Is It Worth Swapping Jerseys?
All too often I see puzzling moves by professionals that lead me to question, “why, would someone switch teams and compete in the same league?”
In sports, it’s usually pretty obvious. You either want to increase your chances of winning a championship and play alongside better players, a new coach, a new front office, more minutes on the floor OR you just want to get PAID and it’s only about the money!
When Bosh, Wade & Lebron jumped to the Heat together in the summer of ‘09, they formed a dream team. They all left money on the table to play together because they wanted to build something special. Chandler Parsons on the other hand took a max deal from the Grizzlies in 2016 because…well…they were willing to pay the man! In the professional services world, we see these moves all the time.
Great people leave high wages on the table at a job to coalesce and build something special for the upside of winning. Other people take the cash on the table on perhaps a lower quality opportunity because someone was willing to pay them more. It’s like we’re all kids in the Stanford marshmellow experiment.
If you’re in the business of selling your own advice, consulting, or expertise then a pay day to swap teams usually can improve your chances of growth OR at worst doesn’t have a material impact in your success (Lawyers, brokers, consultants, etc.). After all, the customer is buying YOU.
For example, Bobby Knakal sells New York City real estate; whether he sells that real estate wearing a Cushman & Wakefield uniform, a JLL uniform or BKNYC, it doesn’t matter. The product at the end of the day is Bobby Knakal’s advice to buy or sell New York City real estate.
When swapping a jersey is not the right move is when you’ve been vocal in a marketplace preaching the value of a product to a customer base and then all of a sudden you start offering a competing product to that same customer base. That’s where the customer base starts to sniff something has run afoul. I won’t fault anyone for wanting to make a change in their career but the optics of that situation are important and reputations are often on the line.
If John Smith who has been selling Lutron lights to commercial contractors for the last 2 years and all of a sudden switches over to Creston as a sales rep (now pushing a direct competitor), what will the customer think? Won’t they start to doubt whether or not John was selling them on the right solution at his time at Lutron? Will they take John’s call now that he’s selling Creston? If they take his call will they even trust what he’s saying if he was so quick to jump over from a competitor? They may very quickly realize that the customer at the end of the day is more wedded to the product than the sales rep.
The labor market is just that, a market. Companies are buying (talent) and Individuals are selling (their own talent) but I caution anyone that wants to go out into the market, swap a jersey and start selling a competing product to the same customer as that will lift a heavy “buyer beware” flag on their head.