How to Make the Company CEO Your Best Friend

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This is in response to a recent question an associate recently posed about providing recommendations to potential employers or clients.

As a savvy intrapreneur, your approach is a necessary part of the selling process. References or recommendations are "testimonials" of your skills and business savvy. We can say our skills allow us to walk on water. Testimonials go a long way in holding more weight to address hiring managers' 3 greatest fears.

Testimonials from associates, coworkers and team members become our silent sales force. Each person is selling your skills and enhancing your reputation, without any of them being present. You can never have too many testimonials. I have a very large 3 ring binder with 15 years worth of testimonials, in addition to LinkedIn recommendations.

Testimonials are easy to get. Just listen for the magic words spoken to you by associates, customers, team mates etc., like "I owe you one" "you saved me" or "how can I repay you?".

Testimonials can be formal letters, emails or LinkedIn type. My favorite is what I call the "Power Testimonial". No matter where a person works in an organization, the "Power Testimonial" can create a guardian angel relationship with the CEO and senior executives.

The next time you hear "how can I repay you?" ask the person to write a letter to the CEO of the company about their satisfaction with your services [and they copy you on the letter]. A reference letter will trickle down the chain of command faster, than a reference letter trickling up, if it is sent to your manager. This is an excellent marketing technique for getting senior management to know who you are and what you actually do. Repeating this process makes for your own built in marketing newsletter to senior executives.

P.S. - hand deliver a copy of every "Power Testimonial" or any company related recommendation [even if it is an email] to Human Resources for submission into your personal file. When things get hairy (i.e. who gets cut?), those recommendations can make that little extra difference between life and death. You can also reach out to your guardian angels, since they now know who you are.



Posted On 4/03/2011 by Carl E. Reid