I am Joining the Corporate World Again

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It is with mixed emotions that I announce today my return back to the corporate world for the umpteenth time. After spending some time on the side lines focusing on part time consulting and full time side gigging, I have decided to accept an offer with a public company based in the USA.

Roles & Responsibilities

I am going in as a Director and will be helping the company with several off-shoring initiatives as it continues focusing on rapid growth. The company does well over a billion dollar in annual sales and has been profitable since 700 B.C. – it seems so.

My bigger task however will be focused on helping the company ramp up its online presence. Currently, they have a beautiful website with thousands of SKUs available for sale, some they own in inventory and some that are on drop ship arrangements.

As I was discussing the opportunity with Management, I realized how much money they were throwing away in Google Adwords or PPC marketing. For a website of its caliber, the website is not ranked nearly as high as it should, and does not have the Page Rank (PR) that it can achieve. Moreover, the company also needs an active presence in the social marketing space.

All in all, the website is underperforming severely. After holding discussion sessions with IT, Marketing and the Ecommerce departments, I prepared a presentation for Management.

Presentation to Management

In this presentation I showed Management where they currently stand and where they can easily be over the next few months. I then told them how my experience and “know how” can help them get there.

Some clear cut examples definitely helped, such as benchmarking popular ecommerce websites like bestbuy.com and circuitcity.com to drive my point across. These websites are doing close to a billion or more dollars in annual sales. The trend shows significant growth with no end in sight as the internet marches toward critical mass.

What Will I Be Doing?

I will be helping the company fine tune their PPC campaign to operate more optimally. Further, I will facilitate the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of the website to bring it up organically in search results.

I will also be establishing the company’s presence within the social marketing space, and implement a blog and newsletter which will be the interface between management and the customer base.

Why Did I Accept the Offer?

This is a very good question and one that I asked myself repeatedly. Why take this job?

Let’s just say the mixture of the excitement, adrenaline rush, and the challenge to be able to make a significant difference in a billion dollar organization appealed to me. We are not talking peanuts here my friend – we are talking real money.

The company has a huge back-end operations base, which allows me to walk in with my expertise and start playing with a sandbox with billions of dollars involved. In other words, the resources have already been gathered up for me (product, capital, systems, technology, back office support, etc.). I have what I need (and I can always hire more bodies) to achieve the goals I have established.

Not to mention the amazing compensation package along with very attractive target incentives that I was offered if I am able to achieve what I have promised

What Does This Mean For You & The Extra Money Blog?

A few things:

• New content – I will be discussing my journey, what worked, what did not, why, what are some strategies in the works, etc. By discussing actual experiences, I hope to continue to spread awareness around the subject matter and share both successes and failures from which anyone can learn from. Bottom line: more diversified quality content.
• New audience – I will be adding an additional section to this blog which a brand new group of audience will be interested in. I am talking about ecommerce / website managers, sales professionals, retail industry folks and the likes who might be interested in what I have to say.
• Resources – I will speak about the various methodologies, tools and resources used and which ones proved to be the most effective. This includes any vendors I bring in to execute special projects.
• Personal consulting – Because this endeavor will take up a good amount of my time, I will likely stop or slow down on the personal consulting services that I offer. I will resume this again once things settle down.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are a variety of factors that went into my decision making process. This post alone should have helped you already. If you are an aspiring retail manager (specifically in ecommerce) or are currently one right now, the idea of putting together a concise and lazer-sharp presentation to management can sell your case instantly. Try it and let me know how it goes.

Someday, hopefully sooner than later, I plan on sharing my presentation with you on this blog as a downloadable attachment file. Currently however, I am under some strict confidentiality and non-compete agreements so I am limited to what I can share and speak about publicly.

Like anything else in life, this endeavor comes with its share of uncertainties and unknowns, but what’s there to loose but some time? I am getting paid a healthy sum, and I can always go back to the sidelines if I so choose. I was adamant about not signing a fixed contract.

To me, these kinds of opportunities do not come by everyday. Suffice it to say that I am very much looking forward to the challenge. No matter how it turns out for me personally, one thing is for certain – I cannot wait to see the future of this company, especially within the online space.

Did I make the right decision by joining the corporate world again?

Sunil
Accepting New Challenges