There is always a job in a good organization for an impact player. An impact player is someone who can quickly improve the economics of a company. An impact player is someone who can bring in customers, energize the sales force, restructure an under-performing department, speed up the innovation process, solve the late shipment problem, or physically move the manufacturing facility to a lower cost area. An impact player also is someone who will do the necessary but noxious tasks one ome else wants to do. An impact player is someone who will get their hands dirty, pick up a shovel and start shoveling, open the store early and close late, deliver product on their way home, deal tirelessly with irate customers, and make a service call on Christmas Eve. Good executives in good companies want to hire impact players. To get the attention of the CEO in your target company, write him or her a letter that demonstrates your ability to impact the company.
Research the company exhaustively, constantly looking for areas where you skills and experience might be of benefit to them. While reading the company's literature; trying the products; talking to customers, competitors, and suppliers you will discover good business opportunities or challenges, or both. Dollarize the value of those business opportunities you have discovered. Write a one-page letter to the CEO of the company or the highest-ranking relevant hiring executive. Pinpoint four or five opportunities for the company where your expertise and ideas will be useful. If the letter is carefully written, and your proposed opportunities are reasonably feasible, you will, in most cases, at least get an interview. If, for whatever reason, the company can't hire you, the person you interviewed may have other good contacts. If you don't get hired full-time, you might be offered a consulting assignment to work on one of the opportunities you described in your impact letter. A consulting assignment is a great way for you and the company to evaluate each other. Doing well may lead to a full-time position.
It is far better to do the hard work of producing five impact letters that get great results than to send out five hundred resumes that generate five hundred rejections. A good impact letter demonstrates your potential to make an impact.
Impact Letter: Example #1
Written by a person with manufacturing skills to the CEO.
Dear Mr. Day:
You have a great company and I have spent some time studying it. Based on my research, which includes observing your products in use by your customers, there are four things that would have a positive economic impact on your business.
1. Customers complain that Product A occasionally loses hydraulic fluid, creating one hour of costly downtime while being repaired. The problem can be solved with a redesigned lip seal. I know how to get that done.
2. Based on a description of your factory floor layout, there would be considerable savings to you if you adapt the Toyota motor car's one-piece flow production method to your manufacturing process.
3. Such a process will also result in reduced factory floor space usage, and less inventory of vendor parts.
4. Customers say your lead time on shipments is now sixteen weeks. There are a number of ways to reduce that lead time.
If I don't hear from you, I will follow up to discuss how to make these ideas a reality.
Manufacturingly Yours,
Baldwin A. Ward
P.S. One Customer suggested a product improvement that might be a good new product. It is a neat idea.
Impact Letter: Example #2
A letter from a sales candidate to the Vice-President of Sales.
Dear Mr. Baker:
You have a great company and I have spent some time studying it. Based on my research, which includes observing your products in use by your customers, there are four things that would have a positive economic impact on your business.
1. I visited twenty of your customer stores. Product A was available in fourteen stores. The other six stores are good target accounts as they move considerable volume. With persistence I can get your product on their shelves.
2. In addition, only two stores were using your display materials, and they were getting good results. We could take the experience of those two stores and educate every customer to the sales-generating potential of proper display.
3. One customer said she would be willing to stock all of your sku's but she can't find anyone to show her how to merchandise the line. Her concern might represent an opportunity for a national planogram promotion.
4. Your competitor is test marketing a new product in Boston. I have some verbatims from the retailers and a few of their customers as to how the new product is doing. We could discuss some ideas on what you might do in response.
If I don't hear from you, I will follow up to propose how to make these ideas a reality.
Sellingly Yours,
Ewell C. Rezultz
P.S. There is a new channel distribution available to you. This channel could add 5 percent volume to your top line.