Back in 2008, I started a new job as one of 10 sales people. The company, Citrix, was the largest company I had ever worked for. It had thousands of sales people and over 7000 employees worldwide. Prior to this, I’d always worked in small companies where I was the only sales person. Often, my team was me, a tech and the owner. I called my old friend Fraser who has worked for a large corporation to ask him how to navigate working in this new (to me) environment. He gave me this advice,
You don’t have to be the best and the brightest in a big company to stand out. All you need to do is be 1% better than your peers and you will will rise to the top.
Fraser was right. I just did what I already knew how to do, paid attention and worked hard to make sales. Through hard work, good timing and supportive management, I moved up through the ranks in the company from entry level sales rep to running a team of over 200 sales employees within 4 years.
Throughout my entire life, I always wanted to do a great job.
- In school, A’s were not enough, I worked to get all 100%s.
- As a delivery guy (pre-GPS days), I memorized maps, buildings, streets and customer addresses.
- When I did computer support, my nights and weekends were consumed with reading, testing solutions and honing my skills.
- As a sales guy, in my off times, I practiced my pitches, read 100s of sales books, developed presentations and studied the best performers to copy their approaches.
I’m wired this way. As my Grandpa used to say, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.”
So the other day I had a tech at my home to install Google fiber. He did a decent job – technically. He installed the jack, made sure my internet was working and cleaned up the small mess he made inside when drilling. The phone thing was weird, but I’ve discussed that elsewhere.
After he left, I went outside to check out the exterior installation. There was trash thrown on the ground – a few snippets of wire, some plastic that the parts had been packaged in and some scraps of paper. The NID box locking bolt also had not been tightened down.
I cleaned up the detritus and tightened the bolt. It took me less than a minute.
It doesn’t to much to shine above minimally acceptable.
In the case of this installer, he could have done this simply by getting off of his phone and spending 30 seconds cleaning up outside.
For whatever reason, he didn’t.
But he did make sure to ask me to give him a high rating if I was contacted to do a Customer Satisfaction Survey.
And you know what, since I find those surveys and they way they a weaponized against employees to be abhorrent, if I get contacted, he’ll get a good review from me. I would hate for him to lose a bonus because he did an acceptable, just not extraordinary job.
But, if he was working for me, I’d instead try to teach him how to be 1% better than his peers, and then maybe he could outshine everyone else.