At the beginning of the week Domino Pizza announced with their half-year profits that they are trebling their marketing budget (the City AM article). This is an interesting move and shows how stronger companies can take advantage of the downturn to improve their positioning and market share. Of course, this puts more pressure on the competition and widens the gap making Domino the more obvious choice.
So what has this got to do with a career in the City? Well, there are a number of hiring freezes going on and it is likely that there will be a number of redundancies before the year-end. UBS is reported to be making a significant number of reductions. So what can you do to protect your position? Add a few more toppings? Spend more on marketing? Design a new range of pizzas? Indeed it is at times like these that reputations can be made as well as lost, Soros, Paulson and Buffett being classic examples. So what can you do to increase your standing? The equivalent to adding a few more toppings might be to make sure that your CPD is up to date, you have been on another course and that you have updated your CV. Designing a new pizza? Well, that is going to take some time and is fraught with difficulty, particularly in a mature market where the classics are that way for a reason. This might be equivalent to analyst switching sectors or becoming a salesman or it may be moving from the sell to the buy side. It takes time and is usually a strategic move. So then there is tripling your marketing budget. Easy for Domino’s but what does that mean for an employee? Upgrading your networking from a coffee to a decent glass of wine? Put crudely, the answer is probably ‘yes’. But of course it is more than that. There are a number of different things to take into consideration and much will depend on what you are already doing and where you want to go. Some natural talent helps but generally it is more to do with inclination and innovation, this is where I come in! Often it is said that we are blind to our own situation, we cannot see the problem as others see it and as much as friends try to help I, as a trained and experienced coach, can bring a new light to these areas. Whether you want your pizza to be that much more delicious or whether you are fed up with them do call me to discuss it further.
