Job, Career, Calling.: Recent Episodes
Gary Gumbleton
Gary Gumbleton wrote a book on the first 15 years of his working career. Instead of uploading the files to Audible, he's decided to give his book away for free. Enjoy...
The hour or so of rambling is all around the last ten or so years of my working life. I’ll bring up the shit I’ve learnt along the way, a few stories to give you a laugh but mostly, it’s how I left school at sixteen with five very basic GCSE’s and now a GM of a very successful video production company in the age of online content creation...all with a single goal. One key theme is how I segment the time: Jobs, Caree
As I currently sit here at Heathrow Terminal 5 on my way to see my Dutch counterparts for the tech startup I currently work for, I find myself reminiscing over the last 10 years. It almost feels like it never happened. It all went so quickly and I starting to question that due to the speed of whats happened, did I really have any control over my destiny. The last 8 years in New Zealand seem like a long dream.
Frontside, at that time, was a video production company. They were born from action sports. Robett also owned Airtime which was New Zealand's largest action sports network. They had recently finished season four TV show for which Frontside was the production team for. They had started to make videos for the sponsors of the show (G-shock for example) that was outside of the show itself. Robett saw an avenue that Frontside could start making video content for more businesses and brands.
I was never one of these people who believe in fate but now, on two occasions, I am starting to have some faith. My first occasion is not work related in any sense.
Back to Slough and to the pre-curser of my BHAG. BTLB (British Telecom Local Business) was exactly what you may have watched on Ricky Gervais’ The Office. An awkward boss, a hot chick everyone wanted to bang, a slutty Office Manager and the top sales guy that people loved to hate. Then there was me. Hands still dirty from carrying washing machines all day with a small amount of mobile phone knowledge trying to sell phones to people who didn’t need one.
There’s this saying going around about always turn down the first offer. I don't know how much I actually stand by that. Sometimes the first offer can be the best; especially if you look past how much the offer is and see whats behind it (smart investment etc). I prefer to mix things up instead of declining the first offer, change the counter offer so they have trouble comparing.
By now, I’ve made it through a Global Support role, Small Account Management, gained international work experience and understood how a large corporate works. At this point, I start playing with the big boys and become responsible for $10mil in annual revenue (1% of total company turnover) as a Corporate Account Manager.
After networking with Vodafone representatives over the years whilst selling their product with a different hat on, I had managed to score myself a role working for the global division of Vodafone; aptly named Vodafone Global. I was to be an Onsite Co- Ordinator - Cover Team. Poorly named, it meant that each of the top 20 accounts Vodafone Global had in the UK (HSBC, WPP, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers when they were around), a co-ordinator would sit in their HQ and look after the day to day running of these accounts. Then, if that person was on annual leave or off sick, it was my role to cover for them.
In my early days of being interviewed they'd ask me why I wanted to work for the company I was applying to. Naively, I'd respond with 'the recruitment agent said there was a job going here so I asked for your address'.
Nailed it.
When I look at the timeline of my career, my ‘jobs’ are very clear. One that really sticks out was Removal Man. This was probably one of the most fun jobs I had. To put it simply, I was a van boy (rode in the passenger seat) for a guy called Pikey Joe (Joe to his face).
The hour or so of rambling is all around the last ten or so years of my working life. I’ll bring up the shit I’ve learnt along the way, a few stories to give you a laugh but mostly, it’s how I left school at sixteen with five very basic GCSE’s and now a GM of a very successful video production company in the age of online content creation...all with a single goal. One key theme is how I segment the time: Jobs, Career and Calling.
I’m not saying I know everything there is about sales/career progression or that my way is the right way. I may even tell you things you already know. The best thing to explain this is a picture floating around on LinkedIn where it shows two pathways both leading to the word Success. One is straight (which is ‘perception’), the other is bendy with lots of dead ends (‘reality’). This book is the reality of my path to success. Sounds wank but it’s how I see it.