What’s Your Professional Value?

Discussions with my associates who also run solo and microbusiness often get into questions about our professional relevance. We ask, “Are we positioned to be in-demand and marketable in our industry niche?”

In the spirit of building a business case regarding your relevance, here are some specific benefits that likely apply to professionals like you in a wide range of services and industries:

• Skills as a leader of people and organizations.
• Experience developing products and services, along with lessons learned in the process.
• Proficiency in marketing products and services, internally to stakeholders and/or externally to customers.
• Sensitivity and skills in being an advocate for customers.
• Experience with project management.
• Life experience in coping with adversity and success.
• Perspective about business trends, management philosophies and cultures.
• Experience with business, product and service life cycles.
• Skills related to forming and sustaining partnerships and alliances.
• Appreciation for responsive and value-based customer relations.
• Capability to analyze and identify valid evidence to evaluate products and services.
• Experience pitching startups or legacy businesses to strategic partners and investors.
• Understanding about business growth issues and solutions.
• Access to extensive networks of relevant contacts.
• Patience and perspective responding to change within organizations and in industries.
• Professional resourcefulness from business experience.
• Credibility within the industry or a related one.
• Cultural sensitivity from experience and values.
• Appreciation of loyalty and commitment.
• Understanding of the power of actions, not just talk.
• Knowledge about the value of planning and knowing that all plans are dynamic.
• Experience with failure and turning lessons learned into positive actions.
• Skills collaborating with diverse teams.
• Capability to mentor or coach clients with regard to institutional and industry knowledge and business skills.

This list should serve as a reminder to you about points you can make if you’re in a situation that requires you to present your relevance to prospective clients. However, the real value of these points lies in you connecting them to your business profile. In other words, match your skills, knowledge and experience with each point to re-frame your business relevance.

Career coaches and advisors often have their clients perform self-analysis exercises like this. The objective is to help their clients shape their business ventures and develop messages to convey during pitches and in proposals. It’s also a way to remind their clients of what they have to offer in the marketplace. Too often, we don’t appreciate these value points unless we make an effort to explore them directly.

Excerpt from Smart Marketing for Solopreneurs and Microbusinesses by Douglas Freeman, available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GV55XJR?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_BR83A5H13WK2G85TV3BQ_1

#entrepreneur #smallbusiness #marketing #startup #business