How to Decide When a Sales and Marketing Job is for You

Today I had a 45 minute conversation with a very senior sales and marketing leader who wanted my advice regarding her decision on whether or not to take a VP of Sales and Marketing job at a leading company in the technology space. I spent time walking through her decision criteria and helping her to work to a conclusion on this subject. One of the key things that came out of our discussion was she was having serious trepidation about whether or not this particular job was a good fit with her career goals. While she liked many attributes of the job, she wasn’t really excited about it, and so we talked a lot about why this particular position was not something that sparked her passion. At the end of our discussion, I said, “I’m going to let you make this decision on your own, but my advice to you is that if you are right up against the edge on whether or not to take a job opportunity, even if it’s highly compensated like this one is, if the answer is “maybe,” then it should be “no.”

The reason why, is if you’re not completely passionate about an opportunity, you’re not really excited about the prospects of joining the company, and if you’re not visualizing exactly how you can make a difference to help the company grow it’s top-line revenues and transform itself, why would you settle for just another “job?”

The most precious thing you have as a career-minded professional is your time, and how you decide to devote it. We spend most of our waking hours working, and if we aren’t excited about the work that we’re doing, if we aren’t passionate, if we don’t feel the drive ignited within us when we go to work every day, the only question I have is, “Why are we doing it?”

So if you are faced with the hard decision about whether or not to accept a job offer, whether or not it’s the only job offer you have, my advice to you is, if the answer is “maybe,” and if you’re not totally excited about the opportunity, then pass. Pass and keep looking for that special career move that’s going to get your juices flowing, ignite your passion and get you totally committed and totally jazzed about how you’re spending your day. That’s something worth working for, and that’s a hell of a lot more than just a job.