Pamela Slim
speaker
78 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Oct 2024
last heard Oct 2024
Pamela Slim’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And I've been for about the past 20 years working in the world of business, always on the human side. And as early as the 90s, I was noticing trends as we started to see more waves of layoffs and reorganizations. But I think things really started to pick up steam, especially in 2008, when we all experienced the a huge economic catastrophe that really rallied around the globe.
And what was interesting to me as somebody who has worked in and studied the world of work for so long is it felt like there was something that kind of permanently etched reality in all of our minds, which said even huge institutions that we thought would never fail can fail. And that which we consider to be even a solid, respectable career is not really anything that we can count on.
So there's a part of the message, I think, that is just acknowledging the reality. I've always been a very pragmatic optimist where I like to look at the reality and say, truly, as Individual business owners, we can't count on the market staying the same as we've seen through a number of different economic downturns.
As corporate employees, we can't count on our organization to stay the same or our customer base or positions. But when we know that, then we can do specific things to actually make ourselves better.
indispensable and highly employable, whether we're redeployed within our own organizations when change does happen, or to also be a person if you do end up being laid off that you're highly flexible and you can quickly get another job or have other kinds of business opportunities. And I always say it's by force or by choice.
Being somebody who's been a coach for a long time, I work with a lot of people who are choosing to make a career transition or choosing to start a business or to move up in an organization. But I think given the unstable nature of the economy and of organizations, more and more people will have that path. And so we really do need a new way of looking at our careers.
That was really the driving force behind writing body of work is I found I've worked in just about every work mode you can imagine. I've been in the nonprofit sector. I've, uh, you know, run a nonprofit as a volunteer. I worked in corporate. I've been an entrepreneur. I've been a stay at home mom. And, uh,
You know, I find that really the way that we can actually, you know, create a strong sense of always being employable is by the narrative that we tell. And if we're looking at the general narrative, which is have you been a stable person, which means that you've been in one organization for a long time. Now, again, even if you want to do that, it's not necessarily possible.
So you need to constantly be retelling yourself.
story about who you are and what your strengths are and what valuable things that you've contributed the really good side to this equation is as one side of the new world of work is instability the other side is an amazing opportunity that we have for doing all kinds of different work and on the personal branding side we have so many tools now that allow us to tell our stories in compelling ways through things like blogs or social media
our own websites, I think we have a lot more capacity to create a cohesive story about ourselves than we ever did in the past.
salespeople are kind of classically known for switching companies. What is your opinion on that? Do you think it's negative to be switching all the time?
Yeah, I think there's two things. The first is, for my definition of body of work, it's really as you look at the course of your life, what are all the things that you really want to create, contribute, affect, and impact? That's the one decision that you would make is really what is that body of work that you want to create based on things that are really important to you
Using your skills and your strengths. And so with that as a definition, I don't just mean concrete things like helping to build organizations through sales, which is a hugely important skill set, which salespeople have. But it's also in what are the intangible ways in which you affect the world? How are you as a parent, as a community member?
as a spouse, you know, what are you really contributing? What's your emotional wake that you leave as you really walk through the world? And is it something that you feel proud of and that you really leave as a legacy? So when you think about it from that perspective, to move around or not move around, to me, it's really addressed by why. And sometimes,
you can be pursuing what seems to be the next great opportunity. I really was fortunate. I spent about three years with a client who had a sales training business. So I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of salespeople who I think happened to be some of the most interesting, flexible, positive people. I really like it. I love the skill set. I love the fact that the skill set
is really flexible and that you do have to get enthusiastic and care about what you're doing. Really infuse yourself in a culture, in a company, in order to be able to really sell effectively. And so it is the kind of skill set of any, I think, that are out there. that can be really effective to be moving in different places.
But my question would be, are you just jumping to what seems to be the next great opportunity because of maybe a financial outcome? Or are you conscious about what it is that you want to create? So for example, you might be somebody who works in tech
who gets really excited about helping early-stage entrepreneurs create a solid foundation for their business and to get sales moving in the early stage. So in that case, maybe you're just working for an organization to get them up to that stage, develop the capacity of the internal folks to sell more effectively and hire other people, and then you're ready to go on to the next challenge.
And especially if you would tie... that particular technology to one that you're passionate about, right? The same thing could be true where you might be selling a service that you're really passionate about, some kind of health-related service or artistic pursuit. I think that's the beautiful thing is with a sales, you know, a selling skill set,
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