Market Yourself as The Expert 8

Here's a small sampling from a really good book Secrets of Power Marketing

[li]Write tip sheets - for your clients, prospects and the media[/li]
[li]Write and publish articles in magazines, newsletters and newspapers.[/li]
[li]Write letters to the editor expressing opinions, advice and clarification.[/li]
[li]Publish your own newsletter.[/li]
[li]Write a book - the best way to be seen as the expert.[/li]
[li]Send out regular news releases.[/li]
[li]Be interviewed by the press.[/li]
[li]Sponser a contest or award.[/li]
[li]Make speeches to service clubs and associations.[/li]
[li]Offer information seminars to prospects and clients.[/li]
[li]Stay informed and leading edge on your area of expertise.[/li]
[li]Offer your clients extra "free advice from the expert".[/li]
[li]Earn designations and awards from your industry or trade associations.[/li]
[li]Seek out the top experts in your field - know and get known by them.[/li]
[li]Act, sound and feel like the expert you want to be - confidence is powerful.[/li]
[li]Find a mentor you admire who can help you and make introductions.[/li]
[li]Seek out leaders in other businesses to trade ideas and do joint promotions with - we judge you by who you hang around with.[/li]

Worth reading.



Glen A. Johnson
If you're from Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin check out Tek-Tips in Chicago, Illinois Forum.

TTinChicago

http://www.johnsoncomputers.us

 

[LaurelLee]

This brings to mind something that I heard about Cary Grant. He once said that because he played so many dapper and sophisticated gentleman in movies that he eventually became that man. Before he became an actor, he was a very average, dull man. Your list reminded me of this, because I have been taught that you have to become that which you aspire to be. Even by performing half of those tasks listed above, I think one would be well on the way to success!!

We create our own reality, we might as well make it worthwhile.



___________________________________________________________
With your thoughts you create the world--Shakyamuni Buddha

 

[GlenJohnson]

I have never seen a site that is this good, especially for the cost. I think TT will keep on growing forever....

Glen A. Johnson
If you're from Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin feel free to join the Tek-Tips in Chicago, Illinois Forum.

TTinChicago
Johnson Computers

 

[mdwmail]

Glen & All,

I like the list of tips you found!

Having been a consultant for 20 years, I am in the process of reinventing myself as a speaker. I speak on technology and computers for small businesses and non-profits. My first presentations have been about computer safety.

I have always done some of the things on your list, but now I am going to do more of them. I am writing a book, I am speaking to whomever will listen. I have joined a speakers group and signed up with a mentor to help build my speaking business.

If anyone is interested, I would like to share my new experiences with you. It will help me by making me think things through and analyze the results, and hopefully others might learn or be inspired.

Let me know,

Marc

 

[GlenJohnson]

Always interested. Keep in touch.

Glen A. Johnson
If you're from Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin feel free to join the Tek-Tips in Chicago, Illinois Forum.

TTinChicago
Johnson Computers

 

[GlenJohnson]

mental23, not me in Atlanta,but thanks. As to the first about writing tip sheets, refer to
thread1248-843520
The 10 commandments of safe computing.

Glen A. Johnson
If you're from Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin feel free to join the Tek-Tips in Chicago, Illinois Forum.

TTinChicago
Johnson Computers

 

[GlenJohnson]

mdwmail, it's been almost a month. Anything new happening on the home front?

Glen A. Johnson
If you're from Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin feel free to join the Tek-Tips in Chicago, Illinois Forum.

TTinChicago
Johnson Computers

 

[mdwmail]

Hi Glen,

I thought everyone had taken the month of June off. It’s nice to see that you are still out there.

Things are progressing with the speaking business, but more from an educational stand point. I have been to several local events on various subjects like marketing and increasing sales, and I have learned a great deal.

I have given my "safe computing tips" speech to several groups and I am now starting to develop a list of companies and non-profits who I would like to speak to.

Several years ago, I join the Utah Apartment Association and have been helping them with their computer systems. They recently asked me to be on the education committee. I will be able to create computer classes and seminars for them to be marketed to all 1000 members. Hopefully this will lead to more business.

My first challenge is to come up with a plan of action. Not usually being a pro-active type of person and hardly goal oriented, this is a big challenge. I recently read of someone who stated that they had a 1000 day plan of action. I don't remember what the plan was for, but the 1000 day idea stuck with me. My plan has been to have my transformation complete by the time I turn 50 which will be in 2007. The 1000 day plan would take me to March 2007 if I started today.

The things that I have to plan for are many. What will happen to my current business if I decide to stop doing it? I have 2 dozen clients that I visit on a monthly basis and another 50 or so that I deal with at least 2 or 3 times a year. I have never wanted employees and my son is going off to college to be of all things a rocket scientist. He is going to major in Physics and want to be an astrophysicist. What a disappointment!

The next step is plot out a strategy to generate new types of business. Do I do seminars which are considered training or do I come of with a motivational type speech that gets people excited about using the computer for bigger and better things.

In addition I am starting to work on a book about the changes in technology that we have seen over the past 20 years and how business has been changed by technology. The thought is that if you are a published author you are an expert and you have something important and interesting to say and people will then sit up and take notice of you and pay you to speak.

Well, it's 7:00 AM and time to thing about working today. I think I have to install virus checkers and run adaware for a client today. Not much fun, but it's all billable.

Let me know if you want to hear more.

Marc

p.s. One of our own has a new blog. Matthew Moran is now blogging for ittoolbox.com

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career

Check it out.

 

[GlenJohnson]

I have given my "safe computing tips" speech to several groups and I am now starting to develop a list of companies and non-profits who I would like to speak to.

Is this the 10 commandments? It sounds like you're doing good. Keep us all informed. (I really like the book idea. Let me know how it's going.)

Glen A. Johnson
If you're from Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin feel free to join the Tek-Tips in Chicago, Illinois Forum.

TTinChicago
Johnson Computers

 

[mdwmail]

Glen,

The "Safe Computing Tips" is a 1/2 hour seminar/discussion that I present to my clients and also to business groups about the hazards of surfing the internet and also of daily computer use. I talk about viruses and Spyware/Malware and what to look out for, and how to prevent them from attacking your computer. I stress the need for a virus checker and adaware/spybot.

I talk about the importance of the computer system data and the vulnerability of the systems and also of the networks to which the computer are attached. If it is a current client, I know what is important to the company and I am able to work that into the discussion.

I’ve had really good success with this approach. I have been able to open the eyes of many employees and managers as well. As I may have said before, people know what they know, but don’t know what they don’t know. In the last few weeks these presentations have lead to additional billable hours with almost all the client who have listened to me.

At this point I am not charging for the speech. I do though intend to charge non clients as much as $300 for a 45 minute speech and some questions and answers time afterwards. I have decided that I should be paid for what I have spent 20 years learning.

I would like to relate two things to you if you are interested:

On Monday I installed a system with Windows 98SE that I had reloaded from scratch over the weekend. I attached the system to the network and the internet on Monday morning and left it running without installing the critical programs (I didn’t know what they were, the user was on vacation). I returned today to finish the job, and as I opened IE6 to download some software, a pop up popped up. What a shock! This machine was clean on Monday. I did my usual investigation in the ad/remove program list. I found about a dozen new programs had been downloaded to the system and installed. I ran ad-aware and found 86 malicious items. I was amazed at the speed at which this system had become compromised.

The young will call clerk (19 years old and the son of the owner) told me that he had downloaded instant messenger and had spent an hour or so surfing after work while waiting for a ride home. He claimed not to have downloaded anything, but I am sure he did. It took me over an hour to clean the machine and return it to the way it had been on Monday.

Monday morning at 8:00 I am presenting my “SCT” seminar to the entire company. I think I’ll make them pay!

Also today I received a call from a prospect with whom I had not been in touch with for nearly 6 months. I am the worst at following up. I hate to hear no, so if I don’t hear yes, I assume no and leave it at that. I don’t like to appear to be a salesman, even though I am and I am very good at it. I had spoken to this company about some computer systems and networking. The director (it’s a non profit) liked what I had to say at the time and said he would be in touch and things looked good. No contact for 6 months and out of the blue this morning, he called, we met and I got a great project from him. He ordered 4 systems, a server, installation, training and support. Close to $3000 profit in for me over the next two weeks. The moral of the story…. Keep telling your story to people and sooner or later they will call you… But follow up and keep in touch better than I do.

Well, as usual, I ramble. Hope this has given you hope or inspiration or something. Let me know if you want to see the “SCT” notes.

Marc

 

[GlenJohnson]

I definetely would like to see the "SFC notes." You might want to check out thread1248-843520 if you haven't. This is the 10 commandments to safe computing. Keep in touch. We could all use some good news in the field.

Glen A. Johnson
If you're from Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin feel free to join the Tek-Tips in Chicago, Illinois Forum.

TTinChicago
Johnson Computers

 

[mmorancbt]

Marc and all,

First, thanks for the plug on the blog at IT Toolbox. Writing that is fun! I get a bit more “poetic license.” Please, if you have the time, make comments or post questions. It will help promote the blog.

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career/

Marc and I have started some talks about the development of a consulting seminar. We have passed some good ideas back and forth - doing this all in our "spare time". But here are ideas for any consultants..

CASE-STUDY PRESENTATIONS:
I have been doing case-study presentations for years. Not so much on each technical detail but how a particular business benefited from a particular set of technologies - how they were implemented - where we saw opportunities to streamline what the business did.

These always- without exception - resulted in new, lucrative business. If you do not like public presentations, join Toastmasters or some other group - even a community college course on speaking. Very few things will position you as an expert more quickly.

WRITING/PUBLISHING:
As you may or may not know, I am re-writing my book, The I.T. Career Builder's Toolkit for Cisco Press. It won't be released until next year but already it is yielding some opportunities for speaking.

If you struggle in your writing, get “The Elements of Style” by Strunk & White. You don’t have to write a book or have an article published in a magazine. Publish your own article and give it away to people you meet. Have someone you know – who has a keen eye – edit it. Here is a simple formula for an essay type piece. What it lacks in originality it makes up for in focus....

Paragraph 1: Introduction sentence on topic. Sentence 2, explaining the intro. Sentence 3, explaining the intro. Sentence 4, explaining the intro. Sentence 5, introduce three topics of the body content.

Paragraph 2: Intro sentence on 1st topic. Sentences 2-4, explaining the topic. Sentence 5, complete the topic. Paragraphs 3 & 4 follow the exact same formula. Now you have introduced & explained three main ideas.

Paragraph 5: Intro to the conclusion. Sentences 2-4, emphasize what the reader has learned. Sentence 5, conclude with the benefit of what was learned and perhaps their next step.

Conclude your paper with a short bio and how to contact you......

As you get more comfortable with your writing, you can deviate from the form. But in a pinch, this provides a simple formula to help get some decent writing kicked off. Elements of Style is indespensible to help with the finer points so that you don’t overuse adverbs too redundantly (that was a joke).

Hope this is helpful.

Matthew Moran

 

[mdwmail]

Matt,

I like the idea of case study presentations. Do you have a few snippits that you could share with us, to give us an idea of what you have used successfully.

I think we could all benefit from it.

Marc

 

[mmorancbt]

Sure....

I haven't updated these in awhile but the basic layout and structure is what I use. However, I am not using the formula above - from a writing standpoint. It is a guideline to get you started.

http://www.cbtoolkit.com/consult/Summaries.htm

That will provide you with an idea of a single-page, case-study paper.

On presentations, I focus on three primary benefits of the technology I've put in place. For instance:

Logon Scripting:

I'll cover the following:

Intro to scripting
- The tools we will cover
- Why you want to script
- automate config;
- centralized control;
- reproducable environment;

One client experience:
- the challenge they faced;
- our approach to solving it;
- one key piece of the technology we used;
- this I cover in some detail
- other key technologies we used but don't have time to cover in detail.

Any questions?

That's it! Many people, when presenting (I even see this from Microsoft and other vendors) cover so many features or all the technical details. Even if you are highly technical, an hour and a half of this becomes tedious and boring.

I would rather see a presentation that covers an overview of the technology. One or two examples that have a tangible benefit and introduces you to the interface and then a brief description of other pieces of the technology that you may be interested in.

I watched a sharepoint portal server demo by a Microsoft guy and while it was thorough, he was flipping through screen after screen in a race to ensure he covered 50 features in 75 minutes. It was stressful to watch.

As technology professionals we often feel the need to impress our client's with our grasp of the technology. In doing presentations, we do the same thing. Better to impress them with our understanding of the challenges solved.

Three primary points is all people will retain - for the most part. Don't make them drink from a firehouse. It isn't very refreshing.

Matthew Moran

 

[mdwmail]

Matt,

Thanks for the great tip. I gave you a star, but don't let it go to your head.

Marc