Here we have the last installment of Jerry’s story.

I asked him what he would like to do.  Without boring you with all the boring details, the line that he gave me was basically this: “he wants to work for a medium sized firm”  When I hear the term medium sized firm, I’m thinking up to say 200 employees – so, that’s not too small, but it’s medium – and he’d like to work specifically in the software space.  I then gave Jerry the example of a smaller client of mine that has 25 employees with the business being owned by one chap. The owner has hired a general manager, some developers and some support staff like an office manager and a network administrator.  Now, the key stakeholder in that very small business of 25 employees is the owner, so in that case the approach by someone like Jerry needs to be made to the owner, not even to the GM because the GM acts on instruction from the owner who’s the MD, and it’s really important in that smaller context that you reach the right person in your first approach.

Let’s stay with this as an example.  And I said, ‘Look,’ I said to my friend Jerry, ‘there are lots of firms out there that are owned by one or two or three people who may employ 25 people, 50 people, 100 people, 200, okay?  Those are the people (i.e. the owners) that you really need to approach and really sell the benefit of them being associated with you.’

What I tried to instil in Jerry is the understanding of that it’s not so much what is said, but it’s more a point of how it’s said.  I outlined a simple strategy for Jerry. ‘

“Jerry, if you were the owner of a business and someone approached you out of the blue, what would you think of them?  If they approached you with something that could actually help your business, would you give them five minutes?’  Of course, is the obvious response so long as the person approaching you was genuine and sincere, you’d give them five minutes, probably even 10 or 15 minutes!

Now, if Jerry can back himself, do the research that is really necessary to find out everything he can about a target business he should then be able to directly approach the key stakeholder – and for the sake of example, let’s say that’s the sole owner of the business – arrange a meeting and present a case why it would be a good thing for him to be associated with the firm either as a consultant, employee, or whatever arrangement makes sense.  The key way of doing that is if my friend Jerry, or anyone who makes that approach, can prove to the owner that he can deliver at least one of three things – Jerry (& you) will always have the ear of people.  Once you have the ear of people and they can test the veracity of what you’re saying and it makes sense, then the likelihood of you landing an engagement, a job, position or whatever is so much higher because the dynamic has changed from going to an employer’s office cap in hand, asking, “May I have a job please Sir”  to one of, ‘I have a way or an idea or a program that will help you significantly improve your business.’

It comes down to a very simple three things.  If you can show a business owner or manager that you can either save them money, make them money, or save them time, or two of those or all three, then you will always earn the right to have a seat at their table.

Now, it’s one thing to say that you can either save them money, make them money, or save them time, but it’s another thing to show how you can do that.  If you can show one of those three things, (without giving away too much of course otherwise they won’t need you) –  how you can execute or deploy or make that a reality, it will set you apart from the pack like almost nothing else.

See you next time.

All my best,

James E

James Evangelidis

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Tagged as: making money, saving money, saving time