Navigating the zig-zagging career path of rapid growth
My career path hasn’t been linear, but these days, is anyone’s? I think it’s safe to say that the days of 40 years with one company and retiring with a gold watch are behind us. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, median job tenures are around four years and even less in smaller, high-growth companies.
My journey with Seismic started in 2014. I joined as the team was expanding its presence into the New York market. After two years leading the sales engineering team, focusing on expanding the team, building out demos and leading late stage sales, I pivoted to development and execution of Seismic’s go-to-market strategy as General Manager of the newly established Financial Services vertical. This was a pretty significant jump — after building trust based on the sales engineering and implementation work and deeply learning the value proposition which Seismic presented to our Financial Services customers, I now had full ownership of the market strategy for this industry. This new role also expanded into becoming a representative for Seismic with analysts and as a speaker. From a cultural standpoint, I was the internal leader in our New York office as well.
But my biggest move, both literally and figuratively, came in 2018, when I had the opportunity to relocate my family from New York to Chicago and lead Seismic through its 2018 acquisition of SAVO Group. While I knew this undertaking would not be without its challenges and, frankly, its risks, I also knew that it presented an incredible opportunity for me to contribute to the company’s continued growth and success — an opportunity I couldn’t leave on the table.
So clearly, my time here at Seismic has been full of opportunities for growth, but you might be wondering: How did I decide which were right for me, especially when they stretched my skills and experience? Here are some of the biggest lessons and takeaways so far from this incredible ride.
Find people you trust, and stick by them
I would never have joined Seismic if I didn’t believe in the management team and its vision. I remember my first few interactions with Seismic via former colleague and company President, Ed Calnan. His conviction in the vision was contagious and gave me full confidence that what was happening here was worth a leap of faith. My initial interview with CEO Doug Winter took place a few weeks later while Doug was on vacation in New York, when he carved time away from his family to meet with me. It was immediately clear that he was someone that I could and wanted to learn from. The team in place in late 2013 looked a lot different than it does today, but a look at where we were then versus where are now leaves no question that we had the right people at the table. Continued proof of this is that the same team remains at the table today — all the founders are still with the company. Together, we have built something really special.
Ultimately, it was this trust in the team that spurred my decision to take on the SAVO acquisition/integration efforts. An acquisition of this scale was new to me — and to Seismic. But from my earliest days with Seismic, I had the benefit of tremendous support from CTO Marc Romano as well as fellow sales engineers, Gavin Walsh and Rick Lay. My sales engineer days with them resulted in a mindset focused on meeting challenges head-on and prioritizing opportunities to learn wherever possible. And I knew that the team trusted me — and I trusted them — to stand up a new initiative and new processes. When the SAVO offer came along, I knew that I would have the necessary support and expertise from Doug, Marc, our Board of Directors, and others, to succeed.
Understand the expectations as soon as possible
As I thought through the opportunity to move to Chicago to lead the SAVO acquisition, I focused a lot on articulating and understanding the right success measures and the resources needed to achieve those goals. That thought process was not done in a vacuum. While my FS experience gave me context on what it would take to stand up a new initiative at Seismic, my decision required input from several other members of the Seismic executive team — a great example of the trust needed to ensure success within an organization. It would require expertise and collaboration across sales, marketing, product, technology, customer success, and more. We would have to leverage leadership across the company and their respective teams to be successful. After a few conversations, I knew I’d have access to the support and resources I needed.
Approaching a new challenge of this magnitude alone is not recommended — the team is critical. Equally important is making sure you have a plan to hit the ground running. For me, several questions immediately came to mind. What defines success for this role? For the project at large? How do we ensure we’re ready to handle both excitement and concerns from customers, employees and third parties on day one? There should be a clear idea of these expectations and how you intend to handle them with any new role or opportunity. Additionally, you must be prepared to adapt — rarely does anything go exactly as planned.
Be prepared to build skills on the fly
One of the exciting challenges of working for a small company is that there are often opportunities for hands-on learning. At times, you proactively do things because you’re in a role that’s best suited to ensure a successful outcome. Other times, it’s because there’s no one else. Either way, in all my Seismic roles, I’ve been able to learn on the job, build new processes from scratch, try new things and be a driving force behind organizational growth and strategy. Today, I’m involved with all day-to-day operations of the former SAVO entity — everything from customer conversion to cultural conversion. While our work is not yet done, I’m immensely proud of what we have been able to achieve as a team.
The hard skills may not always translate. I’m no longer building out demo environments or leading individual implementations, nor am I focused on one specific industry anymore. But the cultural skills and mindset that I learned in my previous roles are still what carry me through today. The mindset of consistent learning and creative problem-solving, as well as the ability to understand and communicate value with prospects and customers in critical ways, come from my sales engineering days and implementation work. The organizational skills come from leading a full GTM strategy for the financial services team. And I lean on the cultural skills of being a leader in the New York office as I integrate Seismic and SAVO on a cultural level.
The execution and the application may change, but the mindset, company understanding, and confidence in my team and my process are what allow me to continue building new skills relevant to new challenges.
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My ultimate advice is cliché, but it holds true: Don’t be afraid of failing. Our company theme coming into the year was to “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” I translate that to not being afraid to take on challenges. If you’re afraid to do something, whatever it is, that’s exactly what you should do. It’s what creates personal growth. I’m grateful to have had the strong support of family and friends on a move like this. Once I gained clarity on expectations and understood the challenge at hand, taking on the opportunity to lead the former SAVO business was an easy decision.
It’s important to try new things and challenge yourself in different ways. If that challenge doesn’t work out, it’s okay. You learn from it and move on. As your organizations grow, keep your eyes and ears peeled for the next opportunity — and don’t be afraid to raise your hand.
Craig Dunham is the GM of Business Operations at Seismic. Find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.
