Focusing on What I Want

Despite all the work I've done on refining my career message thus far, I still have have some work to do.

After sending a broadcast message to those in my LinkedIn network looking for job leads, one of my audience pushed back, demanding more information. "What are you looking for?" she asked. I repeated the objective from my resume: "I'm looking for a great team with remarkable products with a story that needs to be told." but then Sabra, my networking partner, pointed out that that statement offered her very little actionable information that she could use to connect me with others. My statement required her to interpret the message to actually do the heavy lifting by sifting through her network contacts to judge whether any one of them met my criteria. In other words, I was not making it easy for my customer to do business with me. In that context, I recognize this for the horrible transgression that it is. If a widget salesman pitched his widget to me with a you-do-the-heavy-lifting message such as this, I'd take his head off.

Action Item: Consider the audience, refine the message.

Rather than ask "Can you suggest some companies with remarkable products?" I will ask "Can you suggest some consumer products companies based in downtown Seattle?" This is an easier question to answer and it is more likely to produce an answer that is valuable to me.