Sometimes, those of us who’ve been in the business world for a few decades start feeling…I don’t know…is “stagnant” the right word? I mean, you might love what you do – but you just might not love anymore how you do it, or who you do it with! Or you just might be straight up bored!
But wait! You’ve spent 20 years growing your company, or climbing the ladder in your corporate career?? How in the HECK are you going to start over again? You’ve got a barn-full of fabulous contacts and business lead generation opportunities, and you’ve built up your reputation as a thought leader in X field doing Y work!
And, most importantly of all, in a perfect world, you’re financially stable! And we all know how important that is.
The Stats Don’t Lie – People Are Happier After a Career Change (or adjustment)!
But still, more and more these days people are shifting gears and either changing careers entirely or pivoting their businesses in a different direction (something we’ve talked a lot about recently because Covid-19!). In fact, a recent Canadian survey on “career pivots” found that 87 per cent of respondents who have done so said they are happier since making the change.
And that’s what inspired our latest 4 AM Report podcast guest, recruiter Sandra D’Souza, to shift gears and begin focusing her years of experience on an entirely new audience sector.
Here’s more of her story.
“I was doing my work in financial services. And that was going really well. I had some great clients and things were really good and then I just got – I don’t want to say – I guess bored. I don’t know. I was looking for something different! Last spring, I had the opportunity to work with a client that was a little different, it was a not for profit social enterprise and the current executive director was retiring. They were looking to fill the role when someone with a slightly different skill set that could you know, take the organization into a different direction, you know, more global clients and, and expand the operations. It was a really fun search because it put me into a space that I hadn’t been in before and the experience was so positive that I made the decision to actively try and do more work in that sector. To do that, I started doing some research, attending conferences and other networking events in the not for profit social enterprise space, and went to work building up a whole new network! So you know, it was kind of like starting all over again – as if I was in sort of the first year of my business, just trying to get things off the ground in that new space.”
Building a New Network from the Ground Up
“In the old world, I had a natural network that I could build off of, you know, I worked in that space for, you know, 15, 20 years. So, it was much easier. This way, it’s, I don’t know, nobody knows me. I went to a conference over the summer in Ottawa, and it was, it was really interesting. It was the first time I was really walking into a room without knowing a single person and which is really unusual, as Susan said, because when you’re in Toronto, and you’re doing things you tend to run into the same people over and over again. But yeah, that was a really interesting experience for me. And it turned out to be really great. People were really nice and it was a good experience. And since then, I’ve gone to several more conferences and really, I think started to build up a good solid network in that sector!”
You Don’t Have to Go All-In Immediately!
“And it’s not like I’m not doing the other work as well, like I am, you know, my goal is to have this maybe be 30 to 50 percent of my business going forward. So, it’s just been fun, and it’s been a really good learning experience to find out what the concerns and issues are with organizations in this sector.”
[Susan: And what about online marketing? What sort of things work for you? What are you trying these days? Tell us about that.]
“Honestly, and this is where you guys will come in, because I haven’t really done a lot. I mean, I’m active on LinkedIn, because of my business – that is my primary source of connecting with candidates and the people I meet at conferences. So, I do, you know, tend to make a point of following up and connecting with people on LinkedIn that I’ve met. You know, I’ve maintained a good LinkedIn network and I try to reach out to people, on a fairly regular basis just to stay in touch.”
For more on getting the most out of LinkedIn, the rest of Sandra’s story – AND to learn about the three O’s of online conversion, we hope you’ll click on over to Apple Podcasts, have a listen and subscribe to us – you won’t regret it!
Plus, if you’re losing sleep over a particular marketing/business related problem during this Covid-19 economic uncertainty, or if you have a guest idea on the topic, let us know. Drop us a line at C+P Digital.
