Pick up the phone. Senior officers at most of your competitors will accept your call or call you back.
So will lots of other high-level people who do business in your industry... from direct customers, wholesalers, and distributors...to suppliers of raw materials, components, sub-assemblies, and packaging...to providers of services such as engineering, contract manufacturing, accounting, banking, advertising, management consulting, market research, and PR.
A few of these people have hire-and-fire power over jobs that could be excellent next steps in your career. And nearly all are in a position to hear about openings that might interest you, and possibly even to make an appropriate introduction.
Personal contacts are the resource you'll turn to first, when you think of changing jobs.
People you already know are your #1 asset. If you can get your ideal job just by talking to them, why do anything more?
There's a big difference between talking to someone you've known awhile... possibly very well, and maybe for years...and talking to a stranger whose name you've just been given. In the next chapter, we'll discuss "networking" the strangers you meet at the suggestion of someone else. But let's start right now by getting in touch with people you already know.
True personal contact has advantages over Networking, Executive Recruiters, Direct Mail, and even your usual interface with the Internet.
Greater Impact. Talking with friends and associates is easier and more effective than with strangers.
Better Confidentiality. Long before you're ready to "go public," you can speak to the people you trust.
Less Need to Persuade and Sell. People who already know your professional skills and like you personally don't have to be convinced.
Maximum Efficiency. Why bother writing a resume? And why deal with lots of letters, phone calls, and appointments...if you don't have to?
No question about it. If you can get the career-advancing job you want through Personal Contact, it's the quickest, easiest, and most pleasant way to go.
Unfortunately, LUCK plays a starring role in what you accomplish through personal contacts. Who do you know? And does your inquiry come at the opportune time when someone you know happens to have, or know of, the right position? If so, great! If not, you'll have to proceed to other job- changing methods we'll discuss later on.
But now let's look at my all-time favorite "case history" of successful job- changing through a Personal Contact. We'll see one of America's most gifted marketing-oriented general managers get into the position of needing a job change...and then actually achieving one. And he does both in what I believe to be the prevailing world-record time. These events happened. Only the identities have been changed to protect the guilty:
Several years ago Matt Marketczar, a suave, marketing-oriented general manager from New York City, became President of SpecialFlavor Foods Co. in a smallish city we'll call Elmdale. SFC markets nationwide under a famous brand name, just like any other big corporation. However, it's actually a cooperative owned by growers of the main ingredient of the company's products.
Unfortunately, at the time Matt arrived, America's appetite for foods containing the key ingredient was declining, and supply was increasing... trends that threatened the financial health of the farmers who owned the company.
Happily, within just a few years Matt accomplished a management miracle. He brought out hugely successful new products based on the special ingredient, and producer prices rose 300%, while costs declined slightly. The growers were delighted.
Matt was assisted by his brilliant secretary, Lucy Local, wife of Larry Local, a lifetime Elmdale resident. Besides accompanying Matt to his frequent business meetings in the nearby town of Midday, which were usually held at the Midday Motel, Lucy also took care of his expense reports, which she documented by saving his American Express bills and vouchers from Midday Motel.
On Monday of the eventful week that interests us, Matt determined that Lucy's services were no longer required...strictly a management decision, and one in which Lucy did not concur.
So, resourceful to the very end, Lucy filled an envelope with expense account documentation, and mailed it to Matt's clever wife, Sylvia Fox Marketczar. Lucy didn't bother to include a note, figuring that Sylvia would know what to do.
Mrs. Marketczar indeed required no explanation, and added none herself, as she merely transferred the data to a fresh envelope, which she then forwarded to Lucy's husband, Larry Local, at his business address.
That's why, early Saturday morning, when Larry might otherwise have gone squirrel hunting, he arrived on the front lawn of the Marketczar residence, with his trusty rifle, and opened fire on the front windows. Matt grabbed a pistol and returned the fire, while Sylvia hurriedly summoned the sheriff.
That afternoon, with Larry safely in custody, a hastily convened meeting of the Board of Directors of Special Flavor Foods accepted Matt's resignation.
Early that same Saturday evening, Matt made just one phone call which proves, more graphically than any other example I know of, the advantages of Personal Contact over all other job-changing methods.
Matt called Bemie Bigdeals, who'd been Matt's boss several years earlier. Bemie, now Chief Executive of a huge diversified corporation, picked up the phone at his home, halfway across the U.S., and received an unvarnished account of the circumstances under which Matt was now offering his services.
Result? Monday morning...approximately 38 hours after a single Personal Contact phone call...Matt reported to work as President of the Foods Division of Bemie's corporation.
Before Larry was even out on bail, Matt was already at his desk in a stylish office more than a thousand miles from Saturday's unpleasantness, holding meetings and making decisions as the much-more- highly-paid President of a corporate subsidiary several times the size of Special Flavor Foods in Elmdale.
How's that for an eventful weekend? As they say, "Truth is stranger than fiction."
In 30 years of executive recruiting, plus over a decade as an executive myself, I've never come across a more perfect example of job-changing by Personal Contact. Absolutely every aspect was at its optimum, including the accident of timing. Not only did Bemie Bigdeals have hire-and-fire control of an attractive job, the job happened to be open. And not only did he know Matt, he'd directly supervised him, and had firsthand knowledge of his ability and personality. Moreover, there was no possibility that Matt's performance had declined since they worked together, because his success at Special Flavor Foods had been widely publicized in the trade press. And of course Matt's reason-for-leaving couldn't have been clearer.
The moral of this story, if there is any, certainly isn't that crime pays. In the long run, it doesn't...for marketing geniuses, or anyone else. But we can all have a lucky, or an unlucky, day. And apparently it's possible to have notable amounts of both kinds of luck on the same day.
The point is that luck is fully as important...and often more so...as skill in determining what you'll achieve through your personal contacts on any given day, or in any three- or six-month period that you happen to be interested in a career change.
