Elevator Pitch: Good? Sales Pitch: Bad?

I was having a discussion recently with a colleague of mine in which the word "pitch" was used in reference to candidates in the job search process. This colleague quickly bristled and said, "I don't advise my clients to pitch anything."

To which I quickly reminded her that she most certainly does. After all, she prepares the so-called "elevator pitch."

She then bristled again and said, "Well, that's different."

When I asked her to explain, she went on to tell me that one was the "off-putting," basically "disgusting" art of "pitching" a sale, while the other was the crafting of a statement that encompasses the candidate's "value proposition."

I guess in her mind she isn't teaching her clients how to sell; instead she's teaching them how to...sell but pretend they aren't...? (A pitch is a pitch is a pitch is a pitch.)

 I know many people probably share my colleague's sentiment about the idea of a "sales pitch." Within the career services industry, in general, the idea of a sales pitch is met with disdain but the concept of an elevator pitch is lauded as good practice. (Go figure.)

And I do get it. We can all think of the stereotypical slimy salespeople who will say anything to get us to buy...who try to whip us into some emotional state where we are tricked into making a bad decision. And we rightly bristle at the idea that any of our clients would take that approach in their job search.

But as someone who has an MBA in marketing and a strong education in sales, I'm more than a little concerned that by playing games with semantics, we (career strategists and candidates alike) are in danger of leading candidates down the wrong road.

In my mind, knowing how to "sell" is one of the most secure and marketable skills you can develop regardless of what role, industry, private/public sector career you have. There is a lot of truth to the saying that "all of life is sales."  

The problem is that most people have been taught that selling is bad. That it's manipulation. But that is NOT what good selling is.

Good selling starts from a basic premise: That you have a good or service (product) that will make someone else's life better in some way (it solves a problem). Marketing introduces that product to the specific market who will benefit from it the most (building the recognizable "brand"). Then sales backs up the brand by "demonstrating" the product to individual prospects interested in how this product will make their lives better and solve a problem they have.

Now, here's where the "pitch" comes in. It isn't a trick like a fast ball; it's a reinforcement (a "connecting of the dots," if you will). The prospect has already identified that he or she has a problem that needs solving, and the marketing has attracted him or her to this brand as a possibility of solving it. Now the prospect just wants to know 1) whether he or she can trust your product and your brand and 2) whether what you are saying really will solve his or her problem. The job of sales, then, is to convince (create trust/belief) and then persuade (encourage action). Nine times out of ten without the sales "pitch," the prospect will do nothing even if he or she is interested. (As humans, we like to be convinced and persuaded as we don't want to make a foolish decision.)

In the end, contrary to popular opinion, the transaction that occurs is not a "win-win" (company-buyer). It's a "win-bigger win" in which the company makes a short-term profit (because let's face it, the company needs a lot of sales to profit long term) and the buyer gets a long-term resolution of his or her problem.

 In good selling, the buyer is always the bigger winner.

(In fact, it has to be that way for businesses to prosper. Big, sustainable businesses must have that to survive. If not, they will become irrelevant to the market. The problem, of course, is that they often lose sight of it, for various reasons, and when profits start to slip as a result, they react by becoming more selfish, eventually creating that slimy sales environment we all know and hate and usually cheapening the product to "save" on expenses.

And by the way, nonprofits and other public sector agencies pretty much operate on the same premises. They all have a target market they serve, staff who needs to make a living, grant funders they need to convince and persuade, boards of directors and other stakeholders who look to "profit" in some way even if that way seems more "humanitarian". It's all a matter of practicing good selling. In fact, in many ways, the public sector/nonprofit arena has to do a lot more "selling" than the private sector does.)  

So getting back to the "elevator pitch" and the job search process, in general, what else is it if it isn't a form of good selling?  

Wouldn't you rather learn how to do good "selling" than just good "bragging" or, worse, "selling but pretending you're not selling?"

I've met a lot of good braggers and none of them are good at sales/marketing. Why? Because they practice poor selling techniques, expecting to trick the other party into thinking they are better than they are, expecting to win bigger than the other party does. I've also met a lot of others who don't want to seem like their "selling" so they don't. They don't pitch any substance, and they don't make the sale. (They make the mistake of thinking the product will just sell itself.)

Listen. When you go out with your "pitch" in job search mode, the potential employer should make out better from hiring you (that is really what a "value proposition" is). After all, you are performing a "service" and that service does make the "world a better place" (at least the world inside that company), doesn't it?

(I should hope so! Otherwise, your service is irrelevant.)

Now, that doesn't mean you don't stand to profit. You expect a good wage (price) for your hard-earned effort so that at least during the short term (as long as you work there), you can make a living, maybe even a good one. You also expect other things like respect and certain benefits. In the end, though, while you are there, you help solve problems that build in long-term sustainability (that's your legacy) for the company (or at least should be if the company is being managed properly), making the company and all the people it serves (customers, staff, communities) bigger winners.

So the next time you bristle at the idea of selling, particularly as it relates to you, the job seeker, be careful of clouding your judgment so that you miss out on what good selling "pitches" do. Otherwise, you'll spend so much time trying not to "sell" with your "elevator pitch" that your potential employer(s) will be left wondering just exactly what it is you can do for them and whether they can trust what you say.

Two Roads Diverged in Your Career Path Wood...And You?

Two Roads Diverged in Your Career Path Wood...And You?

And you?

If you're like many professionals, you know it's time to make another career move. The writing is on the wall, so to speak. You've either been in your current role for a bit longer than you intended, the corporate culture around you is shifting in a direction that you don't seem to fit into, or you just feel the itch. Whatever it is, it's time.  

So you're thinking you should get your resume together.

But as soon as you start talking to resume writers or reading through the latest career trends, you keep hearing the same mantra:

"Your resume should be focused, focused, focused. The more focused, the more effective it will be."  

And then you start to panic. You might even think, "Oh no, do I really want to push myself into such a corner? What if I want to pursue two options? How come I don't really know what I want to be when I grow up?"

For older workers, it might even be more frightening. Maybe you thought you'd be retired by now or certainly within the next 5 years. So if the idea of making the career move isn't daunting enough, now you have to marry yourself to either your current role or break out into a new one at what feels like the exact wrong moment.

Or maybe you're like me and middle age is upon you. You've always done the "safe" thing or whatever you had to do. It would be nice to take more of a risk or at least find something you really enjoy doing.  

Whatever the situation may be. The good news is that you're not alone...

Robert Frost wrote about something very similar in 1920 in his famous poem The Road Not Taken when he was about 46 years old:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Now if you studied this poem in school or are just an avid fan of Frost or poetry in general, you've inevitably heard many commentaries wax philosophical on this poem.

The popular way to read it is to think that the road "less traveled" that the narrator took "made all the difference." That the soul-searching, life-affirming, man-in-touch-with-the universe sentiment is the key here. That the narrator walking through this "yellow wood" (in tune with nature) saw two different paths, and the decision of one over the other was what "made all the difference" now looking back on his life. In other words, the courage to go a different way saved him or her from the dreaded "regret."

It's a nice thought, isn't it? It's certainly sold a lot of Hallmark cards.  

But what if Frost were doing what Frost often did...what if he were being a bit facetious, a little tongue in cheek, if you will?

I won't go into too many details for sake of time, but I think you could make as strong an argument that Frost was in jest when he said this decision "made all the difference" as you can that he was dead serious: e.g., the use of exclamation point and all caps, the somewhat melodramatic tone ("I shall be telling this with a sigh"), the awkward rhyming with "difference" at the end. In other words, the poem can be read in two different ways, much like the two different paths.  

So what does that mean, particularly in regard to choosing between two career paths?

For one, I think it means we need to give ourselves a break, that although the decision might be significant to us at the moment, looking back in life, it might not make "all the difference."

For another, and this is a topic I want to keep "for another day," sometimes when we are faced with what to do in our careers, we've bought a little too much into the idea of "soul searching" and not enough into the understanding of "market indicators" (not very sexy, I know...and so, well, capitalistic).

Robert Frost was a great poet, one of the few who actually knew "fame" from his writing during his lifetime. He was also a mediocre farmer (and that's somewhat generous). Neither of those things, however, really made him money. Instead, he became a prominent speaker who spent a lot of time doing the college circuit and writer conferences, where he capitalized on the fame from his writing and stayed on the road (why he wasn't such a good farmer).

So although we can wax poetical or philosophical about our career decisions, more often than not, like Frost, sometimes we have to do what we have to do "knowing how way leads on to way."

Making It Through the Tech Career Goo

We get a lot of requests at both ITtechExec and NoddlePlace for stories of how our members have made it through all the tech job market zoo and corporate goo that makes up much of today's world of work. So we've compiled the following 5 stories, each dealing with different aspects of today's market and workplace culture. Perhaps you can relate...

Making It Through the Tech Career Goo from Stephen Van Vreede

1 Year of Experience 30 Times or 30 Years of Experience?

One of my favorite types of clients to work with is the more "experienced" professional, the one whose been around the tech/engineering fields for a while and has watched the evolution of technology and different trends come and go. It fascinates me that anyone (no matter how well intentioned) would suggest to these valuable professionals that they should:

1. Hide their experience

 or

2. Ask them to pretend to be younger

Logic dictates that if you have 30 years of experience in your field (or 20 or 40 or whatever you have) and have been a valuable member of that community, it should be a source of achievement, not suddenly an impediment or something you have to change or hide about yourself (as if you really can anyway).  

And in my mind as career strategists, we need to ensure that our industry STOPS reinforcing this notion.

It certainly doesn't help these professionals continue to progress in their fields, and we aren't sending an effective message, other than "there's something wrong with you, which you can't control, but you have to fix it anyway" and, my favorite: "Compete with younger people as if you are younger too." In other words, the message becomes "be hip". And "sell yourself like a commodity."  

There's nothing wrong with having 30 years of experience, and we need to stop acting like there is.

Instead, where there's a problem that needs to be addressed is in how that 30 years of experience is presented.

All too often, there is a tendency to position more experienced workers as "stagnant" in which their education was learned once a long time ago and simply repeated throughout the course of their career. Or worse, their earlier education is tossed out and the focus is only placed on the last couple years.  

So rather than demonstrate 30 years of accumulating education and experience, it comes off as much less, and it gives the employer an apples-to-apples comparison between the younger worker and the older one.  

What we really should be doing is making an apples-to-oranges comparison.

In other words, when it comes to the two groups, there is no comparison. They each bring different types of business value to the organization, and the challenge for the more experienced candidate (as well as for the less experienced but in a different way) is to communicate how he or she does that.

For the professional with 30 years of experience, it is a matter of building a story of how that amount of experience culminates in understanding today's business challenges and how you can leverage your background to solve those problems. Any organization that wants to profit knows it needs people who bring business value because that value produces results, and like it or not, results are what organizations are after (private sector AND public sector).

Now, you might be thinking, "I have been doing that. I've been telling them how relevant I still am." Chances are you've been telling them from a skills-based focus. You've been telling them how up-to-date your skills are. But that's not really leveraging your background with your skills. In other words, it's not really giving them the full breadth of what you bring, and it's not being tied in to that bottom line business value.

We all have this tendency to think that hiring managers are good at connecting the dots...but they aren't. No matter what age, we still have to do it for them.

We think that our latest credentials we paid handsomely for or our work history will just tell the story for us, but it rarely does. Instead, potential employers often just look at us and think, "is this person going to make my life easier or harder?"

And the more experienced you are, the more difficult it can be to show how your background can be leveraged to make life easier for the employer because it is, well, complicated...there are more dots that need connecting. Therefore, the focus by the older worker often dissolves into "defending" his or her experience.

Contrary to popular belief, most employers only want to do so much "molding" of younger workers. They might think at first that this will make their lives easier (because it is easier to identify with younger because you were younger once too; it's harder to identify with older when you haven't been through that yet) until they start trying to "mold" them. :-) So there are only so many of them they can realistically hire/promote. That can mean opportunity for those who are "different" (who are that "orange" and not another "apple," so to speak). Unfortunately, though, most candidates believe that "difference" is really a bad thing and try to hide it, but that comes back to not knowing how to leverage it properly.  

Difference has to "know" its relevance, not just "say" it's relevant. (Think of how companies are continually looking to differentiate themselves.) And that "knowing" comes in understanding the results you can bring (or support) to the organization because of the amount of experience you have.

It's funny. Communicating that is what makes you "hip" again....trying to act younger does not.

You're a Hard Worker, So What?

When you ask most professionals what their best quality is, typically, they will respond with some variation of "hard working." Sometimes they will call it "dedicated" or "committed" or even "loyal," but it pretty much all boils down to the fact that they think they work harder than other people do and that this should distinguish them in the minds of their employer. And to some extent, they are right.  

Employers do appreciate hard-working professionals, all across the corporate spectrum.  

But it rarely plays a significant role in the hiring process (and not as much as you might think in the promotion process either).

For one thing, it is tough to assess based on just speaking with someone. For another, it is assumed. Furthermore, it is the type of thing that is really earned by reputation, not by you saying it. Frankly, most people probably are not all that extraordinary in their "hard-working" ability, at least not as much as they think they are. They can just think of a handful of people who are worse than them, so that justifies their self-labeling as "committed."  

I have yet to work with one candidate who didn't think he or she was "hard working"; yet they could all tell me about at least 5-10 others they knew who were not as hard working as them. Go figure.

So given that hard working is not a label you can give yourself with any type of credibility behind it and that employers pay very little attention to these self-declarations in the hiring process, the "hard-working" professional is often confused and can be somewhat unsuccessful in the job search (and especially promotion) process. Once again, it comes down to audience. Sometimes the things we think are most impressive about us are not as valued during the hiring process as we think they should be. (As I mentioned recently, very little about hiring is rational on our part as much as on the employer's part.) Therefore, most job seekers are unwittingly "sabotaging" their own job search by approaching it with the wrong focus.  

A misaligned focus is really what makes the difference between a "good" resume and a "bad" one (despite whatever else you may hear).

So although it is good to think about formatting and typos and proper white spacing on the page, if you're trying to sell your target audience the "wrong" product, it won't matter. And that is what often happens. We just want them to know how hard working we are and, if we have them, how many credentials (degrees/certs) we have. And then we are confused when they don't seem as impressed as we thought they should be (or as our education system told us they would be). Overall, today's employers, especially those in the tech arena, say they are most looking for proof of the following skills (notice advanced degrees/certs are actually missing from the list, so even though every job description seems to ask for them, this is what employers really want):

• Analytical skills (coding is in demand)
• Global outlook
• Cross-functional ability
• Soft skills (how well do you communicate both verbally and in writing?)

The other quality they desire, and this is a big one, is an understanding of business value. They want someone who knows the value he or she brings to the overall business focus.  

If you think about it, this puts hard working in a tailspin.

Because it is not enough to say, "I am dedicated." (I know a lot of poor performing, yet dedicated, entrepreneurs.) And it is not enough to say, "I work more hours and with more passion than everyone else." (I know those same entrepreneurs do too.) In business, results matter (and contrary to popular belief, effort does not always produce the right results). Corporations are no different, and they are looking for people from the bottom up who understand the role they play in producing those results. So set aside your overwhelming urge to declare your hard-working superiority and your overreliance on credentials and start looking at the qualities that are most significant for business growth and success. If you can communicate how your skills align with that, then your hard work will really start to pay off.  

Your Work History Doesn't Speak for Itself

Here's something we all wish were true. Believe me, as a small business owner, I definitely wish it were true! But a product (or service, which is really what your "work" is) does not and cannot sell itself. Why? Well, there are lots of reasons for this, but essentially, it all boils down to one thing:  

People have short attention spans and really poor memories.

It's always been true, but it's especially true today with all the things that beg for our attention. Frankly, your boss, co-workers, industry cohorts, and even mentors are generally not storing away all those little details about you and your work history like they might make it seem so that someday in the future you will get the recognition (aka pay) you "deserve." And, really, you don't want them to.  

That's right. You don't want them to.

Because if they were, that would mean that your career, your future earnings, your family's livelihood were in their hands (yikes!).

And you're too valuable for that.

But let's face it. We still wish it worked that way anyway.  

It would just be nice to have our work history speak for itself.

But I learned really early on in my corporate career, and have been reinforced almost daily in my entrepreneurial one, that my career progression is mine and mine alone. Sure, there have been many nice people along the way who have "noticed" and "appreciated" me...at least to a point. But I've discovered that my greatest accomplishments have come when I've learned how to be my own advocate and career strategist, not when I've relied on bosses or mentors or career credentials or my work achievements to "market" me or "notice" me or deem me "worthy." And I've found that when I do that, when I make that investment, suddenly there are a whole host of people more than willing to "help" or "promote" or "work with" me.  

But it was up to me to be the catalyst.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't subscribe to the "positive thinking" movement, at least not in the way that most people mean it. I don't believe success comes or has come just because I think good thoughts. The good thoughts come out of a solid foundation and...preparation...preparation for the obstacles against me.  

95% of people fear the obstacles that might come (so they hunker down and hope for the best). The other 5% expect them to come (so they prepare and have less fear).

And that difference means one group does its best to think "positively" and follow the "right formula" only to be surprised or stunned when the world isn't all that welcoming. (You know, we've all been taught to believe that if we just work hard [and get good grades...and oh be nice!], someone will "notice" and we "will" be rewarded for it. It's a nice idea when it works [as it sometimes does], but it catches us off guard when it doesn't.) So this group went into the world of work expecting that if they held up their end of the deal, the powers that be would hold up theirs (life is an "if/then" proposition).  
It's why there are so many depressed positive thinkers out there.

The other group has members all taught the same mantra (work hard/good grades = good job and nice house), but somehow they never quite bought into it as a guarantee. (Maybe they had entrepreneurial parents who taught them early that life doesn't always work this way. Or they did believe it but were bit by it one too many times, and they finally got fed up with it.) Whatever the reason, instead of living in a state of stunned stagnation, they start doing what "positive thinking" is really all about, accepting life for what it is and not for what it ought to be and making preparations for it. Now, I know what you might be thinking...this is all, so, negative! It's such a poor attitude!  

I mean, it's not exactly the Disney World fantasy we would like it to be, is it?

Listen. Career progression and, more importantly, protection doesn't come down to optimism versus pessimism. It isn't about good attitude versus bad attitude.  

It's about having the right attitude:

The one that's going to give you more freedom and more security than just hoping you get noticed someday and don't get screwed by your next boss. So, no, your work history isn't speaking for itself. It's up to you to advocate for it, to position yourself strategically, and to expect/anticipate obstacles along the way. You have a lot more to be optimistic and positive about when you take that approach than when you are just "waiting and hoping," chasing after this credential and that one, running yourself ragged to fit into the latest management mold, just praying someone up the ladder remembers all the great work you do and rewards you for it.  

In my mind, that's the most negative thinking you can have.

Face It: Your Job Search IS Emotional

We'd like to think that all of our decisions are rational, that we know how to tell the difference between an emotional response and a logical one, and that we are completely in charge of our emotions.

These are nice thoughts, but study after study proves us wrong on all accounts.

Just look at the world of sales and marketing. I've known salespeople and marketing gurus who are great at appealing to the prospect's "logic" and "reason" and who build extremely convincing rational arguments. But those who linger there too long rarely make the sale.

Why?

Because to persuade someone to take action requires an emotional trigger. Yes...requires.  

We can be convinced of something (actually believe it), but that doesn't mean we are persuaded to do anything about it. More often than not, we need our emotions to compel us to take action.

A successful salesperson knows this and understands how to appeal to both the logical side as well as the emotional. (We need both because the emotion will trigger the sale, while the logic will allow us to rationalize why it was a good decision.)

So what does all of this mean for the job search?

In working with a lot of IT and scientific/technical management professionals, there is often a desire to appear extremely rational. After all, it is a much safer (comfortable) place full of logic and mathematics that often leads to conclusive answers. So naturally there is a tendency to take that approach both personally and professionally.  

And while it's true that being overcome with emotions can result in negative consequences, believe it or not, there is a danger of trying to deny the part emotion plays in our lives. This is especially true when it comes to a job search.

Much like in the sales process, we need to tap into our emotions for the "persuasion trigger," that adrenaline that causes us to act. Without it, we can end up in endless debate (often with our internal selves) and somewhat delusional, mistaking our sound reasoning as protection from looking or doing something dumb. Of course, this protection also has a tendency to make us stagnant. (I've spoken with many a tech professional who proudly will declare that his or her use of sound logic has kept them from making stupid career mistakes. That's nice, except for often it really just means they haven't taken any risks either. Instead, they've just been waiting for a "rational" world to recognize their value.)  

Also, when it comes to the job search process itself, logic and reason are often missing.

Hiring practices, job market forecasts, networking, and job search methods are all fraught with a certain level of silliness. They are often uncomfortable, outside of the proper order, and full of politics and human interaction (which are generally not known for being "rational").

So when making our way through the job market "zoo" as we like to call it at ITtechExec and NoddlePlace, we need to remember two things:

• We are emotional, and our emotions are at play during our job search. And that's not always a bad thing!
• The people we are dealing with throughout the hiring process are also emotional, and just like we need to have an emotional trigger that requires us to act, so do they. (Most hiring decisions are made on "gut" feelings, no matter what else you may hear, more so than on pure logic and reason. The logic and reason usually justify the emotional [instinctual] decision.)

It just might be a better world if everything went according to a sound, well-reasoned plan, but it's not likely to happen anytime soon. It reminds me of that other sales and marketing adage: If you want to be successful in your job search (career, life, etc.), to some extent, you have to  

Succeed based on what is and not on what ought to be.

Are You A Good Career Negotiator?

Recently, I was asked to contribute to a CIO.com article by Rich Hein on "career negotiation."

As always, I am thankful to CIO.com for including me, especially on such an important topic in today's market:

8 Tips to Be a Better Career Negotiator