E2A 106 Writing Mining for Value: Frameworks, Feedback, and a Two-Week First Draft

In this episode of The Entrepreneur to Author Podcast, your host Scott MacMillan interviews chartered engineer and consultant Alex Franklin, Managing Director at First Principles Consulting and author of Mining for Value. Alex shares how years of notes, client work, and reflection on operational chaos in mining became the raw material for his book. When he stepped into the Managing Director role, he used writing as a way to clarify who the firm serves, what problems they solve, and how they create value—essentially turning the book into a strategic thinking tool for himself and a translation layer between site leaders and executive decision-makers. Alex explains that much of the first draft came together in about two weeks because he’d already been mentally working on the ideas for a long time. The real work was in iterating: shaping the manuscript around a proven nonfiction structure (problem → big idea → how-to), refining and renaming his consulting frameworks so they were simple and communicable on the page, and testing concepts through beta readers and a keynote talk. The result is a book that not only captures hard-won industry knowledge at a time of brain drain in mining, but also serves as a practical, educational asset for his business and a way to scale his expertise to a broader audience. SHOW LINKS Free operational performance assessment: https://firstprinciplesconsulting.com/score GUEST BIO Alex Franklin is a Chartered Engineer, Managing Director at First Principles Consulting and author of Mining For Value, A Blueprint to Eliminate Chaos, Scale Production, and Unlock Latent Capacity. Alex pairs his diverse, global expertise across sectors with a value investor’s mindset to help bridge the gap between the boardroom and the blast site. He is focused on changing the conversation in mining from reactive to proactive; believing operational risk can be minimised, not just managed, creating resilient growth, whilst leaving less money left on the table. CONNECT WITH ALEX Book Website: firstprinciplesconsulting.com/book Website: firstprinciplesconsulting.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alex-j-franklin/ YouTube: @alex.j.franklin CONNECT WITH SCOTT entrepreneurtoauthor.com grammarfactory.com [email protected] LinkedIn (@scottmacmillan): linkedin.com/in/scottmacmillan Instagram (@scottamacmillan) instagram.com/scottamacmillan