Part 32 (1/2)

The president in question sat on the board of a local nonprofit, a cause that both he and my client were pa.s.sionate about. This was her way in. She volunteered her services with the organization and quickly developed a name for herself as a dynamic and innovative thinker who could really make things happen. Within a short time, she found an opportunity to meet her president at a fund-raising gala and introduced herself as the person who worked on the ”X” campaign. She also mentioned that she happened to work for the same company (what a coincidence).

After making the initial contact, over the next year she did more great things for the nonprofit, had more opportunities to s.h.i.+ne, and quickly found herself on his radar. At one of their next meetings, she mentioned where she'd really like to see herself in their company, threw in a few of her ideas, and asked his advice. Knowing now how good she was, he recommended a few people and even offered to contact them on her behalf. With a strong testimonial from the company's president, it wasn't long before she landed a high-profile strategic role more suited to her abilities (she also stayed on with the nonprofit where she continued to do great work and has been asked to fill a major leaders.h.i.+p position on a full-time basis). It was a unique case where s.h.i.+ning outside the company helped her move up inside it.

Ross Macpherson, president, Career Quest ().

Chapter 9.

Fearless Warm Calling

A Fresh Alternative

It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up.

-VINCE LOMBARDI

Although you may be a top-notch engineer, mortgage broker, or whatever, when it comes to getting interviews, I have observed that many sharp people-to use a metaphor-couldn't close a paper bag much less an employer. Hang tight, I'm going to show you how to ”warm call” an employer and land an interview.

FIRST CONTACT

The majority of job-hunting books I've read and courses I've reviewed stress cold calling (or dialing-for-dollars, as it's often called) as one of the best ways to land an interview. ”It's a numbers game” they say, ”just have faith, make the calls, and you'll be successful-eventually.” Now there is a certain amount of truth in it. Cold calling is a numbers game but it is also demoralizing, frustrating, and the fastest most unsatisfying way to burn through your list of prospects.

Think about this dialing-for-dollars approach for a minute. You've executed your job hunting from a plan. You a.n.a.lyzed your skills, wrote an enticing resume, and built an online presence. You've spent countless hours, even weeks, gathering information and logically a.s.sessing your value added against your list of prospective employers. Now the time has come for you to make that all-important initial contact with an employer-this is where nonguerrillas blow it.

Every single day for the past 20 years, I've heard some iteration of the following:

Hi, Mr. Employer. My name is Pam and I am a marketing expert with well over 20 years of experience. I have been following your company for some time and am quite impressed with some of the recent successes. I would like to see if there would be an opportunity to meet with you and discuss how my qualifications and experience could serve your company.

Sounds nice enough, doesn't it? But it doesn't work. This is a new millennium, and that is an old and tired approach. Seriously, Mr. Employer is going to politely get rid of you. He will ask you to send a resume (the number one way to get rid of a job hunter) or refer you to someone in human resources, who'll tell you they're not hiring, ”but we'll keep your resume on file.” So if this tried-and-true method has run its course, is there a better way? The answer-fortunately-is yes!

YOUR ALTERNATIVE

I would love to take credit for what I'm about to teach you, but that wouldn't be fair. First off, the base methodology and principles are not mine. Second, the ideas in Thomas Freese's book Secrets of Question Based Selling: How the Most Powerful Tool in Business Can Double Your Sales Results Secrets of Question Based Selling: How the Most Powerful Tool in Business Can Double Your Sales Results (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2000) ( (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2000) () were brought to my attention by Daniel Houle ().

As a successful headhunter and guerrilla marketer myself, I was intuitively doing what Freese teaches, so when Daniel introduced me to the book, I wasn't shy about integrating the question based selling (QBS) principles into my firm. Tom's fresh approach helped me keep Perry-Martel International flying high at a time when most of our compet.i.tors crashed and burned.

Freese's premise is that people sell to people. Although this might not be a revelation, it's critical that you understand the instinctive psychological process that interferes with the sale by pitting you and the employer against each other-why the employer is looking for a reason to say no.