Guest Post
by Stacey Cost
12/18/2009
In April of this year (2009), the financial services company I worked for declared bankruptcy. It was sad to leave the team I had built and to deconstruct the great work we had done together, but what a time to Find Your Nerve.
As an unemployed person you become the CEO of YOU, and as such I considered the advice in When Growth Stalls. There was a study quoted which points out that "when a company is adrift …the best management style is authoritative," (page 75, Harvard Business Review study by Hay/McBer). So I put my marketing hat on, identified the framework for a plan, and gave myself some serious direction.
Objective: Find a job with a great group of people, in a small town, in a bad economy, in a sparsely populated state with record unemployment.
What marketing person doesn't love a challenge, right?
Product: Stacey Cost, (me)
Place: Santa Fe, New Mexico
Price: interesting opportunity, healthy culture, marketing focus
Promotion: my experience packaged in a way that is factual, appeals to the right audience and results in a 30 minute meeting
I created my own website, a business on Facebook, a channel on YouTube, a profile on LinkedIn and a VisualCV. I dominate Google results for the search "stacey cost." I even created a hard copy pitch kit, like an agency would deliver if soliciting your business.
For seven long months I worked from a desk in a friend's office sending applications into cyberspace, pitch kits to people I thought would be interested, meeting for coffee, and donating time to causes in an effort to both make a difference and good connections.
In November of 2009 I received an offer from High Country Gardens to be VP of Marketing for their online/print catalog operation, as well as retail and nursery storefronts. This is a company who has found its own nerve. It has weathered a bad economy, nurtured a forward looking plan and decided to cultivate talent to grow their business in the years ahead.
It sounded like a company I could get behind.
Some think this new job was, for me, an overnight success — there is no such thing. It was NERVE. I'm glad High Country Gardens has the same personality trait.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
ShareThis