Methodology Mixer: Professional and Business Development for the Independent Worker
Jinfo Blog

By Joanna Ptolomey

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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!

Related FreePint links:

• "A 4-Month Plan: Organise and for personal and business development as a freelance information professional" By Joanna Ptolomey <http://jinfo.com/newsletter/Jinfo-Newsletter-132.pdf>
  
  
• Discussion on being self-employed FreePint Bar <http://www.freepint.com/go/b128984>
  
  
• Jinfo <http://www.jinfo.com/>
  
  
• "Marketing for the Info-Entrepreneur" By Mary Ellen Bates <http://www.freepint.com/issues/060504.htm#feature>
  
  

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