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When I was working as an executive recruiter at a top search firm, I came to realize that someone's story, or their narrative, could be boiled down to three key components.
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Those three components are, one, what you do, two, the context that you do it in, and three, the impact of your work.
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If you want the backstory on this one, then listen to Episode 1 of the podcast, What's Your Narrative?
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As I've applied this framework as a coach to well over a thousand MBAs, I've come to realize that the idea of context, or the setting in which you do your work, is probably the most complex and nuanced.
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So let's take a deep dive into how you might go about determining the context that's going to work for you when you're crafting your own narrative.
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The framework I'm going to suggest might surprise you.
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If you've ever done any marketing work, then it's a framework you probably already know.
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It's just applied in a different way.
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Stay tuned.
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Most of my clients have MBAs, and if you're listening to this podcast, chances are you have one too, or at least you took a few business or marketing classes in college or university.
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So if I ask you to remember the Five Ps of Marketing, it will probably ring a bell.
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If not, let's do a quick refresh.
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The first P in the Five Ps of Marketing is product, which refers to what you're selling, whether it's a physical or a digital item or a service.
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The second is price.
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That's the amount customers pay for your product.
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The third is place.
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It's where and how customers can access your product.
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The fourth is promotion.
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That's how you communicate with customers about your product.
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And the fifth is people.
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It's the human element of marketing, including all the people involved in selling or buying your product, especially your target market.
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So what does this have to do with your own personal narrative and the element of context that I often talk about?
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Well, I think the framework of the Five Ps can help you think comprehensively about the context in which you do your work.
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And how you create impact.
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Let's take the Five Ps one by one when it comes to context.
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The first, again, is product.
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Now a product or a service is generally part of a segment or a category, or you can go higher and consider industry or sector.
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This is the most obvious way to think about your own context.
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You might be a marketer, but it's not enough to say that when you're communicating your own narrative, You need to be able to say that you're a marketer for shampoos.
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That's a segment.
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Or for hair care.
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That's a category.
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Or personal care,.
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That's an industry.
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Or even healthcare, which I would consider a sector since it contains many industries including personal care, pharmaceuticals, biotech, and others.
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So for your own narrative, you need to identify your product.
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What is the product you support when you fulfill your role as a marketer?
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Choosing a segment like shampoo is probably too limiting for most people.
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Category or industry will probably be the most appropriate strategy.
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So you'd be a marketer in hair care, the category, or personal care, the industry.
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Many people I've worked with would be tempted to say their product focus is health care, which is a sector.
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But I'd make the case that saying your expertise is sector based is too broad.
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As you become more senior, the gatekeepers and decision-makers for the senior-level roles you're going to want are going to expect you to have a depth of experience in your product area.
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And I don't think you can get the depth of experience you'll need to convince them at that very high sector level.
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So think about industry or even category if you want to give yourself an edge.
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The second P, of course, is price.
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I think this one applies to the product or service you're working on, and it also applies to you as an employee.
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When I worked in the beauty industry, marketers tended to fall into two parts of the industry, either mass or prestige.
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Mass was, of course, priced relatively low, and prestige was priced relatively high.
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Most people in the industry gravitated toward one or the other and once you had worked in one or the other for a period of time, it could be hard to transition out of it.
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Mass and prestige had different target consumers, different product formulations, different packaging, different channels of distribution, different vibes.
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Most things were different, even the methods of tracking sales.
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So you need to figure out if you want to work on the high end of pricing for your industry, if you want to work on the low end of pricing for your industry, or if maybe you'll fall somewhere in between, if there is even a mid level.
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Price also applies to you as an employee, and it's usually a limiting factor.
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The higher your compensation requirements, the fewer contexts that are going to be a good fit.
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So consider how your comp requirements might limit the industry or sector you'd be a good match for.
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The third P in our review is place.
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The really obvious connection here is deciding where you want to live.
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In my experience, many people undervalue the importance of location, weather, community, and family when they're in the process of making career decisions.
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Advancement, prestige, and compensation tend to overshadow place in the heat of the moment, let's say when an offer has been extended.
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If you haven't already thought about this fairly deeply and consulted with the other people in your life who are going along for the ride, like a partner, spouse, your children, or even parents or in-laws, I'd encourage you to have some open conversations.
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I'd also encourage you to think beyond the obvious points of geography.
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For example, what is the general vibe you need in the place you live to be happy?
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Do things like culture, politics, diversity, outdoor activities and other similar considerations factor into your decision-making?
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I've had plenty of conversations with people who accepted jobs that, at first glance, might have seemed like fantastic opportunities because of company reputation, title or comp, who then came to regret their decision because the place they had to live in turned out to be a bad fit, for whatever reason.
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The fourth P is promotion.
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When you're applying this to yourself, consider your own personal comfort level with sales activities and actual self promotion.
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If you want to build a career in management consulting, for example, the path up to partner involves increasing involvement in sales and business development activities.
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If that doesn't sound like an attractive future to you, then management consulting, longer term, is probably not going to be the right context for you.
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Or, let's say you're considering becoming an author.
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You're going to need to be comfortable with promoting your own ideas and work in a very public way.
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Again, if that's a turn off, then publishing might be the wrong industry for you.
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And, again, the fifth P is people.
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I think this particular P often isn't recognized as being important until there's a mismatch.
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Most of the MBAs I work with have excelled in their studies and have often worked in companies and organizations that attract other intellectually sharp people who are always striving for excellence in everything they do.
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When clients find themselves in environments where they're the outlier in this respect, they suddenly realize just how important the type of people they work with is to them.
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I can't tell you how many times I've heard a client say, I miss working with really smart, committed people." And once they start saying it, they can't let it go, and they have to find a way back to working with the kind of people who they admire and who inspire them.
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And this doesn't apply to just your work colleagues.
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It could tie back to place.
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Places are populated by people, and you need to be able to find your people wherever you might end up, whether that's at work or in your community.
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So let's revisit the Five Ps and how they relate to crafting your personal narrative and defining your context.
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The first is product.
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Identify your industry or category focus, striking a balance between specificity, you don't want to limit your options too much, and breadth, you don't want to spread your expertise so thinly that it's not deep enough for senior-level roles.
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The second is price.
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Consider both the pricing tier in your category or industry that you want to be associated with.
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And also, think about your own personal price or your compensation requirements.
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The third is place.
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Consider the geographical and the cultural factors that contribute to your comfort, satisfaction, and success.
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The fourth is promotion.
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Given the roles you'll be pursuing, you need to assess your comfort level with sales-related activities and self-promotion.
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How critical are they for success and advancement?
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And how comfortable are you engaging in them?
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And don't think about just the present.
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Think about the role of sales and self-promotion as you advance to more senior-level roles.
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It might not be the same.
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And the fifth is people.
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Recognize, consider and plan for the importance of working with and living among people who align with your values and aspirations.
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So when you're thinking about your personal narrative and you're a little fuzzy on context, take a page, real or virtual, out of the marketing textbook.
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Pull out the Five Ps of Marketing to help you think through context comprehensively and systematically.
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A well crafted personal narrative isn't just about what you do and the impact you create, it's also about the unique context in which you do it.
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Thanks for listening! And if you ever start to lose the thread of your own narrative and need a thought partner, consider my Craft Your Narrative VIP program.
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You can reach out to me about it at careernarratives.com/vip.
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See you soon!
