Personal Development Plan: Free resources to help you start testing (and help your career)

I was leafing through the MarketingSherpa 2012 Executive Guide to Marketing Personnel (free guide at that link), and lead author Chuck Coker listed a series of initiatives that would help companies develop the capacity of their individuals. The first one was …

“There is a personal development plan for each individual. Courses and training are provided.”

While some high-performing marketing organizations create a personal development plan for each individual, many do not — especially in smaller companies.

So, here’s my advice to you … create your own. Know where you want to go and what goals you want to accomplish, and then find the path that will lead you there. Since your boss isn’t a HR expert like Chuck, he probably doesn’t care about HR terms like life purpose or idea self.

However, I guarantee he cares about results.

So, you can create your own path that focuses on the bottom line, sales, leads or some other KPI. And, one of the best ways to get a path that will lead you there is by creating a new program of optimization and testing in your company. Optimization and testing can help you achieve the results you need to bring notice to management and earn you the promotion you desire. If you haven’t started yet, here is a free resource kit to help get you started.

DOWNLOAD THE KIT 

We originally created this kit to prepare attendees for the Quick Win Clinic at the Optimization Summit 2012 in Denver, (and have updated it substantially since then, in addition to releasing the free test discovery tool and test planning scenario tool), but I think it has a few basic resources to help you get your first testing win:

• The Web as a Living Laboratory
• Quick Guide to Conversion Optimization
• The MECLABS Conversion Analysis Tool
• The MECLABS Competitive Analysis Tool

Use these documents to record the important aspects of your tests, and then schedule regular meetings with your boss showing him what you’ve learned about the customer that will help the company … along with the numerical results showing what you’ve added to your team’s KPIs.

And if you need some assistance along the way, we have courses and training that can help as well.

Everyone wants a Fairy Godmother HR department that will sprinkle wave a magic wand and help usher their career along. But, if you don’t have that bippity-boppity-boo in your organization, take matters into your own hands and start showing the results of your hard work.

Related Resources

Marketing Career: 4 questions every marketer should answer (and what you need to know to start asking them)

Creating a Culture of Testing: How to defeat the tyranny of best practices

Optimization 101: How to get real results from A/B testing

Marketing Career: 3 steps to optimize your LinkedIn profile