The best of all possible worlds...I love what I do!
Add to the Derby Management work, the fact that I'm also fully engaged with a team of bright, witty and entrepreneur-friendly fellow investors as the chairman of Common Angels, which keeps me more than busy. And then I also have the privilege of being a professor of marketing at Tufts and a lecturer on business planning at MIT. Throw in the whole weekly balancing act driving between the Vermont mountains, the NH beach and the excitement of Kendall Square and Waltham, and who's got it better than me? Most probably, only the LP ("Little Princess"), my wife, the artist, beach glass collector, jewelry maker and currently marine biologist who is always in search of new quests.
I spend a lot of time outside class with my students talking through the job hunt (substitute "marketing & selling process"), connecting them to our customers (~40 now employed over the years) and providing them with a sounding board about the process, salaries and a host of other decisions during that anxious time of finding their first job. At various times during the year, this becomes the most important work that I do.
And every once in a while, I find that standout student (of which I have a number) like Lindsey Kirchoff. Lindsey is an energetic, bright, very hard working young woman with whom I worked closely to make sure that she got to where she wanted, which was to help her land her job with my friends at HubSpot. I noticed her blog last week (http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/01/31/how-i-went-from-unemployed-grad-to-landing-my-dream-job/), and it goes a long way in defining how to find the perfect job...not just for graduating seniors, but for anyone looking for a job in what is still a highly competitive market.
Looking for a job today is exactly like running a fully developed, well-oiled, perfectly tooled marketing and sales campaign.
And yet, I receive 2-4 emails a week from good people, who I am well connected to and are already in the workforce, asking me to send on their resume to "anyone who I might think would be interested".
We also know, because they do a great job at marketing, that Cheerios is "Heart Healthy". That's their Value Proposition! Riboflavian, oats and gram weights are the resume, but who cares about any of that? Today, the response to most resumes and most product packaging is simply, SO WHAT? or WHAT'S IN THIS FOR ME?
Value Propositions (click for a Brainshark on VPs) answer that question. Cheerios let me know, through their marketing, that I might be able to prevent a heart attack. That's pretty cool. I'll take two, please.
What's your Value Proposition as a job seeker? ...as a product salesperson?
Unless you're able to develop, promote, market and back up the VALUE that you're going to bring that new employeer either as an ex-college student come this May or as a 50 year old, heavily experienced sales professional, you're simply not going to find the best job today...except my luck. And, what we know about sales and marketing today, nothing happens by luck or following the strategy of hope (a pretty good book, btw).
In a fast-paced, highly focused, time-squeezed world where senior decision makers have extraordinarily little time, trying to market your next whiz-bang product, or yourself, merely on the basis of the packaging of smaller, faster, cuter, and cheaper will get you exactly what you deserve...Zippo, Nada, the Big Doughnut! You might get some mid-level manager to care about your product or that nice person in HR to give you an initial screening call, but you're never going to get any senior manager to even budge unless you market Value first.
This weekend, take a couple of hours and write out your Value Proposition. Maybe that's it's your personal Value Prop or maybe it's for your company. In either case, refining your Value Proposition is a critical requirement for becoming a successful salesperson this year. It's tough work, but extemely rewarding.
Welcome to 2013...and Good Selling!
-January was a real solid month
-Remember: Q1 always sets the tone, pace & success for the year