James Lordon, the regional director of sales-southwest for AVEX talked LDI Early Career Professionals through a few of the things he has learned after 40 years in the industry. A few lessons from his talk below.
Where Is Your Dream Job?
Wherever you want to be in your life as a career, make sure you are in the city, or can work in the cities, where you can have that career.
Knowledge Is Power
Know your stuff. Work and study until you have confidence in your craft. Whatever field you want to work in you need to know your stuff, your clients have to have confidence that you can rig something so it doesn’t fall down and kill someone.
Who Wants To Work With Dicks?
No one. You want to work with a team that has got your back. Be that team member. When asked what his worst career mistake was, Lordon did not mention a technical challenge or equipment malfunction, it said it was having a relationship with another member of the crew. When you work crazy hours at close quarters that kind of personal mistake will have a huge impact on your career.
Details Baby!
When you walk into a room and create a great first impression, do you want to see crumpled drape? Whatever you are working on see it from the clients' perspective.
52
You only have 52 Saturdays a year. Be mindful what you do with your time. Lorden confessed to being so ingrained in his job and craft he put his kids aside. He says this is a crazy business, you are going to be called at two in the morning or during the super bowl (assuming you are not working at the Super Bowl) and you are going to have to decide what your time is worth.
Honest Communication
Honest communication builds a team. You need to be able to tell someone in a nice way “That is a terrible idea.” We all want to work in a place where we can throw out crazy ideas, some of which will be brilliant and some of which will be terrible, and the team might say, “That’s a little whacky” but they won't talk about it behind your back.
Why Clients Quit
At the end of the day you are doing this for revenue.
Here's the breakdown on the reasons why your company can lose customers, and it's not what you think.
- Death 1%
- Salesperson 5%
- Price 9%
- Product dissatisfaction 14%
- Move 3%
- Attitude of indifference 68%
A bad attitude will cost you everything.
SPONSORED BY CARNIVAL ENTERTAINMENT, PRINCESS CRUISES, DISNEY LIVE ENTERTAINMENT, AND PRG