Building isn't just for code or designs or products.

We need to shift our definition of who gets to say they build.

There are lots of people who build, but their output is less visible. Maybe it’s because their work is upstream. For example, a marketer thinks about how a promotional campaign would work, but a designer actually designs the creatives.

The marketer who built the plan is still a builder. The campaign wouldn’t exist without that person making sure each piece makes sense.

That person might be you, thinking about:

Why would a customer want to do what we’re asking them to do?

What would make them even more likely to do it?

Where might they get confused? How can we make it clearer upfront?

The answers to these questions get incorporated into the idea. Your dozens of insights and assertions are why the final result works.

What do you build?

You could build a bunch of things. Chances are, you’ve built the below at some point:

You build campaigns

You build systems

You build copy (One of my favorite books is How to Write A Sentence (And How to Read One). Stanley Fish talks about the construction of sentences.)

You build documentation

You build business cases

You build logistical flows

You build buy-in

Building buy-in... You can’t point to that in the final end product like you can for a finished design or app or code base. But it can take 5-6 conversations (or more) over multiple weeks to get your CEO’s buy-in to agree to do a thing.

You building buy-in allows your team to take action. Without that piece, great ideas might never see the light of day.

What didn’t exist before you built it? Think about the specific parts of a project you helped build. You don’t have to build 100% to be able to talk about the part you contributed to. A house isn’t built by one person.

To recap,

1. Think like a builder. If you’re building something (even a 1:1 email!), you want to make sure your audience knows how to use your creation. You’re clear on your intent for building it. And there’s a logical flow from one step to the next—so it all holds together.

2. Talk about what you’ve built. It doesn’t matter if what you built was “small” or “not that important.” Don’t let people put your work in a lesser category. People respect people who build because you’ve created something out of nothing.