You lost your out of home sales job – now what? I can speak from experience because I’ve been fired twice in my career. I will tell you they were the two worst days in my professional life.  If you’re feeling at the bottom of the barrel on this day, you’re in good company.   You need to determine why you lost your job and this requires brutal honesty.  You need to look to your spouse and the network of people you know well and convince them to be brutally honest with you about why you lost your job. There are reasons that are yours and there are reasons that are beyond your control.

Downsizing is out of your control.  I would also include your company being taken over by another company.  They simply don’t need you anymore.

The other reason; you blew it.  The first termination of my career, I blew it. I was new to the workforce and I thought I knew more than the people that ran the business. The day that I got fired, I got an MBA in street smarts. I learned more in that day than several years leading up to that point.  I learned that if I’m so smart and if I’m so good why don’t I just go get another job and leave this organization behind. I also learned the golden rule that he who has the gold makes the rules.  If I’m not willing to do what they want me to do and the way they want me to do it, I owe it to them to get out of there.

Let’s say you’re part of downsizing.  Here’s the brutal truth, if a company has to downsize, they don’t fire their “A” players or even their “B” players.  They look to get rid of “C”, “D” and “F” players. You really have to have incredible honesty with yourself about it.

You get paid twice when you work for someone else. You get a paycheck, and you also get the training and career advancement your company provides you.  If you’re sitting there today unemployed, you still have the training, expertise, and the experience you gained in that job.  They can’t take that away from you. Package it up and use it to get your next job.

I will tell you that when I was looking to leave radio, I was casting as wide a net as I could. A good friend of mine, a person I’d worked with on a number of OOH/radio deals said, “why don’t you consider out of home.”   I’d never considered it.  I thought about it for a day talked to my wife and it led to a very successful and fulfilling sales career.

For every $10,000 you want to make, it will take you about a month of job searching. That means if you want a job that pays you $100,000 a year, be prepared for 10 months of searching. You should use that as your benchmark.

The other thing I would say is (this isn’t easy) don’t settle. The second time I was terminated I settled, and it didn’t go well for me.  There were many red flags that I ignored going into the job. If you have to settle, be conscious of that, make the best of it, and implement a strong plan to move on ASAP.

Young job seekers start and end with LinkedIn 

Finding a job involves meeting people in person.  It involves understanding their companies and understanding how you’re a good fit. You just can’t do that by simply pinging back and forth on LinkedIn.  I’ve never gotten a job through traditional channels.  It’s always been through my network.  I will say though if you want to use LinkedIn, please include a compelling benefit headline on your profile of why they should hire you.

An OOH sales training program for $74.95 per rep! Leading OOH sales organizations have adopted “The Ultimate Out of Home Sales Guide” as a 35+ segment sales training regime:

• Comprehensive, sequential sales training chapters
• Designed for regular sales training/meetings in 30+ minutes each
• Proven, actionable sales strategies and ideas; providing a huge return on training investment
• No travel cost/minimal sales time lost
• Q&A access/support with Kevin Gephart throughout the training to clarify/expand on the teachings

OOH sales organizations find huge value in learning from an OOH sales pro who has “been there, done that.”  See Kevin Gephart’s credentials at OOHSalesFaster.com.

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