Greg C.

Browns Personal Marketing Strategy

Im Greg Brown a freelance consultant based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Which I
suppose is a fancy way of saying that I am self-employed. Although there can be many
advantages to being self-employed (such as setting your own hours, choosing your clients,
the freedom to work from any location with an Internet connection), there are also
drawbacks. One of which being that you must keep selling and advertising yourself to
interested parties. When I go to networking meetings here in the Toronto area such as the
Social Fusion Network, the Hamilton Freelancers Association, or the Burlington Coffee
Group and introduce myself to others in attendance, the first question back to me is almost
always something like "So what exactly do you do, Greg?". Or "What is it that you are
looking for?" Or "How can I help you?"
In response to the above and similar questions, please allow me to share with you my
personal marketing strategy document, which is also available as an executive summary
and via audio podcast. I will caution you in advance that this may seem rather lengthy which is why I have also offered those two other formats. Its length is partly because of how
I communicate with others (people often tease me that being concise isn't my specialty!). On
a more serious note it's also because I have a wide variety of skills and talents to offer. And
you can't really outline all that in one or two paragraphs, right? I am also mindful that
people are very busy and want information fast. If you'd like to read this whole thing thank you! But if you don't have the time or interest, you can also access the executive
summary and/or the podcast. No matter what format you choose, I appreciate your interest
in my career goals and objectives and thank you for taking the time to examine my
credentials. I think you'll be glad you did!
To obtain a copy of either the executive summary or the podcast, send me an e-mail at any
time. Or if it's easier, I will also put both of these documents online. And the podcast too if
possible. Feel free to share them with anyone you wish. I revise these documents from time
to time - the most recent edition was released just before Christmas 2015. Comments and
other suggestions designed to make this presentation even better are always welcomed and
encouraged. Contact information is located at the end of this document. Now that you have
read this prologue, let's get started.
From September 2002 to the spring of 2014, I served on the Executive Committee of HAPPEN
Canadas largest executive network. Since our founding in 1991, we have helped thousands of
senior managers, executives and others at similar employment levels who are in career transition
find their next job. We believe the best way to do that is via networking which I would define
as people helping people in such a way that we all benefit. A related concept that you often hear
at HAPPEN is pay it forward, a concept that I strongly believe in, and strive to do every day.
This is based on the principle that if someone does a good deed for you, dont repay them for
their kindness. Instead, do a good deed for someone else, and encourage others to do the same. If
the whole world practiced pay it forward, I think we would all be citizens of a much kinder,
gentler and friendlier planet.
I am also what Malcolm Gladwell, the noted social commentator, columnist for The New Yorker,
and author of bestselling books such as "Outliers", "The Tipping Point", "Blink" and "What the
Dog Saw" calls a "connector". I love to bring people together both personally and professionally
and take great pride in helping to establish relationships that are mutally beneficial. If you check
out my online presence, especially on platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, you

will see that I have a strong track record of helping other people, taking a positive approach to
life, and using my many skills and talents in service to others as appropriate. I have cultivated all
this over many years, but I also feel like I am just getting started. I want to continue helping and
serving others for years to come (especially you - it's one way to thank you for reading this right
now and spending a portion of your valuable time with me today). I would love to hear from you
and explore how I can help you either as a volunteer or in a paid capacity - I'm already looking
forward to our next chat.
As noted earlier, for many years I served on HAPPEN's Executive Committee. To be more
specific, I was the Opportunities Administrator. In part, my role was designed to be a bridge
between recruiters, human resources professionals and others in hiring positions who are seeking
to fill their open management, executive or similar level positions and our members men and
women with excellent skills and talents who are eager to fill those openings and make significant
contributions to employers throughout the Toronto area and beyond. Which also ties in rather
nicely with Malcolm Gladwell's "connector" idea I mentioned in the previous paragraph. If you
are not familiar with us I invite you to learn more from our Web site: http://www.happen.ca
Although we are based in southern Ontario, let me encourage those of you across North America
who are hiring new staff, especially at executive or management levels, to open a corporate
account with us and post jobs on our site. Conversely, if you live in the Toronto area, you are
looking for your next job and you feel HAPPEN can help you in your search, please consider this
as an invitation to join us at any of our weekday meetings. As of December 2015, meetings are
held on Tuesday mornings at the Centre for Health and Safety Innovation (CHSI) in Mississauga,
but this information is subject to change at any time. For the most accurate details, I encourage
you to visit the Web site noted above.
Although I have just described my primary role within HAPPEN, I have helped out the
organization in many other ways since the first time I attended a meeting back in November
1996. To cite just a couple of examples, I designed the original HAPPEN Web site in 1997. I
have also facilitated many of our meetings in various locations around the Toronto area, including
the Art Gallery of Burlington (formerly known as the Burlington Arts Centre), the Metro Toronto
Convention Centre, the Mississauga Board of Trade, the North York Memorial Community Hall,
the Paradise Banquet Hall and Convention Centre and the Mississauga Living Arts Centre, as
well as at our current meeting venue the Centre for Health and Safety Innovation (CHSI). Today,
with the support and encouragement of the Executive team, I continue my association with
HAPPEN, mostly by spreading the word as a goodwill ambassador for the organization, and
performing other volunteer roles at our weekly meetings as appropriate, such as assisting at the
Registration area and setting up and dismantling our meeting room. Oh yes - and sometimes I still
get the chance to facilitate too, as well as being one of many members who introduces our weekly
guest speaker to the audience and then thanks him or her after their presentation. In other words, I
am one of those weird people that loves public speaking, we'll talk more about that later on. Let
me take this opportunity to thank Jim Geraghty, HAPPEN's President and CEO, as well as Robin
Wright, our Executive Director, for their longtime friendships as well as for allowing me to
continue my association with HAPPEN, which spans almost twenty years. It is much appreciated.
Since my relationship with HAPPEN is pretty much voluntary (and part time), it is essential that I
look for other income opportunities in keeping with my skills and talents. That is the reason for
this document, as I noted back at the beginning, I believe it is essential to do some selfpromotion/marketing. At every meeting, we always tell our members that while you are in career
transition and looking for work, your professional background is secondary. Whether you are a
finance person, an engineer, a computer science specialist or you work in human resources (just
to cite some examples), job hunting means that while your professional skills and experience are

important, you are now in sales and marketing. You have to think of yourself as a personal brand
and market yourself to potential employers. When any company markets a product to the general
public using methods such as radio, television or online advertising, if they do the job properly,
we buy what they are selling. Its the same thing when you are unemployed. In order for a
company to hire you, regardless of the arrangement (full-time, part-time, contract...) or the salary
you would like to be paid, you must sell yourself, and do so to the point where they will buy
you, and become your employer.
Each week, we have a section called "Good News" or "Positive News". It usually consists of
members who tell us they have had an interview since we last met, or they may have found some
networking opportunities that they want to share with the rest of us. But the most vital feature of
that section is when a member tells us either in person or via e-mail that they have "landed" and
will be starting their new job. And as a way of allowing us to celebrate their success, they even
bring along Timbits, donuts or similar fare for all of us to enjoy, and as a way that we can wish
them well in that new job.
I cite all this because over the many years that HAPPEN has existed, every one of our members
who found a new job has that common element. They all designed and executed a successful
personal marketing strategy to their new employer. Indeed, that theory can apply to anyone who
lands a new job, regarding of the circumstances. For me to achieve that goal, I must also do the
same. If I just stay at my apartment in downtown Hamilton, stare at my phone or computer, and
wish that someone will contact me, I know this will never happen. Same thing if I am not at home
but have my cellphone or laptop with me. Instead, I must be proactive and assertive in getting my
message out to others. I need to take the advice I have given to so many others. I have many
excellent skills that I know can help many people. But I can't be invisible. I need to create my
own marketing campaign hence the primary reason for this presentation in all its formats (the
"full" document you are reading now, the executive summary and the audio podcast), and my
desire to reach as many people as possible.
What you are now reading to is designed to form one small part of an overall program to sell
myself to interested parties. Other elements (my audio podcasts, YouTube channel, my resume,
my presence on social media sites as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are also part of this
program. You can access all this via links found just above, as well as in the contact information
listed at the end of this document.
Time to end the preliminaries, its time to get to work and outline what I hope to accomplish with
this presentation. I will begin by defining my target audience the potential employers that I
wish to specifically aim at. Next, I will examine my ideal set of working conditions, including
geographic preferences. After that, a brief overview of some of my areas of expertise, skills and
talents. To wrap up, some closing comments and my contact information.
For openers, let's define my target audience. My preference is to work on part-time or short term
contract assignments - over the years I have found that this situation works best for me, and offers
greater flexibility for all parties. I prefer working with small or medium sized companies,
community groups or non-profits. This is because I have many years of experience working in
these environments, I feel far more comfortable here (as opposed to working with large
corporations) and would welcome the chance to return to those workplaces. A growing number of
people have also chosen to start their own businesses. If you are looking for people to assist you
with various aspects of your operations on a part-time basis, and in keeping with my skills and
expertise I would be pleased to consider such a working arrangement.

I do not own a car, so I would prefer to work at locations which are easily accessible via public
transit, whether on GO Transit or any of the local municipal public transit systems in the Toronto
area. Finally, since I live in Hamilton my geographical preference is in Hamilton, Burlington,
Oakville, Mississauga and Etobicoke. Again in the interest of flexibility, I am also willing to
consider a blended arrangement, where some of the work could be done here at my home, and
some done at your office or other location. Next lets continue by looking at my skills and talents
and/or areas of expertise that I would choose to work in. These are primarily, but not limited to,
the following:

Library and information science: I have the great pleasure of holding degrees from
two of Canada's most prestigious universities - a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University in
Montreal (if you look at either my Facebook or Twitter pages - I am wearing a McGill tie, with a
photo of the downtown Montreal skyline in the background) as well as a Master of Library
Science degree from the University of Toronto. I am very proud of my academic credentials, and
over the years being an alumni of these two great institutions has opened many doors for me. I am
confident this will continue for years to come.
I have put these academic credentials to excellent use, such as in setting up libraries for a number
of organizations in the Toronto region, representing a wide variety of specialties, such as
incentive travel, engineering and mental health. For many years I also served as the librarian for
St. Luke's Anglican Church in Mississauga (my home church since 1980). I have always enjoyed
this type of work I have a real passion for information, especially the organization and
management of same. As I have noted elsewhere (such as within My Video Biography ) you may
have a wonderful collection of books, periodicals, videos, CDs, but what is that material doing
for you? If it is merely collecting dust on a shelf or in a storage compartment, those items and the
information contained in them are not working to their fullest potential. Its essential that your
material is properly organized and managed, and plays a key role in your corporate operations. To
put this another way do you see the organization and management of your corporate material as
an investment or as an expense? If you answered investment, then I have the skills to do the job
right, I would love to consider working with you.
Here's another angle. Knowledge is power, information is power. We hear those phrases often in
our 21st century hi-tech world. As a librarian and information manager, I believe these are more
than just catchy phrases. I believe those who have the skills to manage that information are in
great demand and hold an important place in our society. For example, have you ever noticed that
whenever some government in a Third World country is overthrown - the first thing that new
regime does is to capture the local radio or television station, as well as other media outlets, even
trying to control the Internet and other communications outlets? In a more benign sense, you
could argue that governments of all persuasions (liberal, conservative) and constitutional
systems (republics, monarchies) know the importance of information management and how
they communicate with others. Just think of that next time there's an election campaign in your
city or town - such as the most recent Canadian federal election in October 2015. Each party will
use information technology to put a "spin" on things in order to encourage you to vote for them.
And then there's the business world and how they use advertising and other sources to influence
your purchasing or other decisions.
Let me offer one last example of the role that information management plays in our society, this
time from 20th century history. Who was the most important person in Nazi Germany? I'll bet
you said Adolf Hitler. Oops, try again. My answer is Josef Goebbels, who was the Third Reich's
Propaganda Minister. That's because Goebbels controlled and managed all the information

sources in Germany to the point of not just advancing the Nazi cause, but also suppressing
opposition sources. Now I'm not implying for even a second that Goebbels and his colleagues
were right. Nazi Germany may have been one of the most evil and repulsive political systems that
the world has ever seen, and destroying them was the right thing to do. I only cite this to show
that throughout history, those who have the skills to manage information are important members
of our global economy and society as a whole. I have those skills in abundance and want to use
them in service to your organization.

Web site design and maintenance: Since I took a six month Web site development
course in 1997, I have designed and maintained several Web sites for small companies and other
organizations. Dont be fooled by the date it is critical to keep these skills current and relevant
and this is an important part of my professional background. While I do not feel capable of
designing large high-tech Web sites, if you are looking for something simple and basic that can
help get your message out there, I can help you. Especially when you consider that as noted in the
above section, I am a librarian/information manager. You might have a great Web site with all the
latest online features. And use every single programming language or "flashy" hitech elements to
really make your site sizzle. But those elements only go so far. Do people know where to find
information? Is your Web site well laid out and organized efficiently? Were all busy people, can
someone access your site and get the information they want quickly? I can help you do that and
make your site really work for you.
In addition to companies, I can also help individuals who may wish to develop an online
presence. For example, if you belong to networking organizations such as HAPPEN, the Social
Fusion Network, the Burlington Coffee Group, the Hamilton Freelancers Association or the
Mississauga Coffee Hunters (just to name a few groups across the Toronto region that I belong
to), and you are looking for an inexpensive, yet professional looking Web site to help you as part
of your job search, I can offer you just that, at a price thats fair and within your budget. My work
doesnt stop once the site is ready. I can assist you in finding a place to host your site (if you do
not wish to use your own ISP), secure a domain name, and also do periodic updates as necessary.

Public speaking, conference planning, and meeting facilitation: As I noted

earlier, I am one of those strange people that loves public speaking. I always chuckle when I read
about how this is the number one fear of most people. I wish someone would tell me why this is,
and what they are afraid of. To me, standing in front of an audience and talking to them about any
subject is the easiest thing in the world. If you have listened to the podcasts where I cover this
area of my skills/expertise in a more informal way or you have watched my videobio using either
the link above, or via my YouTube channel, I mention to my audience that I really enjoy it and
would love to do more. I mentioned earlier that I have facilitated many HAPPEN meetings in the
past, and continue to do so on a regular basis - thats just one example of my speaking talents.
Another opportunity took place in May 2013, when I had the great pleasure of doing a
presentation entitled How to Become A More Effective Networker for the Association of
Administrative Assistants - Hamilton Branch. The presentation was well received by those in
attendance, and if you would like me to do it for your organization, I would love to do so at any
time. Its also on my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/gcbrown1956 Theres no
greater rush for me than standing in front of an audience, whether it is leading a meeting,
delivering a keynote speech, or similar things. I have also chaired many committees and I also
have assisted in planning and organizing many meetings and conferences and worked behind the
scenes at them. One example was a conference held at the Novotel North York Centre Hotel in
November 2004, organized by the Ontario Association of Corrections and Criminology, which is

the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association I was part of the group's Board
of Directors at the time, and worked behind the scenes not only in the period leading up to the
conference, but also "on site" during the proceedings themselves. If youre looking for someone
to do this type of work, such as facilitating your upcoming conference or AGM, Id be delighted
to do so!

Writing Corporate Documents and Related Material: I am one of the best

writers you will ever find. Sure, I am boasting of my talents and why not? I doubt if you will find
many writers who are better at this skill than I am. Those are not just ego-boosting statements, I
can prove it. I am highly articulate, well informed on my subjects and delighted to share these
talents with others. As further proof, you may have gathered this already just from reading what I
have presented to this point. As part of my work with HAPPEN and other organizations I have
written many technical journals, business plans, meeting minutes, training manuals and other
information. Whenever I have set up libraries and similar information centres (see above), I have
always written supporting documents, such as subject heading guides, user manuals and training
documents. In these and in many other ways, I have a very strong online presence. For example,
in July 2009, I started a bloglocated at http://gcbrown1956.wordpress.com that I update on a
regular basis. You all invited to visit at any time as you feel led. While you may not always agree
with my opinions, the blog is another tool that showcases my writing skills. Many of my audio
podcasts have been done as a means of complementing my blog and encouraging people to visit.
And thats for starters! Just take my word for it! If you want to work with one of the best writers
on the planet, dont look any further. Get in touch with me - lets talk soon.

Voice-overs, commercials, radio and related assignments: People have been

telling me for many years that I have a wonderful voice that is ideal for this type of work. One of
the main reasons for the series of podcasts that I first released in the fall of 2012 and will continue
to record on an ongoing basis (such as the podcast designed to complement this presentation) is to
showcase my talents, and to give interested parties a portfolio of material they can download and
listen to anytime in order to determine my suitability for such assignments. If you are looking for
people to record commercials, host a radio show either online or in-studio, or similar
assignments, I would be delighted to work with you. Given the nature of the Internet, I am open
to accepting vocal assignments not only just from organizations here in southern Ontario, but
from anywhere around the world. If you have something that needs to be recorded Im your
guy! And because I grew up in Montreal, I am also capable of working in French, and welcome
the opportunity to use my vocal talents in either of Canadas official languages.

Some final thoughts:

I could write much more about my credentials, but I really want all
this to be a teaser, so it is now time to offer some final thoughts. Thank you for examining this
presentation. I believe that when you look at my many skills and talents too many to be
adequately outlined within a presentation of this nature, I can be a highly valuable asset to many
companies and other organizations in the Toronto area and beyond. I wish you all the very best.
Lets talk soon. My contact information is listed as follows - look forward to hearing from you!
Greg Brown - Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Phone (905) 526-6568 or (647) 772-1566
E-mail: greg.brown@sympatico.ca or gcbrown1956@mail.com
Skype: gcbrown1956
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gcbrown1956

Twitter: @gcbrown1956
Watch Channel GCB on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/gcbrown1956
Visit me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Greg-Brown/560966015
My Blog: http://gcbrown1956.wordpress.com
As an alternative to the above, if you have a SmartPhone or similar electronic device, I invite you
to scan the QR code below, which contains the same contact information.