Excited About Caffe' Vita

I know I shouldn't get excited about a job based on an employment ad, but....

Caffe' Vita, a local coffee roaster with a few brick and mortar coffee houses around Seattle, posted a position for an experienced salesperson. In reading the ad copy I really thought that they were underselling what appears to be a sweet opportunity that will demand more than just a few years of sales experience. In my cover letter I shared my observations and went on to elaborate on how my experience in expanding market share and opening up new opportunities would be ideal for achieving their goals.

This position is really in my sweet spot. A young company with an exceptional product and a great story that needs telling. Never mind that I'm drawn to their coffee like a moth to a light bulb whenever I'm out and about.

Update - 8/1/07
Unfortunately, after meeting with the VP of Sales and Marketing, I didn't get this one. Oh well, time to stir up some more trouble in other places. - RJM

Hopefully, my written materials do the trick and I'm interviewing with them before too long...

...Update
This post is barely 6 hours old, but apparently the mojo was mutual. CV's recruiter just called me for a phone interview. Things sound exciting so far. Stay tuned...

The First Application is on its Way!

Sent in my first resume/bio package to Cranium today for a marketing head position.
The chase begins!

Now that my marketing materials are complete (still awaiting a logo design from Design Outpost) I will begin the cyclical process of filling the sales funnel with opportunities through research and networking and then taking the steps necessary to nurture those opportunities along until one of them blossoms into a new career.

The Objective

I've never been a proponent of an "Objective" statement at the start of a resume'. My thinking has always gone somewhere along the lines of "Why should I limit myself" or "Isn't it obvious? I'm a sales guy!"

Well, that philosophy has expired. I know what I want to do and I am not going to risk any misinterpretation by those who take the time to read my resume'. I want to clearly communicate my intentions, my objective, in order to immediately set the tone for the reader.

Objective: To join a solid team that has remarkable products and a story that needs to be told.

Now let me tell you why I'm worthy of being on your team...

The 800 lb Gorilla

Even though I haven't had my first interview yet, I can anticipate that the question that will weigh on any prospective employer's mind when they see that the company that I founded closed its doors will be "Why?"
As any entrepreneur can attest, answering this question is gut wrenching. But, nonetheless, as difficult as it is for me to answer it's absolutely vital for a would-be employer to receive a satisfactory answer. After all, for all they know I blew my investors' money on a new boat and took off to Cabo.
After plenty of soul searching, I can honestly say that On The Spot Games failed because its products were not remarkable. For all of my best efforts to change the world and give families and friends a truly unique and rewarding game experience, the products fell short. If done properly, my games would have captured imaginations and delivered "Aha!" moments immediately after opening the box. But, no. That didn't happen. At the end of the day, even though I was able to get my games into the hands of senior executives from major restaurant chains and key retail buyers from the best stores, the cards in the box didn't live up to expectations.

If I were to do it again, On The Spot Games would not start as a one-man show. I wouldn't go much past the concept stage without a starting team that included a shining-star creative person and rock-solid ops/finance person. Before, I thought I could work with quasi-commitments from contractors working for equity. Wrong. If people aren't sold enough on the concept to get on board, then either they are the wrong people or the company isn't worthy. Either way, the concept's a non-starter.

The Coach

Yesterday, I had a 2-hour kickoff meeting with my new career coach Matt Youngquist of Career Horizons. I chose to work with Matt based on a referral from a close friend and my observations of the work they did together during the previous year. As someone who has had a successful sales career, I knew that I had the skills necessary to promote myself to prospective employers. I'm looking to Matt to provide the industry expertise and experience that will allow me to hit the ground running and make the most of this opportunity to start a new career.

A few takeaways from our meeting:

• This career blog is somewhat unique as a job search tool. Making it a good example of my ability to find new applications for existing technologies.
• My current bio establishes me as a "game guy" more than a "growth catalyst". I'll need to restructure the content so that the emphasis is placed on the latter.
• The language of my resume is a bit "edgy" and might put some people off. - i.e. it will stand out in a crowd causing some to dismiss it and others to be intrigued because of it. That's OK by me. If you're going to be remarkable, you can't expect everyone to love you. Thanks to Seth Godin's Purple Cow for driving this point home for me.
• I am branding myself as a Growth Catalyst and will focus and these specific abilities to drive home my point:

1. I can visualize new market opportunities where none existed previously
   
2. I can adapt existing products to succeed in those markets or envision new products when adaptation falls short.
3. I have an infectious enthusiasm to suits me well when evangelizing the resulting products from item 2.
4. I can lead the troops in the cause, motivating seasoned sales vets or training and directing rookies.
5. Finally, I can look the CEO of my next company in the eye and tell him/her that I know from first hand experience what it's like to weather the scrutiny of investors. My new CEO boss can count on me to bring that sense of responsibility to the office with me every day. My decisions and actions will be scrutinized for the value that they add to the company and thus improving the return to the shareholders.
   

A Refinement

Continued refinement of On The Spot Games story. I've added a brief account of an early course correction that I made in order to achieve my original goal of entertaining busy American families :
"Rob felt that adding one more game to already-crowded game aisles in retail stores would not accomplish his goal of entertaining active families...(h)e identified casual restaurant chains as the perfect place to reach "families on-the-go" and set out to adapt On The Spot Games’ products to the challenging environment of a busy restaurant. "

In the Zone Today

Some days, getting words out on a page is about as easy as pouring molasses in Anchorage in December. Not today. After a few days of false starts I was able to find the right voice for my bio. I had been struggling in writing pertinent information that was not a bullet point better suited for my resume.

The bottom line is that I was able to convey my intentions and goals for On The Spot Games in a way to captures my feelings during the early days of the company. Since I don't have glowing results to recount, I've decided to discuss my plans, actions and lessons learned. The latter is best discussed during an interview. A draft of opening to my bio appears below:

Rob founded On The Spot Games in 2002 and served as the company’s Big Picture Guy until he closed the company in the spring of 2007. After a long career selling industrial chemicals (more below), Rob founded On The Spot Games in order to create and distribute games for families to play while dining in casual restaurants. With no prior experience in consumer products, Rob conceived and produced DidYa Know®, an award-winning card game, in 2003. He then marketed and sold the game to specialty retailers in the US. During the company’s four-year existence, Rob commercialized over a dozen toys and games. Rob was able to adapt DidYa Know and several other games for play in casual restaurants, working with both Pizza Hut and Red Robin as development partners. Finally, Rob developed a toy brand called SMore Toys™ for a line of active toys produced in Asia and distributed through On The Spot Games in an effort to broaden the company’s offerings in 2007.

It was very difficult to summarize my experience with On The Spot Games to a single(?) paragraph. After pouring every ounce of myself into the company, there's so much more to tell. For example, I got the idea for creating the DidYa Know storytelling game after a discussion with Wizards of the Coast alumni Mike Davis, in which we discussed the difficulty in creating a game that three generations could play equally well. But alas, brevity must prevail. So, that story will live here in the blog and make select appearances sometime down the road...

Enter the Field Marshall

A recent discussion of the Myers-Briggs assessment with a friend piqued my curiosity, as it's been over 10 years since I last took the test. Thanks to the wonders of the Web, one no longer need pay a career consultant to administer the test I was the case the last time around. Within a few moments I had Googled, taken and gotten the results of the test. I'm a ENTJ, which was a change from the ENTP that described my in the 90's.

What's it mean? According to the profile that accompanied the results, my personality type is known as a "Field Marshall." Among the traits included in the profile that I found most relevant were the Field Marshall's are "bound to lead others" and that they are better suited to improving existing organizations than establishing new ones.

I wish I knew that last one three years ago before embarking on my odyssey into the game world.

Crafting the Message

One of the lessons I learned while founding On The Spot Games was the best way to craft a message is by telling it over and over while making corrections along the way. I began crafting my new career message today at the monthly breakfast meeting of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network. What I learned today:

• I need to work on my response to questions about my on-line marketing experience.
• There's a new book called The 4-Hour Work Week that might be useful in helping me formulate my objectives for my next career.
• One of my biggest challenges will be explaining my experience in founding and running OTSG without breaking into an analysis of what went wrong.
  

Opening Salvo

What to do next? That's the question I'm asking these days and I plan to use this space for thinking out loud to come up with a solution. I've been reviewing my journals of the past 5 years in order to create a list of lessons I've learned along the way (in no particular order):

• A good startup can operate from a cogent executive summary. Biz plans should be re-written and broadened as traction increases. Jumping too far ahead wastes resources if your not fully prepared to answer the necessary questions.
• Actions speak louder than words. If courting a new employee or investor, gauge their enthusiasm by the promptness and thoroughness of their work. If they're not excited, they're not worth your time.
• Consultants, attorneys and other service providers are very good at telling you what you want to hear. As an entrepreneur, you should selectively extract the information you need from these sources and discard the superfluous accolades. They don't help you get to where you want to be.
  
• Strive to be remarkable and prune that which is not.
• Don't squander the good will of a new prospect by using him/her as a sounding board for half-baked ideas.