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A simple but counterintuitive hack for standing out.
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You're the average of the five podcast shows you listen to the most.
Learn to run your business well with the SI a business show where our hosts have their fun nuts. Most interviews, entrepreneurs, marketers and speakers of all colors and creeds revealing their biggest secrets and lousiest mistakes.
episodes where I'm going to speak to you about you know, less,
less technical matters and and you know, something which is maybe you know, based on like a personal experience, something lighthearted, something casual. So for this episode, I want to share something with you which I had
A long time ago, way back when I was living in Sweden and Denmark, and it's about
how important it is to be innovative in your approach to
different things. And the reason I talk to you about this is that
right after I did my MBA in Sweden, I, you know, I bought up a job as a corporate sales executive, and I was very bad at it.
Part of the reason was my complete lack of confidence, and part of the reason was the fact that I think I was not very comfortable with the, you know,
the very, you know, aggressive salesy approach of the of the company,
and the fact that we had to, you know, apply fake urgency and stuff like that. So
anyway, I left that job.
like six months and like I said, I was very bad at it. So I had like one sale one pretty decent sale, which was like, I think 34,000 euros worth of corporate hospitality package that I sold. So anyway, the point is that right after I did that,
I started looking for another job
and pretty much right away and I was completely unsuccessful at finding another job in Sweden.
I did get like, consulting project where I helped
a local IT company, complete a project meant for a Swedish University, one of the best universities I actually had the honor of studying there a bit as well.
Anyway,
other than that project, I was, you know, basically a complete complete failure.
at finding a job, what I was doing is that I would
one thing, which was, quote unquote, a little innovative, although I think it was not very smart to do that was that I would find the CEOs email address of various companies whose job ads I would see.
And I would apply for a job there. Right.
And I was, you know, I had basically, you know, maybe a couple of
interviews that I was called for, but otherwise I had no job offers no, no, you know, no interest or anything.
Then I moved to Denmark because, you know, I just
it's a long story why I moved here from Sweden, but basically, Sweden has a more at least at that time, they sorry, Denmark had a more
welcoming policy for for immigrants and for highly skilled
for professionals and all that, so so I got into Denmark before my Swedish visa expired. And when I got there, I again started to look for a job. But I was again a failure there.
I did find an all job. But obviously, you know, the odd job was just to basically
make both ends meet. And I was I was to be honest, I was not even able to keep that or job for for more than a couple of days even though I had done that or job in Sweden for a very long time. And the reason I was not able to
continue it is something that maybe I will speak about in that episode.
So anyway, I was sending my CVS
to, you know, different companies and sending it to CEOs of the companies and I was getting nowhere. So then what I did was that basically I
thought of something different. Okay. And this is where this episode gets interesting. Okay, so what I did was that I, there is a
pretty famous Yellow Pages website in Scandinavia.
I believe it's in more than one Scandinavian countries, I'm sure it's there in Denmark and Sweden scores in Europe. So in Sweden, it's in edo.sc, I believe and for Denmark, it's in euro DK. So anyway, I opened that directory and I look for all the local companies which were, you know, relevant to the some manners, you know, maybe it companies, software companies, stuff like that. And I started calling them okay, so I started calling them
because in you know, dot.dk basically had the contact details as well right. But because our
was just completely broke. I had like no money, I believe I was actually, I that was like one of the couple of times in my life when when I was under under debt as well, I had borrowed some money from a friend.
So I had no money. And what I did was that I purchased a Skype phone number. And when you have a Skype land buy number, which, you know, almost like maybe, you know, $5 or $6 a month or something like that.
And the benefit of getting that line line number is that I was able to call all Danish landlines for free, okay, so, you know, for something like five or $6 a month, I was able to call all Danish landline numbers for free and that's what I was doing. I was calling all the companies using Skype and you know, I would let them know who I was and what were my key skills were and you know,
I was interested in
discussing if I could be a good fit for the company and all that, to be honest, I was not as half as eloquent as I am right now. So probably the way I was pitching by myself as a employee was pretty bad. Like,
quite bad, but but
I was, you know, continuing continuing with it, and I would, I am actually not sure how long I did it. Maybe like for a week or so, you know, full day on the phone, and maybe like a week or something like that. But, you know, I got very
I, you know, I started to get the, get the hang of it, and I started to get better at it, I believe. And the funny thing is that,
um, the point that I want to make is, is it's not just about innovation. It's not just about you know,
Hey, I did this innovative thing and you know, you should also do something innovative, right?
innovative is innovation is good, but but
what
I want to
mention other than the
factor about innovation is that, you know, the, my,
my, some of some of my acquaintances who were seeing what I was doing, you know, a couple of guys who were living with me in my apartment and maybe some other people as well, they were, you know, extremely negative about my approach. So they would keep on telling me that, hey, this is this is not going to they would laugh at me and they would criticize me and, you know, basically they did everything to you know, discourage me, they would be like, you know, you need someone who knows you and who can vote for you, you need a reference.
You know, this is no way to find a job and this you're not never going to succeed in on that and within one week, I got an interview call and
I got a job offer very quickly. It was not a multinational company, it was nothing very huge or anything for someone but but for someone who was, you know, completely broke and who had been unemployed for months while living in an, in a very expensive region
of the world. Scandinavia is very expensive. Stockholm is very expensive. Copenhagen is very expensive. According to the various, you know, most expensive city lists. Typically, Stockholm and Copenhagen are right there at the top among, you know, maybe top three or top five or top 10 cities, right, depending on I guess what factors they use and all that. So for someone like me to be able to get a job which was in some in you know, which was which was more close to my heart, which was closer to my heart and then the previous job that I had, right
and, and, and something
Which I paid
a decent amount of money, not a lot of money, but I was able to save. And I was able to, you know, live a better life. So the thing is that, despite whatever my friends said, I was able to get that job. And even when I got that job, I still wanted to be an entrepreneur, which is something that I wanted since a very long time. And I had
I have had a few strengths as an entrepreneur, I never was in a loss, but I never did anything substantial. Until then, when it within within entrepreneurship, right. Until them so so. But the point is that as soon as I got that job, I moved out of the apartment that I was living in. And one of the reasons was because
the couple of people that I was living with were, you know, extremely negative and pessimistic in their approach.
And so when I was leaving, and they
asked me, you know why you're leaning in on that? And I said, You know, I got the job. So I was so angry with them that when they asked me how much the salary was, I basically told them double the amount that I was actually getting. Just see the look on their face, you know, I know, it's not a very nice thing to do, but I was just so pissed off at them for for months and months of mental torture and all the disturbances and all the good behavior and negative behavior that I had experienced due to them. So you know, I just told them double the amount that I was getting, just to see that look on their faces. And, you know, it was basically priceless, you know, I just loved it. And I moved to a better place I started to work at and I moved to a better place and I started to work at this other, this new job and
thankfully, I was actually also able to get a job
in an American company
where I was working, basically, you know, a couple of hours
Every month remotely and typically I would be able to do that job with just just my cell phone right.
So that was a good time it was a very busy very hectic time I had basically these two jobs I would be cooking all my own food and I would be you know obviously doing my own laundry and shopping and everything obviously.
For those who are not from the east this may come as a bit of a surprise but here in the East usually most in most households You know, there are multiple family members and and there may be you know, maybe a servant or two servants or maids and stuff so
for middle a lot of the middle class families it can be a bit trickier for for someone to be taken care of all of these things that I just mentioned, you know, cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, grocery shopping and everything right. So I was doing all of that and and it was a very busy time, I still remember that I would enjoy
The 24 hours that I had every day I was able to do something
other than you know, work in the errands etc I had just like one hour for myself right just like one hour only. But
I am very
grateful that I was able to believe in myself and despite despite what my
roommates and apartment mates
repeatedly told me I was able to go ahead and and try something different because I was tired of you know, sending my CV everywhere and getting no responses and you know, the reason one of the reason this works is that most of the companies they would be getting like you know, tons of resumes and CVS every single day. So I think when you do something out of the ordinary when you know maybe you call them or you know, one of one of my friends from, from from from UK
She would actually visit the companies that she wanted to work at in person, and she would sit there and she would basically, you know, make sure that she gets to meet the, the hiring manager or, or or, you know, whoever she wanted to meet the decision makers and that's how she would get a job. I was not that confident at that time. I don't know if I'm now that confident or not, I'm not looking for a job, thankfully. But anyways, the point is that you want to do something, you know, something different, right? Something that makes you stand out. And I think that's what personal branding is about, as well that you want to do something which is different, but not, you know, not too different. Something maybe a bit crazy or weird, but not too crazy or too weird. So that you can stand out. Again, I'm not saying you should do something, you know, like really crazy or something. You don't even have to do anything crazy. But the point is that in order to stand out from the crowd, you have to
Make sure that you use some kind of a smart methodology to really stand out in the crowd. And it can help you in your life with regards to finding a good job with regards to getting good business teams.
It can also get you good funding, maybe it can get you ideal business partners, maybe even you know,
maybe you can use it to attract top talent for your company. So, yeah, that's it for today. This is a little ramble that I started while driving my car. And now I have reached where I wanted to reach and I've stopped the car, but
this is it and let me know what you think about it. Thank you.
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