One of the biggest keys to a successful career is learning to make strategic choices about how you spend your time and focusing on the efforts that will move the needle for your business or department. However, we often wind up working on the “I shouldn’t…” tasks that are not the best use of our time, but we have to do and get work done. For example:

• “I shouldn’t be crunching the list for an upcoming conference.”
• “I shouldn’t be mining a competitor’s social media site.”
• “I shouldn’t be spending hours looking for contact information of a prospect or doing basic research.”

And while we’re working on the “I shouldn’t...” tasks, we often miss out on the “we should…” opportunities that might have a big payoff––if only we had more time to explore them.

• “We should look at this new market opportunity.”
• “We should find social media thought-leaders and create targeted content for them.”
• “We should understand what our competitors’ customers are saying.”

Ultimately, we all need more time to identify and focus on the efforts that could move the needle for our businesses and our careers. But unfortunately, it is often difficult to optimize our time to focus on these high-value opportunities.

If you feel like you don’t always get this right, you’re not alone. Researchers at the London School for Business recently found that most knowledge workers––people who “think for a living”––spend an average of 41% of their time on work they could easily pass off to others.

Parker Dewey, which matches professionals like you with talented college students and recent grads who are eager to help you get your “I shouldn’t…” and “we should…” tasks done, was launched as a solution to this problem.

Having executed thousands of projects, we’re excited to introduce one-click projects based on some of the most common tasks that would otherwise bog professionals down:

• Lead generation
• Content creation
• Competitive review
• Industry analysis.

All you have to do is select the project that’s right for you, and we’ll take care of the rest. This includes connecting you with a selection of career launchers who proactively apply to work on your assignment, are ready to get to work, and are highly motivated to do a great job. We even handle all of the payment and accounting processing once they successfully complete the project (they are not your interns, contractors, or employees, so there there is no HR burden).  Each project is only $200, you select who you want to work with, and if you work with someone who you want to hire for a full-time role or internship, there is no fee to do so. In fact, we love when we can make introductions that lead to full-time hires.

But why should career launchers handle these things for you?

You should be focused on closing sales; you shouldn’t be crunching lists or searching for contact info.

A 2014 study published in Harvard Business Review found that “regardless of what you are selling, who you are selling it to, or where you happen to be in the world, success in selling is highly correlated with three things:

1. Spending enough time with customers and prospects
2. Having a large and healthy network in your own organization
3. Spending time with and getting attention from your manager and other senior people in your own organization

You might notice that prospecting, lead generation, and list building don’t show up anywhere on that list. That’s because finding and researching prospects just isn’t the best way for you to spend your time as a sales or business development professional. In fact, those activities take away from the time you could be spending with customers, prospects, and building other valuable relationships.

So why not tap career launchers to help you with lead generation?

Parker Dewey’s Lead Generation One-Click Project makes it possible

Select Lead Generation as your One-Click Project and a career launcher will identify and collect data on 50 prospects for your company.

Companies will be selected based on key criteria you provide (e.g. industry, presence in key geographic locations, size/growth rate, etc.), and information collected will include contact information for a specific role (e.g. name, title, email, phone) and other publicly available data (e.g. size, employee count, key customers, etc.).

For example, one client recently selected five career launchers to work on a similar lead generation project in parallel, assigning each a different segment. Not only did this allow our client to get five times as many leads, but they were also able to compare the attractiveness of the different segments and identify new lead generation best practices. In addition, the client was able to compare the performance of each individual, helping evaluate them for future full-time opportunities.

Post a one-click lead generation project and start building lists now.

You should improve your marketing strategy; you shouldn’t be writing blog content.

Social media and blogs play an important role in improving awareness and generating leads, but that doesn’t mean you need to be the one developing the content. Wouldn’t your brain power be better utilized building and optimizing your marketing strategy than writing a first draft of a blog post and searching for third-party sources to cite?

Only 30% of marketers think their content marketing is effective, and if you fall into that camp, your time would be far better spent reshaping your strategy, analyzing metrics and experimenting with new content formats than writing blog posts.

But consistency is key in blogging, and the posts must continue to go up.

That’s where Parker Dewey’s Content Creation One-Click Project comes in to get work done

Select Content Creation as your One-Click Project, and a career launcher will create a piece of targeted content to be used on your company blog. That content will provide insights into a specific topic you define, and will be written in an editorial style that highlights areas where your company has effectively driven success, rather than in an advertising style focused solely on the company. The content will include cited supporting data and external sources obtained through research, and will be approximately 800-1,200 words in length.

In fact, we even use this project for Parker Dewey, working with some amazing career launchers to create content for our Talent Blog. Not only does this help us generate interesting content, but we’re able to select specific individuals based on their backgrounds and prior experiences.

Post a content creation project and get your next blog done now.

You should develop your positioning; you shouldn’t be researching your industry.

According to Hubspot, companies that research their markets at least quarterly grow more than ten times faster than those that don't conduct regular research. But keeping your industry knowledge current can be extremely time-consuming. What if you could have someone give you a high-level report on your current industry, a niche you’re considering entering, or the market trends of a prospect you’re selling to, and take the time spent gathering relevant research off your plate?

With Parker Dewey’s One-Click Industry Analysis Project, you can explore new opportunities.

Choose Industry Analysis as your One-Click Project, and a career launcher will prepare a summary that details the size of your industry, key trends, major competitors, growth rate, regulations, and other key information. They’ll identify key thought leaders including consultants, stock research analysts, think tanks, and others, and will include references to the third-party research used to compile the report.

For example, a venture capital client recently worked with a career launcher on preparing a comprehensive analysis of a specific technology niche it wanted to better understand. Using the outcome of this project, the firm decided to pursue opportunities in the market, and was able to establish its expertise with prospective investments.

Post this project and get work done now.

You should be thinking about how to differentiate your own company; you shouldn’t be monitoring your competitors.

Keeping up with your competitors is incredibly time-consuming, especially given the breadth of sources and opportunities to gain real-time, actionable insights. You need immediate access to the perspectives of your competitors’ customers, an understanding of their product strategy, and the ability respond to executive changes. However, this information is only valuable if you have the time to find it. Wouldn’t you prefer to spend more time strategizing about how to differentiate your company and less time investigating what everyone else in the industry is doing?

Parker Dewey’s One-Click Competitive Review will free up your time to focus on differentiation

Choose the Competitive Review One-Click Project, and a career launcher will put together a brief rundown of where your competitors are today. They’ll also help you make educated predictions about where your competitive set is going next so you can stay ahead of the curve when it comes to differentiating your company.

Our career launchers will perform market research on five to ten competitors including their presence on social media, LinkedIn connections, and recent press releases. They’ll identify key followers, customers, partners, and advocates based on engagement and content. They’ll also review user feedback, social media comments, and competitor behaviors to identify new trends and opportunities.

For example, one client worked with a career launcher to monitor a competitor’s launch of a new product. Based on this review of industry expert coverage, the competitor’s presentations at conferences, and comments on social media, our client was able to develop a comprehensive sales and marketing strategy. As a result, our client was able to use these insights to proactively take market share from its competitors.   

Post this project and get work done now.

Do you have other projects you need to get off your plate? If none of our current one-click projects are a fit or you, you can still craft your own project in under five minutes (and of course, we’re happy to help you).

And when you use Parker Dewey to get your “I shouldn’t…” and “we should…” tasks done, you’ll also provide students and recent graduates with valuable experiences that will set them up for success in their careers and build a pipeline of entry-level talent for the next time you have a full-time opening at your company.

Career launchers through Parker Dewey can be a game-changer for your company. Ready to get work done with less and overcome the hurdles that might be holding your company back? Schedule a meeting today.