A Cat Amongst the Pigeons

One of my methods to grow the body of knowledge on how to define, locate, negotiate and close work with businesses and corporations is ask Alexscovery teachers of their own experiences.

Lindsay Newitter is a teacher who has been a cat amongst the pigeons: being both the corporate employee and the AT teacher in their midst.

Her story is so interesting, I am publishing her reply in full:

***

Hi Jeremy,

When I really think about it, relative to the number of interactions I've had with companies, I've had a much higher percentage of yes's compares to no's and when it hasn't worked out, I haven't found myself wondering what I did wrong.

Maybe I should wonder, maybe not.

Another thing to note is that none of the corporate work I have been getting hasn't come my way through me making an initial pitch. Rather HR or someone in the administrative side of things sought me out. In some cases the relationship initiated through a referral from inside or outside of the company.

In regards to the ones that haven't worked out, I've felt disappointment, but what happened made sense to me. I do worry about the worrier... the proposals I send out start by talking about postural issues leading to musculoskeletal injury and poor morale... addressing from the get-go how what I'm offering can help affect the bottom line.

I worked for a company for a tech company part-time for 10 years during my AT training and afterwards and issues such as frequent turnover of employees (leading to losing your contact), defensive HR folks, and the phenomenon of funds being available in relation to how the budget is set up at the beginning of the year rather than how much $ the company must have based on their industry and how successful they seem all seem par for the course.

I remember counting pennies planning holiday parties for our small (yet very profitable) NYC branch office while the corporate headquarters provided unlimited snacks to their employees on a daily basis. Our NYC branch office had gone through a merger and acquisition before being acquired by a bigger company that was consumer-product oriented. Our division, a small business-to-business operation, generated high profits and served as a "cash cow" for the acquiring company's aspirations of developing more consumer products...

what I'm getting at is assuming that a company has the funds for what you offer based their industry may not be the case.

I was the office manager of that NYC branch and I served the ad-hoc HR rep, paralegal, and facilities contact. I was the person to get past if you wanted to get in the door and there was very likely no getting in the door unless I was the one reaching out.

If you had asked me about reaching out to my company I would have suggested that you not waste a second of your time.

That said, our office got workspace evaluations and education on posture/use and sitting at your desk all at no extra charge because I was on staff and a new AT teacher eager to try stuff out. To boot the manager of the development team had a former career as a dancer/choreographer and was a big AT fan who had worked with Marjorie Barstow, so whenever he heard a complaint about back pain, neck pain and such, he'd refer the folks on his team to me for private lessons (outside of work, which they paid for) and one of the VPs got on board and took lessons as well when she got on a self-improvement kick...but there was no company budget for this sort of thing.

So, there was certainly interest, but no budget. Our branch was lucky if we got to order pizza once a month and after I'd worked there for about 7 years, we finally replaced the second hand conference room chairs that we'd all be using at our desks with actual task chairs.

When stuff hasn't worked out in my quest for more corporate work, it hasn't surprised me and I haven't taken it personally. The question I'm asking myself now is how valuable it would be to start pitching regularly... and if so, my goal would be locating the low-hanging-fruit and avoiding wasting time with companies like the one I worked as an office manager for.

***

Terrific insider story.

And the first step - dear Lindsay and all of Chancer's readers - is not "to start pitching regularly" - although you will need to do that - it's to starting thinking:

- WHO to pitch to?

- WHERE can you find then?

- WHAT do you say?

Answers to that coming up in my London course, and later Online. I haven't forgotten the rest of the world, but if you are in London, Online can't replace the live experience.

You're an Alexscovery teacher - you know that!

Come to London.

https://bodychance.mykajabi.com/p/london1803workshop

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