Looking for an Opportunity?
Jul 20th, 2008 by admin
Try to imagine this…a sales person complains that his prospects just aren’t interested. When you ask why, he responds, “I can just tell. They’re not interested in hearing anything I have to say. So why even bother? I just need some prospects who will give me a chance.”
What would you have to say to that salesperson? Even if you’ve never led a sales team, I bet you have some wisdom to share. In fact, I bet you know exactly what to recommend. It’s hard to imagine anyone who has a job selling would be so easily victimized, no matter how inept or inexperienced they might be.
Yet this is what I frequently hear in interviews when I ask an executive why he or she voluntarily left a former job for a new opportunity. My clients often ask me to help them assess and select senior executives, sales leaders and sales people. For senior positions, I design a customized interview that can take up to 3 hours. There’s one question though that yields a lot of insight about the executive in a short amount of time - “What was the reason you left that job?”
There has been enormous research and volumes written over the last two or three decades about why executives leave jobs. Frequently sited are things like lack of challenge, limited opportunity for career growth and bad relationships with the boss. I understand that those are the reasons stated, but I don’t buy it. There’s almost always something else going on.
When I hear that someone decided to leave because of a lack of opportunity or challenge, I get very curious. Are they saying that their company had no problems, challenges, or opportunities to which they could contribute or make a difference? The company was fast enough, efficient enough, growing enough, and profitable enough? Have I heard correctly that there’s nothing left to be accomplished? So your work was done there and it was time to move on…just like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, right?
Of course, that’s never the case. Let’s go back to our hypothetical sales person who said, “There’s no opportunity here.” That could be true. There often is a mismatch between customer needs and product benefits. But before accepting that there is “no opportunity” wouldn’t you want to understand how that was determined and what steps were taken?
Was the salesperson truly adding value and attempting to make a significant contribution to the success of the prospect? Did he really understand their needs? Did he present a creative, clearly stated and compelling solution? To whom and how many times? Or was he just waiting for a customer to call with an opportunity?
Like that salesperson, far too many disaffected executives seem to think someone else is in charge of creating opportunities for their career growth. Leaving for a “better opportunity” is just as often a bogus excuse as it is a valid reason.
Why not create your own career opportunity right where you are? Prospect for an opportunity to make a difference. Qualify it. Build a compelling case for why you’re the right person to get it done. Present it to ALL of the right people, and don’t stop when you hear “No!”
Like my friend Steve Chandler says, “no” just means you need to be more creative and ask again. If you do, you’ll probably discover that what separates the most successful people from others is the number of fearless requests that they make during their lifetime. Start asking today.
