If you are a regular reader of The Executive Update, you know that I have said time and again that when you are looking to make a career change or find a new job, no matter what your profession, you are now in sales. You are selling the product with which you should have the greatest passion and familiarity – the product called YOU! That’s why I thought a recent article by Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, on trigger events was quite interesting, because the same techniques can be readily applied to job search.
Konrath notes that sales cycles, like hiring cycles, are getting longer because decision-makers are risk-averse and want to make sure they are delivering value. And decision-makers are busy, letting e-mail and voice mail shield them from actual meetings. However, there are some strategies you can adopt to get the right kind of attention by tracking trigger events that can provide an entrée to decision-makers.
Once you have identified your target companies you should be tracking the news, looking for watershed events that could give you a chance to show your value. Look for trigger events such as a poor sales quarter, a new IT contract, a new re-branding initiative, M&A, IPO, anything that gives you a chance to offer a solution to the company’s latest problems. If you really start thinking about events that occur as part of a natural corporate lifecycle, you will see all kinds of opportunities where you can step in with a solution to the latest problem.
Trigger events can be internal or external. For example, you should track internal events like sales performance, layoffs, expansions, personnel changes, new funding, or new customer acquisitions. You also should track external events like legislative changes, competitive changes, new standards or technologies, and natural disasters – anything that could affect the business climate.
If you have done your homework, you will have an inventory of your own skills and expertise (with proof points) and be prepared when an opportunity presents itself. Map your skills to trigger events:
- Identify common objectives that map to your skill set, such as streamlining operations, opening new markets, or increasing sales.
- Identify common challenges that you can help overcome, such as ensuring compliance with new standards, overcoming poor productivity, or hiring and retaining key talent.
- Review events that are creating rapid changes, since these are the pressure points that are driving the company. Determine how you might help affect those changes.
If you have a firm understanding of where you offer value, it becomes easier to map your expertise to the inflection points or trigger events that present themselves. If you can keep track of events affecting your target companies’ business, then you can map your skills to their needs and use trigger events to get a foot in the door.
