• October 29, 2017
  • Mark LaCour
  • 2

How to Develop into an Oil and Gas Expert

Today, how to develop into an oil and gas expert. We get asked this question literally two or three times every month, for years. How to become an oil and gas expert. We have people that reach out to us that want to change their careers, and they want to do some of the stuff that we’re doing. So we’re going to rattle off the things you need to do if you want to develop into an Oil and Gas expert.

The first one, and if you have listened to me for any length of time you know this could come out of my mouth – plan. You have to have a plan. Not in your head, but you have to have it written down and it’s something that you need to reference often. You need to have overarching goals and then you need to have those goals broken down into actual things you can actually execute on. And then you need to have those actually broken down into tactical things, things you need to do every day to reach these parts of the goals. If you don’t have a plan, you never will become an expert.

If You Want to Develop into an Oil and Gas Expert, You Must Learn

Next you must learn. You have to educate yourself  and the thing I see a lot of people do, especially in our industry is they know part of our industry. And they think that’s the whole industry. So they only focus on the part that they’re in, not realizing that’s only a small percentage of the entire industry. This industry is enormous, and you have to (at least at a high level) learn about the different parts if you want to develop into an Oil and Gas expert.

You have to spend time learning; formal education, seminars, classes, online events, conferences, expos, whatever it takes to continuously learn. And something else that you need to do if you want to develop into an Oil and Gas expert. You never, never stop learning. We literally put time in our calendars every month to learn, because there’s always something new to study and pick up. The moment you stop learning is the moment you stop being an expert.

Connect With Other Oil and Gas Experts

Then connect with other oil and gas experts. I have a lot of people I’m connected to, many of them on a different maturity scale than I am. Develop into an Oil and Gas Expert Some of them are just starting their careers, some are the end of their careers. But I always get valuable and useful information out of my network. Your network, your other oil and gas experts you that you connected with. They help make sure you’re current, make sure that you’re aware of things that maybe you weren’t. We talk about learning a little while ago, well they also make sure that you learn the newest things. So having that network of other oil and gas experts, is unbelievably important.

And when you’re starting, especially if you’re just coming in in this industry and you’re trying to establish yourself.  You have to have a broad knowledge, don’t specialize, learn at a high level the entire oil and gas industry.

The industry is made up of bunch of components. Basically you can break this down into upstream, midstream, downstream, and service. Go here to watch a  short video we did years ago. The content is great, but don’t make fun of the quality of the video:-)  It’s really good information to understand the broadness and the scope of our industry. You have to have that broad knowledge. Once you have that broad knowledge, then you can specialize if you want. But start off with a broad knowledge to develop into an Oil and Gas expert.

Practice Makes Perfect

Then like everything else, practice. Whatever you want to be an expert around, you have to actually do it. So in our case it’s speaking. Just helping the companies in their sales and marketing departments hit their goals. We actually do it. When I started doing this, I did a whole bunch of this sort of stuff for free, so I could  get to practice. And even now, and my crew fuss at me sometimes for this, I sometimes do stuff that we don’t get paid for. But it’s part of me practicing my craft. You have to practice.

Then, here’s another one that sometimes you need other people to help you figure out. You need to identify your weaknesses.  So you need to identify parts of your expertise that you’re not very strong in, and that’s where you need to spend your time to. You need to figure out how to take those weaknesses and turn them into strengths. If you don’t identify your weaknesses, you will have gaps in being seen as an oil and gas expert.  Like I said it’s often very helpful if you have other people help point out your weaknesses and gaps.

I’ll give you a great example for us.  I am not the best financial person in the world and I have other people in our organization that help me with that, because it’s a weakness. Now I’ve addressed that weakness. You have to be able to do the same.

Always Check the Source

You know we talked about learning and education. We’re living in a modern information overloaded world and there’s a lot of bad information out there. The information that you consume to help you be an oil and gas expert – check the source, every single time. There is so much misinformation, wrong information, politically influenced info and if you let those bad pieces of information get into your box of tools, then you start making bad decisions based upon bad data. And you’re not seen as an expert anymore. So every time, check your sources.

Here’s one you’ll actually not hear people talk about, but I think it’s probably one of the most important – desire. If you want to be an oil and gas expert, you have to believe in your heart that that’s where your calling is. That’s what you want to be, that’s what you want to do. You have to have a passion around that. If you’ve listened to us any length of time, you’ve seen us speak at any events. You know I have a passion around this industry; I love this industry. I love the stories in our industry, I love the people in our industry, I love the technology in our industry. It’s real and a huge passion of mine. You have to have that same desire.

To Develop into an Oil and Gas Expert Have Fun

And then, quite honestly even though it’s work, have fun with it!  This is a wonderful global industry of people doing business with people. This industry likes to do good stuff for the planet, we like to provide prosperity to the world, but we also like to have fun. So enjoy that part as well. If you want to develop yourself as an oil and gas expert, you have to enjoy the journey. You have to have fun and if you don’t, you won’t ever get there.

So there you go, these are some tips on how you can become an oil and gas expert. If you found this valuable, can you do me a favor? There’s some social share buttons here, just click a couple of them help us share this blog post to more people.