Dick Satterfield | Could I, Would I, Should I Leave? - A Career Management Discussion

0:00The CMO Confidential Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit IHearEverything.com. Welcome to CMO Confidential, the podcast that takes you inside the drama, decisions, and choices that go with being the head of marketing. Hosted by five-time CMO Mike Linton. Welcome marketers, advertisers, and those who love them to Chief Marketing Officer Confidential. CMO Confidential is a program that takes you inside the drama, the decisions, and the politics that go with being the head of marketing at any company in what is one of the most scrutinized jobs in the executive suite.

0:55I'm Mike Linton, the former Chief Marketing Officer of Best Buy, eBay, Farmers Insurance, and Ancestry.com, here today with my guest, Dick Satterfield. Today's Topic, Could I, Would I, Should I Leave? A Career Management Discussion. Now, Dick is a former Procter & Gamble sales manager who founded his own search firm over 25 years ago. Satterfield Renzenbrink Associates specializes in C-level searches, including marketing, sales, and finance. During the course of his career, he has placed hundreds of executives, but he has also provided career advice to thousands of leaders, including me. He's also a rabid Purdue basketball fan, having played there while in college, so all I have to say to that is, go Duke.

1:50So, welcome, Dick. Thanks, Mike. Hey, all right, Dick, first question. Give us an overview of how people should be thinking of their careers. And what's the right way to think about career progression? Because it's obviously not when you're halfway through or done. Give us some tips here. Well, the first question I thought you were going to ask me was how did Duke do against Purdue in basketball last year in the Phil Knight Classic? But since you didn't ask that, I'll answer the question. I'm going to let that go. You know, I think I'm going to have a little bit of a theme here. And one of the themes is, are you successful and happy?

2:33And there are a lot of successful business people that aren't happy. There are a lot of happy business people that aren't successful. So if you happen to be successful and happy, you're very lucky. But what do I mean by that? So let's first of all, let's talk about, are you happy? Do you like the company that you work for? Do you like the people that you work with? Do you like the scope of your responsibilities? Do you feel like you have good work-life balance? Those are all things that determine whether you are happy. Are you successful? So success is different for everybody. But in general, are you achieving your goals?

3:19Do you have, are you working for the kind of company you want to work for? Are you working with the kind of people you want to work for? Is your job giving you the scope of responsibility you want? Are you getting compensated the way you want? Those are all things to determine if you're successful. But that's the big question you always have to ask yourself. Am I successful and happy? So that's a really good frame. And I really like that. But one of the things about success is it's so contextual. like how do you know i mean one of the reasons a lot of people call you is you want to know am i am i progressing really well am i getting paid fairly am i getting the responsibility i need because there's no roadmap for a lot of these jobs how do you get the context for successful in particular because happy happy i think people understand successful though is harder yeah and you know that's a great question as it relates to the success and your career progressing that is the number one thing that determines your viability as an outside candidate is your career progression so for example when we are any of the people that work with me when we look at resumes we don't look to see what their accomplishments were we look to see how often they were promoted because if they were promoted that means they had to be getting significant accomplishments.

4:44If they weren't promoted, that means they weren't getting significant accomplishments, no matter what it says on your resume. So we look very closely at career progression, which we define as promotions. Because a lot of people, and there's also a lot of companies that will promote you in place. And you're doing the same job as an associate director, and then you're a director, and then you're a VP, and they give you one person. Are those real promotions or are those fake promotions? Those are real promotions. We don't see as many of those now as we used to. I know exactly what you're saying. But generally speaking, what we consider promotion is when your scope of responsibility increases.

5:33There's just not many times now where people get a promotion that's not increasing their scope of responsibility. Got it. So one of the things you get, people always want people management, and then they give them one person to supervise. That is, in your mind, a real promotion, or is that a fake one? That would be a quasi-fake. Quasi-fake one, because it's like, yeah, it's just an extension of you when you're managing one person. Right. Okay, so let's go to the theme of the show. I think that is great framework to roll out the show. So the first real question in this would be, okay, you've got your resume, you've got your career, you've got all this.

6:14Could I, as in, could I actually leave? Now, while it's probably true that most people can quit, isn't there times when it's too early or too late to actually leave? And this is on the, could I even leave? Absolutely, yes. And I'm glad that you framed the question that way because it can be too early. And my definition of when it's too early, if you're currently working for a good company, you're working for a pretty good boss, but most importantly, you're still really learning. It's probably too early to leave. When's it too late to leave? I think it's too late to leave when leaving would disrupt your family situation.

7:06And I primarily mean location. You know, a lot of people say, well, you know, I'll just commute. Well, there's three things that you must be able to have in place if you're going to have a successful commute. Number one, is it a definable timeframe? If it's a definable timeframe, let's just say that you have a child that's a junior or senior in high school. You know you're only gonna have to commute for a specified time. The second thing is, are you in the same time zone? And the third thing is, do you have a direct flight? If you have all those things in place, there's a possibility that a commute can work.

7:52And certainly we know with COVID, there is confusion right now as to whether you need to be in a workplace, don't need to be in a workplace. Although what I am seeing is that there is less and less flexibility on doing things remotely. At a minimum, you have to do them in a hybrid. But if it's going to disrupt your family situation, it's probably too late. So I want to ask two little follow-ups. How do I know when my learning has slowed down enough for me to consider leaving? Because all the companies, if I'm doing a good job, even if they're going to leave me in place and give me quasi-fake promotions, they're going to tell me I'm learning stuff.

8:34How do I know I'm really learning stuff? Very simply, when you're starting to do the same task day in, day out, same projects day in, day out, may have a little bit of a change. That's when your learning curve is stopped. So if I'm doing the annual plan for the fourth time, there's probably not so much learning in it for me. You're not learning much anymore. Yeah, got it. And then one other thing about too late. You said when it disrupts the family thing, but what if I stay in one job too long? Is that too late as well? Like I've done this one job for, been with one company for many, many years.

9:11No, it's not. But it's going to be more and more difficult because again, remember we talked about earlier, we're going to be looking at how rapidly your progression is. And if you've been in the same job for a number of years, then the natural tendency is, well, this person doesn't have the ability to handle broader responsibilities, or they would have been given those in the past. Yeah, and there's one other thing that I think, having been in Silicon Valley for a while, there's also, are you too inflexible to learn a new thing because you've only been experienced with one culture and one way of doing it?

9:47You know, Mike, one of the things that I tell people when they leave, let's just say they've been with one company for 15, 20 years. And that's a time where a lot of people are thinking maybe it's time to leave. And what I see so often is they end up leaving and they just take so much time. Is this the right job? You know what the odds are? If you've been with somebody for 15, 20 years, you're only gonna be at the next company for a couple of years. So really, it's a very simple thing that you need to ask yourself. Am I more or less attractive to companies if this next job doesn't work out? Because the odds are, it's not going to work out.

10:32And so don't beat yourself up by is this the perfect next job? Because it's not. In almost all cases, it's not. But are you positioning yourself for a better next job? after that. So now we're into the would I question. So you're saying I'm unhappy. There's no path forward. I hate my boss. I'm underpaid. When should I start looking and how do I go about that? And, you know, like give everybody a thing of, all right, I've decided, you know, I can leave. Would I leave? Like what put get people's heads around that? Okay. So the single biggest thing, there's two things that I want people to walk away from our conversation, the successful and happy thing.

11:20But the second thing, if you're going to make a move, try very hard to do it while you're employed, because you have so much more leverage. What you want to do is ideally you always want to go to a job, not away from your current job. And if you are currently employed, you have leverage. Let me just tell you this. Let's just say that you're in transition. It's not like I'm saying that you can't find a good opportunity if you're in transition because you can't. In fact, I would argue, like, for example, towards the end of a year, you're always better off if you're in transition because the company thinking about, hiring you doesn't have to worry about paying you for all the bonus you're leaving on the table right but you um have so much more leverage here's what happens if you're unemployed you're in transition and the company says well you know what's your compensation you go well you know it's 300 plus 50 target bonus plus equity and you know what the company that's thinking about hiring you thinks?

12:23It's zero. It's not what you told them. It's zero. So it's hard to find a job while you are employed, but here are the steps. And if you do these steps, I promise you that you'll create multiple offers for yourself. Step number one is create a target list of companies from the outside looking in that you think you might have an interest in going to. And what I love about that is you control geography when you do that. second thing that you do is you develop a list of people that know you that are kind of movers and shakers that know people you then take the list of the companies that you're interested in you show it to the people and you say who do you know at these companies because mike what we always want to do is we want to get a personal introduction yeah now most of the people that are listening to this are not checking job boards and things like that.

13:18But occasionally they'll go, well, I heard about this job and I'm going to apply. No, no, no. You need to figure out how can you network in there. And what I have seen is people, when you give them a list, it makes them so much easier to engage. We are all better editors than we are creators. And what you'll also find, if there's a really good company that they have good contacts with that's not on your list, they're still going they give you the name of that. So you do that. Now you get personal introductions. The third thing is you have to have a good network of search people. And contrary to popular opinion, as search professionals, we are not looking to add to our database.

14:00We're looking to add good names. And the best good name that I add are people that I place that recommend somebody else to me. And so what you want to do, if you're thinking about looking, is think about people, peers that you have known that have taken jobs that you yourself might have been interested in. You call the person up and you say, who placed you in that job? They gave you the name. Could you introduce me to that person, to that search firm profession? You're going to get through, I promise you they're going to take your call. And by definition, you know, if they've placed other peers of yours, you know that they specialize in finding people like yourself.

14:46If you'll do those three things, you'll create options for yourself. Now, the last thing is really important. You're working. How do you have time for this? Well, you know what? You've got to make time and just decide that I'm going to spend 30 minutes a day. I'm going to close my door. I'm going to spend 30 minutes a day on this. And if you'll do that, that's two and a half hours a week. That's 10 hours a month. Not counting weekends. Not counting weekends. You can also do this on weekends. And you can do it on weekends. So that is how you will create options for yourself. And it works. I like this, but I also think it's crazy to think that you would spend all this time going to grad school or all this time working on whatever project you're working on at work and then only 10 minutes on your career.

15:35So I think this old dedication of giving your career some time is helpful. What if you do happen to not be in that I'm out of a job now because the company cut me or it didn't work out or whatever? any i i assume all the same tips still apply what else now except now you have you have no excuse on the time that's a good no excuse and and mike here's another thing though that i want to tell you is that when you are in transition and it's not a bad thing it's not it just happens sometimes and we can look at lots of careers of people that have been a lot of people have been on the show we may have all been in transition so exactly exactly so it's not a bad thing but here's something that's really important.

16:19If you have a spouse, it is really important that you advise your spouse as to what is going on in your job search, because your spouse, a lot of his or her identity is wrapped up in your career. And one of the things that I see all the time is that process that I just described, it's a little bit like if you and I are playing ping pong, If I hit the ball to you, you got to hit it back. And once in a while, when you're doing a job search, you're trying to plant lots of seeds and nobody's responding back. You can't force the issue. So it's okay to go do some things that you enjoy. It's okay to play golf in an hour because just follow the process.

17:06It'll work. But keep your spouse advised as to what is going on. Got it. All right. So now we've gotten to, you know, could I, should I, and now it's would I. So I've gone through this process and offer materializes. Hardly ever, or maybe sometimes, the offer is so clear that you should take it. Everything is right. Sometimes it's not as clear as you mentioned earlier, and that person after 15 years leaving the job, should you accept it? Like, yes or no? What do you advise people to, when they get the offer, they're near the offer, how should they be thinking about it? The single biggest thing you should be thinking about, am I poised to succeed in this new role?

18:00The people that are listening to this, they know what they're good at they know what they're not good at is this new job really optimizing what i am good at that is the single biggest thing that you should do but let me step back a little bit from that and every time you decide that you're going to go through an interview your attitude should be i want the job nobody can make you take a job you don't want to take but if you don't get a job offer you can't take it and i speak this from personal experience i'll never forget when i was at procter and gamble and you remember this mike they made you feel so guilty if they if you you felt guilty if you would interview with anybody

18:45and i'm halfway into it about the morning session but the afternoon session i kind of get interested and by the end of the day i think i'm going to do this so i called the recruiter the next day and i said, I'm in. I'm going to take this job. And the recruiter said, well, that's too bad. So you're going to go through this process. Go through it with the intent of getting off. Yes. It's not a practice. You can always turn it down, but you should give it your best shot. So one of the things that is hard sometimes is the job spec. And depending on who you're interfacing with in the company makes you feel like they really want you to succeed and you think you can succeed.

19:31We've had a lot of people on the show say that the job specs are sometimes not that true. How do you know it's true? Because you're going to make this jump and if you want it, every chance of succeed. What questions should you ask as you get ready to accept this job to ensure that success is what you think it is. So remember that interviewing is a two-way process. The company's interviewing you, but you're learning a lot about the company. And one of the things that you learn about the company is their speed to make decisions. If your interviewing process and the whole process just lingers and lingers and lingers, then you better know that when you join the company, it's going to take them a while to make decisions.

20:14That's not a bad thing. It's just a fact. And when you are being interviewed, you have to interview the people too. And like your hiring manager, one of the questions that I would definitely ask is what's success going to look like in three months, six months, a year? What's it look like? What things do I need to get done? That's going to make you able to see whether the job specs are consistent with what needs to be done. I run a lot of questions through two of sample decisions and who controls them. Like how many voters there are on moving money, approving creative, anything like that. And if the wrong answers come up, I think success is going to be a lot harder.

21:03So I get this offer and I decide I'm going to take it. I go into my company, I take it. They counter me. They counter offer. How do I think about counter offers you never know how much they love you until you want to leave but yeah but then it's usually too late but but right so no but i've got some real so you know i've heard some people on your show before and they have lots of data so far i haven't given data but i got some data here all right knock yourself out 85 percent of people who accept counter offers are gone within a year and it really makes sense if you think about it when you first go in there they probably don't want you to leave because it's going to cause disruption.

21:45So they'll make, you know, it doesn't cost them anything, cost them a little bit, but to make you a counter offer and all this kind of stuff. But here's what you've shown them now that you're willing to leave, right? You've shown them that you're willing to look at other outside opportunities. So in reality, what they're doing, and you would do this too, if you're a hiring manager, you're starting to think this person's going to leave, who am I going to get to replace this person? And you may even start an active search, or at a minimum, you're going to start looking at other capabilities. So counteroffers virtually never work out for both parties.

22:22I mean, you are. You're just renting. You're just renting. You're postponing a problem because the reason, unless the real reason they were leaving was just money, which is very rare. Very, very, very rare. Yeah. Okay. And then, so I'm sitting here, I'm taking this new job, but I'm worried because, gosh, you just told me a lot of the jobs you take, the second jump doesn't work out. How do I think about asking for severance when I go to the new company? Is that a normal thing to ask for, or how do I even think about it? The two hardest things for candidates, when they're thinking about taking another job or talking about vacation time and severance.

23:08It's just really hard. So the first thing that you want to try to do, if you're being placed by a recruiter, you want the recruiter to manage this process for you. And by the way, the client wants you to manage it for them too because they don't want to be negotiating on this stuff. But severance specifically, generally speaking, there are company guidelines. But remember this, The only time you get to really negotiate severance is before you start with the government. You don't get to negotiate severance on the way up. Right. So it's really important to have clarity on that. And it's definitely okay to ask about it, but you've got to get it in writing.

23:48You absolutely have to get it right. And as a general rule, if you are being asked to sign any sort of a non-compete, there definitely should be severance on the back end. Got it. So I shouldn't call from my Caribbean vacation to ask for severance to the hiring manager. That's what you're saying. Exactly. Okay, very good. So biggest mistake people make when managing their career front to back. You've seen thousands of them. What's the biggest mistake you've seen? They don't manage their career. They don't think about it. And you have to be thinking about it. You have to write out when you're starting in your business, you have to write out your goals.

24:33And then you can go back and look, am I meeting my goals? and but i see so many people mike that don't think about it then all of a sudden they get a call from a recruiter well maybe i ought to think about it here's the other thing to be really careful about though i see so many people aspire to a job they're not going to be successful all of us have limitations and just make sure that you're not aspiring to go into a job and which one of your limitations is really going to be highlighted. So any specific advice to our marketers out there listening to the show? Yeah, yes. So this is a tough time for marketing people.

25:17I'm not going to finesse that. Because historically, people have viewed marketing as an investment. Today, people are viewing marketing as an expense. So what you want to make sure that you do when you are presenting yourself, it's you're talking about things that you're going to do to drive the top line or cut costs. You're not a marketing person, you're a business person who happens to be in marketing. And I really believe that strongly that you need to do that right now. Got it. Thank you. That's very consistent with a lot of our other guests. So last question is two parts. You can pick one or both, but you have to pick one.

26:01Funniest, at least one. Funniest story or one piece of practical advice you would give our listeners that we haven't discussed yet. Both parts or one. Yeah, and I wish I could come up with a funny story, but honestly, most of the time that I'm talking to people, it's not really funny kind of stuff, right? I mean, this is kind of life and death kind of situations. But I do think that the practical advice that I would give is stay on top, stay ahead of your career, return every phone call that you get from a recruiter. It doesn't matter whether you're interested or not. You want to develop a good network.

26:43And so we remember the people that call us back. We remember the people that try to help us with searches that we're working on. You want to have a good relationship with recruiters. So that's some practical advice. Don't ignore recruiters until you need them. Call them when you don't need them. I think that's super good advice. And I think a great way to end the show. So thank you, Dick. And thanks everyone for listening to CMO Confidential. Look for more of our shows on Evergreen, Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, which include a content streamer's view of media and the marketplace. An experienced CMO and board member with technology chops talks about marketing.

27:26A 360-degree look at the CMO interview. And are you the strategist you really think you are? Hey, all you marketers, stay safe out there. This is Mike Linton at CMO Confidential, signing off.