I wrote a course that job seekers dug. But now I had a dilemma. How could I get more people to take the course, and pay for it too?
Here is a great story about applying winning sales tactics in order to get some publicity for my new course. I attended a free job search seminar at which Juliet Brudney, a Boston Globe columnist, was a panelist. I met Juliet afterwards and gave her a 30 Second Commercial about my Eight Steps to Employment course. Juliet reacted with what I would call skeptical interest. She then went dark, an expression we use in the sales profession to define when a person who you expect will return calls or emails, does not.
Using sales tactics, I managed to get Juliet on the phone. Using a pre-call objective, I persuaded Juliet to allow me to stop by her home (I had learned she worked from a home office) to further explain why the Eight Steps to Employment was so beneficial to job seekers.
Forty five minutes and one cup of tea later, Juliet agreed she would call some people who had attended the course. Subject to their comments, she would “mention” the Eight Steps to Employment in her column. Instead, Juliet published a full column dedicated to the Eight Steps to Employment. The article was titled Job Search Program Provides Help, Quickly. The first sentence read, “Prevent stalling, meandering, dead-ending and other job-hunting pitfalls…”
As a result, my phone rang of the hook and hundreds of people signed up for the course!

[With the help of Sally Sweeney, my wife, coauthor, and career recruiter, we have taken many of the core principals from the Eight Steps to Employment and our combined experience in the field of sales, and authored Buy Me, I’m Worth It!]

In August of 1991, after a successful career in technology sales, then in sales management, I was hired as the Boston Branch Manager for Qantel Business Systems. My mission was to build the branch to profitability in two years. The company would fund the plan from the profits generated by other branches. So, I hired 7 people, including technologists, customer service representatives, and administrative support.
Then, a new CEO arrived at Qantel. His edict: I want your branch to be profitable immediately.
So, I had to fire the seven people I just hired. Argh!
A friend said, “Why don’t you provide them with Outplacement Services?”
I said, “What’s that?”
I learned that many companies provide displaced employees (what a nice way to say ‘laid off’) with job search counseling, resume writing, research libraries, computer use, and even office space to make calls! Cool.
I called three Outplacement companies and inquired about their service. Representatives from all three companies met with me in person. I asked them to provide samples of the materials my displaced employees would receive. Upon review, all the materials would be very helpful to any job seeker. Outplacement is an excellent service for those displaced workers fortunate enough to receive it. However, I felt something was missing from the material. Although any job seeker would benefit by applying the job search principals espoused by the Outplacement companies, I felt that if a job seeker also applied sales and marketing strategies and tactics to their job search, they could more readily distinguish themselves from other job seekers (competition) and secure more offers (win the sale).
Unfortunately, as you can probably guess, my new CEO was against spending any money on Outplacement services.
Hence, I decided to write a course that would enable job seekers to sell themselves, become the employer’s number one choice, and negotiate a raise before they even started!
So, I wrote a course called the Eight Steps to Employment. I offered to give the course to a few friends who were in job search mode. They invited their friends. Everyone loved it!
Since, the materials from the Eight Steps to Employment have become the basis for our book, Buy Me, I’m Worth It!.

For hiring managers, wading through the sea of candidates can be a daunting task. One resume begins to look like another resume and identifying which candidates to interview is not easy. Hiring managers have limited time (often because they don’t have someone like you on their team) so it is imperative they interview only qualified candidates. Yet hiring managers still find themselves in interviews with unqualified candidates. It can be very frustrating. In an ideal world, stellar candidates would simply rise from the sea of average candidates and yell, “Here I am!”

Job seekers have the ability to ‘rise from the sea of candidates’ by simply being creative. I have come across two job seekers who are extremely creative, and I’ll bet both receive multiple offers in no time.

Marci Reynolds (www.marcireynolds.com) and Susan Lewis (www.susanhiresaboss.com) win my award for the most creative job seekers I have seen. Marci and Susan are leveraging creativity and social networking in a manner that distinguishes them from myriads of candidates.

Put your creative hat on and you too can stand out like Marci and Susan!