At my last job, I was often asked What do you like doing here? What career path do you want to pursue? These questions were asked shortly after I was hired, and I haven’t had an answer until now. It turns out that I enjoyed planting seeds.
Here’s an example. This past Sunday, I reached out to Derek Ashauer of Conversion Bridge because I noticed he’s been building a lot of integrations for his product. He had already built a few integrations for products of different brands, and I wanted to know if he had another specific product on his list. It turns out he did, but he needed access to the code. This is where I come in.
I notified my team of the opportunity and left it up to my managers to decide if we should water and nurture the seed to enable it to grow or do nothing. Seeds can germinate into a business opportunity, a great relationship, a partnership that mutually benefits both parties, and a potential acquisition target in the future, but it all starts as a seed. Unfortunately, most of the seeds I planted were wasted.
Among other things, planting these seeds is one of the reasons I was hired; at least, that’s what I thought. But each time I planted a seed, I was reprimanded and told to stop. That planting seeds was not part of my job responsibilities, though I beg to differ. What business around WordPress products would be foolish enough not to want opportunities and relationships to be made?
But I continued to plant seeds anyway because that is how I best leveraged my more than a decade of experience and personal relationships in the WordPress space. It’s a commodity that not everyone has, and I was stoked to take full advantage of it to benefit products, consumers, and the company. But the amount of friction from doing so was absurdly ridiculous and, in my opinion, harmful to the company.
If you’d love to have a Johnny Appleseed on your team, please reach out to me by commenting on this article, through the contact form, or by contacting me on Twitter. Let’s talk.
Last but not least, I recently watched a video by Matt Medeiros that covers several great topics and ideas on outreach. Give it a watch.
The world is not the good place it used to be. Selfishness and self-centeredness are norms now. I know how you feel. I have also been questioned for things done in good faith and not taking any benefit.
I wish and pray that you stay how you are. The world needs people like us more. I hope more people get inspired by your work and philosophy.
Thank you so much. This experience will not phase me and I will continue to be who I am. We got this!