Once upon a time, there lived a king in need of a new dragon to protect his kingdom. A dragon named Carl was eager to win the contract so he scheduled a meeting with the king at his castle, hoping to impress him with his powerful fire-breathing skills.
When he arrived at the castle, things didn’t exactly pan out how Carl had hoped. Turns out the king lived in a wooden castle because the price of fish – the kingdom’s main commodity – had gone down in recent months, forcing the king to downsize from his brick castle. Also turns out that times were tough in neighboring kingdoms and that dragons were slowly transitioning from fire-breathing to smoke-breathing – another dragon had come up with the idea to avoid burning down his employer’s castle, and other dragons were following suit to remain competitive.
Having only prepared a pitch tailored around his fire-breathing ability and its effectiveness for protecting brick castles, Carl failed in securing a contract with the King.
The moral of the story is: know your prospects, understand their world and recognize their challenges – otherwise, you may as well be a dragon pitching fire-breathing to a king in a wooden castle.
This article was originally published on ShiftCentral, now part of LAC Group.
Mario Thériault
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