Career Canvas: Strategic Career and Life Design | Vibrant Life

1. How You Help (Value Proposition): This is the core of everything—what value do you bring to others? What problems do you solve? What makes people better off because of your work? This might be helping companies make better decisions, teaching children to read, or creating beautiful spaces that inspire people.

2. Who You Help (Customer Segments): These are the people or organizations that benefit from your work. It could be your employer, clients, students, patients, or community members. Understanding exactly who depends on you helps you focus your efforts where they matter most.

3. Roles/Relationships (Customer Relationships): What kind of relationship do you have with the people you help? Are you an advisor, a problem-solver, a teacher, a caregiver? Understanding your role helps you show up more effectively.

1. What You Do (Key Activities): These are the critical activities that make your value proposition possible. If you're a teacher, it might include lesson planning, classroom instruction, and student assessment. If you're a consultant, it could be research, analysis, and client presentations.

2. Who You Are/What You Have (Key Resources): This includes your skills, knowledge, experience, personality traits, and physical resources. What makes you uniquely qualified to do what you do? What assets do you bring to the table?

3. How They Know You/How You Deliver (Channels): How do people find out about you and your work? How do you deliver your value? This could be through your employer, networking, social media, or direct referrals.

Who Helps You (Key Partners): Nobody succeeds alone. Who supports your work? This might include colleagues, mentors, family members, professional networks, or service providers who help you do your job better.

1. What You Give (Cost Structure): What do you invest in to do your work? This includes obvious things like time and energy, but also opportunity costs—what you give up to pursue your current path. Consider both the "hard costs" (actual expenses) and "soft costs" (stress, missed opportunities, work-life balance trade-offs).

2. What You Get (Revenue Streams): What do you receive in return for your value? This includes salary and benefits, but also intangible rewards like personal satisfaction, learning opportunities, recognition, flexibility, or social impact.

Begin with the most important question: How do you help others? What problems do you solve? What value do you create? Be specific about the benefits people receive from your work. Don't just say "I'm a good manager"—explain how your management style helps teams be more productive, creative, or satisfied.

Who specifically benefits from your work? If you're employed, your "customers" include your employer, but also think about internal customers (other departments that depend on your work) and end customers (the people your company serves). If you're freelancing or running a business, this is more straightforward, but still worth thinking about deeply.

What do you actually do each day that creates value? Which of your skills, experiences, and personal qualities make this possible? Be honest about what energizes you versus what drains you—this information is valuable for future decisions.

Who helps you succeed? This includes obvious supporters like mentors and colleagues, but also consider less obvious ones like the barista who makes your morning coffee routine possible or the family members who handle responsibilities so you can focus on work.

What do you invest (time, energy, stress, opportunity costs) and what do you receive (money, satisfaction, learning, flexibility, impact)? Is this exchange sustainable and fair? Are there adjustments you could make to improve the balance?

Once you've filled in all nine sections, step back and look at the whole picture. Do your activities align with your value proposition? Are you leveraging your best resources? Is your support network adequate for your goals? Are there opportunities to optimize or areas that need attention?

Plan for 90 minutes and send the blank template to clients beforehand for review (but don't have them complete it—you want to work through it together). Start with the core sections: "How You Help" and "Who You Help," as these provide the foundation for everything else.

Work through the canvas systematically, but spend extra time on sections that generate energy or resistance—these often reveal the most valuable insights.

Rather than just filling in boxes, use these questions to dig deeper:

When clients make broad statements like "I help everyone," challenge them to be specific. Help them identify patterns and connections between different sections.

The Overcommitted Helper: Trying to help too many different types of people with too many different value propositions. These clients need to focus and prioritize rather than being everything to everyone.

The Undervalued Expert: Not being appropriately compensated for the value they create. This often leads to conversations about negotiation, positioning, or career transitions.

The Misaligned Worker: Daily activities don't match their stated value proposition. They may need role clarity, boundary setting, or career pivots.

The Isolated Achiever: Lacks adequate support systems or partnerships. Help them identify potential collaborators and support networks.

The canvas is most valuable when it leads to concrete action. Help clients identify 1-2 priority areas for focus rather than trying to address everything at once. Transform insights into specific next steps: "I need better networking" becomes "Join the local marketing professionals group and attend their next monthly event."

Plan follow-up sessions to review progress and adjust the canvas as circumstances change. The tool works best as an ongoing conversation starter rather than a one-time exercise.

Use this tool for career coaching sessions, HR development conversations, performance discussions, team development, and leadership coaching. It's particularly effective for career transitions, succession planning, and helping professionals understand their unique value proposition within their organization.