Sue Ellson’s book '120 Ways To Attract The Right Career Or Business' contains valuable insights for any person seeking a career change or a new business opportunity. Throughout the book she is very open with examples from her own life to illustrate the points she is making and in addition uses other examples to illustrate how the suggestions she makes can work out in practice. This personalised approach brings an authenticity to the work which is missing in many books of this genre.

The first two chapters emphasise the importance of clarifying your values and purpose before embarking on a new direction. Many people struggle with this step and may need the help of trusted others or a professional to achieve clarity. This is even more so the case when it comes to prioritising our values and purpose when there are competing priorities.

The book is full of useful advice on how to ‘market’ yourself or your business after having clarified your values and purpose. She develops a detailed list in Ch. 6 for assembling all of the bits of necessary ‘evidence‘ you will need to effectively market yourself. This is followed up in more detail later in the book when she gives solid advice about how to identify and reach out to the most appropriate target market for either your next job or business opportunity. It is then a matter of finding ways to reach out to that market.

There is a detailed discussion of selecting the most appropriate platforms to achieve this as well as creating content for those platforms along with building your personal brand and a personal or business website. She makes the important point that your profile on all of the various platforms you use (Linked in, Facebook etc.) should be consistent. Networking is a vital part of reaching out to your target market and this is covered in Ch. 16.

The author discusses how to identify appropriate networks in your target market or, if you feel none exist, how to create your own! She does not underestimate the work that is required in taking this latter step. There is also a useful list of pointers on ‘what to do at a networking event'.

For those who are seeking a new job, there is a solid discussion of career attraction techniques. She sets out a detailed list (p74) of various job search techniques followed by application techniques, interview techniques and issues to consider when accepting a job. This is a very balanced discussion and recognises that not everyone will be able to attract their ‘dream job’ immediately.

It is reassuring to see the author acknowledging that it may be necessary to get a ‘survival job’ or to take the ‘next step’ in your current job until you can attract a job that is aligned with your values and purpose. She revisits application and interview techniques again later in the book where she points out the importance of building and maintaining resilience when embarking on a new career direction or starting a business. The author notes that her discussion of job identification techniques may well be the most important part of the book for some people. I would go further and suggest that the whole of the discussion in Ch. 7 is excellent advice for most of the clients I work with.

The final chapter of the book deals with ‘overcoming challenges’. I found the list of questions for those who seem to be consistently missing out on jobs or business opportunities to be particularly apposite (pp.189). This chapter provides solid advice in dealing effectively with any of the challenges thrown up by this list of questions.
Bernie Bishop, Career Counsellor, Career Change.

Thank you Bernie for providing such a comprehensive review of '120 Ways To Attract The Right Career Or Business' - I really appreciate this coming from a fellow practitioner! Sue Ellson 🙂

You have inspired me from your determination and persistence, of course with your super ability. Congratulations again!

Thank you Grace. Your encouragement and support has helped me push through and complete this second book - third one to come! Sue Ellson 🙂

An excellent achievement Sue. The book launch was a lovely celebratory event. Glad to share it with you. All the best Sue.

It was wonderful to have you at the book launch Leah! Thank you for joining us! Sue Ellson 🙂

There are a lot of personal stories so that makes it a much easier to read than ‘120 Ways To Achieve Your Purpose With LinkedIn,’ but I commend Sue for that because it’s pretty hard to put your personal stories in there and there are some tough ones in there as well. So well done with that. It’s packed with real life scenarios and actions and one of the things I’ve got out of that is one of the quotes you’ve put in there that ‘life should be a safe journey but its not always a smooth journey.’ There’s always challenges and so she reveals a lot of the challenges that she‘s faced and beaten in this book so, very well done.

As I said, look it really is a business coaching journal and manual in one. She can package this. So you could package this and sell it like some of these development courses you’ve gone for 5 to 10,000 bucks and put it in a a nice thing but she’s actually giving you all this information for nothing. There’s stuff there about values and purpose, the importance of support networks, the importance of having a belief system and how certain beliefs can limit your future and what you achieve. And so, you need to challenge some of the beliefs that you’ve got. The importance of responsibility and fairness in everything you do. And the need to learn and change what you do, and don’t just stick to what you’ve done in the past and seek help if you don’t know this stuff, seek help from other people and keep accountable to what you’ve learned.

There are three main areas when you read through the book that I really pulled out of it, Sue. I’m sure other people will pull other things out but I love your act principle. Action Changes Things. So if you take action, you will change things so I love that. Also, the concept of capital and the seven different forms of capital that are in there: social, intellectual, cultural, financial, gratitude, relationship and influence, and these are all things you need to develop if you’re looking for a job or looking to start of business. I found that one really important. And the final thing was the values of how it’s important with anything you do, whether it’s a job or a business, that it aligns with your important values and of course, you cover both the job and the business side of things.

And look, just to cut it short before I pass on to Sue and she can tell more about the book. My favorite action is action number 89. If you go through the actions, there’s a 120 of them there. So if you do one a day, it will keep you going for a while. But this is really reflective of Sue this action. It is the ‘be a lifelong learner’ and I think that represents Sue very much. She calls herself a learning junkie in the book and I think she’s done most likely every course and development book and read everything there is to do with personal development and the final message I’ve got from that and which is Sue to a tee is do everything with a smile on your face.

Thank you Rob. Yes, it was challenging to include some personal stories, but as a writer, I guess that is the challenge isn't it? To reveal a little of yourself to hopefully encourage readers. Thank you for your detailed review and for being the MC at the book launch. Sue Ellson 🙂

CONGRATULATIONS! Amazing work, amazing speed….well done.

Thank you Jacquie for being a constant source of inspiration and motivation over so many years! Sue Ellson 🙂