The Concert Violinist

In this series of posts, I am sharing a variety of real-life examples of people who have changed the way they are perceived--and in some cases, the way they perceive themselves--simply by reframing the way they tell their story.

Installment 5
The installments would not be complete without one of my favorite examples of personal repositioning. Around the time I was writing Getting Your Foot in the Door When You Don't Have A Leg To Stand On, I received a call from a former colleague to see if I would be willing to help a young woman who interviewed unsuccessfully at Chicago ad agency, Leo Burnett.

As it happened, the young woman was a concert violinist who had played with Sir Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and The Moody Blues. Her resume was impressive, but it didn't make sense from an advertising perspective. People were impressed, but probably found themselves thinking: "This is great, but we don't have an orchestra."

After spending three or four hours with her, I was clear that she was passionate about advertising. What I didn't fully understand was how the interest developed. Being able to trace her passion was a critical piece of the puzzle because without it, we wouldn't be able to make the case that advertising was the Next Logical Step in her professional development.

Thanks her willingness to do a complete a thorough personal inventory, we uncovered the missing links. In addition to her work as a violinist, this young woman had been managing a virtual string ensemble. It all started when people asked for her advice about hiring classical musicians for weddings and events. Since she knew the music and had an extensive address book of contacts, she started a business. By working with the clients to determine what they wanted and leveraging her knowledge and contacts to provide what they needed, she was effectively functioning as an account management person.

By describing her role managing and promoting the string ensemble, and quantifying a variety of other strategic thinking and problem-solving achievements, we repositioned her as a born marketer who happened to be a concert violinist. This was quite a bit different than her first effort when she came across as a concert violinist who suddenly wanted to work in advertising. With this new positioning, she reapplied to Leo Burnett and earned a coveted position at the company—despite the fact that she had never taken a single marketing or advertising course.