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By Joanna Ptolomey
Working as an independent worker can be a professionally liberating
and exciting experience. You are more in control of your own destiny
and there is an increased chance to get involved in enjoyable and
satisfying work. On the flip side it can be risky; basic concerns like
finding work, opening up new opportunities and remaining financially
solvent can be constant companions. Unlike work as a regular
employee, there is no monthly cheque and no guaranteed supply of work.
Business aside, there is also the question of personal and
professional development. How do you manage that? When you start out
as an independent worker, every day that you are not working on a fee-
paying project is a zero income day, and it can seem extravagant to
sit reading about Web 2.0 when you have no work on the horizon.
A couple of years ago I began to investigate whether there was a way
to combine both my business and personal development activities to
have a measurable tangible outcome on my business.
Joined at the hip
One of the first things I encountered as an independent worker was the
difficulty in separating myself from the business. Instead of working
against this, I knew that any method I tried needed to work with it.
Your clients will almost certainly be commissioning work on the basis
of your ability to manage and deliver value added work on time and to
budget, not just because you happen to offer particular services. As
an independent you are required to do the business planning,
marketing, client management, administration, provide the information
services and be the only one on the coffee rota!
So what if you find yourself lagging behind in your own professional
development and are not sure about business development? You can
miss all the cues that things need to change and that you are missing
opportunities. You can quite quickly find that your market has moved
on or changed and that the services you offered are no longer
required.
The pilot project
I would anticipate that very few independents (especially solo
workers) have a budget for personal and business development. Hats off
to you if you have, and it is a goal of mine to allocate part of my
earnings specifically for this purpose in the future. Happily or
fortunately, I realised that in the first instance I needed only to
allocate time to this process. My first step was to develop a short
pilot programme (with me as the guinea pig) and you can read the
outcome of this pilot in Jinfo Newsletter no.132
<http://jinfo.com/newsletter/Jinfo-Newsletter-132.pdf>. This article
discusses my efforts including what worked, what didn't work and the
tangible results of my efforts.
In general terms this short-term pilot project was successful both
financially and professionally, but most importantly I began to see
the bones of a methodology that I could use to help drive my
professional and business development on a regular basis. It also
confirmed my hypothesis that personal development issues were not
standalone items, but could be embedded into any of my proposed
business strategies.
My pilot project had also convinced me that a structured and
methodical approach to business and personal development would have
the potential to yield tremendous results.
Bones of the methodology
I believe that actually doing projects for clients is the 'easy bit'.
As an information professional I love my specialist subject areas,
finding information and delivering bespoke solutions for individual
clients. This is my real comfort zone.
Each independent worker has their own specialist area of expertise but
there are some key common areas that need to be addressed on a yearly
basis to keep yourself and the business moving on the right track,
such as:
Audit/analysis of your market
- What markets do you work in?
- Is there enough work in this market?
- Who are you competitors? What makes you different?
- Have there been any changes to the structure of your market?
- Do you have enough clients?
- How much work do you get from individual clients?
- What would be the effect if you lost a particular client?
- Could you be taking your skills and using them in another market?
- What is your cash flow and turnover like?
- Do you do a few large projects or lots of small projects?
- Do you have too much work?
Audit/analysis of the services you offer
- Are you services valuable to your client? Do you have evidence?
- Do you have protocols for service delivery?
- What services are you never asked for?
- What services do people ask for most often?
- Are you making plans to develop other services and diversify?
- Do your clients know that you can do other types of work?
- Are there times when you could subcontract work?
Marketing/awareness techniques
- Are you aware of the key players in your market?
Who holds the purse strings?
- Do you take opportunities to publish, educate or communicate in
a variety of professional journals and industry titles about
your projects and/or your skills?
- Do you make a point of scheduling in appointments throughout the
year in an effort to network and keep up to date with what is
happening in your sector?
- Do you focus on key areas of professional reading and make time
to actually read them?
- Are you visible at key events and do you know what to say when
people ask you what you do?
These key areas are neat and succinct and allow for the development of
some lovely activities and goals to challenge us with. However, the
story is generally never that straightforward and there needs to be a
narrative that holds all our ideas and plans together. Driving a
business forward requires other skills, like asking hard questions
about what makes us tick personally and our commitment. I don't
believe that most independents are driven solely by financial needs.
Sure, we need to make a living and pay our bills but I don't believe
that is the only driver.
I suppose most of us have asked these questions. What is important in
our life, what drives us to work in this sector, how committed are we
to our endeavours and what gets us out of bed in the morning? I call
this my 'personal constitution'.
Personal constitution
Developing a personal constitution is one of the most important
processes that you can do for your business and yourself. Ask
yourself the following questions:
- Why do you work in this sector?
- What is important to your work/personal life?
- What are your fundamental goals in working as an independent?
Everyone has different answers to these questions and we have all
arrived at independent working through different (and sometimes
bizarre) routes. In my formative years I tested the quality of
concrete on construction sites, which makes for a whole other story.
But here is my personal constitution, and I believe it provides the
foundation for everything I do.
- I work in the health sector, which includes the NHS, voluntary
sector, academia and education, and believe in equality and
access to healthcare for all
- I believe that through the work I do I can actually make a
difference to the health of the man in the street (albeit by an
indirect and sometimes circuitous route)
- I work part-time and flexibly, to enjoy my family life with
two small children
- I like challenging work and also a variety. I know that I have
a short attention span and get bored easily
- I like to be involved in projects where the outcome has a tangible
benefit to the client. The report, directories, presentation,
database, training, and consultancy has immediate uses and
benefits and will help drive their business.
Methodology
Think about what makes you tick and remember that your personal
situation can change from year to year. It is an important component
for a happy working and personal life.
This 4-step methodology can be used to build up a bespoke plan for
yourself and your business.
1. Consider what is 'your glue' to hold things together.
- Develop your 'personal constitution'
- Re-assess this every year or each time you go through this process.
2. Consider the three key areas of your business and look for personal
development associated with these activities.
- Audit/analysis of your market
- Audit/analysis of the services you offer
- Marketing/awareness techniques.
3. Consider when you would like to start your plan and for how long.
- I use the start of a new financial year to set the wheels in motion,
but you can start it at any time
- Make it bespoke to you, just like your services are to your clients.
Most of my projects need to billed by financial year-end and that's
usually when they are finished. There is usually a little lull as
new budgets start and people start thinking about summer holidays
so I take this chance for a slow down in workload.
4. Embrace reflective practice.
- One of the sheer joys and luxuries of independent working is
'reflective practice'. However I must admit that it took a few
years to really trust my own hunches and feelings, and to accept and
live with some 'bad choices and mistakes'
- It's so easy to say 'the buck stops with me', but it can be
difficult to actually accept this, take it on board and move forward
- Try and find a mentor to help you with this process. It is good to
have someone to discuss things with and bounce ideas around.
Personal Examples
I used the above methodology to scope out some key activities for
financial year 2007-2008. For each key activity I allocate a proposed
action, a training and development function, and anticipated outcomes.
Key Activity: Strategic Annual review
- Proposed action: evaluation client/project type mix, revenue mix and
turnover
- Training and development: improve financial management and strategic
planning skills
- Anticipated outcome: better understanding of business values,
business direction, market position.
Key Activity: New business development
- Proposed actions: Generate ideas for training courses and workshops
and consider possible collaborators. Also research Community Health
and Social Partnerships sector in Scotland and identify key people
- Training and development: creative thinking, strategic planning
skills, financial planning skills, marketing and awareness
- Anticipated outcome: To make a business decision based on evidence
on the possibility of developing new courses and identifying
probable work markets.
Key Activity: Different types of projects
- Proposed action: handling more complex projects outside 'personal
comfort zone', consideration of smaller projects with quick
turnaround, managing multiple clients, outsourcing work
- Training and development: Improve research skills, improve
information management skills including new protocols for new
service delivery, improve time/project management skills, people
management skills
- Anticipated outcome: Improved workflow, increased variety of
clients, increased variety of projects, better cash flow and
increased turnover.
This year I am also considering items such as:
- Audit physical working environment
- Client database development
- Improved marketing and awareness
- Writing a book.
Conclusions
It needn't be complicated to mix your needs as a professional with
your business development needs. What I hope you can see is that they
are much intertwined and difficult to separate anyway. By starting
the process of developing your business you will be already be
stretching your skills base and questioning how you can do things
better, more effectively and more efficiently. However, by using a
methodology there is an element of control and also measurement of
what you have achieved.
In the last couple of years I have been using this methodology to help
drive myself and my business forward, and it is interesting to see how
far I have come in a relatively short space of time. But don't be a
slave to a plan and get upset when things don't work out exactly as
you'd hoped. Next time around try a different approach. How do you put
a value on being more confident in your own abilities, having a good
network of people and mentors, knowing that your products are valuable
and suitable for your market and, more importantly, that you are
absolutely sure of your market?
You know yourself and your business better than anyone so use the
methodology to make it fit you and your situation. And above all, have
fun!
Joanna Ptolomey will be presenting at Online 2007. You can hear her
talk 'Footloose and fancy free - success in business and personal
development for the independent worker' on Thursday 6th December in
Track 3 14.00-1530.
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