From FC Bayern to the loading dock

In a nutshell: The contrast could hardly be greater: VIP areas, sponsorship deals and the SAP Garden on one side. 40-tonne trucks, pallet management and route planning on the other. Patrick Bauer looks back on his time as Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager at FC Bayern Basketball as a "rose-tinted bubble". Entering the logistics industry, on the other hand, was something he "completely underestimated". In this article he describes what happens when you leave a glamorous, well-known world and leap into an industry whose complexity you could barely have imagined beforehand.

 Career decision or simply an opportunity

Patrick spent six and a half successful years at FC Bayern Basketball. There he was deeply involved in marketing and accompanied, among other things, the naming-rights transition to BMW Park as well as the full commercial marketing for the new SAP Garden.

"At FC Bayern I had really worked through everything. from marketing new principal partners all the way to the naming rights. Getting to be part of all of that was extremely exciting."

Yet alongside this, the desire for something new was growing. When it became clear that he and his wife would be moving back to the Allgäu region and his father-in-law was simultaneously looking for a successor for the family-owned freight forwarding company, their paths crossed. Patrick recalls: "I was looking for my next career step, and my father-in-law was looking for a potential successor."

"Let's do it": A leap into the deep end

Wedding, relocation to Kempten, farewell to his beloved team in Munich and entry into a completely unfamiliar industry. All of this happened within the space of a few months. Patrick was full of motivation: "As a sportsman I immediately saw it as a challenge and told myself: 'Let's do it!'. even if, in hindsight, that was perhaps a little naive." 

But reality did not take long to arrive: "Looking back, I have to say: it was definitely naive. The transition simply knocked me completely off my feet."

How much courage does a radical career change require, and at what point does that courage inevitably become a kind of naivety?

Welcome to reality: Why logistics surpasses everything

For Patrick the transition was a brutal professional and mental reality check. He openly admits that he had completely misjudged the world of freight forwarding:

"I truly underestimated it completely. Logistics is, to me, the most intense industry there is, because an incredible number of factors and complex processes are interconnected."

He quickly recognised that the true heart of the economy beats within logistics: "That brought me down to earth immediately. I realised: this is exactly how entrepreneurship works. If logistics in Germany stops functioning, everything grinds to a halt and nobody gets their food anymore."

From the desk to the 40-tonne truck

How do you establish authority in a world you do not yet understand yourself?

Patrick did not take the classic lateral-entry approach of observing strategically from behind a desk. He went back to basics: "The first important step on that journey was definitely getting my truck driving licence." He wanted to understand how the work of his colleagues actually functions.

"These days I manage to reverse up to the loading dock fairly well every now and then. That still feels absolutely crazy to me. When I think about where I was two years ago and that I am now manoeuvring a 40-tonne truck, I sometimes ask myself: 'Mate, what exactly are you doing here?' But that is precisely what gives me confidence, because I can see that I am actively able to contribute."

External input and finding your own niche

Despite the driving licence and his open approach, the "new guy" remains the "new guy" for a while. Patrick now sits in an office with five logistics experts and feels his own inner conflict. He experiences the support from the team as a tremendous source of reassurance: "They tell me: 'Hey, you're doing great and we believe in you.' I can feel that I have been extremely well received by the team. But in my own head I don't feel one hundred per cent settled yet. my team is probably already further along in their thinking than I am."

To grow into this significant role, Patrick realises that encouragement from within alone is often not enough. While his father-in-law is an important mentor to him, he actively seeks out external input in order to initiate process improvements and the digital transformation: "I would also need an external mentor, someone from outside with whom I can discuss my topics and challenges without reservation. I am currently sitting inside this family freight forwarding bubble and am deliberately working to expand my network with people who have already been through a business succession themselves."

While he is still searching for that external input for the freight forwarding work, he is simultaneously building an area within the company where he already feels confident today. He looks after employer branding, develops new sales presentations and strengthens the brand. This sometimes weighs on his conscience: "Sometimes I think to myself: 'Maybe I should be doing a lot more pure freight forwarding.' But it is incredibly hard to spend the entire day doing only things you have not yet mastered or that are completely new to you."

Does someone making a lateral career change really need to master everything perfectly from day one in order to prove their worth, or are they allowed to find their footing exactly wher