How to Stop Missing Incredible Opportunities

Whatever your goals are, wherever your dreams may take you, there are countless opportunities all around you to help you get there.  The trick is to be able to spot them, and then once you spot them, take full advantage of them.  I’ll share with you one such opportunity and how to learn from it so you can reach your goals that much faster.

The story of a missed opportunity

In the city where I live, there was a peculiar billboard at the intersection of two very busy roads.  It’s estimated that over 100,000 people cross this intersection every day, so there’s a lot of eyeballs on that billboard.  The reason the billboard is peculiar is because it had a sign on it that you didn’t see every day.

The billboard had a picture of a man on it, and all it said was, “HIRE ME!” along with this man’s website address.

The sign received all kinds of media attention.  The man who bought the sign space was featured on the local news, and in many other outlets for his thinking outside the box to bring attention to himself and his obvious job search.

After having gone to the man’s website, I found it was a lot like the billboard.  The site had his resume, his job search aspirations, and a section called “All about me.”  The billboard is since gone, and so several months after his ad was removed, I checked his website again.  I saw nothing to mention he’s been hired as of yet.

Unfortunately, the man may have missed an incredible opportunity.

What’s missing from this picture?

I applaud the man for his creative thinking.  In fact, if he’s reading this post, I hope he doesn’t mind that I’m using his advertising methods as a case study for others to learn from.  The idea here is not to tear down one’s attempts to find work.  On the contrary, I hope to provide value by analyzing what doesn’t work and replace it with what does, so that there’s a positive outcome for the efforts being made.

In terms of the billboard and accompanying website, there are a couple of missing ingredients that he could have applied to his campaign to really get potential employers to ring his phone off the hook.

As a starting point, the biggest missing ingredient is the focus of his campaign.  It’s missing one fundamental element.  And that is, that his campaign was focused on the wrong person: Himself.  The billboard and his site is all about him.

There’s very little chance to sell anyone on an idea or a product if we don’t answer the fundamental question of “What’s in if for me?”  The me in this case, being the reader, the listener, or the person you’re trying to communicate your message to.  Was this person answering that?  Not that I could see.  So, if he’s not trying to solve a potential employers problem by answering what’s in it for them, by human nature, no one is going to be very interested.

Use your skills to solve a problem

There are many incredible opportunities that can be created by someone who is willing to identify a problem, and find a solution for it.  There can be opportunities created in this way where perhaps others didn’t even know a problem existed.  But, by shining a light on a problem, and sharing your ability to be able to solve it will have the world beat a path to your door!

So, with keeping in mind that we can make opportunities by answering “What’s in it for me?” for others, and by identifying and solving problems, how could this person have taken a different approach to have an army of potential employers contacting him?

Practical approaches that make sense

Instead of having a billboard say, “Hire Me!” or a website that focuses only on the person looking for work, let’s have a look at some ways we can turn around this type of campaign:

• The billboard could have used the Cause a Stampede methods to advertise a free recorded message. Put “Free Recorded Message” on the billboard along with an 800 number, and you have magic in the making.  That recorded message could have highlighted problems and solutions his skills could solve to the benefit of potential employers; while creating a safe environment for potential employers to call your recording and really be wowed by your presentation skills.

• The website could contain numerous articles that showcase one’s expertise in their chosen field. Imagine a series of articles highlighting your greatest professional achievements.  Such detail would never fit on a resume, and reading more depth into one’s qualifications as it pertains to actual achievements could have hiring managers beating down your door.

• Use the media attention to highlight your skills, not that you’re looking for a job. Although it’s great media fodder to focus on the unorthadox approach to advertising that you’re looking for work, it might not be as productive to focus on only that.  It would show less desperation to share with the world that yes, I am looking for work, BUT you can find out more about how I can help a company solve it’s unique problems with my skills by going to my website at www.mywebsite.com.

• Consider a different domain name. The domain name that was used on the billboard was similar to Person4Hire.com.  I won’t use that person’s name as I didn’t ask for permission ahead of time.  However, the whole Person4Hire.com thing could be further enhanced by using a domain name such as YourSpecificProblemSolved.com.  That specific problem could be the unique problems your expertise allows you to solve for others.  That’s an immediate connection that would literally jump out and grab the interest of persons who are looking for exactly the type of skills you posses.

• Place a call to action on the website. If you’re creating articles for potential employers to benefit from, why not invite them to send a request for your resume?  Studies show we’re more open to hearing someone’s message after there’s been some credibility established.  Leverage the website to build that credibility, then place a call to action at the bottom of the article inviting the reader to request your resume.

Then, by setting up an autoresponder to automatically send your resume to the requester, you’ve done two things.  One, you’ve set up an automated system to deliver your resume, day or night, after you’ve established credibility, which will get you a higher response rate.

Two, you now have the interested parties’ e-mail addresses in a database to which you can follow up at a later time to see if they had any additional questions.  Such follow ups might also include testimonials to your quality of work, or letters of recommendations from prominent colleagues or mentors.

What can you do differently?

With these ideas based around the campaign I highlighted for this post, what could you do to improve the quality and the response of your small business or entrepreneurial campaigns?  Share those ideas by posting a comment below.

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Thanks for reading and for doing something positive today!

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Jay Medina

As your Helpful Advisor, Jay Medina has over 20 years experience as an Information Technology professional and over 10 years of successful business writing. Jay Medina has 48 post(s) at Helpful Advisor