STEPS TO CREATING A MARKETING PLAN Handout prepared by Bill Madden for PAPEN South December 14, 2015

Transcription

1 STEPS TO CREATING A MARKETING PLAN Handout prepared by Bill Madden for PAPEN South December 14, Defining your professional objective is the start of developing a Personal Marketing Plan. The professional objective is essentially the strategic Mission Statement for your business selling you. Answer the questions in the Defining a Professional Objective section a. Generate a position statement that outlines in a sentence or two, your Mission Statement 2. Determine your personal characteristics traits that make us unique and enhance our ability to perform different tasks successfully, or constrain our abilities to perform well. Follow the three steps in Assessing Your Personal Characteristics exercise. After you are done, you may wish to confirm your personal assessment with a friend or associate it is important to get their insight to find out where you may be blind a. Did this change your professional objective? If so, modify the objective, or decide if you need more than one marketing plan 3. Use the Transferable Skills Inventory to assist you in identifying the skills you have learned or developed through experience. a. Place a check next to each skill you currently use. Be sure each skill you select is supported by experience, education or achievements. b. Place a D next to each skill you want to develop. c. Place an A next to each skill you would like or need to acquire. This list is general. It is important that you modify the Inventory to include any additional skills needed to create an accurate picture of yourself. a. Did this change your view of your personal characteristics, and what may be important? Alter your professional objective or personal characteristics priorities as needed. 4. Develop a set of user stories that demonstrate how you have utilized the transferable skills in the past. a. SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) to describe how your skills were used ) b. SOAR Analysis (Situation, Opportunity, Activities and Results) to further refine your thinking on your skills set c. Did this change your view the information captured above, and what may be important? Alter your priorities as needed. 5. Research job titles from postings, looking for transferable skills, or desired characteristics. a. Capture the job titles that you ve had in the past b. Capture the job titles that have activities that transfer based on your SWOT and SOAR analyses 6. Identify your target market based on items 1-5. Capture at least the following information in a Marketing Plan a. Professional Objective b. Positioning Statement c. Competencies d. Target Market e. Target Companies (At least 20 at the initial pass) 7. Prioritize the target companies and set a schedule for contact 8. Update your resume as needed with 1-7 in mind 9. Update the Marketing Plan on a Monthly basis, or when situations change - 1 -

2 Defining a Professional Objective Answer the following questions in writing: WHAT DO YOU DO BEST? What are your skills, knowledge and competencies? These are acquired through education and experience of all kinds (such as employment, volunteer work, life experience) and represent your principal assets in your job search. Correctly labeling skills is an important part of communicating your value. You also have personal characteristics that can be an asset or a liability. These characteristics are inborn or developed early in life. They can include abilities, talents or a predisposition to certain career directions. Some questions you can use to think through this are What do you do that no other person can do that way? Is this an asset or a liability? and Will an employer pay a premium for this? WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO? Your interests. Your professional objective should be something you are interested in as well as something you are good at. After all, you spend at least 8 hours a day at work, and it s easier when you do things you truly enjoy. You are also more likely to succeed when the work interests you. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIORITIES IN LIFE? 1. Your values. These are your core beliefs about what is most and least important in life. They usually evolve slowly and may have changed since you last made major career decisions. a. Do you prefer to be independent and autonomous on the job, or prefer more structure? b. Are you looking for a job, or are you looking for a career? 2. Your personal preferences. Your professional objective should be consistent with your career vision and lifestyle needs a. Are you looking to stay in your industry, or are you willing to consider other options? b. Are you willing to relocate? c. Are you willing to take a significant cut in pay, and how low are you willing to go? d. Are you looking for a job that may require that you live to work, while you would rather work to live? 3. Your motivations. These are the drives or needs that propel you along in your chosen career direction. With high motivation, you move rapidly in your career but you may make sacrifices elsewhere in your life. 4. Your likes and dislikes What did you like about your past positions? What did you dislike? Write down three of each. TYING IT TOGETHER: WHAT IS YOUR CAREER VISION? In five years, I will be

3 Assessing Your Personal Characteristics 1. Review the list below and select the six traits that describe you best. Check the box next to each. Be sure that there is clear evidence of your accomplishments for the traits you check. 2. Of these six that you checked, circle the three that represent your most prominent traits. 3. Look for any traits that a potential employer might consider a weakness. Put an W next to those traits 4. Look for four traits that are opposite your personal characteristics that may be important, and put a W next to those traits Accurate Adventurous Artistic Assertive Challenging Civic-minded Committed Communicate well Compassionate Confident Creative Curious Dedicated Dependable Efficient Emotional Energetic Entertaining Enthusiastic Expressive Good attitude Hard worker High standards Imaginative Independent Inquisitive Intelligent Intuitive Kind Leader Levelheaded Loyal Original People-oriented Perfectionist Personable Persuasive Physically fit Practical Productive Rational Responsible Responsive Self-assured Self-controlled Self-starter Sense of humor Sensitive Sociable Stable Tolerant Trustworthy - 3 -

4 Transferable Skills Inventory Corresponding Drawing Editing Facilitating Interviewing o Listening Cataloging Correcting COMMUNICATING Managing conflict Mediating Negotiating Presenting ideas Public speaking COORDINATING Following up Reporting Relating to customers Writing Scheduling Assessing performance Coaching Counseling Developing DEVELOPING PEOPLE Helping others o Motivating Teaching Team building Training Auditing Budgeting Controlling FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT Cost accounting Financial analysis Financial planning Fund raising Other: Analyzing data Assessing quality Computing Gathering data MANAGING DATA Managing information Measuring Research Setting standards Taking inventory MANAGING/DIRECTING Approving Delegating Developing procedures - 4 -

5 Developing systems Directing Formulating Implementing Instructing Interpreting policy Making decisions Managing people Managing projects Managing tasks Administering Assigning Categorizing ORGANIZING Developing work plans Projecting o Restructuring Setting priorities Analyzing Conceptualizing Designing PLANNING Developing policy Developing strategy Reviewing Surveying Advertising Analyzing markets Managing sales Marketing SELLING/MARKETING Pricing Promoting Relating to clients Selling Writing proposals Client relations Handling complaints SERVING Responding promptly Designing Designing systems Developing products Engineering TECHNICAL SKILLS Inventing / R&D Scientific research Computer literate Manufacturing Programming - 5 -

6 PROFESSIONAL OBJECTIVE: A team leadership position utilizing project, product and functional management skills. Preferably customer facing. Willing to consider a functional role in a smaller, growing organization. POSITIONING STATEMENT: I m an organization and project leader, with extensive product and applications experience in the Rail Transit and Medial Device Markets. My skills translate into many industries, including IT and consulting. My background spans diverse organizations, including startups that spun out of University research environments, mid-sized organizations, and multi-national companies. My recognized strengths include building and leading organizations and self-directed teams that deliver products that maximize value to society, the customer and the corporation. I focus on building a personal, as well as a professional relationship with the client by understanding their operational needs and requirements, translating those requirements for the technical and commercial teams, and providing a partnership view of the customer and organizational relationships by focusing on transparency, preparation, execution and feedback. COMPETENCIES: Project / Product Project planning Strategic & tactical management & measurement Resource/budget management Global project experience Milestone, performance tracking & reporting Able to manage multiple projects/tasks Business Case & Product Roadmap development, evaluation and defense Technical Qualifications Requirements Elicitation, Development and Configuration Software Methodologies (Waterfall, RUP, SCRUM, extreme Programming) C/C++ UML/SysML Led teams consisting of Software, Hardware, Mechanical, Testing and Commissioning Engineers Direct reporting & virtual team management experience Employee mentoring & development Able to work well at all levels in company Collaborative, able to develop good working relationships Knowledge Base SE Handbook (INCOSE) PMBOK (PMI) SWEBOK (IEEE) Agile principles and techniques Process Assessment (CMM/I) Safety Engineering (CENELEC, IEC ) ISO-9001 FDA 510k - 6 -

7 TARGET MARKET: Geographic: Pittsburgh, PA Willing to relocate for the right position (Technology + responsibility + salary) Types of industries: High technology, rail system products, medical devices, IT, consulting Size of organization: Open Team size target between 5-10, cross functional engineers, agile in approaches Target Companies: Heavy Industry Alcoa Alstom 1 Ansaldo Bombardier Dewar 1 PPG 1 Siemens Uber ATC 1 Medical / University Bayer Healthcare CMU 1 Highmark Omnyx/GE Healthcare 1 Phillips Respironics Pitt Rubitection 1 UPMC 1 Zoll IT Ansys American Eagle 1 Branding Brand 1 Compucom 1 Comcast Honeywell IBM 1 Industrial Scientific 1 Science Associates March Networks 1 Mine Safety Appliances McKesson Terrasim Thermo Fischer Consulting CMMI Institute GAI Hatch Mott MacDonald Newton Consulting 1 Parsons 1 Parsons-Brinkerhoff Software Engineering Institute Tartan 1-7 -