Aways be yourself.
The text above was a followup to a young lady who had applied for a job on our sales team in April 2023. I didn’t know who she was (which is another story I’ll tell you about below) and I didn’t know if she’d be right for the job. But I was doing what I should do, follow-up with people who reach out.
Two days earlier we had discussed when she could come by for an interview and then I got the text above.
“Thank you for reaching out but XYZ just got back to me and I got a job offer from there.”
The company she mentioned was a BIG ONE, but I also knew what we were doing had much more potential for the right person. I am also very confident in my leadership and our culture, so I fired back “Well you might want to interview with me before you accept it, it would be a shame to not see if you get an offer from the better opportunity 🤔 “
For me it was an easy response and my gut instinct. “Go work where?!” I thought. But I also wanted my text to take “some” of that back. It’s a sales tactic to give someone something, and then take it back. A chess move you could say, “IF YOU GET AN OFFER.”
But I’ve got to say, she’s the star here. How many 22 year-olds would reply how she did? I can’t imagine many. Most would take the first job with the major company, “the sure thing”.
So flash forward to the interview, and she’s a FREAKING ROCK STAR! I offer her the job and she accepts. But then drops this bombshell on me “you’re friends with my parents and were best friends with my step-dad growing up.”
WHAT, who’s your step-dad. WHAT?! Brandon is your step-dad, why the hell didn’t you lead with that when you walked into my office?
“Because I wanted to get the job on my own!”
MIC DROP
She started two weeks later and the rest is history. She’s a freaking rockstar and has a very bright future ahead of her.
This memory came flooding back to me at dinner with the team Tuesday night. I was sitting there listen to her interact with her co-workers and talk about how excited she was to be working side-by-side with a childhood friend of hers (Ansley on the right in the picture below).
I began to think “what if.”
What if I didn’t act like myself and took the approach many people would have taken “ok, good luck, thank you for your interest.”
Then our company wouldn’t be what it is today. Not only because we wouldn’t of landed Katie, but because we probably wouldn’t have many of the great team members we have today if I did it how most do.
I’m a tad unorthodox on my hiring and marketing. When it comes to my company, I know how special our we are and even if it’s a random lady I’d never met, I always stand up for us.
And the other side of that are the stellar people I’ve built this company around. I get asked how we find so many great people in such a tough job marketing. I do it by being myself and telling my story, our story. Katie is the perfect example of that. I later found out she heard about the job opening from her parents, who have watched my story unfold on Facebook over many years.
A few weeks later I saw Brandon (her step-dad) at a sporting event. The irony is, I’d not seen Brandon more than a few times since high school (class of 1994). We talked about Katie and how she didn’t want to name drop him just to get the job. Both of us smiled ear to ear knowing just how special that was.
