Tag Archives: Partners in Crime

Career Change does a body good

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I’ve been blessed to learn and cultivate a particular set of skills, skills I’ve acquired over the course of my career.

I’ve always wanted to say that.

Actually, it would be cool if I were a former spy like Liam Neeson in Taken, but the skills I’m talking about won’t help me take out violent criminals single-handedly. Instead, they’ve helped me survive layoffs and do well in six industries and disciplines. In about 17 years, I’ve worked in retail management, finance, pricing, marketing, and product management. I’ve also written my first book in a murder mystery series.

Lots of younger professionals (20’s – 30’s) ask me how I transitioned through multiple career paths. Those that ask me usually seek a career that is more fulfilling. Therefore, I thought I’d share a few things I learned. If you find yourself in this situation, I hope you find this useful.

Figure out exactly what you want to do

Hopefully, you’ll already know this, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it. We only live so long, so you don’t have time to taste-test a thousand options. Research your targeted choice and interview folks already in it. Make sure you really want to try it. You don’t want to waste years getting into something only to end up hating it.

Understand and build your transferable skills

I jumped from retail banking to financial management to marketing. Although the roles are different, all require strong analytical capability. I cultivated that skill and positioned it as an asset for each role.

Let’s say you sell used cars but want to work in product management one day. Start by determining the basic skills required for success in each role. Suppose one is understanding and meeting customer needs.  Another one may be influencing buying behavior. If you build on those skills and can demonstrate them, you’ll make a huge leap in including yourself among the candidates in your targeted career.

Remember that skills can be learned. Although I majored in marketing, I ended up working in finance because I couldn’t get a marketing job when I graduated. I had to learn how to be analytical and look at the big picture because I sure didn’t do much of that in the beginning of my career.

Network

This is obvious but is even more critical when you’re switching careers. You’ll be an unproven commodity in your new field. Building connections is key to convincing someone to give you a shot. Also consider joining Toastmasters to brush up on your public speaking; the ability to network and present and convey ideas will open doors everywhere.

Offer yourself on a trial period

Some people apply for jobs outside of their field, don’t establish relationships, but expect to command top dollar without working their way up. That’s ridiculous. Instead, find someone in your new field and offer to assist them with a project—for free. Or join a cross-functional project team at work to gain exposure. If people don’t have to pay you, they’re more likely to bring you in, show you the ropes, and give you valuable insight. I’ve landed a couple of jobs this way.

Understand it will take time

Everybody wants everything now. Life doesn’t work like that for most of us. Things take time, even for things where we feel we’re a natural fit.

I love writing—and yet, it still took me about nine years to write and publish my first book. It also cost a lot (i.e., attending writer’s conferences, paying copy editors, paying for promotional tactics, etc.)

Hopefully, it won’t take you as long to start your new career as it did for me to write my novel. Just understand that this effort usually isn’t overnight. Your career path might resemble a line dance; you’ll have to take a step forward, one step back, and two to the side before moving forward again.

But as long as each step puts you closer to your goal, you’ll keep acquiring those valuable sets of skills that will place you where you want to be.

Will Write for Food (but if you’ve got extra publicity, I’ll take that, too)

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Before I published my first book last month, every published author told me that writing the novel is the easy part. The hard part is promoting it. It hasn’t taken me long to see that. And it wasn’t a surprise; I knew that going in.

Although my non-writer friends say I can be discovered by Oprah or a big-time Hollywood producer (“you just never know”, they tell me), I don’t expect to get that phone call anytime soon. There are a million books published each year. Behind every one of those books is a writer like me, fighting to be noticed. We’re like addicts, searching for reviews, referrals, and publicity to give us that next high. So when I hear my friends’ optimistic musings, I just smile, thank them for their positive attitude, and go back to working on my promotions platform and continuing to build awareness one reader at a time. That’s the journey facing every writer or entrepreneur starting a business. We just want to get noticed.

But there is a powerful force that drowns out our voices. It’s insatiable. It’s unstoppable. And it’s intensifying every day. What is it?

It’s the proliferation of silliness, stupidity, scandalous behavior, and “rachetness” (or whatever you want to call it) in traditional and social media. People are now famous just for being famous or stupid. Broken English, talking ‘country’, or crazy slang has become the default way of speaking for people who should know better. Outrageous behavior is glorified. And when everyone is inundated with things screaming for attention, absurdity is what gets noticed.

We writers and entrepreneurs know it can take years of constant work to gain traction for our publicity efforts. We know this is a marathon, not a sprint. But when a silly video or Facebook meme goes viral in 15 minutes, I start wondering how we can make this unstoppable force work for us.

How about I post a video of someone in a thong, twerking with my book and reading my blog at the same time? That will get some publicity! Or what if a business owner creates a Facebook meme that shows someone screaming obscenities while using his product? Better yet, if he takes a screen shot of a real celebrity or a child actor and attributes some silly and obviously untrue quote to the person, people will toss and share that baby around like a Frisbee! Instant viral publicity!  

Luckily, I have a friend who is also trying to drum up awareness for her business. She is a voice of reason and talked me off the ledge. That’s why she’s good at what she does. I had to remind myself that we can’t forget our niche audience for the sake of getting fast eyeballs on our books or products. Good things are built over the long haul, not in 15 minutes. So I commit to building my platform the legitimate way, one reader at a time. No twerking, obscenities, or silly stuff for me.

I just tell myself to be patient and keep the faith over time.

Even if Oprah doesn’t call me in the next 10 minutes…

Write about what you DON’T know

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Every writer has heard the adage: write about what you know. It’s sound advice. It gives your words confidence and credibility.

But what if you want to go beyond your expertise? I’ve met aspiring writers who want to do this, but they limit their scope to what they do for a living. As a result, they get stuck figuring out how and where to start exploring new territory. This isn’t a problem for everyone, but if you’re glued to the starting blocks, I’d like to help.

Over the next few posts, I’ll share some things to keep in mind as you dive into writing something new. These insights helped me with my first novel, Partners in Crime. After reading it, people who don’t know me usually think I’m a cop. Yet, I’ve never been in law enforcement. They ask me how I captured the emotions of a homicide detective and vivid forensic details without living in it every day. Here was my first step:

Read and accumulate data

This screams “no-brainer”, but many people don’t do enough of it. Fiction must read as truthful as non-fiction. So if you include a terribly inaccurate detail in your story (such as having a positive DNA match convict someone years before DNA was actually used), readers will hate you. Okay, they might not really hate you. But you’d better believe someone will know you’re wrong and you’ll lose credibility.

  • Comb through the internet, articles, and reference materials

For Partners in Crime, I studied forensic investigation, reviewed Georgia statutes, ordered criminal law textbooks, and even watched autopsies online. But how did I know what I needed to research, if I never worked as a homicide detective?

It’s an easy answer but not an easy task. Let’s say you want to write a legal thriller with corporate espionage, but you know nothing about that world. You can just start with Google search terms, such as “legal information” or “corporate espionage”, and you’ll find information about trademark and patent laws, sites with free legal information like http://www.nolo.com, actual examples of companies stealing secrets and how they did it, etc.

Easy? Yes, but the key is to keep searching, to keep reviewing things beyond the first page of results, and to keep tumbling down that rabbit hole. This generates more questions and subjects to investigate. You’ll come across things you never considered but need to know. In another post, I’ll talk about actually finding people you need to meet, but before that happens, you need your facts. Folks are more likely to help if you’ve done your work.

  • Prepare for the long haul

It took me almost eight years to complete my book and I had to discipline myself to research even minor details for the entire time. Some days, I spent 100% of my writing time on it. In fact, I gathered data for months before I even started the book. Depending on your subject, your data will likely change from when you first reviewed it to when you write about it. For that legal thriller, you’ll need to be up-to-date with the law if your story is set in the present day. So don’t expect to surf Google for a couple of hours and think that’s enough.

  •  See what other writers are doing

You should be reading other books in your genre already. It will help you understand what works and what doesn’t.

  •  Don’t go 100% Hollywood

Never rely solely on movies or television. While they can be good resources, they’re notorious for fudging real-life authenticity to appease audiences. If you want to write about things outside of your realm, you’ll need to be as authentic as possible to stay credible to readers.

The more data you come across, the more it sparks those creative ideas for your story. These are just things I’ve found helpful. For those who’ve broken through their boundaries, what are some things you’ve found helpful when gathering data?