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Making your own luck

By Deborah Gill-Hesselgrave

A lot of consultants' and independent contractors' standard operating procedure can be characterized by Tennessee Williams' Blanche DuBoise in A Streetcar Named Desire: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

For most independents and especially for independents in technical communications, I see a strong tendency to rely on others rather than on oneself for work. Clearly, we need others; otherwise, we would have no clients, no network, no references. What I'm talking about is a tendency among my self-employed peers to abrogate their personal responsibility for marketing and sales to others, relinquishing their own ownership of these functions and ultimately depending on the kindness of strangers to spread the word about their value and to point "buyers" in their direction.

I know what I'm talking about here because I often struggle with the desire to rely on others to send work my way simply because they know how good I am. If only it were so!

Well, I'm here to tell you that for only a tiny percentage of us, this method works reasonably well. And for a slightly larger percentage of us, it works a little bit. But for 90 percent of us, it spells doom for our dreams as independents. (And for those of you who are working on behalf of an employer or an agency, keep reading. There's a message here for you, too.)

Try as I might to be part of that tiny percentage who can confidently rely on the kindness of strangers, I have finally resigned myself to the truth: you've got to make your own luck.

Now, my mother would argue that if it weren't for bad luck, she'd have no luck at all, so let's be clear: if you're going to make your own luck, make it good luck.

Last year was a challenging one for my consulting firm, dgh enterprises. The previous year, 2002, had almost been a walk in the park by comparison. And even early last year looked like we might be able to rest on our laurels and rely solely on the kindness of strangers to find more work for my firm.

And then, WHAM!

As I did a mid-year assessment in June, I saw that I had no projects lined up for the remainder of the year. Proposals that I had been told were mere formalities were languishing. Work that had been contracted was stalled because of internal issues at the client's organization. There was no joy in Mudville. By August, we were 80 percent behind goal.

Staring down the barrel of having to sell the house, I knew I had to do something differently. As the queen of networking, I had already talked to everyone I knew looking for leads. I had scheduled and attended as many service presentations as I had energy for. I had gone into the fourth level of my contact list. (That's the level where they answer the phone with "Deborah who?") And all to no avail.

By the end of August, I had exhausted the company's reserves and I was at a loss as to how to get the business back on track. That is, until I saw a small PR piece in a colleague's newsletter. It was from the three or four sentences in that blurb that I figured out how to rescue the rest of 2003 from fiscal disaster.

You'll have to hang with me to the end of this article to learn how I was able to convert the content of that newsletter article into a whole new business venture. That's where you will learn how this experience convinced me forevermore to be the mistress of my own destiny and to forsake relying solely on the kindness of strangers.

Making your own luck requires work

Making your own luck has nothing to do with chance. It is not about serendipity. Making your own luck requires:

• knowing what you're about



• singing your own praises



• getting others to toot your horn



• connecting the dots

Making your own luck is an ongoing, conscious awareness of and commitment to a process. No element of this process can stand on its own. And if you attempt to execute it out of its necessary order, the process will not bear the desired fruit.

So, if you want to take control of your work—whether you're an employee or an independent, whether you want more control of the kind of work you do or the frequency at which you secure work—begin practicing these steps and begin making your own luck.

Step 1—Know what you're about

What do you do well?

The first step to making your own luck is really understanding what you do well. If that voice inside your head is saying, "Well, I'm a technical writer," then you have failed this step.

So what? So are the rest of us.

What do you do so well that it distinguishes you from the rest of us?

For me, the answer is, I excel at working at the enterprise level to connect people and processes and to optimize the performance of both. I'm also a process nut who is just ditzy enough to be really effective in fluid and ambiguous situations. Top all of that off with my ability to put words to paper in a fairly fluent fashion and BAM! I've just set myself up as someone unique who can bring value to many engagements.

Step 2—Sing your own praises

Who else but you, your best friend, your mother, and your mirror know what you do well?

Just knowing your own unique worth and being able to articulate it is only part of this process. Who else knows what you do well?

Think back over the last month or two. Think about discussions you've been a part of or have listened in on that involved topics that align with what you know you do well. How often did you pipe up and say something that shows your expertise in that topic?

When I'm working with a client who needs help complying with regulatory requirements (such as HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act]) or quality standards (like ISO), I openly share my expertise about process improvement, policies and procedures, and training. On those occasions when I'm engaged in developing user documentation, I keep my eyes open for opportunities to share my experience with user-centered design and adult-learning theory. Up to the point where I wind up coming off as an intemperate know-it-all, I make a point of singing my own praises in the context of offering more solutions, more service, and more value to my client.

So, if your boss, your clients, your network associates, your brother-in-law, and your across-the-street neighbor don't know what you do well and how it fits in with their experiences, you are not doing enough to sing your own praises.

Start slowly. Find one opportunity to tell one person how a topic the two of you are talking about matches up perfectly with something wonderful that you can do for them. After a few repetitions, increase the ante and practice this step in small group settings among folks who know you. When you find that you can comfortably and authentically connect what you do well to other people's contexts, you will have mastered this step.

At this point you should be out in the world singing your praises to one and all!

Step 3—Get others to toot your horn

This is where the rubber hits the road.

The purpose of step 2 was to educate others in what makes you and what you offer special. If you execute step 2 without connecting your excellence with the context of others, you are simply a braggart. No one will pick up a braggart's horn and play it for him.

However, folks who can connect to the value you bring, who have converted what you do into information that aligns with their world, those are the folks who will be in a position to tell others about you and will be able to do it at a level of detail that will continue to have meaning—even in the retelling.

So how do you get others to toot your horn for you? Give them the information they need. And then simply ask them to.

If you've mastered step 2, then this will be easy. If you haven't mastered singing your own praises, then your attempts at this phase may come off as self-conscious and will definitely be less effective. Make sure you can confidently sing your own praises before you ask someone to toot your horn for you.

So how do you do this?

Reconnect with their context. Ask them to discuss your value with their team, with their boss, with their clients. And don't be shy!

Your goal here is to create a buzz about who you are and what you offer. This buzz is as important within a traditional organization where you're an employee as it is out in the world if you're an independent. You want people to know who you are and why you're special. And you want them talking about you in a meaningful way that allows them to expand your reach and your influence for you.

As you continuously perform steps 2 and 3, you will create an environment in which you can now make your own luck.

Step 4—Connect the dots

All right. You know what you're about, you can confidently and effectively sing your own praises, and you now have a network of advocates who toot your horn because you have connected with something meaningful to them.

Throughout these steps you will have developed a highly tuned sense of what you do best because:

And by engaging in all of these steps you will have created an environment to make your own luck.

Connecting the dots requires that you step away from what you know works and take a chance on the less known. Before writing my first users guide, I had written materials for use in K-8 classrooms and for the teachers and parents of special needs students. When I had the opportunity to develop my first set of user documentation, I recognized that there were far more parallels and similarities between those two efforts than there were differences. I connected the dots and realized that in both cases I needed to be able to distill complex concepts and information to a form that served the information needs of my audience.

Perhaps you have spent the bulk of your technical writing career developing ancillary written products for software products. Have you considered adding hardware support products to your services? Are you highly skilled in developing online help? Then perhaps you should consider developing e-learning products. What about policies and procedures? If you enjoy working with people directly, think about being a job training specialist.

A limit to making your own luck is the degree to which you can see how what you do can and should be applied to new and novel situations. Think about what you do, and see if you can list at least three new ways you can apply your current knowledge, skills, and expertise. Then, break each of the three items you listed into two or three specific products or services—by name—that you can offer.

Example: I write users guides. From this basis, I can:

Taken to the next most granular level, this means when I:

Real-word examples of making your own luck

Here are some real-world scenarios to help you see how others have applied these steps and are making their own luck.

Know what you're about

Steven:
Steven is leaving his job of 30 years in less than 8 months. For 30 years he has not had to do anything except demonstrate his usual exemplary performance, and he has achieved the highest position possible. But now it's time for him to launch his next career in a completely new sector for an entirely different industry.

Unlike most folks in his position who have no clue what they have to offer the world, Steven has no doubt about his worth. So go ahead and ask him what he's going to do next. If you do, he will tell you that he has just wrapped up an "extraordinary first career" and that he is "looking forward to combining his superb management and technical skills in telecommunications to become a program manager for an exciting telecommunications or high-tech company that wants to enjoy successes similar to those I have previously created with my first employer."

Clearly, Steven knows what he is about.

Sing your own praises

Larry:
I have never in my life seen someone who is so comfortable singing their own praises without coming off as a braggart as Larry. Larry knows what he is about and is fluent in the language of what makes him one of the most sought-after practitioners in his field.

I recently had the opportunity to join Larry at one of his favorite coffee houses where lots and lots of independents in various fields hang out, work, and network. Although Larry knew quite a few of the folks in the café, he engaged a fellow he had not met before and seamlessly wove his story into and around the context of his new acquaintance.

Now, will the gentleman with whom Larry conversed ever hire Larry? Probably not. But that fellow, David, is a financial planner and he will have opportunities to meet and work with clients who may well have need for Larry's services.

Did it make sense for Larry to explicitly ask David to refer business his way? No, and he didn't. But in addition to the possibility of future referrals, all those people in the café who could and who did eavesdrop on Larry's recitation of his value got the chance to solidify the story of Larry in yet another context.

And, yes. Larry had a meeting the very next day with a fellow he had met at that same café some weeks previously. Last I heard they were negotiating the details of a consulting agreement. (Late breaking news: Larry and Henry are now winding down phase one of their project and getting ready for phase two. I'm told that this will likely unfold into a long-term relationship of many more phases across a couple more projects. Good work, Larry!)

Get others to toot your horn

DGH:
I have a friend who is a practitioner in another field, and he is often called on to include instructional and user-centered content in the projects he does for his clients. About two years ago I finally figured out that, although he knew full well what I do for a living, it never occurred to him to pitch me to his clients.

Duh.

For the 1 percent of you who haven't figured out how this ends, I'll tell you.

One fateful day two years ago when my friend was debriefing me on some proposal he had just submitted, I took it upon myself to beat him soundly about the head and shoulders to remind him that he should have included me in his proposal to provide the prospect with a complete team for their development effort. From that day on, he has included me in each of his full-cycle development proposals.

As a result, I've secured two contracts from that relationship to the tune of more than $10,000. Not bad for a few minutes of effort telling him what he should say about me and asking him to say it!

Connect the dots

DGH:
Remember that three- or four-sentence PR piece I told you I had read in a colleague's newsletter this past August? In that blurb, she announced that she had added HIPAA consulting services to the solutions she offered her clients. Now, I knew full well that although she had experience helping clients comply with other regulatory requirements, she did not know jack about HIPAA.

I also knew that I had recently partnered with an HIPAA expert on a non-HIPAA project.

After conferring with my partner as to his receptiveness to adding HIPAA consulting to our collective bag of tricks, I phoned my colleague and called her bluff. Sure enough, she had sent one staff writer to a HIPAA training seminar. And that was it.

We chatted a bit, had a meeting later that week, and concluded that, with her reputation as a regulatory guru; with my partner's connections in the healthcare industry; and with my abilities to work within organizations as a change agent, to develop best-of-class policies and procedures, and to train diverse populations, we all would do well to partner on this new business venture.

By connecting the dots from the blurb, to the expertise of my new partner, to what I knew I brought to the table, we all became winners.

And, yes, we are enjoying some early successes helping small practices get current with HIPAA's Privacy Rule, and we're looking forward to helping clients comply with the pending Security Rule. (More late breaking news: As a result of a friend's knowing that I offer HIPAA consulting and because I have some small experience as a technical writer, I've just secured a project for a Web-based product that has to support the HIPPA compliance of the companies that purchase the product. Because my friend tooted my horn and I connected the dots, I have distinguished myself from two competitors who offered bids on this same project!)

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Julie Reynolds, editorial director for El Andar magazine (www.elandar.com) and associate with the Center for Investigative Reporting, for helping me to organize the material for this article.