I have a personal friend who lost her job at a major newspaper 6 months ago. This morning we were composing possible opening statements for her “sales letter”, using a strategy I devised:
Dear Mr. Jones:
If you have employed PR people for any length of time in the state of California, you have had more than your share of botched projects, missed deadlines, and press releases choked in meaningless techno-latin that didn’t get a single nibble from any of the 12,000 editors they were sent to.
I am writing to you because in 5 years of writing stories for the San Francisco Chronicle, I have NEVER missed a deadline. Not once. Furthermore, ….
(Business owners and managers want to hire people who GET THINGS DONE. This gets your point across LOUD and CLEAR. Also: This works equally well whether you’re looking for consulting client, or just a j-o-b.)
Or how about this for an opener:
Dear Mr. Jones:
In your department there is a certain Drama Queen, whom I shall not name, who spends hours texting when she’s supposed to be answering the phone, consistently misses deadlines, she leaves important tasks unfinished, and her chief talent is blaming other people for her mistakes.
You need to just go ahead and do what you’ve always known you should do: Fire her ass before 5pm today.
You’ll feel so much better when you go home.
In her place, you need to hire me. Why? 5 quick reasons:
- {Bullets #1-5}
Yeah, I know, that’s ballsy. And more than a little mercenary. But you know what? You don’t need any special knowledge of Mr. Jones’ company to send him this letter. Every single company in the world with more than 20 employees has one of those Drama Queens and they should have fired her years ago. All they need is a letter from you, giving them permission.
This is that letter.
You won’t get a BORING job with this letter, I’ll promise you that much.
Are you trolling for a better career, a better consulting assignment, some way to get more Dinero for the valuable skills you possess?
Mastermind Club members get access to a special report I wrote called “How to use Savvy Direct Marketing Techniques to Land a New Job, On Demand, Anytime, Anywhere, with No Begging, No Career Counseling and No Monster.com.” It fully elaborates on this strategy, which reliably gets interviews and offers if followed carefully.
Get the complete report just by joining Mastermind Club:
http://www.perrymarshall.com/club
Deliver measurable results and be ballsy about it, and no matter how bad things get out there, no matter how loud the whiners whine, you’ll eat steak.
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
17 Comments on “How to get a GREAT job (or consulting gig) in a sucky economy”
Perry –
I read your report when I joined Renaissance a few year ago, and it’s now a standard part of what I teach clients.
After 15 years of recruiting, and two years trying to force a Recruiting Consultant business model down unwilling throats, I found that job seekers are a great business.
I’m now teaching them everything I know about direct marketing, breaking the rules, and thinking like an entrepreneur.
You’ve been a huge influence on my life and business – can’t even count the number of Perry Marshall quotes and articles I’ve got posted on the basement wall in Corp HQ.
You’re right – job seekers NEED to learn how to market and sell themselves…when they do, they usually shoot right to the top of the list!
Learning, growing, earning…
THANK YOU!
Scott
Scott,
Great to hear from you and congrats on bringing much-needed information to a hungry marketplace. Keep the hammer down –
Perry
My homage to Perry this week on my Membership site
Hope you like it :)
Thanks again,
Scott
Scott,
Great blog post. Keep up the good work and keep telling the scary truths.
Perry
Hey Perry,
Ballsy yes, bad idea absolutely not. I like it. The other day I received and email from a guy in response to an open position we have for an Manager of Email Marketing that said…
“I increased email marketing sales by 200%”
That’s it. Nothing more. Left me salivating to know how, why and who is this guy. It lead me create a sweet post here http://www.theinterviewgurus.com/the-email-that-landed-an-interview
Needless to say that he is interviewing next week. Thank you Perry for calling it a SALES letter and not a Cover letter.
Hey Perry,
This is a wonderful concept but making direct approach is something that people are afraid of.
You have given some good examples to make it clear. And in my office I also have a Drama Queen and the whole of the office imitates the way she talks (behind her back).
Hi Perry
Great way to get attention – be direct
and specific and tell them how you’ll
solve one of their biggest problems or
headaches.
I used a similar approach for a friend
a few years – one simple letter posted
out to one target employer led to…one
great job for this lady. This works.
Great post Perry! I will try to use these concepts in my copy.
Perry,
It is all about creating a Unique Selling Proposition for oneself. These two letters are getting the points across indeed.
Would I used them? Probably not. But the selling concept you are using will be certainly implemented in my cover letters.
Thank you for a great post as usual. It is a pleasure to read you!
What I most love about Perry – besides the rock solid marketing info – is that you can always count on him to give it to you straight. Love that. :)
Not only did this make me laugh, it’s a great idea for someone with the guts to pull it off.
Great advice as usual Perry. You know how to get peoples attention :).
People are so scared they are going to do something on their cover letter or resume that keeps them from being considered for the job. Then recruiters and resume companies have the masses convinced that you have to use the latest “format” so that your letter and resume looks like everyone elses. WHY would you ever want to look or sound like all the other people in line for the job? So what if you don’t get considered for a few positions! You shouldn’t be willing to accept just ANY job anyway.
I’ve been hiring people for close to 20 years. It isn’t about where you worked or which version of Microsoft Office that you currently use or what your degree was in. I look for potential and personality traits. Are you interested in my company and my industry? Are you a natural problem solver? Do you love challenge and do you learn fast? Will I have to micro manage you or do you have the potential to work independently? Those are the things that I look for when I am hiring!
As usual, spot on!
Perry ~
Our company NEEDS quality sales people – yes, we are hiring in a downturn economy. We have more leads (not cold calls), than we can handle, and could have even more.
We can’t even find applicants who can sell themselves to us! If they can’t do that, how are they supposed to be able to sell to customers?
Plenty of folks out there who want to know what we can do for them! We hire those who can bring something value added to our table.
Over with my rant. Keep it up – America needs change, and not the current version of it.
Hey Perry,
That was really interesting to read. Setting up a perfect sale letter to get the job is really a tough task as no one pays great attention when there are place for no new recruitment.
However the drama queen thing can work I guess..:)
Unrelated question, but I’m curious about the margin (width) you use for writing your emails. How do you determine that? And is there some reason for it?
I do ~60 characters per line because it’s easier to read. I use http://www.formatit.com to do it.