Finding your next contract without spending all your time networking and marketing is a big pain point for project management professionals. First, we tend not to like it. We are buried working on our engagements and so it is hard to make time. Second, this uses a different part of our brain than most of us like to use. 
We see that hill of marketing ahead of us and shake our heads. We see the sign in the road that there are dangerous curves ahead. We breath deeply and silently wonder if all that time and energy we throw at marketing will get us what we what; our next contract.
I understand the extreme focus we need to give to our current clients. This causes us to put our heads down and only do the work. But I changed how I approached engagements when I learned Fitch’s law, how to analyze a subject and provide an entirely new interpretation. Clients respect you when you are deeply energized by project work yet they need new solutions, different ideas, and fresh ways of framing the problems of managing time, cost and scope. Clients need you to provide a new interpretation to get them through these deeply challenging times. If you don’t have a new perspective on project work, you are only a commodity and can therefore only compete on price. Period.
I understand not liking marketing. Sound familiar? You might be thinking about this wrong, just like I did. I don’t think we realize that other project management professionals want a relationship with us. That’s not marketing, that’s a relationship. That might actually cause your shoulders to slump as you are reading this. You already have an out-of-control schedule and now I’m asking you to extend yourself to others? How do we make time to give back to the project management profession if that is the key to marketing?
The answer: I learned the power of Scott’s Law. Walter D Scott many years ago stated that to increase our efficiency we need to use our experience as an asset. There is nothing like writing to clarify what is uniquely valuable about what we do. We have amazing tools; blogs, articles, books. Do you have a Facebook page, not account but business page? Do you tweet? Are ya Linked?
Combining these truths creates a Consulting Mindset; using your project experience to share your fresh, relevant and targeted interpretation of trends, needed skills and cutting-edge tools to improve project results.
These two laws drive my marketing efforts in a system that gets results, naturally, and almost effortlessly.
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Rosemary Hossenlopp, MBA PMP © 2009 All Rights Reserved
http://www.pm-perspectives.com
