 |
June/July
2006 |
| |
Becoming an Expert in Anything
|
It just happened. Someone just
introduced you as an expert to a potential client? You are IT.
The go to person. A crackerjack. You are now called by media who
ask for your input on how new developments will affect the industry.
People care about your opinion and your insight on how economic
trends will impact companies. You walk down the hall with your
head held high knowing that you are at the peak of your game.
You are the master of whatever it is that you do.
Someone thought enough about your qualifications
to anoint you as being more adept than most on a given topic.
How did this happen? Perhaps it was a really good fortune cookie
along with the lucky numbers 7, 14, 21, 25, 31 and 44 (try these
numbers, I guarantee they will work . . . eventually). Maybe your
horoscope read today “you will be approached by a stranger
looking for advice.” Let’s take a step back in time.
You have been asked to speak at a convention
of your peers. What would make you more nervous, speaking in front
them or playing a round of golf with Tiger Woods after insulting
the quality of his play? If you answered speaking in front of
the crowd (and your name is not Stephen Ames), then it could be
because you doubt your own abilities. Many people are nervous
about speaking because when asked to speak it is normally as an
expert on a specific topic. They fear speaking to their peers
because they think their knowledge is insufficient or that someone
in the audience will ask a question they cannot answer, thereby
undermining their credibility as an “expert.”
Everyday we are faced with new opportunities
in industries we have never heard of before, let alone experienced.
Someone may be asked to become a CRO for a printing company, and
then be a crisis manager at a software company specializing in
diagnostics tools on heating elements. When the CRO or crisis
manager walks through the door, employees look at that person
as someone who is not only an expert at turning around a company,
but also someone who understands their industry. Let’s go
back to a time before you were asked to speak at the convention.
What steps did you take to master your trade?
Interestingly, if you look up the word “master”
one definition is “one who has control or ownership of something”.
Another definition includes teacher or tutor, or a worker qualified
to teach apprentices. What it doesn’t include is a piece
of paper in a big frame on your wall with fancy scribbles written
in Latin that few can decipher. That is for novices. But, perhaps
even then you were on your way to becoming an artist of your trade
and you did not even know it.
By now, whether you are just starting or have
been practicing in the profession for decades, you are probably
an expert at something. How do you know? Does anyone ever come
to you for advice? Are you the member of the family that gets
all of the calls whenever Aunt Sara has a problem with her computer?
Does a neighbor stop by and ask you for advice on the proper way
to shingle that shed he’s building in his back yard? Maybe
you are great in sports, needlepoint, birding or, yes, even pyrotechnics.
When people come to you under these circumstances do you feel
stress? Probably not, even though you probably know less about
these items than your own chosen profession.
This brings to mind Steve Martin’s famous
line about how to become a millionaire and never pay taxes: “First,
get a million dollars.” Below please find my handy dandy
guide on how to become an expert in anything.
Step One: Read Read Read
I have been asked by people, usually those new
to the profession, how they can best learn to do their job, where
and how to start. My answer is always the same. Read, then read
some more. But what to read? I served as outside counsel to a
variety of companies and individuals. I would subscribe to their
trade publications and, after a few months of reading them, I
felt I could speak with them and have a better understanding of
their needs and concerns.
Start by identifying books or articles about
the company and its competitors. Google the company and industry
and see what newspaper articles are out there. If you have access
to Lexis, do a search going back several years on the company
and its competitors. Is there a trade association for industry?
See if they have materials from prior meetings online or available
for purchase. The great part of this approach is you not only
get a feel for the industry, but you are exposed to the people
already considered experts in the field. Another advantage to
trade association convention materials is that you will quickly
see by the topics being presented the hot button issues facing
the company and its competitors. Call the association to see which
trade journals they recommend then get all of them. Look at who
is advertising in the journals. Recognize a name? Call them and
see what they read. Look for any press releases issued by the
company and its competitors. If the company is large enough there
should be an S&P write-up. Read it and those of the competitors.
Do a Dun and Bradstreet review. Check out Yahoo! and other chat
rooms and see what people are saying about the company and competitors.
You can learn a lot from some of these rooms, but beware of the
disgruntled employees.
There is also a site I found called Northern
Light. www.nlsearch.com. I have not personally used this site,
but it appears to be a search engine product designed to research
businesses. They state they have available full text articles
from over 1500 trade journals, business publication and other
sources.
Step Two: Talk to Everyone
Talk to employees and ex-employees if possible
in the field that you are interested in. Don’t know how
to find them? Go to http://groups.google.com and type in the company
name and a few other key words like “resume”, “CV”
or “curriculum vitae”. Go to a convention for the
trade association and spend a lot of time talking to exhibitors
and of course, attend the speaker sessions. When you get the agenda
for the convention, call some of the speakers ahead of time and
see if they can spend a little time with you before or after their
talk. They are a wonderful source and will normally be happy to
share information. Occasionally a company in the industry you
are interested in has written a white paper on a topic. After
you have read it call the author. Don’t forget to ask all
of these people what they read to stay abreast of issues affecting
the industry. Don’t forget to compliment the author on the
paper. They take quite a bit of time to prepare. Personally, I
love brokers. They tend to have their fingers all over an industry
and are a great place to start your research. They also have extensive
networks of contacts and will, with a little prodding at times,
make introductory calls on your behalf to the right people so
you can bypass the gatekeepers of some higher profile individuals.
Get your name on a listserv. A listserv is an
e-mailing list program used for having a discussion group with
other people who have subscribed to the same list. Using e-mail,
you can participate in listservs pertaining to your topic of interest.
When you submit a message to whichever entity is managing the
server, your message is relayed to all those on the listserv.
You receive messages from other participants via e-mail. One listserv
that I use is run by NARCA (National Association of Retail Collection
Attorneys).
Step Three: All Hands on Deck
Okay, you have read until tears flow down your
cheeks and you need high powered reading glasses. You are hoarse
from speaking to anyone who knows anything about the topic. Is
that it? Are you now an expert? Not quite. You lack one important
element: experience. Whenever possible I went with my clients,
often on my own dime, to their job sites, plants, warehouses and
storefronts. I have taken inventory counts, called up customers
to get them to pay their bills, seen how steel flows through a
tube changer assembly. You don’t take an inventory count
to become an expert at taking inventory, you do this so that you
have an appreciation for what happens during such a count. There
is simply no replacement for hands on experience to help you know
the right questions to ask.
Opening the mail is the single most important
thing you can do to obtain job knowledge. You will see the bills
that come in. Open them and ask what they are for. You will see
letters from customers. Open them and see what they have to say.
You may have a customer service issue that has not been discovered
simply because these hand written notes are being tossed. You
will see how customers pay their bills. You will see returned
mail. Open it and see what the company sent out. What was its
purpose and why was it returned. Even the junk mail may be interesting.
I still personally open all the mail at least once every couple
of months. It keeps me in touch with the day-to-day activity.
Almost every company has a warehouse of some
sort. Go into it and rummage through a few boxes. Pull some customer
files and go through the entire file. Note what is in there and
what isn’t in there, especially things that should be in
there but are missing. Ask how customer files are assembled and
why certain documents are created. Obtain from the company counsel
the form agreements that are used by the company. Read them. If
you don’t understand why a certain term is contained in
the agreement, highlight it, then sit down with the attorney and
ask. It could be boilerplate or it could be to protect against
something that happened to the company years ago. I know a lot
of the terms contained in our agreements are the result of learning
from prior bad experience.
Attend sales calls and pitches to new customers.
Call the company’s customer service number and other similar
company numbers and see how they respond. If possible, call competitors’
customer service number or new sales line. Remember, the goal
in all of this is to learn the ins and outs of how a business
in your targeted industry is operated.
When possible, and if dealing with a product
line, see if you can get a sample of it and your competitors.
Job shadow employees. You may not know how to do cash application,
but you will appreciate the process. Understanding processes is
just as important as understanding macro issues affecting the
business. There have been times when I wanted to structure a deal
in a way that I thought would be easy for my staff to handle,
only to be told about nuances I was not aware of, in accounting,
IT and customer service that made my rather simple proposal turn
into an operational nightmare.
Once you have feel you are up to it start mentoring
someone yourself. You will be surprised by how much you will learn
from this process. I find that I am constantly learning from the
people I mentor because they bring a fresh perspective and ideas.
Step Four: Understand What You Can’t
See
Every industry has a culture. You may not read
about it or even speak to people about it, but it’s there.
I am not talking about company culture. We all know that each
company has its own cultural traits, but industries have culture
too. For example, a company in the financial sector might by nature
and regulations be conservative, while inventory liquidators are
generally viewed as entrepreneurial risk takers.
Step Five: Repeat Steps One Through Four
Just as you can become an expert, you can just
as easily and quickly lose touch with your industry. Everyone
should periodically repeat the prior four steps. As human beings,
we learn from repetition. I have set up on my calendar a half-hour
each day for reading. I do that to remind myself that reading
keeps me informed of what is important in the industry. But don’t
stop there. I also read trade magazines from industries that have
little to do with the industry I am in. Why? Companies often share
issues and problems. Perhaps a problem that has arisen in one
industry will affect my industry. I would rather be prepared sooner
than later. I will read some general legal journals that are organized
by the subject matter, not industry. There is normally something
in every issue of one of these magazines or journals that I end
up cutting out and handing to someone at the company because it
might be relevant to something they are working on, especially
in human resources.
Conclusion:
Be persistent, but creative. The above five-step
process might seem as if it would take a long time, but if you
really look at each category, you will realize that in a few months
you can have accomplished every step. Remember, to be a master
means you are in control. You have an understanding. It does not
mean you have all the answers, but you are smart enough to see
the issues and ask the right questions. So, when someone asks
you to sit on that panel and asks you if you feel you are an expert
on a topic you can say “yes, I am an expert, how can I help
you.”
Stacey Schacter has been involved in the debt
buying industry for over 16 years. He is CEO, President and Chief
Legal Officer of Boston-based EMCC, Inc., a purchaser, servicer
and collector of receivables. Mr. Schacter is also the CEO of
Equiant Financial Services, Inc., a Scottsdale based third-party
receivables servicer. He graduated from Miami University with
degrees in accounting and business economics, and received his
J.D. degree from Ohio State University in 1988. Mr. Schacter a
frequent lecturer on topics relating to the debt purchase and
collection industry, including speaking engagements with NARCA,
Debt Buyer’s Association, Turnaround Management Association,
American Collectors Association, SCORE and others.
:Top:
|
