What is Your Biggest Asset?

You may never know!

At best it may take you a long time to find out.

For many years now I have thought of myself as a "computer programmer", although over the past ten years I've struggled to distance myself from labels such as "macros", 'VBA" and so on.

For about 10 years of my life I was a full-time "trainer" - I taught "Word" and "Excel" and myriad desktop applications.

I have had three instances where businesses asked me to sell their product or service, but failed in misery, because I didn't think I was a "salesman" - Dark suit, white shirt, black tie, bushed-aluminium briefcase, foot wedged in the door".

Bess King told me in 1993 that I was a consummate salesman, because every time I stood in front of a class I was selling the idea to use computers in a better way. I was flattered but didn't really hear what she said. 15 years down the tubes.

Last week an internet marketing guru asked to meet with me, "Id like to explore the possibilities of you coming on board".

I should take a whole day off and contemplate who I am.

Things to consider:

• I am very quick-witted; I can't be beat when it comes to fast thinking.
• My accent is polyglot - prep-school English, goldfields Australian, Canadian, a bit of Tennessee and overtones of 2 ½ years in Paris. I am told that my accent is intriguing on the telephone.
• I am tenacious. Bulldogs run away in fear.
• I have a code of ethics and a sense of integrity that borders on the pathological. I have been known to return to a diner after a night worrying that I didn't leave a big enough tip the day before.
• My sense of humor verges on the insane. I can always get a laugh out of any situation, and feel accepted only when the present company wraps its arms around my shoulder and shares at joke at my expense.

There's More, But Here is the Message:

People I know think of me in the terms I've listed above.

People I know, every one of them, have no idea of the programs I've written, how they work, what they can do, the sum of my encyclopedic knowledge (of computers, genetics and the origins of The Third Balkan War).

What do you suppose a new client might buy?