26.06.15 Run Your Career Like a Business Without Quitting Your Job with Chris Kopp (57)
[00:00:00] Chris: In this episode of Great Practices, I'm joined by myself as I talk about how you can run your career like a business without quitting your job. Now, here's why this is a little bit of a different episode. I was recently asked to speak at an Atlanta PMI event, and one of my favorite topics to talk about is how you can act like an entrepreneur within a large company, something that I like to call an intrapreneur.
[00:00:28] Now, why is this such a relevant topic? Well, because differentiating yourself as a project manager and PMO leader is critical in this economy, and that's what I discussed during this presentation. You'll learn how applying the principles of operations, marketing, sales, and finance to yourself personally will help you treat your career as a business that will always have plenty of customers.
[00:00:56] One caveat. This is a dinner meeting, so you're gonna hear plates and forks and knives in the beginning, And if you'd like to watch the presentation along with the slides, You'll be able to find the link in the show notes, and it'll take you right there. So again, welcome to Great Practices, and I hope you enjoy this episode What is the problem that we all have? The problem we all have is differentiating ourselves and [00:02:00] making sure that we stay relevant and making sure that we have impact in the organizations in which we work. Because here's the deal, if you look at the flip side of being relevant and having impact, what does that look like?
[00:02:15] It means you're irrelevant and you don't have any impact. You're not making a difference. You're not doing anything good for that organization in which you're in. Now, that's, that's not satisfying. Who wants to not have impact? And it's also especially very risky, certainly in the time period that we are working in now.
[00:02:39] So that's what we're gonna be talking about tonight, is with one fundamental shift in mindset, we're gonna be talking about what is it, if you change the way that you think about the way you approach your job as a project manager, how you can have that impact, how you can make sure that you stay relevant, how you can make sure that you make a difference in your organization.
[00:03:07] So why am I talking about this? Well, here's the deal. Early on in my career, I so badly wanted to go on my own I couldn't see straight. I wanted to start my own business. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to come up with my own ideas. I wanted people to pay me for my ideas, and I wanted them to get value for what I was doing, and I wanted to do it over and over again.
[00:03:31] But there was one serious problem that I had, and I think you're gonna see what that problem is, uh, in this next slide, because I was act- I, I was able to find a picture of myself early on in my career that I just wanna share with everybody. And that's it right there. The problem I had was I was a chicken.
[00:03:52] I couldn't make the difference. I couldn't pull the trigger in order to go out on [00:04:00] my own. Now, I read all the books. You know, I listened to all of the audiobooks and all of the seminars and webinars about going out on your own and doing your own thing and making a difference, but I just couldn't do it. I had already burned through my savings, gone back to school for IT, and there was no way I could go to my wife a number two time and say, "I'm gonna burn through all my savings again."
[00:04:25] So that's when I began to realize that I needed to compromise a little bit. I needed to look at my work situation a little bit differently. Because I looked at that relationship that I had with my employer and I said, "Wait a second. I have something that I wanna sell. It's my time and my services."
[00:04:51] They've got something that they wanna buy. It's my time and my services, and they're allowing me to try out my ideas. I'm able to bring value to this organization I'm working for, and I'm also finding that on a regular basis, they write me checks. So that was nice. So I said, "Well, you know what? Let me just compromise a little bit as far as my mindset goes, and I'm going to begin treating my employer as if it was my customer."
[00:05:24] Now, what does this result in? Well, I didn't have a framework or anything. I just was coming in and I was just thinking, uh, differently as far as how I approached work. The experience was liberating. I cannot tell you, just the shift in mindset made such a big difference in the way that I approached work.
[00:05:48] Now, I found that I was more engaged, I was more productive, I was more efficient, I was more effective. I was able to, uh, fortunately dodge many layoffs that [00:06:00] came over the years, and opportunities continued to present itself, all because, I believe, of the way that I viewed my employment. And I said, "I am going to treat my employer as if they're my customer."
[00:06:19] I didn't know what to call it. I knew what an entrepreneur was, and then one day I came across this word and said, "Oh, an intrapreneur. I love that word." Because an entrepreneur is somebody that finds a problem. They've gotta solve a problem. They see an opportunity. They solve that problem. They bring value to whoever that customer is, and then they rinse and repeat, and they do that over again and over and over again.
[00:06:47] I said, "That's exactly what I want to do in any organization in which I work, is I want to be an intrapreneur. I wanna solve these problems. I wanna bring value. I wanna rinse and repeat and just do this over and over again within the confines of a much larger organization." That really allowed me to, you know, just scratch that entrepreneurial itch I had, but at the same time, just make a big difference for the companies that I've worked for.
[00:07:20] So what does this look like in practice? Well, if you flip the script, you're gonna see that it's all about how your attitude changes. All of these things on the left-hand side are things that we have to deal with on a, on a daily basis, right? If you have an employer job mindset, you know, "Why am I here?
[00:07:42] Well, got to work. I have to work this job. I have to work at this place." Flip the script. If you're an intrapreneur, "I choose to work with this customer That's liberating, that's freeing. The average level, "I'll just do enough to just get by. You [00:08:00] know, I'm gonna get my check at the end of the week, no big deal."
[00:08:03] If you have an entrepreneurial mindset, it's going to be, "What is it that I can do? I'm gonna give 110% in
[00:08:10] order to delight my customer because I want them to continue to come back time and time again." What about skill development? You know, you go into your manager, you go to your boss and you say, "I'd like to take this, this training," or, "I'd like to go to this class." "No, not in the budget." "Okay, well, that's my loss."
[00:08:28] That is an employer. You're looking at that as an employer or a job. If you flip it to an entrepreneur, you're gonna say, "You know what? I'll pay for it myself. I'll go do it myself because I'm gonna make myself better in whatever it is that I am zeroing in on." And just think about the long-term view. I work this job.
[00:08:48] That's what I do. I get up, I go work this job. I go home, I go do my thing. I get up, I go- Versus an entrepreneurial mindset where I'm running a business inside a business, always looking to create value and opportunities. Do you think that would make a difference as far as that attitude with your employer if you treated them this way?
[00:09:11] You looked to make that difference and that value and that impact to an organization? I can guarantee you it absolutely does. So over the years, I put together this entrepreneurial model. Uh, again, I was just kind of just changing my attitude, but then I began to realize and said, "You know what? I am a small business within this big business."
[00:09:38] And every small business has four pillars. They've got operations. That's what you do. They've got marketing. That's who you reach. It's got sales. That's how you grow. And you got finance. That's what you earn. So I quit looking at myself as I'm just an employer, I'm just an [00:10:00] employee, I'm just walking in, I'm just doing my job, and I started zooming in on these four aspects of a small business, and I started applying them to myself, and I began to really begin saying, "You know what?
[00:10:13] I am a business within this business, and as such, I'm gonna operate like that." So that's what we're gonna be talking about tonight, is how is it that you as an employee, if you shift this attitude of just being an employee and just being... turning into running your own business and being your own business and your own company within that organization, you're gonna see a big difference in how you're able to show up each and every day.
[00:10:42] So we're gonna look at one strategy in each one of these four areas. There's many, but we're just gonna be able to cover one of those. In each one of these things, I want you to be able to, you know, walk away from tonight and actually put them into practice tomorrow. You know, that you can actually do these things and start making a difference when you get back to your office tomorrow.
[00:10:52] So let's start with operations. This is what you do
[00:11:11] Here's the harsh reality. I don't know if it's harsh reality, it's just reality. Every time you walk in that door of your office, project manager, program manager, project coordinator, doesn't matter, you got a dollar sign over your head. Somebody in that organization knows exactly how much you are costing that organization.
[00:11:36] Now, it's incumbent upon all of us to be able to say, "That dollar sign, I'm gonna give you a return on that investment." That's what business is all about. So they're going to be paying you, they're paying you because they want-- They pay you one X because they want five X or seven X or ten X, whatever that is.
[00:11:56] And you need to answer that question yourself. [00:12:00] Am I delivering that dollar walk- So how do we do this? Well, we're gonna look at this, and we're gonna go through an exercise. And again, you'll be able to do this tomorrow morning, is we're gonna take an inventory of what are the services that you offer.
[00:12:17] Remember, you're your own business now, right? What are the services you offer? Well, I'm a project manager. No, no, no, no. That's not gonna do it. Well, I d- um, initiation planning, execute- execution, controlling, monitoring, closing. I do... No, that's not gonna do it either. What do you really do? What, what brings value?
[00:12:37] What is that company paying you for? Oh, well, I can create project charters, I identify stakeholders, I define scope, I build schedules, I estimate costs, I manage vendors. I can create a kick and work breakdown structure. Um, risk management. I can do a-- Okay, now we're talking, right? These are the services that you offer as a project manager.
[00:13:01] It's like going into a restaurant, you look up at the, the menu, you know. It's like, if they've only got one thing to, to, to order, that's not gonna be a very good restaurant, is it? But you go in and you say, "Yeah, I'd like one project plan, two communications plan, risk management, and, uh, you know, throw in a work breakdown, work breakdown structure."
[00:13:19] That's what you wanna get. So you're gonna wanna list all of these things that you do, all of these services that you offer. Now, we're gonna run those through two filters. One of those filters is eliminate, automate, and delegate. Now, we got simplify on top because it doesn't matter. Whatever it is that we do, it's gotta be simple, right?
[00:13:43] You gotta make it easy. You gotta make it so that it's, it doesn't have any friction. But go down this list now and begin looking at what is it that I can run through this filter? Because here's the reality. This is what happens. You get into a company and you're like, "Yeah, I'm a new project [00:14:00] manager and I'm so excited about this project.
[00:14:02] I'm so excited about what I'm doing. I'm gonna make all kinds of differences and changes." And you do that, and then days, and weeks, and months, and years, even decades may pass, and you find that you are doing the same thing. Maybe unnecessary, unneeded, very complicated, unnecessarily complicated work. So what you wanna do is you wanna go down this process and say, "Which one of these services that I'm offering should I eliminate?"
[00:14:32] I worked with a fellow, he'd come in every morning, Monday, every Monday morning, he was beat. He was exhausted. I'm like, "Man, Kyle, what are you-- what, what is the deal?" He s- he was up until two or 3:00 in the morning every Sunday night putting together a report that management needed, but management actually didn't need it.
[00:14:52] He was just going on autopilot. He thought they needed it. He thought it needed to be on their desk at nine o'clock every morning. He quit doing it, nobody even asked him about it. So what is your 2:00 AM report that you're doing that you can get rid of, that you can absolutely free up that time? So that's number one filter.
[00:15:10] Number two, what can you automate? If, uh, clearly, I mean, if we're not using AI, whatever your fav- flavor of AI is right now, that is just a huge miss. You know, there are so many things that you could just run through that engine right now. The project schedule, risk assessment, review the communications plan, just jam whatever it is that you're doing.
[00:15:29] I'll always ask, "What can AI help me do to make this easier and simpler and faster if it still needs to be done?" So automate. That's number two. Third thing, delegate. What are those things-- You may have started as a project coordinator years ago, and that's fantastic. Part of project coordinator was also that you would, you know, reserve the conference rooms, and you make sure everybody's schedules were, are okay, and you make sure you're bringing in lunch and where everybody was going for dinner.
[00:15:58] Now you're a senior project [00:16:00] manager. You're a program manager. Are you still doing those things because that's what you always did? You know, not that there's anything wrong with it, but those are the types of things that somebody else can do. Somebody else could do that would free you up to do those higher level things that will continue to raise that ROI that's on your head.
[00:16:23] So if you run that list through that, you're gonna have a really, maybe a little bit of a skinny down list, and that's great. That is what you wanna do because here's where the next piece comes in What should your company be doing that you are not doing? So we talked about stop and continue, but now what is it that you're doing or what are you not doing that you should be doing?
[00:16:49] What should you be adding to that mix? You know, again, you go back to that menu Right? Of all the things that are being offered, they're gonna be changing that menu. They're gonna be adding things to that menu. There's, you know, protein. They're gonna be doing spicy sauces. Whatever it is, they're gonna be making it different.
[00:17:06] What are you looking at as a project manager? You know, some of these services, hybrid delivery, value, benefits tracking. You know, we're beyond just scope, cost, time. We're beyond that. What is the value that these projects are delivering? Are you tracking that? Are you letting people know about that? Are you following up on that and showing them what type of value these pro- that they actually delivered on what the business reason was?
[00:17:32] That's huge. Strategy. It'd be nice to, to be involved in earlier on in the process as far as being able to develop strategy and work the strategy on these projects. The list goes on and on of the things that you need to be doing in order to make sure that you're on par, the services that you offer are very high and are continuing to deliver more than what you've been [00:18:00] getting.
[00:18:01] Now, I'm gonna give you a tip here also, is you got this list of services. You've defined them. You've, you've gotten rid of all of the-- You've eliminated ones that are no longer necessary. You've automated some things. You've delegated some things. You've added some things. Go down that list and just put a star next to five to seven of the things that just come so easy to you.
[00:18:21] You know, it's the things that people are like, "Oh, you make that look so easy." It's like, "Well, it is easy." And they're like, "No, it's not, it's hard." Or you just love doing it. You know, it just comes second nature. Put a star next to those because we're gonna talk about those services in a moment there. Okay, so that's step number one in this quadrant of treating yourself like a project manager that is a business within a business.
[00:18:47] Step number two now, we move into marketing. So you've identified what you do and the services you offer. Now, you need to start telling people about it. You need to start marketing yourself, not in an obnoxious, uh, in your face kind of way all the time. But you need to start putting it out there where everybody can see what it is that you are doing and that you know what you're doing.
[00:19:14] Well, why is this important? You know, your potential customers are going to need your services. There's people out there that need what you have to offer. But how are they gonna know that you offer that if you never tell anybody that you have those for sale? So what you need to do is you've gotta start being able to put yourself out there in some form or fashion in order to make sure that people know that you are open for business Here's what happens.
[00:19:45] You may no longer like your current customer. You may say, "You know what? I just can't, I can't go through these changes again at this current customer, my current employer. I'm done. I gotta go find another customer." You may, unfortunately, I don't care how good we are, you may get caught up [00:20:00] in a riff. It's just the reality where we're at right now.
[00:20:03] You gotta go find another customer. You may find that your cust- your customer goes out of business, and now you're stranded. You need to find another customer. So this is where the marketing comes in, is that you need to start early and do this on a regular and consistent basis Personal story. Kids were small at Disneyland, Disney World.
[00:20:27] Got a call from my boss, he said, "Hey, Chris, I got some good news and I got some bad news." I'm like, "Oh, man, this is, this is great." Okay, well, I guess it was great. I said, "Give me the good news first." He says, "Well, the good news is, is you can take a longer vacation." I'm like, "Oh, that's fantastic news. I appreciate that."
[00:20:44] He says-- I said, "What's the bad news?" He says, "Well, you can take a really long vacation." Oh. Yeah. 'Cause the company, the company shut down. Like, within a period of a week or so that I was gone, it shut down. So here I am, you know, two small kids, the most expensive place on Earth, at Disney. And I'm coming back and I'm like, man, I gotta start calling people.
[00:21:07] Yeah. I gotta see what's out there, you know? So, "Hey, this is, this is Chris. Yeah, I know, I know you haven't heard from me for five years, but, hey, I need something. Yeah, hey, this is Chris. Yeah, I know, I, I know you haven't heard from me for ten years. Oh, the grandkids are twenty years old now. Okay. It's been a while."
[00:21:23] I hated that feeling, and I said, "I will never do that again." Now, people are gracious, people are kind. They helped me find a job, but I hated that feeling of having to call people that I just had not connected with or talked to for so long. So at that moment in time, I vowed to myself that will never happen again.
[00:21:45] And what I did, I just started out with just a quarterly newsletter, and I just had in there basically, "Hey, this is what I've been up to. These are some project management tools and tips and tricks that I like, and I just wanna know what you're [00:22:00] up to." I cannot tell you, that first one, I ordered to push send on that.
[00:22:03] I was sending it to four hundred people or something like that. I deliberated for like two hours to, "Oh, man, should I push send?" It's like, "Who, who am I, who am I to think that I can tell people what's good or what's interesting, or, ah, they're gonna make fun of me? What do they think of me?" I did, I pushed send, and I got my answer within a couple of minutes.
[00:22:22] "Hey, Chris, great to hear from you. Let's get together for lunch. What you been up to? Let's get together for coffee. Hey, I was just thinking about you. There's a job that's going on over here." I was like, "Oh, my goodness." I couldn't believe it. Just by taking that action of putting yourself out there. Now, I'm gonna tell you one very hurtful thing that happened to me, was my mom unsubscribed- -from the newsletter.
[00:22:48] We're still working through it this day, but- But I, I don't think... She says, "I didn't know that's what unsub- I didn't know what that meant." I'm like, "Yeah, you didn't know that I saw that you unsubscribed-" "-is what, is what actually happened." So here's the deal. You have, you have an audience, you've got colleagues, you've got people you've worked with over the years.
[00:23:09] You've got friends, you've got people you went to school with. They-- You know what? They want you to say something. You know, why, why-- just get up and say something in front of them. They are ready for you to say something. So how do you do this? Like, it is so easy these days, you know? It is just a no-brainer.
[00:23:27] LinkedIn is just absolute no-brainer. Write an article, comment, post, ask a question, whatever that is, you know? Statistics show that only three percent of LinkedIn users post anything. The rest are lurking. So if you're in that three percent, you're making a difference. You're gonna be at the top, and you're gonna s-- you know who those three percent are, because you see the name over, and over, and over again.
[00:23:50] Just make sure your content that you're posting is valuable, and informative, and educational, and helpful. The other thing [00:24:00] too, I'm telling you, this podcast thing started as a fluke years ago. If you have even considered thinking about doing a podcast, it's easy, it's cool, it's fun. It's win, win, win.
[00:24:14] Everybody wins in doing it, and it is just such a great way to literally get your voice out there. So the deal is just be regular, be consistent. Set your cadence once a month, once a week, twice a month, whatever it is, just be consistent and regular. What do you talk about? What do you write about? Do you remember those five to seven things you put a star next to in the services that you offer?
[00:24:40] Those things that are so easy to you, those things that come second nature, start putting ideas on each one of those. It will just start flowing, and will just start moving, and you'll be able to write, and, and talk about, and get up in front of people, and being able to have conversations about those things that you are passionate about.
[00:25:00] So that is the marketing piece. And again, just pick something and start doing something, and start saying something, and start getting yourself out there on a regular basis. Now we move into sales. This is how you grow. So marketing, if you look at marketing, you're talking to the masses, right? You're just putting it out there.
[00:25:27] You're getting a lot of people to know what you do. You're, you're creating your brand, your reputation, your expertise, the fact that you're still around. Now, sales, somebody raised their hand. They say, "I'm interested. Yes, please. I'd like to talk to you a little bit further about that." So that's where the sales process comes into play.
[00:25:48] This is how you grow. Now we're gonna talk about a service
[00:25:55] If you go and you see a bear, [00:26:00] is a bear... I mean, it's kinda cool, but would you go pay to see a bear? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I w- I was in Canada this past summer, my brother-in-laws, there was a couple bears walking in the backyard. Eh, I mean, it's cool. But let me ask you this: Would you go pay to see a bear on a unicycle?
[00:26:23] That's kinda cool. That's, like, maybe one in a million, right? I don't know how many bears ride unicycles, but that's kinda cool. Oh, my goodness. A bear that rides a unicycle, that juggles at the same time. I mean, how many of those are on this planet Earth that could do that? Are you gonna go pay to see that?
[00:26:44] Yes, it's rare. It's valuable. It's something that is not common. So which one are you? Are you just a, are you a project manager? Yeah. Okay, I mean, that's great. That's good. But you
[00:27:02] know what? There's a lot of project managers. Are you a project manager that has technical expertise and can present at the board level? Oh, wow, okay. Well, that's a different, that's a different game right there. That's a different result. Are you a project manager that's PMP certified, Prosci certified, and ITIL certified?
[00:27:20] Oh, wow, okay. Now we're talking rare. Now we're talking people are gonna pay you for your services. Stack your services. That's gonna make you more valuable. That's gonna make you more rare. That's gonna make your business be something that people want to do business with. They're gonna say, "That's the only person that can do what I need to do in my organization."
[00:27:43] So you really wanna be able to focus on that as far as, you know, you can have this, you can have this... It's called, like, a T, basically, is what it is. So you've got the depth of being a project manager, program manager, whatever. You've got that depth, but also include that [00:28:00] breadth across it, and you're gonna make yourself, uh, a juggling bear that can ride on a unicycle.
[00:28:10] The final piece comes down to what you earn, right? So this is the finance piece. So this is allowing you to answer questions like, is the market-- am I even getting paid what the market will bear? Is my business making what the market is paying? Are trends going up or down for the industry I work in? Is my business generally going-- growing over time?
[00:28:39] It's gonna answer strategic questions like, should I take a risk and start somewhere else, or should I stay put till the market improves? How much runway do I have? Am I overpaid as a service? Now, you may say, "Well, I, I don't-- I don't mind being overpaid." Well, you know what? Someone will. So you've got somewhere at some point in time, someone's gonna be looking and say, "That's a highly paid project manager who's not returning an ROI."
[00:29:07] Okay? So s-staying paid, that's fine. Stay highly paid, but make sure you're making up that gap, you know, with what you're gonna add that says, "Oh, well, I do this and this and this and this." And make sure that you set yourself apart so that when that review comes along and
[00:29:29] people see you're a highly paid project manager or program manager or whatever, they're gonna not even question that. So what can you do in order to find out what your company is worth? Now, this is just one data point, right? But you can find out great information on... Or PMI members, we've got access to the PMI Salary Survey.
[00:29:49] Use the PMI Salary Survey tool, visit Glassdoor, uh, and just again, utilize AI. Like, literally, it's, uh, just tell them what you're looking for and just say, you know, what should the [00:30:00] range be, da, da, da, da, da. Tell them what you do, tell them the location, tell them your experience, all that kind of stuff, and it will give you exactly what you need to know.
[00:30:07] Now, this is just a data point, but it will let you know if you are being woefully underpaid. Are your services being woefully underpaid, or are you in a danger zone perhaps where you need to elevate what it is that you do? And then you've gotta couple that with all the other stuff like, do you like working there?
[00:30:24] Do you like the people you're with? Do you like the schedule? Do you like the flexibility? So all of that is just parts of this understanding exactly how it is that you are growing and what you're earning, and this is one data point in order to get you there So if you put all four of these components together of your small business, go in tomorrow and start operating like this.
[00:30:51] Don't go in and say, "I'm an employee and I'm just here to do my job." Say, "I'm, I am a small business, and operations, I've identified my services. I've eliminated, automated, and delegated, and I've added some value add components to that." Tell people what you do. Make yourself rare. And then finally, see what you should be charging for your services.
[00:31:15] If you do these four things, you will find that you will be in business for a long time Now, you've seen all throughout, you've seen that logo, projection, projection, projection, projection. What is that? Okay, projection is me. That's my-- That's how I envision myself. I work for General Parts Company. I love working for my customer.
[00:31:37] I wanna be with my customer for a very long time. But I'm also of the mindset that I know stuff happens. I've seen it. It's happened to me over the years. It happens to many of my friends and colleagues. So over the years, what I've done is I've got this site running, which is me. I'm Projection. But guess what?
[00:31:59] [00:32:00] Solutions, I've got my five to seven services I offer. That's the operations of what I do. Uh, marketing, blog, podcast, book. You know what my book is? It's a self-published Amazon book that I just was able to compile all my blogs, scatter lot, categorize it by topic. And it's a self-published book, but it's so cool because it just gives you that much credibility, you know, in order to be able to do something like that.
[00:32:26] And then contact, there's a sale. Somebody raised their hand, and they say, "Yes, please, I am interested in that." So again, if you wanna take this to the next level, you've identified your services, you're marketing yourself, you're getting out there. These websites are so easy to make now. You know, Wix, Squarespace, whatever it is, they're affordable, they're easy, they look awesome.
[00:32:47] And it just allows you that if I need to get a job tomorrow-- I'm sorry, a new customer tomorrow, I'm spun up and ready to go versus, "Um, how do I even register a domain?" I'm ready to go. So that's where we all need to be in order to make sure that we are staying ahead of the curve. So we started with that picture, uh, at the beginning of how-- where I was early in my career.
[00:33:14] This is where I'm at now. So I feel like I, I walk into the place. I feel like I walk into GVC or wherever it is, and I just feel so much better, so much more confident. You know, I just got the guts in order to do some things, take some risks, make something happen because I've got this small business mindset, and I'm treating my employer like a customer.
[00:33:42] So I encourage all of you to do the same, and you're gonna notice a huge difference in your careers
