Who are my competitors?

I had several interviews this week with mid-career professionals. Some of them are considering switching to another industry. 

One of the key questions that I ask candidates to think about is “who are my competitors?” 

You may want to be a coach as it sounds like a good career switch. Before you sign up for the coaching certification, do you know how many coaches there are in your city? Who are you up against? 

If you want to take on a sales job, a finance job or an HR job, who are the potential candidates that competing for the same job as you? What advantages or disadvantages do you have against the competition?

If you want to start a new business, be it a restaurant, a bar, a social selling business, or a psychometric profiling company, you may want to do a good competitor analysis before you invest a lot of your time and energy. 

Even Grab (Uber equivalent) drivers have plenty of competitors on the road. 

In short, beware of the competition and be clear about how to differentiate yourself. 

Like any product, you can differentiate in terms of price, product features, availability, and brand. Your personal network matters if you can bring it to your next job. 

Knowing that there may be fierce competition doesn’t mean that you go into retreat. Instead, take time to prepare. Conduct pilots and experiment with ideas. Besides family and friends, go wider in testing your ideas, business and products. Gain feedback and make adjustments.

Yet, be realistic and pragmatic. If certain jobs require an MBA as the minimum qualification, don’t imagine that you can skip that. 

If the job requires coding and programming skills, invest time to learn and be good at it. Don’t think that you can take shortcuts. 

In short, rise to the competition and train yourself to win. Move forward and find ways to be ahead of your competitors!

When is a good time to ask for a promotion?

When you can perform the task with one hand. 

I was reviewing one of the interview transcripts with a hotelier and that was the interesting insight that I saw. 

For 1.5 years, he washed dirty dishes in the kitchen, during weekends, summer holidays, and winter holidays. The job was very routine for him and he challenged himself to do the job with one hand. When he could do it over the entire shift, he gathered enough confidence to ask for a promotion from the chef. 

Well, he got the promotion! He was moved to the cold kitchen and started to make sandwiches and salads. 

While the story may seem trivial and it happened 40 years ago, it was a good reminder of when to ask for a promotion. 

When you have consistently overperformed in the job, when you can do it with less time and effort, when you have demonstrated the ability to take on more, and you have great interest in additional responsibility – the time is right. 

Pick up the courage, stack up your track record, and prepare to have the discussion. 

Can you do your job with one hand today?

Switching Industries

Last week, I met a senior executive from the luxury automotive industry. His company recently made some changes and he was made redundant.

With more than 20 years in the automotive industry, he is keen to switch to another industry. He has two industries in his mind: luxury furniture and luxury hospitality.

Both industries probably share similar clientele as the luxury automotive industries. 

Here is my recommendation for him:

1. Identify the target companies in the respective industry.

2. For each company, identify the key stakeholders and connect with them on LinkedIn. Some may respond and some may not.

3. Invest time every day to research the industry. Read deeply and gather insights.

4. Meet people in the industry and gather insights. Attend conferences, trade fairs and workshops.

5. With the insights, develop a short presentation deck to showcase understanding.

6. Think about the potential competitors for the same role. Most likely, it is someone with 10-20 years of experience in the industry. Ask: 

7. How do you differentiate yourself from others? 

8. What is your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? 

9. What can you do that an industry veteran cannot?

10. The USP can be included in the presentation deck. So, instead of sending a CV, which doesn’t showcase the new insights, use the new presentation deck instead. 

I believe that meeting the right people, actively learning about a new industry, and showing your understanding of the industry will greatly increase everyone’s chance of switching industries.

What are your thoughts?