I have worked in the A/E/C industry since 1978, and moved into my first marketing role in 1984. Since then, I have worked in a variety of marketing roles, from coordinator to manager to corporate director to self-employed independent consultant.
In the last dozen years, I have written articles and books, and spoken to marketing and technical groups from Washington DC to southern California and from south Florida to Alaska. Many of my more recent sessions have been webinars, including one set of five webinars for a business group in India.
My "portfolio" includes 125 published articles and 51 presentations — and this is the 181st blog post. Almost all of this writing and speaking has been on A/E/C marketing-related subjects — the "win work" portion of the "win work/do work" cycle.
I have been paid for fewer than one-third of these items and barely broke even on most of the conference presentations.
So why did I do it? Why do I still do it? Why am I constantly seeking out new opportunities to do more of the same?
I do it for two reasons.
First of all, I find that I get huge satisfaction from sharing the knowledge I have acquired and the insights I have discovered. It doesn't matter what I'm sharing — whether elementary or advanced — or with whom I'm sharing. If I'm sharing what I have learned, making someone else's journey a bit easier and smoother, I'm a happy camper.
I believe very strongly that if you want to be recognized for your knowledge and expertise, you have to be willing to share with others, whether you get paid a lot, a little or not at all.
Second, every time I give a session or share my writings with a group or individual, I receive at least one piece of constructive criticism. It's not always positive, but it's always constructive.
For example, after a recent presentation, someone commented that I was reading my slides. I looked at my slide show and realized that I was putting my entire presentation into the slides — every word, every observation. This went back to a time when I would give out the slide show as my hand-out, so I tried to be as complete as I could.
But now that I prepare a separate hand-out, I have gone back to a slide show that is just an outline from which to speak. I assume the smart people in my audience will decide what is important to them and take notes. If they email or call me later, in addition to answering their questions, the discussion also brings me new information and/or a new perspective.
So in thanks for what I get out of my writing and speaking, I offer my readers FREE copies of my published writings, as follows:
eBooks
- Differentiation — can you be truly unique if you are just like others?
- Go/No Go — the hardest decision of all
- Mentoring — benefits for protégé, mentor and mentor's firm
- Planning — No plan? No way!
- Proposing — what I've learned in 30 years of proposal writing
- Success — thoughts on achieving it and maintaining it
Samples
- Go/No Go evaluation — projects — short form
- Go/No Go evaluation — projects — long form
- Go/No Go evaluation — clients
- Debriefing — sample procedure
- Debriefing — sample questions
If you are interested in having any of these publications or samples FOR FREE, please email me at [email protected] with your complete contact information. I will email you the .pdf files.