Looking for a job, eh?

Blasting out resumes and posting them to Monster, CareerBuilder and the like?  How’s that working for you?  Undoubtedly, you are in the swamp with millions of other job seekers and it is utterly frustrating and degrading as weeks and months pass with no results.

Does it have to be this way?

I’m the Fearless Competitor and I partnered with the sales expert, Jill Konrath on Get Back to Work Faster — an initiative to help out of work professionals get paid work.  GBTWF is a book, a website and a social network and it is all 100% free.  (Except a small fee to cover book printing.)

But since I’m the  major character in the book, you might expect some very creative and different approaches rather than blasting out resumes.

One of the key principles we teach in Get Back to Work Faster is this:

Find a job by NOT looking for a job.

That sounds odd, but let’s look at how it is done.

We have a seasoned and experienced sales and marketing executive who needs work.  Well into his 40′s, one might think he is fairly static — one cannot teach an old dog new tricks.  Or can we?

This executive knew he was a good writer.  Furthermore, he knew that finding new customers was a massive problem for many companies.  Can he use this knowledge and skill to tackle something new and promote himself?  He decided to write a white paper on finding new customers.

He researched companies in the marketing space and found a young and fast growing California firm named Marketo.  He looked through their marketing materials and found a gap.  There was no comprehensive ‘how to find new customers’ white paper.  There were plenty of webinars, case studies, etc.

He called the VP, Marketing, and told him of the gap he saw.  The VP agreed that this important content was missing and felt that a good white paper would be helpful — especially a workbook style.  He asked for a quote.

It took time, but we got a signed order with a tidy sum up from and smaller sum per lead.

At the age of 49, this sales and marketing executive started professional writing for the very first time.  That is right.  A professional writer.

It was a lot of work with many revisions.  But dogged diligence got it done.  He finally found his “voice” and wrote a terrific 25 page white paper.  He also contracted with a graphics artist and made it utterly beautiful.  The California software firm is going to use it and the executive registered the domain findnewcustomers.net.

This executive is me.

Think about this.  A software firm is using its marketing budget to promote my white paper on a critical business issue for thousands of business executives.  And every single copy that goes out has my personal contact information on it.

Benefits are tremendous.  The white paper is sent in lieu of a resume. It focuses on a real business need.  I’ve viewed as the expert.  I got paid handsomely for writing it.  My sponsoring company promotes the white paper, which promotes me.   I proved I am truly a professional writer.

I urge all professional job seekers to devise creative approaches like this.  Think outside the box.  Stop blasting resumes and attending job fairs.  They are a waste of time and degrading.  Learn something new and apply it.

Good luck.

The Fearless Competitor

For companies looking for best practices in b2b lead generation who wish to improve the way they acquire new customers, Find New Customers is the place to go.  CSO Insights says companies need to improve the way they generate leads and implement processes for business to business lead generation.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is a demand generation expert and sales leader, as well as the President of Find New Customers, a lead generation company, who helps businesses create lead generation campaigns and continually publishes the best lead generation ideas, so his readers can determine the best lead generation strategy to find new customers.