your potential. She'll rely on others to assess your ability, which means you need supporters across the organization — people who are aware of the work you're doing. "If you find yourself walking down the hall with the most senior person at your company, be prepared to answer the question, 'So what are you up to?'" Maignan Wilkins says, "Don't take lightly any interactions that may seem informal. Treat every situation as an opportunity to demonstrate the value you bring to the organization and your knowledge of the business."

Principles to Remember
Do:

• Look for every opportunity to demonstrate your leadership potential, at work and outside the office
• Support your boss in reaching her goals
• Find people in positions you aspire to and study what makes them successful

Don't:

• Let your ambitions distract you from doing your current job well
• Exert authority where you don't have any — use influence to prove your leadership chops
• Openly discuss your ambitions — it's safer to take a "show, don't tell" approach

Case study #1: Focus on solving problems, not getting promoted
In late 2010, after ten years at Citi, Heather Espinosa was promoted to managing director. She reached this executive position by continuously challenging herself — and by making the most of each of her previous roles. "I've never been concerned with my title. When I thought an assignment was a stretch, I took it," she explains. "When I applied for my previous position, the job carried the title 'project manager.' But after my first conversation with the manager, I knew it was a position that would require complex leadership skills and challenge me, so I accepted the job." 

In each role, Heather embraced additional responsibilities without being asked. "I make an effort to volunteer and raise my hand where I see a need. I started taking on the responsibility of managing director with the hope that if I performed well, the title would come." And her bosses have always respected this approach. "I rarely walk into my manager's office and say I want to talk about my career or my next promotion. I walk in and say here's a problem and here's how we might address it," she says. 

Case study #2: Take any leadership opportunity you can get

Mike Subelsky, the co-founder and CTO at Staq, a tech start-up that makes software for digital advertising companies, spent most of his early career in roles with lots of responsibility, but not much authority. "I held a number of positions where I felt I had a great deal of influence, but I was never the one calling the shots," he says.
Still he worked hard, hoping to someday move up the ladder. "I've always tried to be the kind of employee that the boss never has to worry about," he explains. He focused on doing the best he could in whatever role he had, and always raised his hand for projects. He also looked for opportunities to exercise leadership outside of the office. In 2004, he started a nonprofit in Baltimore. "It was a great laboratory," he says. "It allowed me to practice being a leader."
Then, last year, he and his partner co-founded Staq. All of Mike's preparation had paid off. In fact, the company received $1 million in seed funding this past month. "I always knew I wanted to be where I am now: I am hiring employees and creating a wonderful place to work." 

Written by Amy Gallo

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