10 things you must know about how to become a consultant

By Neil Patrick

My mailbox is a constant source of inspiration for this blog. And this morning was no exception.

I received a LinkedIn invitation to connect with a chap I knew at university. I was delighted to reconnect after so long, accepted immediately and messaged him to ask what he was up to.

In his message back to me he told me that he would be leaving his employer in a few weeks’ time where he’s been the Managing Director and intended to become a self-employed consultant.

This isn’t an unusual aspiration for senior professionals. After all those years’ experience and rising through the ranks on merit, it’s tempting to think we are well equipped to take on such a career pivot.

I know. I have done it myself. And I learned the hard way that very little of the experience we acquire in a management career actually counts for much when we switch from being an employed executive to a self-employed gun for hire.

But this communication prompted me to think about the things I learned in the process. If you are or are considering becoming a freelance business consultant, these are the 10 things I think matter and which you must address in your plans:

No-one cares what we have achieved in the past. They only care about what we can achieve for them in the future.

Rebranding ourselves as a freelance version of what we were before is a non-starter. Clients don’t value us because of the breadth of our experience and previous seniority. They want one thing (at least initially) and they want an expert at it.

Simply changing our Linkedin profile to show us as a consultant will not get us any attention. We must have a personal media strategy which enables us to be found when people are looking for the skills we have.

What we did five or ten years ago is mostly irrelevant. If we’ve not done exactly what people need in the last few years, that experience is considered pretty much  redundant.

We may think we have transferable skills, but clients do not. Most clients or prospects I have encountered believe that relevant experience of their sector is vital. They may or may not be correct, but few will be persuaded otherwise and they call the shots. So sector specialism is a very wise choice.

We must specialise despite our wide experience. When we have wide business experience, it’s tempting to market ourselves as a jack of all trades. This is fatal – we will be perceived as master of none.

We must be able to solve a problem that is hurting our clients every day. Not a problem we think they have, or the type of work we most want to do; a problem that they know is stopping them achieve their aspirations.

A wide and appropriate network which has goodwill towards us is an essential prerequisite. Just having a website is not enough if no-one ever goes there. The explosion of online content in recent years means that we will never be found by search engines unless we have invested in online content and built social media networks which enable us to be found online. Moreover, the social web and its peer to peer nature means we are judged not so much by what we say about ourselves as by what others have to say about us.

The internet isn’t as clever as we might think. It’s a paradox for sure, but the internet is not yet very good at perceiving fine nuances about people. It’s powered by big data and algorithms. These are good at counting but not so good at interpreting subtle qualitative information. If you or I have 500 LinkedIn connections with really great people who have active goodwill (i.e. they will voluntarily help us) towards us, that’s powerful. If we have 5,000 who couldn’t care less, it’s actually a liability.

We need to have a funnel strategy. Actors and sales people know this well. They accept that one positive result is the normal outcome of perhaps 50 or even 100 auditions or sales calls.

So transitioning from senior executive to consultant is a conundrum. Such a pivot is possible, but it takes time and an effective strategy. Who we were previously and our experience is usually much less valuable than we’d like to think.

I know a ton of other consultants. Some are doing well usually because they have managed to transition from a ‘normal’ job to a freelance/contractor version of the same job. This is not real freelancing in my view – it’s actually a degraded job contract more than anything else.

This isn’t really what I am talking about here. I am talking about those of us who want to create our own true consulting businesses from scratch. Hunting and securing our clients and earning our living based on the success of our work for them.

The harsh reality is that most other consultants I know are finding it extremely difficult to secure good clients, good rates of pay and assignments which last more than a few weeks. The labour on demand model which is becoming the new normal, is making freelancing a very precarious career choice.

Success as a freelance consultant has very little in reality to do with our previous career experience. It has everything to do with our ability to network effectively, build awareness, acquire goodwill. And critically being able to solve a problem that our clients cannot solve themselves. Recognise this and develop a strategy that creates these things and we are half way there.

But half way will not pay the bills. And in my experience this transition takes years not weeks or months. Today I have long standing regular clients that I love working with. They are happy and I am happy. But in almost every case, the initial contact took 3-6 months to evolve into an arrangement whereby the commercials were finalised and the work was underway.

It’s a hard path to follow, but the satisfaction I get from seeing my clients succeed as a result of my involvement makes it more rewarding than anything I have done before.

Better still, because my clients are happy, they recommend me to others and so finding new assignments is never a problem for me.

And I indulge myself in a way I could never do when I had a normal job. Today if I don’t like a prospective client for any reason, I don’t work with them. Period. And that's a luxury of choice I never had before.

I just wish I had known what I know now when I started out.

P.S. Guardian Careers have published some further comments on the subject here. (Although I hope my views are a bit more actionable and insightful!)

Why you shouldn't seek perfection if you want to be great

By Neil Patrick

This month, the saga of Jeremy Clarkson’s departure from the BBC has taken up a lot of headlines and divided the country more than the electioneering. The outlook for Cameron's job has been a lot less interesting than Clarkson's to many people.

The arguments have raged over whether or not he should have been disposed of by the BBC. In the left corner, his detractors say he’s an oaf who deserved to go as his offensive comments should not be acceptable for the BBC. Assaulting one of his producers during an argument over the food menu, cannot be tolerated by any employer. His supporters argue that the global popularity of the Top Gear brand cannot continue without him and that his non-PC and larkish antics bring a much needed dose of anarchy to a somewhat staid and cautious part of the media.

I feel no need to either spring to his defence nor to criticize him. I am sure that Jeremy Clarkson’s career will continue successfully and right now his biggest problem will be deciding which new contract with a rival media firm he will sign. The BBC has earned handsomely from his lengthy tenure and success, and in the greater scheme of things, they will carry on happily without him. Sure, they will suffer a revenue hit, but they will also have a lot less aggravation and fewer PR crises to wrestle with due to the absence of Clarkson’s consistent ability to always offend someone, somewhere, somehow.

This episode highlights something about great careers. Being perfect isn’t a requirement or even part of the recipe. In fact, the harder you try to be perfect, the more your distinctive essence is diluted.

We don’t have to look far for examples. Winston Churchill is often picked as the greatest Briton in history. Standing up alone to confront Hitler and his Nazi war machine when they had just crushed the whole of Europe was considered at the time by many to be as good as national suicide. Yet more than anything else, it was his leadership that inspired a steely resolve in Britain and the Commonwealth to resist whatever the cost.

Source: Library of Congress, Reproduction number LC-USW33-019093-C

Yet Churchill’s career was full of failures and uncomfortable details. As First Lord of the Admiralty, in the Frist World War, he was responsible for the catastrophe which unfolded at Gallipoli resulting in the deaths of over 56,000 troops from Britain, France, Australia, India and New Zealand. (My great uncle being one of them). The firestorm bombings by the RAF and USAF of Dresden resulted in the deaths of 25,000 civilians and prisoners of war, but very few German troops.

David Beckham is a perhaps the greatest golden boy of soccer Britain has ever produced. He’s more than just a good player, he’s a global brand, Hollywood A-lister and the face of countless commercials. He has dozens of endorsement contracts including Adidas, Armani, Disney, IBM and Coca Cola. Yet Beckham was the first England player ever to collect two red cards and the first England captain to be sent off. Beckham suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), which he says makes him "have everything in a straight line or everything has to be in pairs." Apparently this quest for symmetry causes him to throw things away from his fridge. No surprise then that his wife always looks underfed and unhappy.

Amy Winehouse’s dichotomous public image of critical and commercial success versus personal turmoil and use of drink and drugs was always controversial. The New Statesman called Winehouse "a filthy-mouthed, down-to-earth diva," while Newsweek called her "a perfect storm of sex kitten, raw talent and poor impulse control." Karen Heller with The Philadelphia Inquirer summarised the maelstrom this way:

“She's only 24 with six Grammy nominations, crashing headfirst into success and despair, with a co-dependent husband in jail, exhibitionist parents with questionable judgement, and the paparazzi documenting her emotional and physical distress. Meanwhile, a haute designer Karl Lagerfeld appropriates her dishevelled style and eating issues to market to the elite while proclaiming her the new Bardot.”

Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning on 23 July 2011.

My point is simple enough. No-one is perfect. That’s obvious. But if we accept the restraints that others require, we dilute or even discard our very essence. Clarkson would never have achieved success without offending someone. Beckham’s OCD creates a form of visual discipline which makes him think differently to normal players. Churchill could never have saved Britain without killing innocent people. There was a tragic inevitability that sooner or later Winehouse would kill herself.

A quest for perfection on other people’s terms is worse than pointless. It risks destroying our capacity to harness our full unique potential. The trick is to harness our imperfections in a way which delivers what people need rather than what they think they want.

Why one is an oppressive number

By Neil Patrick

In the early 20th century, rigid hierarchies caused a lot of suffering. In the 21st century workplace, they're still causing disenfranchisement...

"What?" I hear you say, “One is just a number. How can a single number mean anything, let alone be oppressive?”

Well hear me out.

In the early 20th century, ‘civilized’,' respectable', professional men from the British Commonwealth would serve one career, one boss, one wife, one monarch and one God. Ideally for the whole of their adult working life.

This was espoused as the ideal; the 'bio' of a good citizen.

1914 marked the zenith of what we could call the 'world of ones'. Before that date, loyalty to king and country was seen as a British citizen's overarching duty. After that date, the sense of obligation slowly but steadily ebbed away.

This cultural shift can be largely attributed to the fact that World War One resulted in the deaths of over a million people from Britain and the Commonwealth countries.

In the words of historian Samuel Hynes:

"A generation of innocent young men, their heads full of high abstractions like Honour, Glory and England, went off to war to make the world safe for democracy. They were slaughtered.... Those who survived were shocked, disillusioned and embittered by their war experiences, and saw that their real enemies were not the Germans, but the old men at home who had lied to them. They rejected the values of the society that had sent them to war, and in doing so separated their own generation from the past and from their cultural inheritance."

Thus emerged the first widespread questioning of the legitimacy of governments to demand the ultimate sacrifice from their citizens. Exactly one hundred years have passed since the outbreak of the First World War. It was also called "the war to end all wars". Except it wasn't and it didn't.

The 20th century was a world of rigid hierarchies. For its people, it was experienced through top down command and control structures. Despite several notable relapses, most western governments became increasingly democratic. Nonetheless, most of these structures still retained features of medieval feudalism.

Credit: Wikipedia

Fast forward to today and this ‘world of ones’ is starting to look increasingly archaic:

• Loose informal networks create more and more of our professional contacts and engagements.

• News sources include almost as many independent commentators as staff journalists. 

• Influence and communications don't just move top down. They also move laterally from one to many. Peer to peer. Social media and its enabling of the Arab Spring is a great example of this.

• Fewer people than ever experience a whole lifetime with the same spouse.

• More and more people work within complex matrix structures at work, where, they don’t just serve one boss, they have to deal with many.

• No-one still seriously expects to have just one job for the whole of their adult life. In fact the average tenure in jobs has been getting shorter and shorter.

The rise of social media has brought with it a democratization of communication that would be terrifying to the ruling elites of the early 20th century. Their top down command and control structures would be seriously destabilized.

The ‘world of ones’ is now well past its sell-by date and has become redundant in more and more walks of life. But it shows few signs of retreat in most workplaces.

Most employers still cling to a requirement for absolute fealty from their employees. They apply binding contracts. They demand complete loyalty. And in some cases even require a promise that if we leave or are sacked, we won't compete with them.

They however remain free to dictate what will and won’t happen to our jobs. And usually these decisions rest with just a handful of people.

It's an unequal contract in which the employee waives much of their freedom in exchange for a pay cheque and a limited selection of other privileges.

Enlightened employers such as Zappos are bravely moving forward with new ideas more in keeping with the 21st century, like abolishing job titles and placing decisions in the hands not of managers, but self-governing circles. Employees may be members of several circles and hold a different position within each.

I’m not an anarchist or a communist or anti-monarchist. I don’t advocate revolution, or infidelity, or the abandoning of religious beliefs. I just think it’s time for all employers to get into the 21st century in terms of how they think about their relationship with their people and how those people are organised, motivated, governed and rewarded.

After all, as CEOs are always reminding us, their people are their most valuable asset. Not their serfs. Aren't they?

Dressing for success...suprising secrets from a top model

By Neil Patrick

We live in an age where what we look like plays an unreasonably large part in our life chances. And even though we know that such superficial judgments are morally and rationally wrong, most people still persist with them.

We all know that we have a few seconds when we meet someone new before they decide who we are and what they think about us. If they like how we look, we’ll likely be more successful than if they don’t.

So if you’re a model, you ought to know a thing or two about how what you look like affects how people see you. And it's true, but not perhaps in the way you'd expect.

Being a model is, in the words of Cameron Russell, possible because she won a genetic lottery. She’s 26 years old, tall, slender, has very shiny hair and is white. She spends her time posing in front of cameras so that fashion companies can sell more of their stuff. She has the job that millions of young women aspire to.

Since beginning her modelling career at the age of 16, Russell has worked with numerous successful photographers including Steven Meisel, Craig McDean, and Nick Knight. Her pictures have appeared in Vogue and Numéro. She has featured in advertising campaigns and fashion shows for many fashion companies including Benetton, Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Armani, Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Marc Jacobs, Versace, Vivienne Westwood, Ralph Lauren, Victoria's Secret, and Diane von Fürstenberg.

She got into modelling because her mother had a friend who worked at Ford Models and she signed with that agency in 2003. She later moved on to DNA Model Management in 2006, switched to Women Management in 2008, and finally moved to Elite Model Management in 2011.

          Cameron Russell         Credit: F8 at English Wikipedia

This talk by Russell at TEDx demonstrates in the starkest possible way, how the way we look and dress affects how others perceive us.

When originally released, it went viral under the title, "Looks aren't everything...trust me, I'm a model".

It’s actually a kind of reverse makeover. It also shows how the images we see every day in the media are totally manufactured and do not in any way reflect the true nature of the people they depict.

She admits she is insecure and that models are some of the most physically insecure people you will ever meet. Suddenly it doesn’t sound quite such a wonderful career after all…

She has a social conscience too as she shows when she says: "it was difficult to unpack a legacy of gender and racial oppression when I am one of the greatest beneficiaries".

Her work doesn’t make her feel particularly fulfilled and I suspect she is smart enough to realize that she cannot rely on her modelling income to carry her through her thirties and forties, let alone her middle age.

In her own words, she is cashing in on her inheritance. And who can blame her?

So what can we take out of all this? Well first, I think it shows that we shouldn't make presumptions about anyone’s character or capabilities just because they are good looking. Second, that being a model like most jobs has its fair share of drudgery.

And last but not least, sadly there’s no sign that people are going to change their habit of making judgments about any of us based on how we look. But at least we can all choose what we wear.

Banker suicides: Why banking is now the most dangerous career choice

By Neil Patrick

I have become fascinated this week by a news story which is being largely ignored by the mainstream media. This virtual news blackout in itself is intriguing. Over the last few weeks, at least five and according to some sources as many as twenty banking executives have committed suicide.

If these people were musicians, actors or politicians, I am sure this story would be front page news.

The facts we know so far are this. In the last two or three months, between five and twenty traders and managers involved with FOREX trading and derivative currency trading have all allegedly committed suicide. Several have thrown themselves from the tops of bank buildings in New York, London and Hong Kong. William Broeksmit, 58, a retired Deutsche Bank risk executive was found dead in his London home in January.

The fact that even the exact number of deaths is so vague is difficult enough to comprehend.

Others with strong connections to investment banking have also met unusual deaths. Michael Dueker, former vice president of the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve, was found dead at the side of a highway that leads to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. He was 50.

The cause of his death is still undetermined.

The strangest of these deaths was Richard Talley, a former investment banker with Drexel Burnham Lambert who shot himself with a nail gun at least ten times at his home in Centennial, Colorado.

There is much speculation based on the known facts that these events have occurred at the same time as regulatory agency investigations of fraud, price fixing, and “front run” trading in the FOREX markets and earlier in the LIBOR index.

Ten global banking giants including JP Morgan, Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Lloyds Banking Group, and others, have found themselves subject to criminal investigations.

Some are attributing the cause of these deaths to high levels of mental stress within the industry. I find this difficult to accept as a plausible explanation. Sure, I know these guys work crazy hours and have huge pressure to perform. And I am sure that many are finding the regulatory investigations extremely testing. But if job-related stress is the cause, why would we see so many more or less simultaneous suicides?

Stewart Black, professor of global leadership and strategy at IMD, the top business school in Lausanne, Switzerland said that the people at greatest risk are “those who have not cultivated friendships and networks outside of their company. A lot of executives keep their nose down, work hard, do great work and don’t really cultivate extra networks,” he said. “Those broader networks act as safety valves.”

A more interesting source of comment is Peter Rodgers, chairman of the City Mental Health Alliance: “Banks are starting to realize the scale of the problem”, he said. Membership of his group includes Morgan Stanley and Bank of America.

Is this a clue? Are these ‘independent’ respected commentators being used by the banking industry to deflect suspicion away from what is really going on?

If simple stress and overwork is the true explanation, why haven’t we seen a steady trickle of similar suicides over the last few years? Why didn’t we see similar events during the meltdown of 2008, which was arguably the most traumatic year ever for the big banks? And why would those no longer actively working in the sector also be killing themselves?

JP Morgan, which has had at least two suicides so far this year, isn’t a member of the City Mental Health Alliance and hasn’t publicly announced measures to deal with the aftermath of the deaths.

“JP Morgan haven’t come forward to us and we haven’t approached them either,” Rodgers said. “There’s a period of mourning. The last thing they need is us sticking our heads in. I’m confident they will come forward.”

The ‘alternative’ financial media is having a field day with this story as you’d expect. Conspiracy theories are running amok and all sorts of ‘experts’ are being called on to provide their interpretation of what might be going on.

They knew too much. They were possible whistle blowers, they had sudden attacks of conscience or guilt as a result of the regulatory investigations. All these theories and more are being put forward.

And of course as usual, the most extreme of them all is coming from Max Keiser, whose commentary is in this clip. I have a feeling this story has far from run its course.

How to get people to say ‘yes’ – the science of persuasion

By Neil Patrick

Whether you are applying for a job, pitching a sale, negotiating with a customer or even just going about your day to day work, how much is it worth to you to get more people to say ‘yes’?

There are scientifically proven methods that have a massive impact on this. Better still, they are simple, ethical and almost completely free.

The interesting thing is that these methods are especially relevant in the online world. Whether it’s how we engage with people on social media, how we set up a website, or what we say on our Linkedin profiles, the applications of this knowledge are endless and astonishingly powerful.

These tips are also short-cuts. Success is found by working smarter not harder. Knowing these principles you’ll find dozens of applications whatever kind of work you do.

If you want to know the 6 principles of persuasion so you can apply them, this simple and insightful explanation from an RSI Animate video will give you all you need to start to benefit straight away.

The video is presented by Dr. Robert Cialdini and Steve Martin, co-authors of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Business Week International Bestseller “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive”.

Totally recommended viewing!

Discover the rockstars' career secrets

By Neil Patrick

Here's a glimpse into the career secrets of today's real life rockstars...and they have value to every one of us.

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting up with Alex Hutchings, an astonishingly talented pro guitarist. Alex is an up and coming star, he writes and records music for the BBC, is a popular presenter of guitar instructional videos and performs regularly with some of the most famous and respected musicians in the world. We’d agreed to meet up to discuss the problems of the music industry and how pro musicians are responding to these challenges.

The term ‘rockstar’ has come to be used to describe people whose status almost effortlessly transcends that of their peers. The reality though is quite different. Real life rockstars have extraordinarily tough careers today and they have just as many if not more hurdles to overcome than the rest of us.

Just think about this:

Music is now expected to be available for free

The old music industry has almost disappeared as digital media has replaced the old physical media. Free or cheap file sharing mean that no-one expects to have to pay for music anymore. And consequently, the giant record labels of old have shriveled to emaciated versions of their previous selves. What’s the value of a product that almost no-one is willing to pay money for?

Sales of recorded music have dwindled, regardless of your talent

These days, having real talent, writing and recording music is simply not enough to secure you a guaranteed career. Bill Haley’s 1954 hit, Rock Around the Clock sold 25 million copies. In 2011, just thirteen titles sold more than one million copies. Ten years previously, in 2001, there were more than one hundred such titles.

You cannot expect to make much revenue, let alone profit, selling your music via the internet

Songs on iTunes sell for 99 cents. But the artist only gets around 10 cents, so to earn just $1000, you need to achieve 10,000 downloads. Even if you can shift a massive 100,000 downloads on iTunes, your cut is just $10,000. But that’s your gross revenue before you deduct all the expenses you incurred in making and promoting the music in the first place.

Pro musicians these days are more or less on their own

Along with the labels, the resources that pro musicians’ could draw upon to support the development of their careers have dried up too. Managers, A&R people, agents, publicists, promoters – they've mostly gone save for a handful who truly serve only a tiny global super elite of artists. Other ‘signed’ artists get minimal support by comparison.

But tours and gigs still make money don’t they?

For most pro musicians, the only way they can make any serious money directly from their music is to have big sold out shows. But without the old industry to help you get there, for new artists, it’s a long hard slog to achieve enough popularity for this to become even a possibility.

So to return to our discussion. Several interesting points emerged.

He follows his passion 

Alex is in love with music. He doesn’t play to become rich or famous. I suspect he’d still do it even if it cost him everything he has. His commitment is total. And to excel at anything, that’s what’s needed.

He realises the value of diversification

Alex earns money in many ways. He tours all over the world. He writes and records music for clients. He acts as an endorser, consultant and developer for equipment manufacturers, and he presents instructional videos. He even appears in ads for an insurance company! This diversified approach ensures that he has more than one source of income. If one part of it dries up for any reason, he’s not dead in the water.

He understands the importance of social media

Building a relationship with your fans is critical for performers, who may not always have new material to offer their fans. Alex uses Facebook to give his fans the opportunity to follow what he is doing and see and hear his latest work and other updates.

He’s modest, approachable and a great networker

In the new music industry, there’s not much room for prima donnas. Despite his talent, Alex is a very down to earth, open and all round nice guy. He also understands that relationships with other people in his business are vital. So he’s always finding new contacts and other top musicians he can he can collaborate with.

He retains a positive outlook whatever happens

He refuses to worry about things, despite the risks of any number of things going wrong on a day to day basis. He always believes things will turn out well. Some call it good Karma. I call it the power of positive thinking.

Whilst you might have a steady job and regular pay check, I think all of us need to take a lesson from Alex’s book. You might not work in the music industry, but I am convinced that the trends unfolding in today’s careers mean that we all need to learn from what real rockstars do to survive in such hostile conditions.

So next time you use the term ‘rockstar’, you might want to remind yourself, what it really means. And remember that these guys are working much harder and smarter than you probably ever give them credit for.

I’d like to thank Alex for his time and the insights he shared. And as a small thank you, here’s a clip from one of his performances, that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.

How to assess the risk and rewards of joining a start-up

By Neil Patrick

In my career, I have been a member of three start-up teams. Two were highly successful. One was not. How can you tell which is which before you join?

Last week I had an interesting meeting. I had a coffee with a new Linkedin friend. It was one of those getting to know you type of conversations.

It turned out that he’d been a casualty of a failed business start-up. He’d invested a lot of his time, energy, skills and money into a business which the management team had convinced themselves would make them all millionaires.

But due to a variety of reasons outside his control, the business foundered. He ended up with no job. Nothing. Not even a redundancy cheque.

His story got me thinking about how we decide to join a start-up. I’ve done it three times in my own career. And I learned something different each time.

Often we don’t take the necessary steps to actively control our careers. We just react to the opportunities as they come along and they flow over us in a somewhat unplanned fashion. And if we are not totally happy in our present role, the prospects of a start-up can be highly attractive. You’ll get out of an organisation you don’t like very much and have the opportunity to shape a new one that’s much more to your liking.

But when we leave a ‘safe’ job for a shiny new start-up, many people do it because it offers the prospect of a big pay-off in the future.

That’s a problem; we get dazzled by the prospect of that big payoff, rather than being focused on what has to be achieved hit the jackpot.

And realistically what are the prospects of surviving a start-up, let alone making the big time? That’s the really important thing you must understand before you jump ship. 

But to get back to my new connection’s story. I could see several aspects of it which have relevance to almost everyone:

If a start-up offer materializes when we are job hunting, it’s tempting to just grab it.

The events which led up to the eventual meltdown in this story were not the result a great business plan gone wrong, but rather a series of events which created the illusion of an opportunity. He had lost his job recently so was on the hunt for his next paycheck.

Then the opportunity with the start-up came along. My friend had seized it with enthusiasm, but did he do the necessary due diligence? I don’t know, but if he did, it was clearly insufficiently rigorous. I think it just happened to come along when he needed a job and it was the most accessible offer around.

We can get blinded by the temptations of massive payoffs so easily

The excitement of the prospect of a huge pay-off is an extra tempting proposition for most of us. But the job offer isn't the same thing at all. You should view it as the offer of a job which may evaporate faster than any you've had before. And leave you with nothing.

So you must be clear you are comfortable with this reality. Ask yourself questions, like ‘Will this improve my job satisfaction and my skills?’ Will it get me closer to where I really want to be five years from now? I say five years because that’s the typical horizon at which you should anticipate an exit from a start-up.

Start-up plans are always full of faulty assumptions

One thing I have learned is that unless the business plan is based on completely known assumptions from an identical business elsewhere, they will be wrong. Sometimes a little bit wrong, sometimes a million miles from anything even remotely accurate.

And the more innovative i.e. untried the business model is, the less reliable the business plan assumptions will be. So whilst I love start-ups, if you are joining one, my advice would be to make sure that you know how reliable the planning assumptions are.

It’s your future that is in jeopardy if someone else got these even a little bit wrong. One thing is for sure, no business plan survives its first real world contact without alteration.

Without the right people, a start-off is seriously disadvantaged from the off

You must pay close attention to the start-up team. If they have done it before, you can take some confidence that they know what they are doing. If not, you need to really decide whether they can be relied upon to achieve what’s required.

Often start-ups struggle to attract the best talent. They are forced to settle for who they can get. This is simply because since they have no track record, they are obliged to pick from the minority who are willing to take the risk. And unless the leadership team has a stellar record of success, these are rarely the best possible candidates.

If we are not true to ourselves, we can never do our best work

I know, I know. It’s that ‘p’ word again. Passion.

It’s become a cliché. We get asked it at interviews. What’s your passion? And we feel obliged to say something ridiculous, like, ‘My real passion is building SQL databases’. Really? 

Our true passion is what we feel compelled to do. It’s what we’d do even if no-one paid us to do it…ever.

In hindsight, only one of the three start-ups I took on really matched my passion at the time. The other two I took on because they appeared to be the best option available at the time. In hindsight therefore, two were a bad choice for me.

In the case of my friend, I am pretty certain that he wasn’t truly following his passion either.

Joining a start-up isn’t a guaranteed ticket to fabulous riches

There’s a difference to being a founder (and therefore owning a large slice of the equity) and an early joiner, in which case you will possibly be offered stock if you stick around long enough AND if the business flourishes. This isn’t to be sniffed at, but it probably won't get you into the millionaires club either.

Plus you should expect that the next five years of your life will be consumed by the business. Its needs will take precedence over you own. This is fine if it’s a commitment you are willing to make and you believe totally in the company mission and business plan and playing your part fully in ensuring it becomes a reality.

If not, you really shouldn't be there.

So how should you decide whether you should join a start-up?

This depends on you. What do you find most important? If you are looking to strike it really rich, you probably have a better shot at doing so by being a moderately successful co-founder (eg 30% of a £10m exit is £3m). As an early joiner, even with a bigger exit value, your payout will be much less (eg 0.5% of a £25m exit is £125k).

On the other hand, if you are merely looking to accelerate your career, then there’s much to be gained by finding a superstar team and joining it at the earliest possible opportunity. Whatever happens to the business in the coming years, you’ll learn lessons of huge value to your future career.

At the end of the day, the key is to know what is most important to you, have a clear appraisal of the business plan and team and be completely clear about why you are joining.

Now can I try that again please?

What no-one tells you about the true power of networking

By Neil Patrick

How and why personal networks actually work has not been widely discussed outside of academic theories. Much of the available research is also too old to reflect the critical impact of social media.

So this weekend I have been reviewing the research evidence to try and produce some insights which I hope are helpful.

Most of the material I found talks about the benefits and tactics of effective networking, but very few writers discuss exactly HOW and WHY it works from the perspective of growing our career opportunities.

Many of my own professional contacts misunderstand the value because they don’t grasp the mathematical and social forces that they can unleash. Yes that’s right, I said mathematical.

If you understand this aspect, I guarantee your thinking about networking will be transformed.

Networking is largely misunderstood

Most people think of networking as a heavy investment of their time and energy. And since we have too little of both usually, it gets deprioritised as a task. This is a mistake and it reflects a misunderstanding of what networking is, what is involved and how it creates value.

The critical thing to understand is the power and value of weak ties

A strong tie (or link) is someone who knows a lot about you and who you are in frequent contact with (say at least once a month). A weak tie is someone who doesn’t know you that well, but knows a little about you and has an interaction with you say every 6 months or so.

Most people think that only strong ties can be of value to them in their careers. After all, if someone is only vaguely aware of you, how much value can that relationship really have?

Big mistake.

Now the math bit

This is where it gets interesting. No-one can have a very large number of strong ties. Around 200-250 or so is probably the maximum. There are just not enough hours in the day to manage much more than that.

Weak ties however are a different matter. You can quite easily maintain thousands of these. And social media is a powerful tool that helps you do exactly that.

So unlike strong ties, with weak ties and social media, you can easily grow your network to many thousands.

Now of course, only a small fraction of these might be of benefit to you.

But because you are just one person and with a little effort, your weak ties can be grown steadily, the number of potential opportunities available to you expands in proportion with the growth of your network of weak ties.

And of course the most valuable of your weak ties may well mature into strong ties over time.

But that’s not all

I like to think of what I call the “snowball analogy” when I think about weak ties. Imagine you are standing at the top of snow covered hill. You pick up a handful of snow. This is your current network. The rest of the snow on the ground is all those people you are not yet connected with.

You compact the snow into a ball and place it on the ground. Now you start to push it down the slope. At first not much happens. The ball slowly gets a bit larger and as it does so, its circumference increases. This increased circumference means that with each full turn, the ball picks up much more snow.

Once the ball gets to a certain size and depending on the degree of the slope, it reaches a critical mass. At this point, the ball’s own weight propels it down the hill faster and faster with you doing absolutely nothing at all.

Now with each rotation, the ball is picking up many times more snow than the original handful you held in your hands.

Exactly the same thing happens with social media networks

Most of us have a core of strong ties that we rely upon for our professional network. But this is a huge error.

Strong ties might seem instinctively to be more valuable than weak ties. In some ways they are. But they have limitations too:

• Typically, they are a subset of the people you have encountered in your day to day life. This means they tend to be restricted to your own social and professional areas of activity. And that means they are not only limited, they also will have significant duplications of knowledge and contacts with yourself and each other.

• They carry a degree of obligation which can be counterproductive. For example, if your employer is looking to fill a new more senior position, would they attach much weight to a colleague’s opinion about you that they knew you had a friendship with?

• But most of all, they are finite as mentioned at the start of this post. There’s not too much space left in your life to add many more strong ties, unless they are really valuable to you.

And that’s the magic of understanding network mathematics.

If you devote a proportion of your networking efforts to continually expanding your number of weak ties, your network will grow increasingly quickly. And you'll need to invest much less time.

And whilst these may be weak ties that individually only deliver a small return for you, that return is more or less constant, whether your number of weak ties is 100 or 10,000.

So 1% of a hundred weak ties will not deliver many opportunities for you. But 1% of 10,000? Now that’s a very different matter…

How to find career opportunities

By Neil Patrick

My Dad was a caveman.

Not literally of course, but he thought like one. I’m not saying that he was stupid. Just that he had extreme risk aversion. And this characteristic dominated his outlook on everything.

It meant that he avoided almost anything that involved taking any personal risk. And over time, this escalated from simple risk aversion to chronic indecisiveness and procrastination.

His career only survived because for his generation, the world changed slowly AND he was in a very secure type of work (he was a college teacher). So he kept his job for decades and even prospered a little without having to take many real risks at all.

Why our brains trick us about risk

Over the weekend, I read a post on Tim Ferris’ blog, by Ben Casnocha an award-winning author and serial company-builder and Reid Hoffman, Co-founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn. Their piece was about how our brains react to the perception of risk and the effect this has on our career decisions.

Almost everything has changed since my father retired in the 1980’s. From big things like communications and the geo-political power map, to everyday things like how we buy things and how we network.

But for a moment, let’s roll the clock back to 15,000 years ago

You are out hunting for your lunch. There’s a rustling in the undergrowth around you. If it’s a hungry bear, you’re quite possibly going to die. If you retreat to avoid the risk, you’re almost certainly not going to starve.

You’ll probably find food easily elsewhere without the need to risk being eaten yourself.

This redundant logic is hard-wired into our brains: It’s more dangerous to miss the sign of a threat than to miss the sign of an opportunity.

The world has transformed massively since then, but our brains have not

The human brain has been shaped by millions of years of evolution to achieve a simple goal: stay alive long enough to reproduce and raise offspring. Consequently, we react more strongly to threats and unpleasantness than to opportunities and pleasures.

We all have a red alert buzzer in our brain for bad things, but no green alert for good things. Sticks get our attention and carrots do not, because dodging the sticks was what used to be critical to staying alive.

Rick Hanson, a neuropsychologist explains this “negativity bias” thus:

“To keep our ancestors alive, we evolved a brain that routinely tricks us into making three mistakes: overestimating threats, underestimating opportunities, and underestimating resources.”

So being highly alert to risks is a good strategy for surviving dangerous environments, but not for thriving in today’s workplace. When risks aren’t life-threatening, you have to resist your brain’s predisposition to run from what are usually survivable dangers.

In fact, if you are not actively seeking and creating new opportunities you are actually exposing yourself to greater risks in the long term.

What are good risks for you to take?

Risk is highly personal. So what might be risky to someone else might not be risky for you. It’s also situational - what may be risky in one situation may not be if the circumstances are slightly different. But for almost everyone, a risk is worth taking when the possible upside outweighs the possible downside i.e. when the potential reward justifies the risk.

“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively.” - Machiavelli

So the key to success is being able to accurately assess risk and reward, not seeking to avoid risk altogether.

Here are some career choices which are often unduly rejected as being too risky and the associated opportunities:

Jobs that may not pay well but offer great learning potential

People are inclined to focus on easily quantifiable elements - like how much they’re getting paid. Or the hours of work involved each week. But other “soft” assets -knowledge, connections, and experience are of increasing value in this digitally connected age.

The world is changing at faster rate than ever before and skills which were relevant and valuable ten or even five years ago can quickly become much less so, sometimes almost overnight. To compensate for this, we all have to recognise that we need to continually invest in the growth of our personal networks, skills and knowledge.

You may be young, or you may be making a change of direction. Either way, the opportunity to learn new skills can be more valuable in the long run than the opportunity to earn the most you can right now. Work with great learning but less remuneration involved may be too quickly dismissed as risky.

So do not under-value opportunities such as:

- Internships and Apprenticeships
- Sideways transfers or assignments
- High-level assistantships

Part-time work vs. full-time jobs

Some people dismiss part-time and contract work as being a poor substitute for full-time jobs. But in reality, doing contract work is a powerful way to grow the skills and relationships that can help you find and move into your next opportunity.

And there’s a rising use of contractors as firms seek to keep their investment in expensive full time staff to a minimum.

Typical areas where such work is plentiful include:

- Design work
- Writing
- Programming

Not understanding the ‘conversion funnel’

Success requires persistence. Just because someone doesn’t like what you have to offer, doesn’t mean no-one will. You just have to keep refining your proposition, building your network and knocking on more doors. Sales people and actors have learned through experience to appreciate this instinctively. Sometimes for them, 1 hit out of 100 attempts equates to a runaway success.

For those of us used to a more stable and secure working environment, a single rejection or negative comment can cause us to drop a good idea far too readily.

So be careful about:

- Assuming that a few rejections means your idea or offering is no good
- Building a plan which requires too high a ‘hit rate’ to be successful

- Interpreting a negative reaction as reason to abandon what you are planning instead of refining it

Choosing to work with someone with less experience but high commitment

Fast learners can easily compensate for their inexperience with enthusiasm and commitment. The flip side of inexperience is often hustle, energy, and a willingness to learn. For example:

- Taking a chance on a smart and enthusiastic person just out of college
- Partnering with someone mid-flight in a career who’s moving into a new industry and feeling re-energized by the challenges
- Recognising that a person with a different background can bring fresh and novel perspectives

Opportunities where dangers have been in the news

The more we hear about the downsides to something, the more likely we are to overestimate the probability that it will occur (this is why people tend to become more afraid of flying after news of a plane crash is splashed across the headlines).

If the media, or people in your industry, talk a lot about the riskiness of a certain job or career path, our brains absorb this information and use it to bias our judgements, sometimes unduly negatively.

Examples of this include:

- Starting a company
- Working in a high tech industry
- Joining a start-up business

Overseas opportunities

International career opportunities are sometimes rejected out of hand as too difficult or uncertain. Spending time in other countries feels risky in part because when you’re not a native, at first you may find it hard to feel comfortable with a different culture around you.

But the world is getting smaller every day. Your skills and experience may be abundant in your native land. And other countries are often crying out for the skills that you have yet to find a buyer for at home.

Don’t let unfamiliarity trick you into overestimating the risk. In the words of Tim Ferris, “Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.” Turn this fact to your advantage, by rising above the unreasonable fears of your competition.

Examples:

- Foreign assignments within your company
- Attending a conference or seminar in another country
- Volunteering overseas


In all these opportunities, the worst case scenario tends to be survivable. When the worst case of a given risk means possibly getting fired, losing some time or money, experiencing a little discomfort, it’s a risk you should not reject out of hand.

By contrast, if the worst-case scenario may lead to serious damage to your reputation, loss of all your personal assets, or something otherwise career-ending, don’t countenance that risk.

Ask yourself whether you can tolerate the worst case scenario? If the answer is yes, you know what to do next.

People think sleeping with your boss can boost your career…but it’s still a really bad idea

By Neil Patrick

'Unconventional' tactics to win promotion and pay rises in the workplace are as common as ever it seems. So too is sexual harassment.

Unfortunately sometimes the boundaries between the two become blurred, despite the fact that one is consensual (if ill-advised) and the other is obviously non-consensual and hence illegal.

These days, it seems rarely a week goes by without a high profile individual facing accusations of misconduct.

This week, the UK press has been full of the story of how senior Lib Dem, Lord Renard is facing claims of sexual harassment by co-workers. The peer resigned the party whip last year amid allegations he made unwanted sexual advances to several women and touched them inappropriately.

The alleged victims are asking for at least an apology. But Renard and his allies claim the complaints are unfounded and that he is the victim of a witch hunt. Nick Clegg seems to disagree and has said that Renard should issue an apology even though the accusations are presently unproven.

Whatever the truth of the matter, one thing seems clear to me - letting your personal conduct slip in the workplace is almost guaranteed to wreck your career and quite possibly the rest of your life.

The stakes are terrifyingly high

High standards of professional behavior at work seem to me to be as important as any other aspect of our career.

Engaging in sexual relationships with colleagues risks the breakup of your family if you are married, will possibly cost you a small fortune and will wreck all those years of investment in your career.

The risks were highlighted in another high profile case when Mark Hurd, the chief executive of computer giant Hewlett Packard, resigned his job over the alleged sexual harassment of Jodie Fisher, a former reality TV contestant turned marketing consultant.

But it cost him more than just his job. Hurd who was married, settled the matter out of court for a sum which was undisclosed, but I’d wager it was substantial.

Perception is reality

If the risks of family break up and devastating legal and financial penalties are not enough to convince you, what about your reputation and relationships with other colleagues?

I looked for research into the topic of how such actions are perceived by colleagues. And discovered that Vanderbilt University had carried out a study on this topic in 2010.

In this study, having an affair with the boss was perceived as likely to boost your career by respondents, especially if you are a woman.

37% of office workers said that from their experience those who slept with their superiors were rewarded with a career boost.

But is this fact or perception? I don’t know, but perception is reality in its own way - and it seems that at the very least, even suspicions of such behavior will gain you more enemies than friends.

A function of gender inequality?

The study for the U.S. Centre for Work-Life Policy also claimed that, no matter how successful, female executives will not reach the very top of their profession unless they find a 'sponsor' who will speak out on their behalf. More often than not such sponsors are in a position of power and influence, and almost always male and married.

If this conclusion is reliable, it suggests that some women seeking to reach the peak of their careers consciously or unconsciously may be tempted to secure the ‘patronage’ of an influential man.

This is a high risk choice for both parties. The woman risks being seen as given unmerited advancement, the man risks possible legal ramifications in future. Both risk loss of personal credibility.

Your peer group respect level plunges too

In terms of morale, 61% of men and 70% of women lose respect for a leader involved in an affair.

Don’t expect that colleagues will have no idea what is happening - 60% of male executives and 65% of female executives suspect that salary hikes and choice assignments are traded for sexual favours.

And once they find out, don’t expect any sympathy if it all turns sour.

Some 48% of men and 56% of women feel animosity towards the involved couple, and both report a fall off in productivity as the team splinters.

But none of this seems to deter people

Despite all the risks, affairs in the workplace are still a common occurrence. Some 34% of women in executive positions said they knew a female colleague who had slept with their boss.

Even at director level or above, 15% of women admitted to having had an office fling.

Do you really want to play for such high stakes?

For everyone involved, office affairs are a really bad idea. The more senior person already has power - why put that status at risk? For the junior person, once you start the relationship, how do you know your boss is going to fulfill their end of the implied deal?

Even if it happens in the short term, everyone will know what’s going on and you’ll lose their respect.

It also poisons the atmosphere of your team, damaging the performance of the whole group.

And the label you’ll gain is almost as permanent as a tattoo. Especially if you are female, the gossip will likely follow you around your industry for years and years.

You really have to ask yourself, "Am I so committed to this relationship, I’m prepared risk everything for it?"

If the answer is no, then don’t even start it.

What can we learn from celebrities about playing the fame game?

By Neil Patrick

Yesterday’s post looked at how society has changed from the old economic top down system of class to a more diverse model and how the question of growing wealth inequality keeps rearing its ugly head.

And I presented a slightly tongue in cheek model of my own. At the top of this new socio-economic pecking order I placed what I called the ‘media magnets’. Celebrities as most would call them.

I’m not going to discuss whether or not Tom Cruise, Kim Kardashian, Tiger Woods or Paris Hilton are actually worth the vast sums that they are paid. It’s an academic argument which divides opinion and helps us not one bit even if we could all agree on an answer…which of course we never will.

What are the lessons that the rest of us can take from these people?

Forget the headlines about them earning a squillion dollars for some movie or selling their wedding pictures for $100,000. What I’m interested in isn't their headline-grabbing antics, but the more useful lessons that we can take from their strategies.

So if you want a piece about how you can earn a $10m pay cheque next year, please look elsewhere.

Fame I think comes with a heavy price attached anyway.

Who in their right mind would want to be photographed by stalking press photographers every time they go shopping or take a vacation? Who would want to have their personal family matters shared with the world through the mass media? Not me for sure.

So whilst being famous might seem superficially attractive from a purely financial point of view, being famous also carries a ton of baggage that personally I’d rather not have.

So what’s to discuss? Well, let’s look at a few aspects of the fame game that are worth paying attention to.

 
A lot of famous people can only do one thing

But they do it really, really well. If you are in the world's top 10 of just about anything you can imagine, you’ll be famous. Whether it’s putting a golf ball into a hole, or being the most annoying character on a reality TV show, being the number one at it has a value ticket attached. So lesson number one is that whatever you do, however specialist or even worthless it is, being the most renowned person in that field is the place you should be aiming to be.

Credit: Kevin Ballard

Becoming famous is about who you know more than what you know

Celebrities mix with other celebrities and the people that surround them, whether they are agents, media people, politicians. They are heavy socialisers. And because they socialise with other influential people, their personal networks have great value to them. Networking has a sort of randomness about it whoever you are, but the more you do it, the more likely you are to make a connection with someone which might just be your next big opportunity. 

Celebrities operate like brands

This aspect is finally starting to enter the mainstream consciousness, as people begin to see the value of strong personal brands. Just because you are never going to have a perfume line or fashion label named after you, doesn't mean that you shouldn't think of yourself as brand. This involves established branding techniques such as maintaining a consistent presentation, having a clear benefit based proposition and understanding which environments are suitable for your brand and which are not. And having a strong and positive online presence - in the right places for you to be seen.  It might for example not be such a good idea for a tax accountant to invest in building a Facebook page. A good LinkedIn strategy however is quite another proposition. 

Celebrities understand that to make a lot of money, you don’t just sell your time for money

Celebrities are masters of leveraging their value. They understand that they are not just selling their time - like everyone else they have far too little of it anyway…especially when every function they attend probably involves a whole day’s worth of preparation and grooming etc. I don’t think too many people at the Oscars actually turn up after a really busy day at their desk! Celebrities think not just, what will I get paid for doing this…they think, what is the potential long-term value to my brand of doing this? 

They cultivate the media

This is another key lever celebrities work expertly. And the more media attention they get…the more they attract. It feeds on itself. Now you and I may not want or need to be on the front cover of OK magazine, but the value of media coverage is still immense. What’s essential to understand is that the rise of the internet means that suddenly the media has become more democratised that it’s ever been before. We can all create and own our own little piece of internet real estate. Do not underestimate the value of this. Treat everything you do publicly online as if you were in front of the world's press… and one day you might just be. 

They diversify

As a celebrity builds greater and greater profile and network contacts, they have more and more opportunities to lend small parts of themselves to others who can commercially benefit from the association. 

This can even extend beyond death…just look at Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Steve McQueen – all of whom are still pulling in revenues long after they left the mortal world. Though the rest of us may not have such a powerful and enduring personal brand as iconic personalities like these, we can still think like them about what we do with our careers. So for example, every positive association with other organisations or individuals you can forge has value. Conceptually there is no difference between Beyonce's name appearing on bottles of perfume and you or I having our name associated with a piece of research, or being cited as a source of expert opinion by a blogger, or posting a valuable piece of insight on a LinkedIn Group discussion.

So despite the fact that they may be overpaid, annoying or even completely pointless, celebrities have another value to the rest of the world that they don’t even realise or care about – they show the rest of us a different and valuable way of thinking about ourselves and how we can develop and benefit from our own personal little piece of fame.

And better still, you and I can do it without ever having to worry about the paparazzi chasing us round the car park next time we go to the supermarket.

4 tips to get Twitter helping your career

By Neil Patrick

Until about one year ago, I thought that Twitter was the biggest waste of time ever invented.

Why on earth would I want to spend any of my valuable time, telling people that I’d just eaten a great dinner, or that I was worried about global warming, or that I was gutted because some wanna be pop star had just been kicked off Celebrity X-Factor Millionaire?

More importantly, why would anyone else be in the slightest bit interested?

Twitter was for the birds as far as I was concerned.

But I have had an epiphany. I am an absolute Twitter fan today. I have started to understand it a little and learned enough to begin to harness its immense power. It has become a cornerstone of my work and without it, I think my professional goals would be infinitely harder to achieve.

But every day, I talk with mature professionals and it’s clear that many of them are stuck more or less where I was a year or so ago.

They mostly don’t have a Twitter account and even if they do, they are really unsure about what to do with it.

So today I thought I’d share a few basic points I have learned which I hope will be useful to anyone looking to use Twitter to help develop their career.

So here goes:

1. If you want Twitter to support your career, you should stick to just one or two fields that relate to your career.

We are all multi-dimensional in our lives. I happen to tweet about careers and jobs and the economic crisis. Because that is one of my main professional interests and what I want to talk about with people.

But it’s certainly not everything that I am. I have plenty of other things in my life that I never talk about on 40pluscareerguru. Like my day to day business activities, my community support work and my love of military history and heavy metal music.

If I were to include those subjects in my Tweets, it would be really confusing for everyone. Who is this guy…what’s he really about?

Twitter recognises this issue and that’s why it allows us to have up to ten accounts. I happen to have another Twitter account called @Marshalstackman which is all guitars and heavy metal. I keep all my loud music stuff there. And I'm sure you don’t want to see or hear that. Right?

So ensure your Twitter profile and Tweets are consistent with each other and deal with your professional interests or some of them. If you have multiple interests, use multiple Twitter accounts.

2. Twitter has no instructions

This is a problem for many. It’s also a great opportunity. Twitter is there for you to use however you choose. There’s no single ‘proper’ or best practice model. It’s a powerful communication platform if you can get to grips with its unique and somewhat quirky characteristics. But this requires creativity and a plan. And the absence of such a plan is why you’ll see plenty of people using it clumsily.

Some approach it as a version of the SMS texting they do with their friends. This is one end of the spectrum and it’s legitimate, if you just want a bit of fun and engagement with a few people. But it’s not really an effective way to build your personal career standing amongst the people you want to increase your influence with.

At the other end of the spectrum are people that view Twitter as a mighty spam engine. They just endlessly send out link after link after link. And if they are not focussed on a single topic, these links about seemingly random things are of no value or interest to 99.99% of the people that get them in their Twitter stream.

Links themselves are I think a good thing provided they connect people with something of value and relevance to them. But if that is all you do, it all gets a bit tedious and one-sided. Who really wants to be endlessly talked at? Most of us had enough of that when we in school.

So the key here I think is balance. Try to strike a happy medium between talking to all and talking with people individually.



3. This is social media, so be erm… social

I still see plenty of Twitter accounts which are nothing more than endless spammy links promoting things I don’t need, don’t want and am not interested in. I never follow these people or organisations. Why would I?

Likewise, I am not keen on people who only send out their own tweets. If you are on Twitter and you have a following, you should in my opinion, support your followers and show your appreciation by retweeting them when you think they have said something interesting, relevant, amusing or whatever.

If I see people who are clearly engaging in conversations with others and they are courteous and friendly, I’m happy to follow them back. It doesn’t matter if they have 100,000 followers or just 10.

And when someone is kind enough to engage with me I will always try and engage back and help them if I can…even if it’s just with an acknowledgement or bit of light-hearted banter.

Just a quick aside…today, even with only around 7,000 followers on Twitter, I just cannot individually thank people every time they retweet me or favourite me. I wish I could. But there are now just too many. But I will try and answer every tweet to me that has a question or a comment in it.

So tip three is engage, support and be nice to people on Twitter and almost always they will be nice to you. This is much more useful to you than just endlessly talking at people instead of talking with them.


4. You need thousands of followers to have any kudos or influence.

Wrong. If you are clear about what your Twitter account is all about, you’ll steadily build a great network of people who are interested in the same things that you are. And this shared ground is essential if you are to have any chance of developing Twitter relationships and engagement.

If you use Kred and/or Klout to track your social influence, you'll notice that the size of your following is a relatively small factor in how they calculate your score. The amount and quality of your online engagement with individual people has a much bigger influence.

Like attracts like on social media. If you follow people randomly, you’ll get random people following you back. And that’s just a waste. You’ll have no basis of a shared interest or viewpoint that allows you to build meaningful relationships.

What’s better - to have 10,000 random people following you, or 500 who are all passionate about the same things you are?

So rule four is focus on connecting with the people who share your professional interests, background or outlook.

So there you have four simple fundamentals on how I think we should all set up the basics of our Twitter presence if we want to use it to help our careers. I realise this has only scratched the surface of this huge topic, so if anyone finds this helpful, or has additions or questions do please let me know and I’ll use these as the basis for my next post on this subject.

There’s much more to talk about on this so please share your thoughts!

What can a transvestite teach the rest of us about careers?

By Neil Patrick

Quite a lot actually as it turns out. And here’s why.

Sometimes, when we are trying to solve a problem, it’s really helpful to take some inspiration from something which is far removed from the immediate context of our own experience and our own world.

Like for example, art.

I think the career world of the artist is relevant to the rest of us. Yesterday I talked about the ‘P’ word - passion. And why you could never have a truly great career without it.

We all know that typically, artists have lots of passion. They eat it for breakfast. They also mostly have no money…unless they get real lucky, a cynic will say.

Do not be fooled though into thinking that therefore P=PP i.e. Passion = Professional Poverty.

Artists provide several valuable reference points for the rest of us. But the one that is relevant to what we talk about here, is that many of them quite literally starve in order to pursue their passion. That’s dedication.

And it’s also relevant because their single-minded pursuit of their passion is how they channel their need for self-expression and self-realization.

So a couple of weeks ago, when I was listening to the Reith Lecture by Grayson Perry, I wasn’t particularly surprised to discover he spent the first twenty years of his adult life virtually penniless.

In case you are not familiar with his career, here’s a brief synopsis.

Born in 1960, as a child, he suffered from an abusive stepfather, which led to his attempts to escape this abuse by assuming the alter ego of a little girl. In his teens, he realized that he was a transvestite.

As a young man, he spent several years living in squats and survived (just) by working as a sandwich maker.

Perry had his first pottery lessons in 1983. For a while he made only glazed plates with text because he could not make anything else. No-one wanted to buy his work, which many viewed as crude, lewd and unsophisticated. But he persisted. For years.

Grayson Perry

Finally, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam mounted a solo exhibition of his work in 2002. It was partly for this work that he was awarded the Turner Prize in 2003, the first time it was given to a ceramic artist. He attended the award ceremony dressed as a girl, his alter-ego Claire, wearing a little girl party frock. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to contemporary art.

Today, his pots fetch between about $30,000 and $80,000 each at auction.

And he still wears frocks.

But Grayson Perry isn’t successful because he’s the most famous transvestite in the world of ceramics. Or because he chose to create work which some viewed as shocking. Grayson Perry is successful because he developed his own unique commentary with all its peculiarities. He did the things he could, the things he felt he must and the things he chose. Not the things that other people said he should do.

I don’t think he would ever say he has a job. But he sure has a career.

Why you will fail to have a great career

By Neil Patrick

Naturally, I talk almost exclusively about jobs and careers on this blog.

But what is the difference between a job and a career? A lot actually…

Most people think of a career as nothing more than a succession of jobs. But a job and a career are not the same thing. A job, any job, is basically a simple transaction between you and an employer. They give you money and you give them your time and work in exchange.

You take a job because, because… why? Usually it’s just because you are offered it. And you need the money. Not much more generally, if you are really honest about it. I can’t remember the last time I had a conversation that went something like, ‘Yep they offered me the job…and I turned it down. It wasn’t really fitting right with my life goals’.

Most of us have been taught from a very early age, that if you work hard, you’ll succeed and be happy. And if you work really hard, you’ll be really successful. It’s not true. At least it’s not true if all you have is a job rather than a career. And despite the fact that this reality is staring us in the face every day, we still keep on believing it.

Just about every time I ask one of my hard working professional friends how things are going at work, I get a similar answer. But whatever their answer, they will almost always begin with, ‘Yeah things are really busy...’.

'Really busy'. Hmmm. Since when did being really busy equate with the fulfilment of anyone’s calling?

A career on the other hand isn’t a job. It may involve a job or jobs, but it is something you choose because it is what you need to reach your greatest level of self-expression and self-realisation. A real career engages you every single day of your life. It is your very reason for living. It is …your passion.

Yes I know, as soon as I mention the ‘P’ word, some or even many readers will have a Pavlovian response and think… 'Oh here we go, here's another guy, telling me all I need to do is find my passion and my career will flourish’.

'He’s going to tell me all about brilliant people with amazing talents who got lucky'.

Well I’m not going to say that, because it’s not true. And it’s not the point.

What I am going to say is that you have a choice. You can choose the default path and have a life of mediocrity and hard work in a series of jobs. And these days, those jobs will get harder and harder to find and in this economy you’ll have longer and longer periods without one.

Or you can be brave, believe in yourself and the essential truth that no-one ever had a brilliant career by simply having a job. And have the faith that if you accept this truth, find your purpose and pursue your goals because they are your passion, you WILL have a brilliant career.

So the choice is up to you. Every one of us has at least one unique and amazing talent. But most people compete in areas where they have no talent at all.

And it’s clear that I’m not the only one who believes this. Just watch this really entertaining performance at TEDx by Larry Smith from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, who knows a thing or two about careers.

Why it’s never too late to embark on your true calling

By Neil Patrick

It’s a strange thing. As we age, we often see our opportunities narrowing not widening.

I say strange because as we go through life, we acquire more and more experience and skills, and logically therefore should see our options expanding not shrinking.

But so many of us are conditioned into thinking ourselves into a box. And if the box you are in just really isn't YOUR box, it gets kind of uncomfortable. And if you’re uncomfortable, you’ll never be capable of achieving your best work.

Here are some examples of well-known people who rejected those ideas and instead went after their true calling.

Some had found their path but hadn't attained any success... some were in a completely different career... some were on the verge of giving up or had given up. But as they matured, they found their true calling and never looked back.

Sylvester Stallone, deli counter attendant. After getting no career traction as an actor in his 20s, Stallone attacked his 30s like any 5'3 man should: He wrote a movie where he was an all-American hero who triumphed over every obstacle.

That movie was "Rocky"... he banged out the "Rocky" screenplay in three days, in between working at a deli counter and as a movie theater usher... and it launched his career with an Academy Award for Best Picture. 

Andrea Bocelli, lawyer. He'd loved music and singing his whole life... but didn't really see it as a career possibility. So, after school, he got a law degree at the University of Pisa. At age 30 he was working as a lawyer and moonlighting in a piano bar for fun and extra cash. He didn't catch a break as a singer until 1992, at age 34. 

Martha Stewart, stockbroker. When she was 30,Martha Stewart was a stockbroker, no doubt learning all about finance and the ‘ethics’ involved therein. Two years later she and her husband purchased a beat-down farmhouse in Connecticut... she led the restoration... transitioned into a domestic lifestyle... and grew that most innocent of things into her evil, evil career. 

Mao Tse-Tung, elementary school principal. In his 30’s, Mao was already involved in communism... he was a young star of the Chinese Communist Party... but didn't realize it could be a career. (Probably didn't see communism as being very lucrative...?)

Instead, he was working as the principal of an elementary school. Where, no doubt, hall passes were decadent. Four years later he started a communist group that eventually became the Red Army and put him in power.

JK Rowling, unemployed single mum. Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as "the biggest failure I knew". Her marriage had failed, she was jobless with a dependent child, but she described her failure as liberating:

“Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter, and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life”.

During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, and contemplated suicide. Rowling signed up for welfare benefits, describing her economic status as being "as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless" 

Barack Obama, university lecturer. Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, as a Lecturer for four years (1992–1996), and as a Senior Lecturer for eight years (1996–2004).In 2004, he was 43 years old. I’m not entirely sure what happened after that.

James Joyce, alcoholic. By 30, Joyce was writing... just not getting published. So to make ends meet he reviewed books, taught and, weirdly, made a lot of money thanks to his gorgeous tenor singing voice. He was also a raging alcoholic, which isn't financially lucrative until you become an author and can parlay those drunken antics into stories. Just ask Hemingway. Or James Frey.

Joyce finally got his first book, "Dubliners", published at age 32, which launched his career as, arguably, one of the most successful authors of all time. 

 
Colonel Sanders, tons of blue collar jobs. Well into his 40’s Harland Sanders was still switching from one random career choice to another: Steamboat pilot, insurance salesman, farmer, railroad fireman. He didn’t start cooking chicken until he was 40 and didn't start franchising until he was 65. 

Rodney Dangerfield, aluminium siding salesman. He started doing stand-up at age 19... then gave up on it in his mid-20s.. He started working as an acrobatic diver ... and then as an aluminium siding salesman. He didn't start getting back into comedy until he was 40. 

Harrison Ford, carpenter. When Ford was 30, he starred in "American Graffiti"... which was a huge hit. But he got paid a pittance for acting in it, decided he was never going to make it as an actor, and quit the business to get back into the more financially dependable world of construction.

Four years later, he met up with George Lucas again (Lucas had directed "Graffiti") and Lucas cast him as Han Solo in a movie called Star Wars.

So there you have it. A more or less random list of people who have shown us that by refusing to be kept in your box and allowing your innermost talents to come to the fore, that it’s never too late to start on your own path to greatness.

I guess the message for us all is, never let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do. Especially yourself.