The president in question sat on the board of a local nonprofit, a cause that both he and my client were pa.s.sionate about. This was her way in. She volunteered her services with the organization and quickly developed a name for herself as a dynamic and innovative thinker who could really make things happen. Within a short time, she found an opportunity to meet her president at a fund-raising gala and introduced herself as the person who worked on the "X" campaign. She also mentioned that she happened to work for the same company (what a coincidence).

After making the initial contact, over the next year she did more great things for the nonprofit, had more opportunities to shine, and quickly found herself on his radar. At one of their next meetings, she mentioned where she'd really like to see herself in their company, threw in a few of her ideas, and asked his advice. Knowing now how good she was, he recommended a few people and even offered to contact them on her behalf. With a strong testimonial from the company's president, it wasn't long before she landed a high-profile strategic role more suited to her abilities (she also stayed on with the nonprofit where she continued to do great work and has been asked to fill a major leadership position on a full-time basis). It was a unique case where shining outside the company helped her move up inside it.

Ross Macpherson, president, Career Quest (www.yourcareerquest.com).

Chapter 9.

Fearless Warm Calling

A Fresh Alternative

It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up.

-VINCE LOMBARDI

Although you may be a top-notch engineer, mortgage broker, or whatever, when it comes to getting interviews, I have observed that many sharp people-to use a metaphor-couldn't close a paper bag much less an employer. Hang tight, I'm going to show you how to "warm call" an employer and land an interview.

FIRST CONTACT

The majority of job-hunting books I've read and courses I've reviewed stress cold calling (or dialing-for-dollars, as it's often called) as one of the best ways to land an interview. "It's a numbers game" they say, "just have faith, make the calls, and you'll be successful-eventually." Now there is a certain amount of truth in it. Cold calling is a numbers game but it is also demoralizing, frustrating, and the fastest most unsatisfying way to burn through your list of prospects.

Think about this dialing-for-dollars approach for a minute. You've executed your job hunting from a plan. You a.n.a.lyzed your skills, wrote an enticing resume, and built an online presence. You've spent countless hours, even weeks, gathering information and logically a.s.sessing your value added against your list of prospective employers. Now the time has come for you to make that all-important initial contact with an employer-this is where nonguerrillas blow it.

Every single day for the past 20 years, I've heard some iteration of the following:

Hi, Mr. Employer. My name is Pam and I am a marketing expert with well over 20 years of experience. I have been following your company for some time and am quite impressed with some of the recent successes. I would like to see if there would be an opportunity to meet with you and discuss how my qualifications and experience could serve your company.

Sounds nice enough, doesn't it? But it doesn't work. This is a new millennium, and that is an old and tired approach. Seriously, Mr. Employer is going to politely get rid of you. He will ask you to send a resume (the number one way to get rid of a job hunter) or refer you to someone in human resources, who'll tell you they're not hiring, "but we'll keep your resume on file." So if this tried-and-true method has run its course, is there a better way? The answer-fortunately-is yes!

YOUR ALTERNATIVE

I would love to take credit for what I'm about to teach you, but that wouldn't be fair. First off, the base methodology and principles are not mine. Second, the ideas in Thomas Freese's book Secrets of Question Based Selling: How the Most Powerful Tool in Business Can Double Your Sales Results Secrets of Question Based Selling: How the Most Powerful Tool in Business Can Double Your Sales Results (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2000) ( (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2000) (www.qbsresearch.com) were brought to my attention by Daniel Houle (www.danielhoule.com).

As a successful headhunter and guerrilla marketer myself, I was intuitively doing what Freese teaches, so when Daniel introduced me to the book, I wasn't shy about integrating the question based selling (QBS) principles into my firm. Tom's fresh approach helped me keep Perry-Martel International flying high at a time when most of our compet.i.tors crashed and burned.

Freese's premise is that people sell to people. Although this might not be a revelation, it's critical that you understand the instinctive psychological process that interferes with the sale by pitting you and the employer against each other-why the employer is looking for a reason to say no.

Interviews are adversarial because our natural defense mechanisms come into play every time someone tries to sell us something. Freese refers to this defense mechanism as mismatching; and all humans do it.

Mismatching is a form of disagreement. It is an instinctive and emotional behavior that causes people to respond or push back in a contrarian manner, usually by taking the opposite viewpoint on what's being said.

It's important to realize that mismatching isn't something we do consciously. We do it mostly because we want to add value to a conversation. The easiest demonstration of this is perhaps the following exchange between 2 people about the weather:

Person A: Well, it's supposed to be really nice this weekend. Well, it's supposed to be really nice this weekend.

Person B: I heard that we may get showers Sunday afternoon. I heard that we may get showers Sunday afternoon.

Person B's intent was really to share an additional tidbit of information, but at the same time, dispute the a.s.sertion that was made by Person A.

Mismatching is common in the first phase of a sales process because-let's be honest-we all get defensive when a salesperson calls. Think of the way you answered the phone the last time a telemarketer called you at dinnertime; that's how an employer usually feels when someone is trying to score an interview. As can be expected, mismatching often leads to outright rejection. Most salespeople who fail do so because they never learn how to avoid mismatching.

Freese's first rule is to limit your exposure to mismatching by memorizing the following sentence, which summarizes the QBS approach: "You don't sell by telling but by asking."

So what does this have to do with finding a job? Everything! Landing your dream job is all about closing the ultimate sale, where what you are selling is yourself. Applying QBS techniques minimizes your exposure to mismatching and increases your ability to close the sale. This doesn't mean that you will no longer need persistence-quite the opposite. In this day and age of e-mail, voice mail, beepers, cell phones, Blackberries, and caller ID, prospective employers can effectively block your call.

QBS makes use of 4 strategies to reduce the risk of mismatching by showing you how to: 1. Ask more questions and make fewer statements.2. Establish your credibility with the prospective employer from the start.3. Pique the prospective employer's curiosity to neutralize mismatching.4. Build momentum to quell the mismatching instinct.

Strategy 1: Ask More Questions and Make Fewer Statements

It is nearly impossible to mismatch a question. Aside from helping you avoid mismatching, asking more questions uncovers the very opportunities you need to showcase your experience and accomplishments. Asking the right questions will not only help you validate an employer's current opportunities but could change the employer's perception about latent opportunities.

A prospective employer might be considering hiring someone with your skill set sometime in the future-what we would call a "hidden job"-but after listening to your thoughtful questions, the future need has gained an immediate urgency.

Question based selling applies to finding the ultimate job. It is about getting prospective employers to want to hire you, to eagerly answer your insightful questions and be more than willing to listen to you.

Strategy 2: Establish Your Credibility with the Prospective Employer from the Start

The challenge job seekers face is that they need to communicate a sense of the value added they can bring to a prospective employer. This can be particularly challenging when they have no common relationship to leverage, that is, someone who can be used as a personal reference.

Asking questions will reduce the prospective employer's need to mismatch you. But asking the right questions will go a long way in establishing credibility.

Salespeople are trained to ask open-ended questions and to give the impression that they're interested in what the customer has to say. What they're really doing is fishing for an opportunity to explain that they can provide the solution, or answer, to a problem that the prospect has described.