Marketing Headhunter.com

What We Do ...

We specialize in contingency-based Manager, Director, and VP-level executive searches for online marketing and ecommerce.  We are in constant contact with the Internet industry's best players, and we speak their language and offer them the best career opportunities.  Period.

Call us at (678) 749-7075 and let us tell your story to the candidates who can take your business to the next level.  Or click here for more information.
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Assessing "the Vision Thing."

ATLANTA, GA - Before this post, a brief word about the economics of my business: I am a contingency based ecommerce recruiter. The word contingency means that I get paid a fee if, and only if, my candidate is hired by my client. If no candidate is hired, or if my client hires an ecommerce candidate through another channel, then I make nothing. Nada. Zilch.

It's like being a fur trapper: Some days I get the bear, some days the bear gets me.

Like 90% of the world's contingency recruiters, my fee equals 20% of the candidate's first year base salary.  An average invoice can be $30-40K.  That sounds like a fortune until one realizes that clients will do anything to keep from paying it -- and that doesn't make them bad people.

Very often I will work for several months on a particular search without making a dime.  If the client hires the candidate through another channel (say, an internal referral, or TheLadders), then I make nothing and have wasted a considerable amount valuable candidate relationship capital plus dozens of hours working for free when that same time might have been more profitably allocated to another project. But I love it.

I am in the Leader Identification business.

One of the smartest guys I ever worked for used to say "people will only pay for that which they cannot or will not do for themselves."  Remember that phrase, as it will make you a more effective leader.

Now then:  The goal of my business is to source "game changers" for my clients. These are the ecommerce executives who not only can do the job required on the client's job posting, but can also contribute something lasting and meaningful to the client's strategic thrust and the existing management mix.

The goal, obviously, is to source ecommerce candidates who are so good that my $30-40K fee will be lost in the rounding of the value that my candidates will create for my clients.  This is not a sales pitch; it's just simple economics.  My candidates need to be better motivated, better prepared, better skilled, and (most importantly) have better ideas than "regular" candidates.

My candidates almost NEVER come from job boards because my candidates have to be at least $30-40K better than run-of-the-mill applicants.  Otherwise, why would any client use me?

I have placed candidates who have helped my clients identify and develop promising new markets, brainstorm and introduce profitable new products / services, launch new continuity based loyalty marketing programs, dramatically improve my clients website conversion rates -- and more.

Indeed, from the 80-or-so ecommerce searches I have closed, I have placed a number of candidates for whom I would have MUCH preferred to have gotten paid a percentage of the value they created for my client rather than a 20% search fee.

Clearly, making this kind of the contribution isn't just about doing what's on the job description. It's about thinking like an owner. It's about thinking strategically. It's about being able to take a very high level view of the business, now and in the future.

Most of all, it's about VISION.

Vision can be defined as a realistic, appealing, and focused picture of the future that identifies both a goal and a general strategy for achieving that goal. According to management author Ray Johnson, any vision worth it's salt must satisfy four criteria:

1. It must clearly define an important future goal, or at least a major direction for the company (or department for which the candidate is interviewing.)
2. It must be exciting or enticing enough to provide the motivation for people to follow that direction.
3. It must be articulated with clarity and commitment to provide guidance and coordination for disparate groups
4. It must outline a general strategy for achieving the goal.

In the fall of 2009, I started asking all of my director and VP level candidates a series of questions designed to assess their strategic literacy. Here are some of the questions I ask:

• Very specifically, who is your customer?  Describe them for me in as much detail as you can.  Vague answers and short answers are a BIG problem.  I am looking for longer answers that demonstrate a strong affinity with the target market.  The candidate should sound like they LOVE their customers!  Do they hang out with them in person and online??  That's a major PLUS.


• As it pertains to your product or category, what are your customer's top three daily frustrations?  Let the candidate talk!  Don't say anything for at least 120 seconds.  Make them sweat.  Also, understand that Domino's fully understood that their customers cared a lot more about delivery than the quality of the pizza.  Sure, the pizza was okay, but that wasn't the point.  The point was delivery -- and that was a service attribute the was previously unaddressed in the pizza category.  Does the candidate have edgy ideas?  Innovation comes from the edge.


• What are you doing to alleviate your customer's frustrations?  Listen for pie in the sky suggestions that indicate that the candidate hasn't given this any thought.  Hint: Is there a disconnect between their current business model and the suggestions they are making?


• What factors distinguish winners from losers in your category?  Only two words matter: Marketing and Innovation.  Many people overlook the fact that all companies are in the emotional bond business.  If your candidate starts rambling on about price, quality, speed, etc -- then you've gotta wonder if he really empathizes with the customer.  That's a marketing issue.  Next, consider innovation:  Imagine you had asked a fax machine manufacturer this question ten years ago.  Would price, quality, and speed have mattered at all?  You get the point.  Disruption happens.


• How can you increase barriers to existing competitors and potential new entrants?  Warren Buffett calls these barriers a "moat around one's business."  Again, the best answers will have something to do with marketing and innovation.  BONUS POINTS awarded for candidates that seem to have a process for these things.  Get them to step you through it.


• What threats and vulnerabilities does your company face?  The answers should sound something like this.  You are looking for e-commerce executive who can think holistically about their business -- and yours.


• If you left your company today, how would you compete against it?  I freaking love this question because most e-commerce candidates simply think in terms of just doing more, better, faster, and cheaper.  I've got news for them: Someone's always going to do things better, faster, and cheaper.  How can you do things more intimately with your customer??  In the words of Marshall Field, "People return to the place where they have proactively been made to feel special."


• Describe a best case and worst case scenario for your company in the next three to five years.  Then ask Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?  The best candidates will be able to think logically yet abstractly about these issues.  They should understand financial risk, supplier risk, technology risk, market risk, and customer risk and be able to consider those thoughtfully.

And so on.  I have a list of 20 questions, and I will select my top 3-5- depending on my client's needs and objectives.

My point here is that there is a difference between doing the right things, and doing things right.  Candidates are expected to do things right.  Tight execution is simply the price of admission these days.

However, as we have all learned by watching Google, Microsoft, Disney, and Apple redefine and grow their businesses, the right people asking the right questions can have a much greater impact that just a few thousand dollars in recruiting fees.

Social Media and Your Ecommerce Job Interview

NEW YORK, NY - Let's face it: Even after three years of exposure to the medium, there's still a lot more heat than light surrounding the use of social media in ecommerce marketing. I know I'm going to get this statistic wrong, but it's directionally correct: Kevin Hillstrom of MineThatData.com reported earlier this year that social media seems to account for half of the trade show chatter in the multichannel ecommerce space but only 4% of the revenues. That number sure feels right.

Here's why I bring this up: Almost all of my ecommerce candidates these days are being asked to address social media in their job interviews. Like, across the board: Email marketing managers, affiliate marketing managers, paid search candidates, merchandising and usability folks, Directors of Online Marketing, VPs of Ecommerce.

Everyone, it seems, is expected to have a teachable point of view [page 2] on social media and know how this channel will influence their own functional area.  Now more than ever: In lean, flat, knowledge-intensive, team-based organizations -- to teach is to lead.  You can't just hit home runs while being a lone wolf in the clubhouse.  You gotta raise the batting average of everyone in your dugout.

Which is why I think you ought to take three minutes and watch Andrew Davis, Chief Strategy Officer at Tippingpoint Labs, as he explains the social media influence pyramid.  This is a simple, back of the envelop concept that will make any ecommerce job candidate look smart in an ecommerce job interview. Check it out for Andrew's content -- but notice also how he presents this material.  Food for thought.

UPDATE: Check out this FREE special report from Bain & Co. on social media and ecommerce.  Very nice.

Salary Negotiations: "Why salary ranges are B.S."

I wont beat around the bush: Salary ranges are total bullshit. There. I said it.

I mean, what's the point?  When you bought your house, did the seller quote a range?  And if he did, which end of the range did you hear?  The low end or the high end?  The low end, of course, and that became your starting point in the final negotiations -- unless you're smart, in which case you started negotiating below the lowest end of the range, making the seller work you back up to his stated minimum.

Irregardless, as a negotiating concept, ranges are ridiculous and tend to destroy a deal's momentum.

Why do clients use them?  Well, because when a client tells her recruiter "The range for this position is $170K to $220K," what she actually means is "We want a $220K candidate for $170K" -- even though she might have added some nonsense like "Well, for the right person, we'd pay $220K."  Like, duh.  It's not as if you'd pay a search fee for the wrong candidate.  Obviously.

Now here's the tricky part:

How should a recruiter market this search?  Should he advertise $170-220K?  How about the mid-point, say $195K?  The problem is one of managing the candidate's expectations.  A higher number always helps to attract the best candidates, but there's always the chance that the client will low-ball any eventual offer, thereby pissing off the candidate and possibly rupturing the deal.

On the other hand, a lower number will suppress the response of the market's best candidates.  Trust me, there is a correlation between price and quality in the world of talent, and it's the recruiter's job to source the world best candidates for his clients.  Sounds audacious, but it's true.  The recruiter must protect the client from their own process.

What's the solution?

ON THE CLIENT SIDE:  The recruiter needs to make sure that his client understands that the spread between his client's and candidate's needs will be lost in the rounding of the value that the candidate will create in the new role.  Specifically, the recruiter must credibly establish how his candidate has historically increased sales while decreasing cost of goods sold, operating expense, tax exposure, accounts receivable, inventory, accounts payable, fixed assets, and accrued liabilities.

If this sounds unrealistic, it isn't.  In fact, this is what a $200K general manager is supposed to do.  Yet most executive level candidates do a lousy job of quantifying the value to potential employers.  I have several spreadsheets I use with my candidates to help them assess the cash value that they created for their previous employers -- and they can use these tools to estimate their impact on my client's top and bottom lines.  For real.

ON THE CANDIDATE SIDE: The recruiter must brace his candidate for a low-ball offer and coach him not to take it personally.  Any recruiter worth his salt simply must tell his candidate to expect the client to bounce their first pitch in the dirt.  It's all part of the game, and deals fall apart when candidates take these things personally.  (And they do.)

Beyond that, all candidate's must not only understand what the "market" is for their skills, but also what the client can fairly afford without feeling burned by the process.  To quote any economist worth her salt, "You are looking for the optimal point on the efficiency curve."  After all, candidates, you'll need your honeymoon period in the new job -- and running roughshod over your new employer in a salary negotiation will only shorten it.  Leave a few bucks on the table, but not so many that you feel cheapened by the process.

To understand what the client can fairly afford, ask your recruiter:

1. What did the last guy make?
2. Does the company feel like the last guy was underpaid or overpaid?
3. Why did the previous guy leave?  Have your recruiter find out!
4. What did he make in his new job elsewhere?
5. Are there any internal candidates under consideration for the position?

Internal candidates are often underpaid, and even if an internal candidate got a raise in the new job -- her comp would likely be less than what an external candidate (like you) would cost in terms of base salary.  As with any negotiation, it pays to do one's homework.

For future reference, please bookmark this post in Delicious.

Web Usability: "Keeping an Eye on the Competition"

DETROIT, MI - My friend, Kevin Ertell over at RetailShakenNotStirred has a great post on web usability titled "Is elitism the source of poor usability?"

According to Kevin, "Most sites are still achieving single digit conversion rates even though customer intent-to-purchase rates are 20% or higher in most cases."  Kevin suspects that this problem stems from sites being too complicated for the average user.

I'm sure he's right.  And it's not that users are stupid; it's that the average consumer gets hit with +5000 commercial messages a day and they just don't have the time or patience for any site that doesn't conform to the Golden Rules of User Interface Design.

The result?  A site's passersby intend to purchase something +20% of the time, but more than half of the time, they are prevented from doing so by poor usability.  So mathematically, a site's owner could more than DOUBLE his revenues by simply improving his site's usability.  >Forehead smack!<

Friends, this ain't about traffic.  It's about optimizing the user's experience, and according to Kevin the best way to do that is to simplify one's approach to web design.  Hence Kevin's question, ...

"Is elitism the source of poor usability?"

As an ecommerce recruiter, I see this all the time.  Web designers fail to see their work as a means to greater customer intimacy and instead get caught up the latest widgets and gadgets that will give them bragging rights among their friends.  Crazy.

Keeping an Eye on the Competition

Smart usability is often a byproduct of smart competitive intelligence, and sometimes the best way to "keep it real" in web design is to see what your competitors are doing.  Don't forget that if a customer intends to purchase something 20% of the time and you lose his interest more than half the time, he's likely going to buy from your competitor.  Therefore, "good" usability is relative to your competition.  You're not trying to change the world.  Your simply trying to convert a sale.  Period.

Here's a tip:  Run a Google search for just the relevant product pages of specific competitors.

For example, if I worked for AJMadison.com and wanted to know what my competitors were doing, I might follow these steps:

1.) Use the "related" operator to see who Google thinks my competitors are based on the competitors' meta data, like so: http://tinyurl.com/m5s4hl

2.) Looking at my own homapage's source code, I would know that my own categories are: "Gas Ranges, Ovens, Stoves, Washers, Dryers, Dishwashers, bosch, ranges, refrigerator, oven, appliances, refrigerators, Air Conditioners, microwave, washer dryer combo, whirlpool"

3.) To get a basic feel for how a specific competitor merchandises their whole site, use the Google "site" operator, like this: http://tinyurl.com/mfraxn. It's often a good idea to run this search for every competitor (see step 1).  Used with a Google toolbar and a highlighter key, you can see where and how the keywords appear on any product page -- and in my opinion this is a usability issue.

4.) Finally, to see how a specific competitor merchandises a particular product category, such as "gas ranges," you can use a modified version of the Google "site" operator from Step 3. See http://tinyurl.com/nggdzb.  (Check out the Adwords results on the right.)

It often helps to run this last search for every keyword in the homepage's source code.  It's a pain, but this is a great way to see what navigational elements your competitors may be trying out.

Finally, two great browser plugins to complement this quick-n-dirty process are Chris Pederick's web developer toolbar for Firefox and of course, the almighty SEO toolbar by Aaron Wall.  Both are free.

The SEO Toolbar can show you how well optimized any product page is in a given search result, which will tell you a lot about how important that product is to the success of a particular competitor's business.  On a deeper level, it will automatically tell you the number of del.icio.us bookmarks a page has, the number of Diggs; the number of Stumbles; the number of Twitter mentions; and MUCH more.

As a rule, shoppers don't bookmark and Tweet and Stumble crappy pages.  Sometimes the companies do these things themselves, but only for pages they feel proud.  And in my experience, "important" pages are tested and tweaked more frequently than unimportant pages -- and those are the ones you really want to monitor for changes.
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Twitter and B2B marketing: A simplification.

ATLANTA, GA - I read somewhere that a great blogger will never start a post by making excuses for why he hasn't been blogging.  Good thing I'm not a great blogger.

As discussed last month, I have started devoting considerable time and attention to Twitter.  My reasoning is basically this:  Nearly 90% of my blog's traffic comes from Google, so once you have arrived at this page, statistically speaking, you are most likely to read one post and then call me, email me, or subscribe to my newsletter.

I'm simplifying things, but that's what happens 90% of the time.

And usually, once that happens, you become a "fan."  At that point you usually subscribe to my Twitter feed.  All of this is part of a marketing process designed to escort each new candidate or client (I can never tell which) though the process of Awareness ... to Interest ... to Desire ... to Action.  Like so:

The old AIDA model.  Works every time, especially in B2B.

Now clearly, not every visitor becomes a fan.  But that doesn't matter very much, because I'm only concerned with those who do.  No one is universally loved.  What's pop to some is soda to others, and there's no accounting for taste.  At the end of the day, I'm in the emotional bond business.  That's what personal branding is all about.

But I digress.

My point is that I have discovered that it is FAR more productive for me to use Twitter to stoke my fans' Interest, Desire, and Action than it is to blog in an attempt to raise Awareness.  I mean, once you have found me on Google, the work of my blog is done.  Sure, you can read more than one post if you need convincing of my "thought leadership" before you subscribe to my searches.  But statistically speaking, you won't.  My analytics package says you won't, and there's nothing as devastating to an opinion as a number.  Besides, my fans pay my bills.

No offense to you newcomers.

Think of it this way:  Assume that you could financially afford to only make 10,000 impressions on your market this year.  Would you rather make one impression on 10,000 strangers, or 10 impressions on 1,000 friends?  Exactly.  And since I'm self employed and time is money, there's no point spending a ton of time on a low payoff activity.  My blog is about raising Awareness through SERPs.  It's about being ... found.  Twitter is about contributing something meaningful to the market's conversation.

It took me a while to understand that.
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Door-to-Door Selling: "Timing is Everything."

ATLANTA, GA - Tonight's Halloween, and our neighborhood is packed with kids.  My wife and I have five kids, so Halloween is one of the most eagerly anticipated holidays of the year.  I'm the candy guy in our house; When the doorbell rings, it's my job to give out the candy to trick-or-treaters.

Obviously, everyone's in a festive mood ...

At roughly 6:00pm, the little kids start to arrive.  It's the usual mix of pirates, ghosts, princesses, etc.  Smiles all around.  You know the drill.

Then at roughly 6:45pm, two co-eds from our local high-school ring the doorbell.  Agewise, they're on the high side of trick-or-treat and the low side of adulthood.  I'm guessing 15.  They're not in costume, but they look nice in their Roswell HS sweatshirts.  I answer the door.

"Trick or treat?" I ask.  "No thanks!" they chirp.  "We're raising money for Habitat for Humanity!  Can you make a small donation?"  This was a first.  I've given out lots of candy for Halloween, but never money.

But seriously, what am I going to say?  "No??"  Grinch!  So I say yes.  And here's the thing:  I WANTED to say yes.  After all, I had been saying yes all night long to other kids whose requests were far less noble.

This is a marketing blog, and this is a marketing post about a three point marketing plan that I think is brilliant:

1. Target a market that can afford your product.  We live in a desirable neighborhood, and the amount of the donation was discretionary.  I presume that Habitat for Humanity had HS kids working the nicest neighborhoods in Atlanta.
2. Market to the prospect when you know you can reach them in the right frame of mind.  Marketers, this is so important.  The difference between salad and garbage is timing.  These kids knew we were home -- and they knew that we'd answer the door with our guard down.  If they had come on any other night, I'm not sure we would have answered the door.  Well, maybe I might have, but my wife might not have.  Safety first.  And on any other night, it's almost a given that we would have been in a less charitable mood.  We're charitable, but like everyone, we're more charitable at some times than others.
3. Give your prospect a chance to jump on the bandwagon -- then appeal to his vanity.  As they were pitching their cause, they asked me to look over a manifest of people on my street who had already donated (and the amounts).  Naturally, since I could tell that the average neighbor had donated ten bucks, I wanted to donate more because my ego shouted out "Don't be average!"  Again, the larger donation was about my ego -- not my benevolence.  Maybe deep down, I wanted my next door neighbor to look at the manifest and say to himself, "Check out Harry's donation.  What a guy!"  Again, this makes me more schmuck than saint.  Whatever.  No surprise there.
   

Of course, I'm sure Habitat for Humanity planned it this way.  Which is fine.  It's a great cause and I'm glad I could help out.  But I have seen a ton of door-to-door marketing in my time, and I thought this fund-raising tactic was pretty slick.

Don't you?

What I like most about self-employment.

SEATTLE, WA - What you are looking at is a fine example of lazy blogging!  It requires almost no time or originality on my part, yet you'll enjoy yourself for the next couple of minutes and maybe even send a link to your friends.  Call it McThought Leadership.  Mark Twain would be proud.

The video you're about to see features Amazon's Jeff Bezos explaining why his company bought Zappos.  Frankly, it's hard to imagine that Zappos was so good at customer service that Jeff Bezos admired them enough to acquire them.  But that's what the man says.  Does Mr. Bezos expect Zappos' culture to infect Amazon enough to pay for itself?  Apparently.  Yet Amazon already has awesome customer service.  Couldn't Mr. Bezos have simply raided the Zappos management team for less money?  Apparently not.

By way of comparison, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway acquires businesses that meet all of the following criteria (see page 24):

1. Large purchases (at least $75 million of pre-tax earnings unless the business will fit into one of Berkshire's existing units),
2. Demonstrated consistent earning power (future projections are of no interest to Berkshire, nor are “turnaround” situations),
3. Businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt,
4. Management in place (Berkshire can’t supply it),
5. Simple businesses (if there’s lots of technology, Mr. Buffett "won’t understand it."),
6. An offering price (Berkshire doesn't want to waste their time or that of the seller by talking, even preliminarily, about a transaction when price is unknown).

Re: Zappazon -- Make of this what you will.

In the following video, Mr. Bezos discusses the importance of inventing (2:59) and thinking long term (3:58).  I do that a lot.  In fact, I almost do it so much that I leave some of today's dollars on the table.  Whatever.  I don't think recruiters innovate nearly enough, and I look forward to the future in ways that most recruiters can't possibly imagine.  And it's not because I'm smart.

Not at all.

Being able to innovate and experiment is one of the all-time great advantages of being self-employed.  My biggest security lies in the total insecurity of my position.  All of my paychecks are variable.  Yet there's nobody (other than my wife) to tell me I can't buy such-and-such a domain or whatever.  I just get a wild hair, and boom.  Sometimes I'm wrong.  Sometimes I'm right.  And sometimes it's still too early to tell.

I'm fine with that.  In fact, it's what I like most about self-employment.  Today, I'm 45 and self-employed and relevant.  In ten years I'll be 55 and self-employed.  Whether or not I'm relevant remains to be seen.

Let's see how well I innovate.

Print Advertising and Reputational Search

FUNNY STORY: From June 2005-March 2009, I was the only recruiter in America to advertise in Internet Retailer magazine.  Online retail is my target market (for now), and Internet Retailer is my industry's flagship trade publication.  Every month my ho-hum little classified ad was in the back, rain or shine, and every month no other recruiter's was.  For 45 months.  Imagine.

I'm not bragging.  I'm not.  I'm just amazed, that's all.

It was like getting away with murder.  And it's not like my marketing strategy was some big, complicated thing:  Every month, IR's invoices would land in my inbox, and every month I'd pay them.  Talk about obvious.  It was like pulling the lever on a slot machine that every so often would pay off in wild excess of my investment.

Just like I had read it would ...

According to John Caples' classic book Tested Advertising Methods, businesses that are serious about growth should think of advertising the way they might think about their rent:  A "given" that should be counted on no matter what the market is doing.

So in 2005 I made the commitment to advertise for better or worse, and things worked out just fine.  Still, I could never tell if that was because Mr. Caples was right or because I was advertising in a competitive vacuum.  Being a cynic at heart, I assumed it was the latter.

Then in April of 2009, a rival recruiter began to advertise right next to me in IR magazine.  I was incensed!  How dare they???  But hey, it's a free country, and I knew things were too good to go on the way they were. The dream was over.  I was drenched from head-to-toe in the icy reality of head-to-head competition.  Or so I thought.

Here's what actually happened:  It seems that when Internet Retailer's readers see two nearly identical classified ads side by side, they Google the companies in BOTH ads -- and whichever company has a more impressive online reputation gets the inbound sales lead!  It was like a hockey face-off between recruiters, and lucky for me -- there's 497 pages of keyword rich content on my website.

In fact, when my competitor's ads started running, my webstats reported an +800% increase in searches for the keywords harry joiner.  What's more, my overall number of inbound calls seemed to increase!  My competitor's ads had a pie-enlarging effect on the market -- not a pie-rearranging effect!

Can you believe that?  I would never have imagined that old-school classified ads would drive readers to Google -- but they CAN and DO.  At least in my case.

Which leads me to this great resource:  Steve Rubel and his colleagues at Edelmen Digital have written an excellent white paper called Search Engine Visibility and PR.

The gist of the paper is that there are two new SEM disciplines emerging:

1. Reputational Search - The idea that any brand can use Google to influence the search results around certain keywords.  That's what happened above.  People wanted to know about my reputation, so they Googled me.  Satisfied in their knowledge, they called me.  Like magic.  Thank you, Mr. Back Link!
2. Social Search - Using social content from blogs, Twitter, and so on to create brand "embassies" (Mr. Rubel's term) where employees work to serve the interests of the community, as well as their company.

According to Mr. Rubel, "[Edelmen is] convinced that search engines for the foreseeable future will have a critical impact on how brands are perceived -- far more so than any single social network site, which tend to come and go."
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Does your business card suck?

CHICAGO, IL - As someone who's self-employed, I'm a jobseeker.  That's right.  Everyday, I'm out there looking for a job to do, and the job I do is finding people jobs to do.  Everyday I wake up broke.  Everyday, the market determines my paycheck based on the value I create for my clients.  Every frikkin day.  And I love it.

Anyway.  The guy below seems like a piece of work, but he raises some very valid points about business cards.  The coolest business card anyone ever gave me looked like a real plastic laminated driver's license -- except that it was a "creative license."  Funny.  And I kept it, and later used the company, the owners of which became my personal friends.  I forget how many other business cards from creative-types I have in my top desk drawer.  Dozens.  And that's the point of this post.

On the back of my next business card, I'm going to list the names of (some of) the companies for which I have closed searches ... A&E Television, Adidas, American Signature Brands, Ashford.com, Backcountry.com, Boot Barn.com, Columbia Sportswear, Crutchfield.com, David Weekley Homes, David’s Bridal, Dean & DeLuca, Design Within Reach, DSW Shoes, Golfsmith.com, Kennametal, Magellan’s Travel, Montgomery Ward®, MusiciansFriend.com, Peruvian Connection, PrintingForLess.com, REI.com, Restockit.com, ShopNBC.com, The Thompson Group, Williams-Sonoma, etc.  After all, I'm known by the company I keep.

Jobseekers: Do you have a creative business card that CLEARLY and UNIQUELY transmits your value proposition?  Better get on that.

How to Get an Ecommerce Job

Editor's note:  I first posted this article in Spring, 2007.  For many months it was one of the most frequently read ecommerce articles on this site.  However, due to some formatting problems involving Typepad's new platform, I am forced to republish this article here and now because I wanted to include it in a list called "INTERVIEW PREP" on the right hand side of this blog.  Look right below my LinkedIn badge ...

In case you're wondering, the candidate below DID NOT get this job, and he has asked to remain anonymous.  Whatever.  It was a heroic effort, and there's no accounting for chemistry.  My point in calling this post "How to Get an Ecommerce Job" is that all candidates must prepare this thoroughly to have any real hope of landing a $150K/up ecommerce job.  Currently, the competition for such jobs is incredibly fierce -- and clients are being choosy to the point of indecisive in the face of so many great candidates.  Thorough preparation is the best differentiator.

Many of this candidate's tactics are now standard operating procedure -- and some candidates have actually taken them a step farther.  I'll be discussing some of these techniques in future issues of my newsletter.  Subscribe now.

BOSTON, MA - One of the best things about specializing in direct-to-consumer multichannel retail is that I get to deal with some of the smartest people on earth. Honestly, they're amazing.

There's just so much happening in the multichannel marketing arena, what with all of the changes in the way consumers can discover, buy, and return products: catalog, internet, mobile phone, TV, inbound call centers, retail stores, you name it.

The candidates who deal with these ever-changing marketing and integration challenges are freaking brilliant. But they're clever, too -- and there's a difference.

Example: Three weeks ago I put a candidate in play for a VP of Marketing role with a large multichannel retailer. His first phone interview with the VP of HR was in six days, so I sent the candidate a massive pile of market research on the industry, the company, and its competitors. That's standard for me.  I even offered to set him up on phone calls with industry analysts and vendors who know things about the company -- which he gratefully accepted. That's standard too.

But then he took it a step farther: That night, my candidate Googled several of the company's products to see how they placed in the organic search rankings. Satisfied that all of the queried products appeared on page one of the Google rankings, he proceeded to enter my client's site through their Adwords landing page in the paid search area of the Google results.

For the next 90 minutes, my candidate used a number of Firefox extentions to analyze the site's source code, merchandise selection, and layout. Finally, he ordered eight items from the company's website -- after having built and abandoned two shopping carts during his user session.

Minutes later, a confirmation email arrived stating that all online orders must be changed within two hours. Three hours later, he logged back on to the site to make changes to the order. When he started to have problems, he phoned the call center to complain. The customer service person was as nice as she could be and helped my candidate make the changes. He tried to be a jerk to her, but she managed the conflict with cordial professionalism.

The order shipped out the very next day. Three days later, the order arrived and my candidate ripped open the box and all of its contents. The product was in fine shape, so my candidate used two of the items. He then marched right down to my client's store and abrasively demanded a full refund for the order -- just to see what the retailer would do. Again, he tried to be unreasonable, but the store clerk complied happily with all of his demands.

During the check-out process, my candidate noticed a neat stack of my client's Spring catalogs next to the cash register and he began to reconcile the product numbers in the catalog against those for identical products on his order. They all matched ... In a last ditch effort to crash my client's customer service system, my candidate elected to make a substitution to his order -- accepting a refund for seven of the eight items he bought online, and asking to have the final out-of-stock item in a different color shipped to his house via overnight express.

The very next afternoon, the final item arrived at my candidate's house in excellent shape -- just in time for his phone interview with the VP of Human Resources.

Questions: How much do you think this candidate knew about my client after having gone to such great lengths to crash their multichannel fulfillment system? Do you think this candidate wanted to work for a company that goes to such great lengths to keep its customers happy?

If you answered "A bunch" and "Yes" to the above questions, then you got the point of this post.
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