General Meeting, 11 February 2003

Earlier

Later

"Promoting Yourself"

Chablis and Brie night Beat the February blahs! Come for a glass of wine, a nibble of cheese, and other snacks. Hobnob with your fellow STC members. Network, be sociable, and do a little self-promotion.

Members Carolyn Watt, of CWA, and Mona Albano, a documentation consultant, will show you what it takes to put your image together and how to create a marketing plan that works for you!

Of course, there's a base assumption that you really do have the talent to support your marketing claims, but there's probably more to your image than you think. This session is all about image because as we all know, first impressions do count. Image matters, plain and simple.

Find out why Mona went from this:	To this:

Carolyn will interview Mona about what she has done to change her image and the results that she has seen from that work. There will be some worksheets as handouts to help you go through the same exercise. Image is personal. Changing your image is a personal commitment.

Meeting report: "The Importance of Promoting Yourself," by Phil Kahn

At last month's Wine & Cheese the topic was "Promoting Yourself" and former STC Toronto president Carolyn Watt delivered a dynamic address. Carolyn is the founder and president of CWA (Carolyn Watt and Associates), a communications consulting firm. To begin the session, Carloyn asked the audience to indicate, by a show of hands, if they brought business cards or other promotional items with them. The response showed that few had done so, and that most technical communicators do not like "marketing" themselves.

To empahsize the importance of marketing for technical communicators (most of whom are self-employed) Carolyn said that by 2010, over 50% of the workforce will be self-employed, and the competition for contracts will be fierce.

The first stage of marketing yourself is to determine the essence of the service that you provide, and to make that your brand. Your brand is not a summary of your accomplishments and skills, but rather it is the feeling people get when they see you or your logo; it has to work on an emotional level. It should show not just in your work and marketing materials, but also in the way you look, talk and behave. For example, Carolyn feels the essence of her service is clarity, and so she tries to reflect this in her dress, her speech and her attitude.

In order to market your brand, Carolyn said you must work quickly and make a positive first impression. People make judgments rapidly...and they are usually right; 80% of judgments made within 3 minutes are correct. Only 7%of your impact comes from what you say, how ever. Your tone accounts for 38% of your impact, while your appearance and behaviour account for 55%. This is why your look and your attitude are so important.

STC executive member Mona Albano then joined Carolyn on stage for a question and answer session. Mona originally studied biology, but her technical communications career began when was asked to document a computer system. She accepted the challenge and never looked back, becoming a freelance technical communicator. She learned to network (the STC is a great place for this) and promote herself and claims she was able to convert 8% of her cold calls into contracts.

Recently Mona took some new marketing steps; she had professional photos taken for her resume and also had her colours done, as was evident by the sharp red suit she wore. Mona and Carolyn agreed on the importance of always having business cards and résumés available (proofed to ensure no mistakes) and on the necessity of constant training and retooling to stay on top of new developments in the profession.

Carolyn then spoke about her own background, which had many similarities to Mona's. She fell into technical communication when she needed to train her department on a new computer system. She was so successful at this that she was given the responsibility of training the whole company. When this company was bought out she found another job but soon decided to go independent.

Carolyn's initial marketing plans were successful and the company did well. However, the market became more competitive and business slumped after the events of 9/11. Recently she changed direction and rebranded her company as "Canada's Customer Experience Company"with a mandate to help other companies make their customers feel good about them. She is actively promoting this new brand. After the presentation, Carolyn took a number of questions from the audience. She advised those new to the technical communications profession to build up experience through volunteer work. She recommended that people concentrate on the most recent five years when constructing a résumé, but also warned against leaving obvious gaps.

She concluded with the inspirational maxim that "attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude."

Note: You can see Carolyn's website at www.carolynwatt.com.

--You can reach Phil, a regular Communications Time contributor, at www.digitaljive.com.

Speaker

Carolyn Watt, Carolyn Watt & Associates, Inc.

Carolyn Watt is the founder and president of CWA | The Customer Experience Company. The goal of her company is to help companies deliver an exceptional customer experience. Carolyn has always been in the customer experience business, specializing in workflow and communications, for over 20 years. In addition to CWA, Carolyn is a partner in an e-learning company with Ralph Robinson, the ISO guy.

Carolyn is a popular speaker and can be heard at the STC annual conferences with former STC president, Lance Gelein in their Professional Presence workshops.

Carolyn is active in the STC at the international level. She helped to set up the Information Design certificate programme at University of Toronto. In addition, she designed and teaches their course in Usability Evaluation.