Selling from an empty wagon

I often get the feeling listening to members of The FENG that they feel like they are selling from an empty wagon. Friends, it just isn’t true.

What triggered tonight’s editorial is the continuing comments I get from our members about the issue of dates for your college degrees. The “product” you need to always be selling is your wealth of experience. Everyone doesn’t want the product, but those that do are willing to pay for it.

In classic marketing terms, if you try to sell a product based on attributes it doesn’t have, it is considered an over promise. You are a lot better off presenting a realistic picture.

We have all seen ads for various airlines where they promise you good food. For anyone who flies from time to time, we all know what an over promise this is. (Perhaps even a lie.) Just exactly what kind of food can be prepared in an airplane galley that would qualify as good food? What if they promised you bad food and suggested you brought your own? Well, at least you wouldn’t be disappointed.

What has changed in your job search as a senior executive is that every element of your senior level skill set is not needed in every situation. You actually have too much to sell. Early in your career, your applicable skill sets were narrower and all were needed. We all need to recognize that the pyramid is smaller at the top.

The result is that we are all required to search that much harder to discover the same NUMBER of possibilities as we might have felt were adequate at any one time earlier in our career.

But let’s get back to the product. The product is you and your wealth of experience in solving problems.

Over the course of a long career, there are many problems that have only occurred a few times. This is normal. If you follow my logic, as a senior executive, what may appear as a new problem to someone early in his/her career is an old one and easily solved one for you.

This is what you have to focus on in presenting your background.

If you lay out this wealth of problem solving ability in easy to understand terms you will be that much further along in selling what IS in the wagon.

Regards, Matt