CASE
(Career Acquisition Skills Enhancement)

Topic: Selling Your Project

Description:  As you move past your first couple of years in the workforce, you will be given responsibility for running a significant portion of a project, if not the entire project. As leader of a project, one of the most critical skills you will have to develop is the ability to sell it. Selling your project doesn’t just mean being able to convince a customer to buy into it. Selling also means being able to convince people in higher positions within your organization that they should invest resources to make your project happen. Although, generally,  you will not be put into a position of selling a project when you enter the workforce initially, you should develop the skills necessary since you will be asked to present the work you have been given to do on a project. Even though you are not selling the project, you are selling the work you have done on it and that involves basically the same underlying skills.
 

Approach:  In order to be able to sell your project, you will have to develop certain skills. A couple of these skills are discussed in Student Professional Awareness Conferences (S-PACs) or through other Student Professional Awareness Ventures (S-PAVes). However, in order to sell your project effectively, the total combination of the skills are required. They are as follows:

• Effective visual presentation and proposal writing skills
• Effective oral communication skills
• Knowledge of customers and their needs
• Personal confidence building
• Project Scheduling

Acceptable S-PAVe Activities:  The activities below would be beneficial for the IEEE Student Branch to conduct as a S-PAVe. It is very difficult to combine many of the skills above into an integrated workshop, but not impossible. If your Branch deems it possible, then by all means propose it to IEEE. Otherwise, try following one of the activities below.

• Visual Presentation Workshop
• Proposal Writing Workshop
• Oral Communication Workshop
• Project Scheduling Workshop


Each of the above workshops should be a full day or two-day event. A facilitator would be invited by the student branch to teach and have students participate in group sessions in being able to perform the necessary skills involved in selling a project.

Marketing Seminars
Marketing people from industry or academia would be invited for a half-day to full day presentation in giving people an insight as to the critical nature of understanding customer needs. Case studies would be introduced and discussed in panels.

Personal Confidence Seminars
Motivational speakers may be invited to speak and involve students in helping them gain personal confidence. Generally, this would be a half-day event.

Intended Outcome:  The goal for students in any one of the above workshops is to gain the one of the skills needed to be able to sell a project. HOWEVER, REMEMBER YOU NEED THE OTHER SKILLS ALSO!! Additional S-PAVes or academic courses will be needed to acquire the other skills.