Discover Loren Greiff’s Power in Helping C-level Executives Expand Their Career

Atiba de Souza: Hey everyone! Welcome to another episode of the Build Your Team show. I've got my friend, Loren Greiff with me today from Portfolio Rocket. Now, let me just tell you straight. If you are a C-level person and you are looking to expand your career, this episode is for you on Build Your Team today. And as always, we're brought to you by Client Attraction Pros, helping thought leaders make video marketing fun, easy and painless.

Loren, welcome.

Loren Greiff: Thank you so much. I'm really excited. You're awesome, Superman. And I know the whole backstory behind that. So it's not just about you being Superman, it's about all the other super men and women out there. So I love that.

Atiba de Souza: Well, thank you for that. And speaking of, that's also part of where you are because in the world of C-level positions, I wanna say it's a challenging world in terms of finding the right fit and knowing what company's good for you and should I leave, what position is right for me.

Especially for those of us who are a little bit more mature. Would you agree?

Loren Greiff: Absolutely. There is no standing still in your career? I mean, you can stagnate. It can feel like you're not challenged or that you may not be growing or that it's the same old, same old. But the truth of the matter is the market is never standing still. And as people, we're constantly in a state of evolution.

So the job or the career that you started off with, probably not the same as what it is today. So certainly not for me. I would imagine not for you either.

Atiba de Souza: Yes, absolutely. So how did you get to this place of working with C-level executives?

Loren Greiff: So —

Atiba de Souza: For sure you didn't start there. 

Loren Greiff: No, I didn't start there, but I'm a big believer that if you are gonna launch your business or you are gonna be a candidate in the marketplace, it is vital, like crazy important, a non-negotiable, that you identify a problem that you can solve.

If you don't have that problem that you are able to solve, nobody cares. Because now you're just doing the business for yourself, which of course you're gonna benefit, but it's really not about you. It's about how you're gonna serve whoever that audience is. As you become more senior, the likelihood of you finding a job that fulfills all the things that you now are considering most important, like fulfillment, collaboration, larger impact, growing your team, not being a road warrior, all those things are much harder to find.

Chances are it doesn't live on a job board either. So what are you going to do? Where are you going to find this so-called utopian opportunity? And it's not from doing the same old things. That's for sure. You can't just update your resume and expect, "Ooh, boy, this is gonna just magically drive me to this amazing opportunity."

And while I have the utmost respect for recruiters and head hunters, as I used to be one. They can only bring you so far because they are working with invento to fill open seats. So what happens if you're not one of those candidates that lands the role? What do you do now? Now you go back into a pool of applicants.

Where is your opportunity to own the pieces of your career, albeit search and impact that are going to sustain you? And so I developed a curriculum to address that.

Atiba de Souza: Okay. All right, so let's talk about that. You developed a curriculum to address that. 

I guess, what does that look like? Cuz you started off and the non-negotiable identify a problem that you can solve. And I could not agree more whether you are at the C-level or a business owner yourself. If you're not solving a problem, you're just wasting everyone's time.

Right? So how does your — and also understand that the juxtaposition of the recruiter. 

I've never personally been a recruiter, but I've talked to enough of 'em to realize. They're just trying to put people together and don't always know the whole story.

Loren Greiff: Well, they're not necessarily there to bring you through every iteration of the process. Let's face it. They have probably at least three, four, or five candidates that are in the running for that position. You're not their only game in town. They're going to be compensated with whoever they place.

Atiba de Souza: No matter what.

Loren Greiff: So even if you are working with a recruiter or a head hunter, you still have to be in the lead.

You can't be the mediocre candidate because it's too easy for somebody else to come in and over deliver.

Atiba de Souza: Wow. You can't be the mediocre candidate cuz it's too easy for someone else to come in and deliver.

Loren Greiff: Over deliver.

Atiba de Souza: Over deliver. Wow. Even worse. Man, I wanna write that. 

Loren Greiff: Who wants to hire a C-level candidate? I mean, on a scale of the grading system. Anybody that's going to spend any amount of allocation, financial allocation is going to be looking the best of the best. They're gonna be selective that process.

Nobody's gonna place $250,000 for a candidate that's not gonna move their needle.

Atiba de Souza: Right. And so, how then with your course and stuff, do you help them begin to realize how they can move the needle? Because again, as we started, it's not just about finding any position. It's about finding the right position. The one that fulfills and I'd be remiss if I didn't throw this in cause as you were talking about it, I started thinking about Maslow. You're talking about going up that hierarchy.

Loren Greiff: Totally. Right? You're going up the hierarchy of needs. A hundred percent. So the short answer to your question, how do I help them to get to that place is the simplest but yet most challenging areas is they really need and it is a requirement that they understand why they do what they do in the first place.

Why are you doing this? What contribution are you here to make and what impact does that contribution have? Right? What contribution do you make and what impact does the contribution have? So my contribution, just as a point of clarification, is I remove the root canal from the job search process. That's my contribution.

The impact that that has in order to remove that is that you feel energized, rewarded, and that can be both financially and from a growth opportunity and fulfilled in your next move.

Atiba de Souza: I love that analogy of the root canal. I think that puts it really plainly for anyone who's been into the search.

Loren Greiff: Because that's a universal truth, right? That's the problem I'm here to solve. There is yet to be one person that has ever crossed my path, and maybe yours too, who says to me, "Wow. I can't wait to be in my job search." This is gonna be awesome.

Atiba de Souza: No, everyone hates it.

Loren Greiff: Right? Which is a problem that can be solved.

Atiba de Souza: Okay, great. And we're solving this from the C-level side, so we're helping the candidate be a better candidate.

We're helping the candidate see, feel, and understand who they are and where they fit, and bringing clarity to them.

Okay. Right? Do you find that a lot of C-level executives have a problem with that?

If I'm a C-level executive listening to us right now, do I — one, have a problem? Two, know that I have a problem?

Loren Greiff: No, this is the work. This is the work. Because if you don't know what problem you're here to solve, how are you going to solve it over there?

Atiba de Souza: Yeah.

Loren Greiff: And where is your value going to be? Because again, they want to find somebody who is able to solve the problem that is keeping them up at night or causing their hair to burn on fire.

And so, you have to figure out what problems you're really good at solving and want to continue solving. And also, concurrently understand the problems that that organization is suffering from above and beyond the job description.

Too many people think, "Oh, here I have it. I have my entire roadmap right here. This is everything that I need to know. I just look at this and I can check my boxes." There's a ton of things that are never gonna be on a job description.

Atiba de Souza: Absolutely.

Loren Greiff: And they're not gonna be able to say, "I'm looking for somebody who is able to anticipate the problems that aren't necessarily spoon fed to them."

Atiba de Souza: Right. Right. Right. So I'm surmising here then that if a C-level executive is able to identify, this is the problem that I solve, right? I know this is the problem I solve, and then start to look for which companies have that problem. That's where the ideal marriage starts to begin. 

Loren Greiff: It does. It does. When you have those two things aligned, that's accelerated the opportunities that are in front of you, because most people go and pick their top 10 or 15 lists by just saying, "Well, I wanna work over at this place, or I wanna work over at Apple and I wanna work over here", which is oftentimes just pulling the book from its cover and not necessarily knowing how you're gonna impact them.

 And then they'll say, "Why do you wanna work at Apple? Why do you wanna work at Nike?" "Well, cuz they're a great brand."

Atiba de Souza: Right. All ego reasons usually —

Loren Greiff: I'm looking for the resume value. But if you come to them and say, "Well, the reason why I wanna work for you is because fourth quarter, I understand that you had some drop off in this area of that area, and that's exactly what I am here to address. Let me explain how that has worked in the past with my previous role, maybe at Adidas or another company." Maybe it's not even in the same retail area. Let me put it together and share with you how we can overcome this obstacle.

Atiba de Souza: Yeah. That's awesome. And you brought up something there that I had thought of earlier as you were talking, and so I'm glad you brought it up. Cuz I wanna ask you about this. The understanding of the problem that you solve, to me that sounds industry agnostic.

And so therefore, because so often people say, "Well, I've been in the financial services industry, so I'm just gonna stay in this industry because it's what I know."

But the problem that you solve may be applicable as well to —

Loren Greiff: I mean, if you solve problems with — you know, I have a client who refers to herself as a monetization mobilizer. A monetization mobilizer. This woman finds money and knows how to get, make it active in places to make more money. So she's like our revenue multiplier. She could do that anywhere.

Atiba de Souza: I might need her.

Loren Greiff: Right?

Atiba de Souza: I think we all do. The point here I think is from what you're saying as well is it's removing yourself from the box.

Loren Greiff: Right.

Atiba de Souza: That you've been in at even a C-level —

Loren Greiff: Or that you put yourself in because if you are just applying to positions over and over and over again, you're squishing yourself back in and then you're mad because you've been treated like a number. Oh, wait a second. You put yourself back in the box.

Atiba de Souza: Right, Right. Wow. Wow. So there was something that you said to me once, and I want to dig into it here. And I know we didn't even say we were gonna chat about this, but I want one. Hopefully it didn't take you too far. You said to me once that one of the beauties of what you do is helping them find jobs that aren't even advertised.

Loren Greiff: Of course, yes.

Atiba de Souza: Let's talk about that because that concept, now marrying it with the — I know what I'm great at. I can kind of start to see somewhat, but let's bring this home for our listeners today. How do you find a job that isn't even on the market?

Loren Greiff: The real truth and we talk about it. Some people talk about it all the time on LinkedIn and they debate it, but anybody who is more senior in their career knows people. Knows people and they've hired people and every time that they hire somebody, they're not always sourcing them off of a job board or an applicant tracking system.

They're using the power of referrals, right? You know this person, this person knows that person. And I heard through that mother's, sister's, cousin's, brother that this is happening.

Atiba de Souza: Yeah.

Loren Greiff: So how we find opportunities lives in what is also called the hidden job market where approximately 80 to 85% of the positions are but not posted.

And why are they not posted? Not because anybody is being a jerk and they don't wanna like share the wealth. There's many reason. It can cost a lot of money to post a job, whether it's on LinkedIn or Indeed. It also is tiresome to go through the reams and tonnage of candidates that show up who are primarily unqualified. And then thirdly, the reason why some people don't post jobs is because they know that their employees are finding candidates who are stronger and stay longer. So a referred candidate is a lot less expensive to acquire, about a quarter of the cost. 1,000 versus 4,000 and they stay longer. Four to five times longer than people that come off of job boards.

And the reason for that is, again, back to a very simple premise. Birds of a feather flock together. So if you are a high performer at this company and your boss is saying, "I wanna clone you. Oh my God, you're amazing." You better believe that they're gonna come to you when they have an opening in the organization and say, "Hey, who do you know? And let me also compensate you with a nice referral bonus because you just saved us tons of time and tons of money, and we're getting a better quality candidate with less turnover." So why wouldn't you?

Atiba de Souza: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's such a great point. It's funny, I say this to my kids all the time, Life is not about what you know, it's about who you know." Right?

Loren Greiff: And who knows you. And who knows you.

Atiba de Souza: Who knows you. And it's building those networks. It's building those networks that are so important and having meaningful conversations.

It isn't just about knowing them but actually having meaningful conversations which is getting to the "who knows you side of the world." Right?

Loren Greiff: A hundred percent.

Atiba de Souza: So to that end, I see a ton of C-level executives on LinkedIn with very little profile data and very little profile activity.

Do you help your clients with that? Do you have suggestions for your clients with that?

Loren Greiff: Hell to the yeah. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. So if you are thinking that LinkedIn is your online resume, if you are thinking that just having a profile there is all you need to do, and if you're thinking that people are just gonna magically find you just because you have a profile, I have some not so happy news. It doesn't work like that.

It doesn't work like that. And maybe you don't need it. Okay. Some people don't. But I think that that's a very small percentage of people that don't want their thought leadership and also to be found when they get to a place where they are in the market. 

Atiba de Souza: Right. 

Loren Greiff: Because everybody loves to feel needed and hear that door knocking or phone ringing. Oh my goodness. We have this opportunity and you were top of mind. I couldn't help but see your post or read your comment or make note of this article that you put out there on LinkedIn. LinkedIn builds credibility and trust, and that is the oldest adage in the world. People hire people they know, like, and trust, and they will not know, like, or trust you if they don't know you.

Atiba de Souza: Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's interesting cause on the other side of the world, when we talk about hiring, we talk about the fact that, "Hey, social profiles are public data and it's not stalking to go find your potential employees on social profiles."

Loren Greiff: Oh, God. No.

Atiba de Souza: And go through 'em.

Loren Greiff: That's why they put them up there. They're inviting you to come in. If you get an invitation for a party, it means you're included. We want you there.

Atiba de Souza: Exactly. And that's why it always baffles me how many C-level executives I see with nothing on LinkedIn. No. Not even a photo. Nothing.

Loren Greiff: I know. And unfortunately that — either the pain point hasn't been met yet, or they could be very resistant to methodologies that are working today.

Atiba de Souza: Well, I wonder 'cause there was a term that you used and you know, I work in the field of thought leadership and helping people build thought leadership as well. And I know as working with business owners, it's often difficult to even convince them that thought leadership is something that they should invest in, right? For a lot of them — 

Loren Greiff: It takes work. 

Atiba de Souza: It not just takes work, but it also takes you recognizing that you're important. That your voice matters.

Loren Greiff: Very true. Very true. And a lot of people will say to me, I don't have anything to say. And first of all, that's not true. Second of all, it is incumbent upon you if you are promoting yourself as a leader, somebody who is an industry expert. Tell me they're not gonna go and look for the data.

Atiba de Souza: Right.

Loren Greiff: So you cannot go ahead and say something like that and then be out of integrity or risk integrity by having nothing that proves it. So I think that that's a very easy kind of way of saying start small. You do not have to like be in the Wall Street Journal to qualify as a thought leader. Sure, maybe that will come, but by all means, use the tools that you have and don't overthink it. There's all kinds of thought leadership just doesn't just come in one flavor.

Atiba de Souza: The thing that you do helps people so much with this because by identifying the problem that they solve, by really identifying their why, that gives them the base of great thought leadership content that no one else in the world can deliver.

Loren Greiff: Exactly. When you get that "why", it does, it opens up, it cracks open so many opportunities. And you know what? Maybe they are hiding in plain sight. They're not gonna just like spill out overnight. But keep a journal, keep track of wow, you know — if my why is about the root canal, what other painful processes have people figured? What other ways have we overcome? What ways have I overcome them? What ways have you overcome them? How have you and engage with your audience? So there's lots and lots of germs and threads that you can pull once that's identified.

Atiba de Souza: Absolutely. Absolutely. But Loren, I can tell you, sitting in my seat as a business owner, sitting in my seat as someone who has hired C-level executives, sitting in my seat as someone who speaks to C-level executives all the time. It's clear why you're successful. And clear why what you do. Even beyond being successful is absolutely needed.

Loren Greiff: Thank you. It's been a real honor and privilege to do what I do.

Atiba de Souza: Well, you're making a big impact in the world because the reality is when you have C-level executives, when you start at at top there and they get dialed in on their why, and they get dialed in on what problems that they solve, and they bring that into a company, they have the ability to impact so many people. Not just the people in the company, right?

But also all of the customers of that company. Even if their job isn't client facing at all. The fact is by doing their job with purpose and by doing their job where they understand why and imparting that eventually does bubble back up to the client and creates a better world.

Loren Greiff: Thank you. I hope that that gets repurposed over and over and over and over again throughout their career. Cause that's really the secret sauce in my methodology. This isn't about checking a box and landing a job. This is about learning a body of knowledge. Some of my clients refer to this as the MBA for their career. So that have this and it's instilled in them so that the next time they are facing even a challenge in their workplace, they're able to go back to what is the real problem that I can solve here. Or when they're interviewing people to hire for their teams and asking them that question. So to be able to repurpose this over and over and over again for them, for others, and really be able to get to the places that can cause that transformation. Changing X to Y.

Atiba de Souza: Loren, that's brilliant.

Loren Greiff: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Atiba de Souza: I am honored to be able to spend time with someone like you and people like you who are working so diligently in their why and knowing the problem that they solve because you really do makes such an impact on everyone that you touch.

Now, that being said, if you are listening to us and you're a C-level executive or you know a C-level executive. Right? You know a C-level executive that needs Loren's services. Loren, I gotta ask you, how do they contact you?

Loren Greiff: Oh, thank you for asking. The easiest place where I'm living outside of my office is LinkedIn. I spell my name L-O-R-E-N, like it says right here, L-O-R-E-N. And it's GREIFF, G-R-E-I-F-F. And you can always find me at portfoliorocket.com.

Atiba de Souza: That's Loren Greiff on LinkedIn, y'all — portfoliorocket.com. Loren, I think for everyone who's listening, who knows me, they know why we're friends. They know why we get along because it's all about understanding who you are, why you're doing what you're doing, and bringing great stuff to market. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Loren Greiff: Always my pleasure.

Atiba de Souza: It has been absolutely pleasure.

Loren Greiff: Thank you so much, Atiba.

Atiba de Souza: You're welcome. And everybody out there, remember Loren Greiff on LinkedIn, portfoliorocket.com. See you next time. Byebye.

Loren Greiff: Thank you.