I have a good friend who is now in transition as a result of a layoff. She is a very smart and shrewd business development professional who has been in Payments a little shorter than me. She has a wealth of contacts and has done quite well in the Middle Market/National and Enterprise space. She is quite proud of her collection of Lucite, plaques, and other business trophies over the past two decades.
She found herself in transition at the start of the COVID pandemic outbreak and is going through the process of interviewing. When I spoke to her, she told me that she was stunned to hear that certain people felt that she was not “entrepreneurial enough” since she had spent the bulk of her career working for some of the larger brands within the payments space.
She was shocked to hear that—in their minds—she somehow lacked “startup experience.” I was equally surprised to hear this feedback because she was quite familiar with sustained success.
When hiring managers paint with that kind of broad brush, it demonstrates an organizational short-sightedness which needs to be addressed.
Why does this drive me batty?
In my professional career, I have hired more than my fair share and sadly, I have had to fire a few along the way. Whenever I sat down with somebody who might be a little outside of my target candidate profile, I always gave them the chance to make their case, because success in one field has a way of becoming a transferable skill.
There is this misguided notion that people who work for larger brands are somehow genetically dispossessed of any entrepreneurial drive. People must somehow think that leads magically show up, sales magically close, and with a snap of a finger, golf clubs magically appear each Friday afternoon.
The reality is quite different and bears a careful study by those who feel otherwise.
If you are quarterbacking a larger Middle Market National or Enterprise deal, you are running a Master Class in Entrepreneurial Behavior.
- You’re building relationship inside your prospect because Gartner now says that it takes 8-10 people to sign off on an enterprise deal
- You’re marrying together SMEs on both sides of the aisle including connecting their tech staff to your tech staff, your legal to their legal, your customer success team to their line staff, and your senior management to their senior management; you’re herding cats.
- You’re also in charge of making sure that the business piece of the deal works, with a lot of shuttling between pricing teams and a various other internal stakeholder who can support or kill a deal.
- There are countless other things that comprise a joint close plan, which is critical to keeping a prospect on track to close.
- In spite of all of these hoops, you’re responsible for bringing the deal home for signature on time so that it does not slip into the next quarter.
- Then you oversee the implementation team’s efforts to ensure that what was promised is actually delivered and brought live.
These above are entrepreneurial skills—through and through—and that should be apparent to anybody making a hiring decision.
Payments, Fraud, and Leadership 