Despite some of my concerns about the freelancing ethic, I do have an affinity for the lifestyle, which is why I agreed to do an interview recently with FreelanceSwitch.com. I thought the interview had a lot of good topics in it, so I suggest you check out the entire piece on their site.

As part of the interview, writer Kristen Fischer asked me for some bullet points on freelancing success. (Which reminds me, since she referred to me as a “knowledge goldmine,” a rather unprecedented compliment, I need to work Kristen into my holiday shopping plans). As I looked through the list, I realized they made a pretty good list of my recommended business philosophies. In no particular order:

• Remain lean in operating costs but don’t be afraid to invest in tools or assets that will give you a competitive advantage.
• Aspire to world-class excellence in a specialized area that larger companies can’t easily fill; and
• Outsource everything beyond that specialty to trusted business partners.
• Don’t just chase lucrative markets; focus on “monetizing” an area you are passionate about, as this will be your life.
• Don’t be content to be a billable expert – productize your knowledge and create income-generating assets.
• Use the Internet whenever possible to market test ideas prior to major business launches.
• Become a thought leader in your field and create visibility via web presence and trade shows.
• Stay on the cutting edge of emerging trends and ruthlessly refine your focus as needed.
• Provide a level of personalized customer service and interaction larger companies can’t typically match.
• Continually invest in your own self-education.

There’s one big one I left off the list that really is a whopper though:

Don’t just think about what the market wants – start with a creative contribution to a community project or cause you care about.

Huge life-altering blunder: people who see business and personal values as “at odds with each other” – only if you concede the point, which is less likely to happen if you build a strategy around something you care about. That way, by the time you start creating content, setting up LinkedIn groups, Tweeting, or blogging, you won’t just be broadcasting for the sake of it or cynically building a niche. You’ll be raising the tide on an issue you care about.

If you have any doubt that this can work, look at how a commitment to sustainability has raised the industry profile of GreenMonk, the sustainability practice of RedMonk, featuring Lead Analyst Tom Raftery and RedMonk’s inimitable James Governor. These guys have turned sustainability commentary into visiblity, and that in turn leads them to worthy client projects – and it all started by giving away content on issues that mattered to them, or as James might say, that they cared a fuckload about.

Anyhow, after that FreelanceSwitch.com interview was published, I got a reader comment on the site which talked about the importance of finding a niche market. This is something I get into quite a bit my own book, but there’s more to say. Since I published my own book, I’ve been thinking even more about the success of some of the “microbrands” in the IT industry, such as my friends in the aforementioned open source analyst firm RedMonk. In fact, Hugh MacLeod, author of a recommended book on creativity and business, Ignore Everybody, is undertaking a new book on the impact of building a “global microbrand.”

This was reflected in my comment to the FreelanceSwitch.com reader:

I’m glad you like the interview. I totally agree with what you are saying about finding a niche market. I’ve been toying with a phrase called “verticalize your skills,” which is a fancy way of saying that focused niches have value. One person who has done a lot of thinking in this area is Hugh MacLeod, author of the book Ignore Everybody – @gapingvoid on Twitter. He talks about building a global microbrand as a lasting means of achieving success on your own terms. Hugh talks about how blogging is a great starting point for launching a global microbrand. I believe freelancers of all stripes can utilize those approaches to be more effective. Too many aspire to be an Internet celebrity in a generalized area, such as: “I’m an SEO expert” or “I’m a social media guru.”

Problem is, there is only room for a handful of those bigtime celebrities with tens of thousands of Twitter devotees, then there is a pretty steep dropoff. However, taking that expertise and applying it to a niche market can really help you to create your own path that is very effiective. Without being a social media celebrity, I’ve had very good success helping companies in my particular niche (SAP software market) with social networking projects. It’s the combination of the broader skill (social media) and the narrower industry focus (SAP) that gives me more value to my clients than a so-called “social media guru” would. I think you can apply this formula to many areas.

So these are key topics in my book, and Hugh MacLeod is defining this in a more vivid way than occured to me with his global microbrand strategy. I do have some differences with this model also, which I can get into further if readers would like me to. In brief, a couple concerns I have around the goal of building such a brand: yes, it does beat the corporate treadmill to have your own brand and monetize it yourself, but I find that as someone who is building such a brand in the SAP world, that in some ways, it’s just a new treadmill. Yes, it’s way better than filing TPS reports, but I’m still feeding that meter every day. Blogging, while a nice way of developing recognition and generating consulting business, is also a feed the meter scenario – you are then “feeding your blog” constantly.

Those who love to blog have no issue with this, but the business models I like best are a bit more passive. Passive income is superior because it requires less life energy to generate, and insulates you better from the obstacles life can throw in the way, such as a health problem or a marital crisis or anything that takes away from our ability to keep pushing our brand. Even the causes we care about most can consume us. That’s why even if we believe in what we are doing, generating web traffic based on resource-based materials can be vastly more profitable and “energy efficient” than constant blogging. See my “Defiant Guide to SEO” for more on that.

I’ll return to these themes in future posts, but for now, I wanted to share some emerging trends and offer a quick take.

SEO matters because organic search results matter. If your web site doesn’t do well with organic search, you may be compelled to overspend on other forms of web advertising. Sometimes called “inbound marketing,” organic results matter because search delivers fresh visitors to your site – meaning new folks to click on demos, purchase products, and click on ads.

An under-discussed industry shocker: many prominent bloggers with ultra high page ranks (a Google page rank of 6 on a home page these days is pretty high) don’t actually get that much useful (monetizable) traffic. Because their numbers are often skewed by repeat visitors and home page linkage from other bloggers, seemingly popular bloggers who extol the virtues of SEO don’t get the kind of strong search results and passive revenue streams that are possible with an effective organic search strategy.

In this no-frills article, I will allot myself 100 percentile points, which I will allocate to the different aspects of a web page that are essential for prominent search results within Google. You will be surprised how simply this all breaks down. Of course, reducing this analysis to one web page doesn’t mean we should stop at one page – the best sites have a series of related content-rich pages that educate readers on their industry. And remember, for organic search, “how to” and informational posts have much greater impact than opinion-laden rants.

80 percent – Inbound links from well-regarded web sites in your industry. People make a big fuss over getting a link from “Google authority” sites like CNN, but what matters most is receiving inbound links from other sites in your own “industry neighborhood” – sites that are also well-regarded by Google. Google judges you – and figures out what kind of traffic to send your way – by who in your industry “confers status” on you based on their recognition of your content.

Google Page Rank is overrated as a means to understand this, but as a general rule, getting links from sites with a page rank of “3″ (out of 10) or higher is ideal – though remember that you want links from high traffic web pages if at all possible, and sometimes high traffic and high Google page rank are not connected. Being buried deep in a lost directory on a big page rank site doesn’t matter that much. (You can download a Google page rank toolbar for Explorer, Firefox and Chrome that allows you to see the page rank of the sites you visit).

The best links you can possibly receive are “contextual” links related to content on particular pages. So, for this SEO article page, I’d much rather have a link from a high traffic web site in the SEO industry that leads to my site. Ideally, the link will say something like “keys to SEO and Google visibility” and point directly to this page. This is far preferable to a “Free From Corporate America” link that just points to my home page. “Deep linking” of contextual links to relevant pages in your own site navigation (as opposed to a bunch of links to your home page) is the true “secret sauce” of SEO relevance. (“SEO relevance” means you appear on the first page of Google listings for many commonly-used phrases in your field, often appearing in the top three). Note that asking for such links in exchange a link in return is not a winning strategy – reciprocal links are not well regarded by Google, especially in excess, as it gives the appearance of trying to “juke the system” and implies that your content is not worthy of being linked without sweet talking in exchange for a link back.

The fact that I’ve awarded this first item 80 percent of the total shows you how important unsolicited contextual inbound links are, compared to all the “sexy” factors that SEO gurus emphasize, from meta tags to meta descriptions. Perhaps this is because creating reference-worthy informational and/or “how to” content relevant to your industry (the content that attracts such deep linking) is extremely hard work that an SEO firm can rarely do for you, as they don’t know your business.

Needless to say, you need to choose the right industry in order for this approach to work. FreeFromCorporateAmerica.com, for example, is not as keyword-rich as my main business site on the SAP side, JonERP.com. I have had serious Google success with JonERP.com because of the many keyword-specific resource and content pages I have developed there. Lots of industry lingo never hurts, and it will help you capture more “long tail” search results of keyword combinations once you have Google’s attention with deep inbound linking. Note that by giving inbound linking 80 percent of our total here, it goes without saying that you are placing quality, text-rich content on these pages – without that, you would not be receiving inbound links.

10 percent – An appropriate browser title that contains a keyword-rich phrase that matches well with the content featured on the page. This item is self-explanatory, but a well-titled page with the most important keywords used in context on the page does have a significant impact on search results, especially if you have contextual inbound links pointing to the same page on your site that features the same phrases as used in your title and article content. Some content management systems (CMS) do not offer complete control of your browser page title, but most do. My older WordPress CMS, for example, allows this page to feature my article title in the browser title after the name of the site itself.

2.5 percent – URLs that contain the relevant keywords from your content. Some SEO types overrate the URL keyword aspects of a site. URL keywords matter but they aren’t the crucial thing. Some sites simply don’t allow keyword-based URLs due to their structure – though most of the major content management systems do offer this now. However, this particular site is on a previous version of WordPress that doesn’t use such URLs. An example of a keyword-rich URL is my new jonreed.net blogger.com blog. Here’s the URL of a rant I did about invasive text messaging: http://www.jonreed.net/jongoesoff/2009/06/revisiting-keeper-verizon-encouraging.html
Now, the problem with this particular URL is that while it pulls keywords from the article title, since I didn’t title my article in a way that has relevant keywords in it, it would never have much search impact as a URL. This Wikipedia entry on Search Engine Optimization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization is a far better example, where the key “Search Engine Optimization” phrase appears in the title. If you have control over your URLs, it does make sense to pay attention to which keywords end up in the URLs based on your article titles and content. The keywords in the URL must match article title and article “context” in order to be effective.

2.5 percent – Appropriate use of “H” tags in an article, particularly the use of H1 and H2. Yes, Google still takes H1 and H2 tags into account, it’s all part of how the relevancy of a page’s content is established. Useful H1 and H2 tags help Google to verify what your page’s contents are about and to direct people there. As with URLs, not all content management systems provide control over H1 and H2 tags, but for those that do, it’s good to make sure you are using headings and subheading appropriately. My JonERP.com site does very well in search engines without total control over these tags, but if you have the control, it’s good to use it. Here’s an overview of how to use H tags on web sites: http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/tips/97.htm. In terms of SEO, I wouldn’t worry much beyond H1 and H2.

2.5 percent – Ensuring that most of your content is not buried too deeply in subdirectories or in a proprietary framework that Google can’t understand. Most modern CMS systems (Joomla, WordPress, Drupal), especially their most recent versions, don’t offend Google with their proprietary structure and don’t penalize you much, if at all, compared to a basic single directory format. However, there are clunky older site managers that do hurt you in SEO. My oldest writing site, jonreed.net, is currently trapped in an almost archaic content system that definitely hurts search results. Here’s a piece from that site on a friend of mine who is a hoola hoop performer: http://jonreed.net/sys-tmpl/hoopmastersass/ Notice that the directories aren’t too extensive in this URL, but the “sys-tmpl” part in the URL represents the content framework that Google chokes on, leading to less search visibility. In contrast, here’s a nice simple directory path from my resumesfromhell.com site, which has a basic directory structure: http://resumesfromhell.com/about-the-book.html. The “about the book” page is right in the root directory, which is a Google-friendly approach.

2.5 percent – Site meta descriptions. Meta descriptions are sentences on the HTML headers of each page that describe the page’s contents. Google won’t always list these in the page results; for example, the Google result in question may require them to excerpt a different part of the page’s contents, but you can submit a meta description that will help to draw your readers into your page and will show up in many instances. For example, if you type “JonERP” into Google, you’ll see this sentence: “SAP consultant and author Jon Reed provides career and market trends advice and commentary on the SAP industry in free mp3 podcasts and also answers …” That’s the original meta description my site designer Kimo Lee of Azurelink did for JonERP.com. We could probably come up with an even better one, but the point is that it is an intentional phrase. If you don’t create one, Google will pull the most relevant page text for you, and it might not have the same “click through” appeal.

That’s it! If it’s not on this list, it really doesn’t matter to modern organic search. No fancy tricks, no meta tags jammed up with keywords, no black hat gimmicks, no thousands of dollars in SEO. Just hard work developing a site packed with useful, content rich resources, preferably including proprietary data, charts and surveys. Videos or podcasts should be accompanied with text-rich content.

One factor that I did not mention is having keywords in the domain itself. It’s true that keywords in a domain can have an impact. For example, do a keyword search for “sap podcasts” in Google (just the words “sap” and “podcasts,” not a full phrase search); the first site on the results is sappodcasts.com – even though they haven’t ever uploaded a podcast to the site since it was launched in 2007. But you’ll notice that my site, JonERP.com, has listing number two, and I can live with that. The difference, of course, is that sappodcasts.com is only a factor in that one search. It doesn’t come up prominently on searches for any other SAP or podcast-related terms. So having an important keyword in your domain name can be helpful, but it’s not so important that you should be buying up domains for all kinds of possible search terms and directing them all to your site. That borders on a “black hat” technique – why bother when the alternatives on my straightforward list are so effective?

I will concede that in some cases, additional tactics will help your search results. The sum of all those neato tricks and metataggery might get you an additional percentage point or two, but sometimes the tricks backfire, and you end up on Google’s dreaded “naughty” list. Keeping a strong content focus (and figuring out the best ways of making those in your industry aware of your content via email subscriptions, RSS, Twitter, LinkedIn Groups, Facebook et al), is the way to go.

By the way, you may be wondering why I didn’t link to some of the sites I mentioned in this article, such as JonERP.com. In some cases, I didn’t link because I wanted you to see the actual URLs in long form in the article body. But I didn’t link to JonERP.com because this site, Free From Corporate America, is not about SAP,  and linking from sites outside the “industry neighborhood” of your particular web site can actually cause more confusion than help to Google as it attempts to direct the right kind of traffic your way and assess which “neighborhood” your site belongs to. JonERP.com has hundreds of relevant links and doesn’t need one from this site.

And yes, there are plenty of complexities to SEO that are worth fussing over as you get more sophisticated (such as the proper use of “no follow” tags, and not linking to sites that are poorly regarded by Google), but you can pick up bits and pieces of that as you move into the long haul. Other considerations to pay attention to down the road: making sure your best content is not solely in PDF format; developing proper landing pages for important keywords where you have deep content and want to conduct promotional campaigns. Making sure that some of your best stuff is not behind a firewall is a given. And yes, there may be a time and a place for some quality SEO discussions around site structure. SEO is not a sham, but it can be a hype balloon. Hopefully this article punctured it.

So that’s it. You can stop stressing over complicated SEO articles, and maybe you don’t need to pay someone gobs of money for SEO going forward. Here’s a radical idea: how about taking the funds you were going to pay an SEO person, and hire a hugely talented journalist, recently laid off from a dying newspaper, to create some excellent content for your industry, found only on your site? A choice between paying for incredible content and paying an incredible SEO person to optimize horrible content seems like a trick question, but you’d be shocked how many people opt for the latter. And why pay an SEO person who doesn’t know your industry a bunch of money when a talented writer could do it ten times better?

As a final aside, it may have appeared that I am down on blogging. That is not totally the case. What I am down on is overestimating the power of blogging for featuring long-term reference and how-to content. A much better approach is to build a content library and then blog alongside it. SEO gurus often idealize blogs because you have to start somewhere, and setting up a blog is often a much faster deal for a non-techie than building the architecture of a reference-oriented site.

If a blog gets you started generating meaningful content, by all means go for it, but don’t get lost in the blogger hype. Remember that people are more likely to “deep link” reference material than opinions. Opinions are usually cheap and too often transitory. Individual blog posts often take on a dated quality. For example, I have an “SAP hot skills” resource section on my JonERP.com site. If I had written about the same topic as a series of blog entries, it would not have the same perceived level of authority as definitive reference pages.

And no, aesthetics don’t matter much, if at all. In some cases, they can work against you when fancy graphic displays that search engines can’t spider are prioritized over text-based content. So you can take a portion of that designer budget, and invest that in your aspiring journalist also. Before you know it, you’ll be an SEO expert as well, but instead of tricking people with endless keyword maneuvering, you’ll be constructing useful content that impacts people’s lives – and you’ll have the links to show for it.

Appendix: for those who are interested in more on my views on the latest search developments that are getting folks a tad worked up, here’s an excerpt from a recent blog post I commented on: “It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. Given that Google owns YouTube, I am surprised that video results haven’t trumped up more searches than I’ve seen to date. Bing has gotten more buzz than I expected, but those I know who live off their Google results are not concerned about Bing at this point.

Google Caffiene is another story. Technically, Google Caffiene is not supposed to be any different in terms of its search results, only more robust in its capabilities, but those I know who have tested it have seen some variations and it’s raised some concerns. I personally never worry about Facebook and maybe that’s my bad, I have a bias there that prevents me from appreciating what they do well. The one thing about SEO is that in recent years it’s been more about the caliber of the content than gimmicks anyhow, and I don’t really expect that to change – which doesn’t mean that tracking these developments isn’t important.”

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Want to buy Free From Corporate America or see reviews of the final published version from readers like yourself? The printed book is now available on Amazon.com with product reviews.

You can also get a discounted version of the final book in eBook (PDF) format, or you can pick up a copy on the Kindle. The published version of the book is significantly enhanced from the web version available on this site.
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Rusty was once my volunteer Big Brother and his family and mine remain lifelong friends. It’s one of the handful of stories in my life that truly is a little magical. I thought web site visitors might enjoy a bigger version of that pic with the bio text just as it appears in the book, but this time in color:

If you want to contrast that bio with the last book’s, here’s Rusty’s caricature from that project:

If you’d like to see a better resolution version of this second illustration, check out the PDF version.

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Want to buy Free From Corporate America or see reviews of the final published version from readers like yourself? The printed book is now available on Amazon.com with product reviews.

You can also get a discounted version of the final book in eBook (PDF) format, or you can pick up a copy on the Kindle. The published version of the book is significantly enhanced from the web version available on this site.
——

The economy has shifted drastically, and not for the better, since I posted my first chapter draft in October of 2005. Friends and web site visitors have been asking if the economic downturn impacts any of the methodologies I present in this soon-to-be-published book. It’s a critically important question, but the short answer is a pretty easy one: no. As I work behind the scenes to finalize Free From Corporate America for publication (it should be ready in the next few months), it’s been interesting to read through the skewerings of 401ks and home ownership and careerism that I wrote years earlier.

I can’t claim to be Nostradamus; it didn’t take a genius to decide that stocks were overvalued, the market was careless and greedy, that corporations would hire and fire with impunity, and that we put too much faith in home ownership, in particular the notion that property values would always rise. It was good to see some accountability return to the market, but on the other hand, a lot of people have suffered as a result. None of it changed my resolve to get this book in print.

Needless to say, putting some of the philosophies of this book in place, such as creating income-generating assets, can help a person (or family) weather the economic storm by creating cash flow that isn’t dependent on the rickety job market.

But it’s too simple to say “if you’d followed the advice of this book, you’d be in good shape right now.” I’d be a fool to assert it, and it isn’t true at any rate. What I do feel comfortable saying is that none of the ideas put forth in this book are rendered invalid due to the economic predicaments of the present.

No one can say what the ultimate outcome of this particular financial crisis will be, and I’d recommend keeping anyone at arm’s length who thinks they do know. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, trying to mentally summon a crystal ball, and the only thing I have for you right now is not something very reassuring: everything is harder than it was before the markets crashed. That’s it. Furthering your career is harder, saving money is harder, putting the principles of this book into action is harder. That’s not chicken soup, but it is what it is.

Of course, anyone who understands investing knows that when markets sink, that’s an ideal time to pick up bargains, whether it’s cheap real estate or a blue chip stock that finally seems like a reasonable investment. I’m not going to detail these buying opportunities here, for two reasons: first, this book is about helping people get started on a better financial path who do not necessarily have sums of money already stashed away. If you have the money stashed, and now it’s a matter of investing it, then the silver lining of this kind of turmoil is that you can find numerous buying opportunities for that excess capital. There are plenty of resources to help you figure out how to spend it.

The other reason I’m not offering any buying advice is that I believe that much of the smartest investing is industry-specific. Instead of putting money where the herd is, it’s wiser to buy into something you know. Kicking tires is a big part of smart investing, and the precarious nature of the stock market should be a good lesson here. Not that buying stocks is bad, but buying into some generic investment advice that you don’t have the expertise to evaluate might be. So whether it’s a promising small business down the street, or a spouse who has a knack for haggling a price for rare books at tag sales, the best buying opportunities are going to resonate with your own expertise and interests, not with some one-size-fits-all “making money” infomercial.

As we get a better feeling for “life in lean times,” we should be sharpening our eyes for the opportunities we can capitalize on in our work lives and in our free times. For those of you who are already independent contractors or small business owners, there may be some action with outsourced functions. When companies institute hiring freezes, sometimes firms on the outside can benefit from the need for increased outsourcing during the freeze, though this cuts both ways, as I have found out with some unpleasantness of late.

How it works in reverse: companies looking to protect as many full time folks as possible can cut the cord on contractors and service providers and look to cover that work internally. But this is not always easy, as companies outsource precisely because they don’t have internal talent in that area to begin with. So it’s worth pursuing chances with companies that need skills while a hiring freeze is on – in some cases, the same skills they kicked out the door. Realizing they can’t do without those talent gaps, they are forced to contract it back in. The right place/right time can favor the savvy independent who is plugged in enough to know where the outsourced needs are in their industry.

Finally, harsh economic times can also pry open minds that were previously closed to certain innovations. With more traditional options off the table due to cost, all kinds of “guerrilla” initiatives may finally get a fair hearing. Often times, these new tactics are Internet-based, where affordability and scale can come easier. An obvious example is in the area of marketing, where social media like Twitter or even Facebook have created chances for savvy companies to engage in marketing conversations that extend their brand and deepen customer relationships. You may be able to lead the charge towards innovations that would have never gotten a fair hearing in more prosperous times.

So that’s where I’ll leave this particular entry. I need to study this market more before I make any more recommendations for navigating it properly. Most of the rules of engagement that we used to rely on have changed; we might as well admit it. Better to acknowledge that we’re not sure where we’re going than to offer a premature roadmap that sends us closer to the cliff.

Touching on social media in this chapter was no accident. Social media and “conversational marketing” has become an important part of my business model. Not only that, but when I look at the topics that were not covered sufficiently in my soon-to-be-issued book, social media is at the top of the list. The point of this web site is to allow the book’s content to move into dialogue, so for those of you who want to hear more about how social media fits into the approach I write about in Free From Corporate America, worry not, I will have more to say.

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Want to buy Free From Corporate America or see reviews of the final published version from readers like yourself? The printed book is now available on Amazon.com with product reviews.

You can also get a discounted version of the final book in eBook (PDF) format, or you can pick up a copy on the Kindle. The published version of the book is significantly enhanced from the web version available on this site.
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With each passing birthday, I am struck by the gaps between the life I had once envisioned and the life I am living. This had led me to attempt a better definition of success than the one I had before.

At one point, I viewed “success” primarily in terms of material accomplishments, or trophies of various kinds I could point to in my life as a sign that I was successful.

But I’ve now realized that I need a different version of success – one that fits my life every day, no matter how that day turns out. One that gives me a strong internal compass through life’s twists and turns, without bashing myself when things don’t go my way.

I realized I needed to consciously redefine success and give myself something to aspire to that is more closely tied to what I truly admire in other people and try to foster in myself.

What I came up with was a list of characteristics I could try to cultivate no matter what was going on in my life or how difficult certain periods had become. Ironically enough, some of the things on the following list, such as “has line in sand (can’t be bought for a price)” actually, in some cases, openly conflict with a path towards an easier and more conventional success. Those are not easy dilemmas.

So it may be possible that aspiring to “true success” actually makes other “less true” forms of success more difficult to come by. Maybe that would explain why it’s so difficult to find success on all the levels we seek. We hear all the time about celebrities who are having massive personal struggles despite the superficial “success” they have achieved.

One thing I really go after in my book is the polarized and inaccurate cliches about success that you run into. There is still a widespread belief that any kind of significant professional success involves some level of corruption. I also run into a lot of people who think that there is no way to achieve financial success without undue compromise. If only there were such an easy rationalization for our shortcomings.

The truth is that you can find success on your own terms, but it’s a much tougher accomplishment than setting out to make money no matter what compromises that may entail.

With my book almost complete, I have decided to add this kind of content to this web site until the book is out. I wanted to share this list because I personally find too many people worry about being nice, fitting in, and pursuing a much more conventional form of success than would truly suit them. So maybe there are others who believe that life is about pushing the envelope and not just being nice and behaving well, but aggressively pursuing a path to unleash their best selves into this messed-up world.

What I found after doing this list is that it’s way more personal than I was expecting, so much so that I held off on publishing it for a pretty long time.

So, in a strange way, this list has become the most personal thing on this site. I hope it is not too generic and that you find it thought-provoking. I tried to keep the list as concise as possible by focusing only on the most important aspects. Please email me your feedback.

“Characteristics of True Success” List

• fierce and passionate conviction
• has line in sand (can’t be bought for a price)
• dedicated to self-care and emotional/physical well-being
• working towards biggest dreams, dreams still alive in head and heart
• clear and deep self-knowledge
• lifelong commitment to self-education
• opportunist, able to listen and adapt to possibilities of moment instead of just imposing agenda
• makes most of time and opportunities given
• has faced demons and openly confronted self-destructive and self-sabotaging impulses
• has struck balance between internal work and external accomplishments
• compassionate and truthful self-acceptance
• has reckoned with any damage of the past and is on course of self-improvement
• has something to fight for and protect
• is aggressively loving and caretaking of those around them
• understands generosity of spirit is returned in kind
• sees bigger picture of world while working towards personal passion
• has not given up on pursuing unique talents and manifesting them in the worldÂ
• has creative approach to shaping their own life
• has spiritual self-acceptance and peace of mind about the limits of their own willpower
• has a spark in their eyes and does not give up in the face of adversity
• will walk through fire for the people in life they have committed to – does not get spread too thin
• stands for things that are worth living and dying for
• consistent: is able to be there for others consistently despite their own ups and downs
• treats everyone they encounter well, as opposed to offering different personas to people based on what they need from them

Want to buy Free From Corporate America or see reviews of the final published version from readers like yourself? The printed book is now available on Amazon.com with product reviews.

You can also get a discounted version of the final book in eBook (PDF) format, or you can pick up a copy on the Kindle. The published version of the book is significantly enhanced from the web version available on this site.

Earlier in this book, we talked about the goal of being the best in the world at whatever it is you do. It’s a key objective for anyone who wants to move freely in and out of corporate circles. When you are the best, or at least in the top tier, you can operate in the business world from a position of strength.

But here’s the catch: you want to have some competition. If you’re the only person in the world who is good at what you do, chances are there isn’t much of a marketplace for your services. I joke about being one of the best in the world at writing about forgotten hair bands; no one is knocking on my door about that. The best businesses attract competition because their market is attractive. I would go so far as to say that if you have no aspiring competition, there’s a problem with your business model.

To a point, competition is a good thing – a sign that whatever you do has a quantifiable market. On the other hand, you don’t want to make it easy for competitors to move in and do what you do. You want your specialty to be perceived as attractive, but to remain a little beyond the reach of those who want a piece of it. You do this by creating “barriers to entry.” Corporate America is incredibly good at that. Large companies are well versed at locking smaller entities out through exclusives that no one else can breach.

One remote-tossing example is Direct TV’s role as the sole provider of the NFL Sunday Ticket. How many football fans have switched from cable to satellite because they had no access to games they wanted? This must drive the cable companies nuts – I know it drives me nuts – but all cable can do is lose football fans until the NFL’s contract with Direct TV expires. Sure, Comcast can tell their customers that “we have a bunch of obscure college football games every weekend,” but for fans of the NFL, those games are an inferior product.

The level playing field is a myth. You’ve earned your market share. No way are you going to expose it to another business in search of green pastures. This is why it’s better to master the rules of the game than to sit on the sidelines resenting the corporate entities that apply these rules to their advantage. To an extent, we can serve up the same medicine.

There are five barriers to entry that we can take advantage of: innovation, exclusivity, patent, reputation, and location. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Innovation is the most subtle of the barriers to entry. Innovation is important because most companies are better at copying an effective strategy than developing their own. That’s why most people who stay ahead of the corporate game are natural innovators. Instead of resting on the revenues of their accomplishments, they are always tweaking and improving. Not because they are obsessive – well, maybe they are – but because they have a passion for what they do and a desire to excel. That means committing to a continuous state of improvement and re-invention. Innovation is a great tactic for those of us who are looking to free ourselves from corporate structures.

Corporations pay big lip service to innovation – just turn on a TV and you’ll see plenty of commercials that trumpet corporate innovation – but the fact is that larger companies, by definition, move more slowly than smaller ones. Companies are not unlike ships. Yachts might be more comfortable, and they can certainly serve more passengers, but they can’t change direction as fast as a little dingy. Dingies can get caught in the wake of a big ship, but if you stay ahead of the weather, it’s not so bad being small and maneuverable.

Innovation is a valuable practice, but it’s even more effective in conjunction with other tactics. We’ve already talked about exclusivity; there are few business tools more powerful than exclusive relationships. New businesses typically have trouble getting clients to agree to “exclusive provider” relationships, but as your business relationships deepen and you gain a track record, asking for an exclusive relationship can be an important step. Sometimes incentives are given to the other party in exchange for granting the exclusive, other times, the value of the exclusive is in knowing that they only have to turn to you for their needs and don’t have to waste time fielding inquiries from other firms.

Exclusives can be applied to almost any field, and the definition of an exclusive can be expanded to include any form of creative control. For example, a small publishing company might sign a deal with an author that grants them exclusive rights or “first options” on any film rights or subsequent editions of the book title. In the headhunting field, it is common to obtain an exclusive with a hiring manager for certain kinds of openings. This kind of relationship improves your chances of closing deals significantly. Whenever we are pursuing our business interests, we should be on the lookout opportunities to deepen our business relationships through some sort of exclusive terms.

Patents are another excellent barrier to entry, and when we use the term “patents” here, we’re talking about all forms of copyrighting and control over inventions and other creative products. In some cases, control over these products falls automatically to the creator, but in others, you need to file the paperwork in order to claim that work yourself. I have known technical consultants who were able obtain ownership of work they performed as an employee that their employer was not interested in owning. Some of these folks are now doing very well selling their own product.

If you dig into the history of the biggest software companies in the world, some of the founders did the same thing, either purchasing the original software after developing it, or building it on the side and owning it from the beginning. Patents and copyrights are powerful because you don’t necessarily have to build a business and marketing engine around them in order to benefit.

In some cases, such as a songwriter who has written a winning track, you don’t have any further work to do, except wait for the checks to come in each time your invention or creative work is used in a commercial or in some kind of work context. And the best thing of all: your competitors can’t use or mimic your inventions without getting an intimidating letter from your lawyer.

Reputation is another barrier to entry. Think of reputation as an extension of the branding concept. If you have a good reputation in a particular market, that means that the repetition of your marketing efforts have paid off – you now have an inherent “name recognition” advantage over competitors. Other companies might try to tap into your market, but you are the one that your market knows and trusts.

In some fields, the “trust factor” can play a defining role in sales. Reputation has an impact in subtle ways also, including word-of-mouth referrals. Once I did some marketing for a band in search of a major record deal. I got the most interest from executives who had heard of the band from previous albums and promotions. Reputation played a big role in the relative “warmth” of the cold calls.

The final barrier to entry is location. We can all appreciate the power of location, whether it’s the mega-Walmart sitting on top of a town we drive through on the way to work, or a restaurant that’s nabbed the busiest corner of a major intersection. But we can expand the term “location” to apply to virtual locations as well, including preferred web site destinations and even the order web site comes up on search engines. Anytime you can get a corner on a popular location, you’ve simultaneously helped your chances and made it that much harder for someone else to copy you.

Let’s look at how these concepts apply to my own market position. In the SAP field, I am known as the “SAP career expert.” Others have tried to move into this turf over the years. To be fair, it’s not the most coveted niche in the business world. But it has been a real asset to me in terms of professional opportunities and book sales. The fact that I have done this for upwards of ten years carries some weight. There is definitely name recognition there, which fits into reputation.

I have copyright/patent power in my first SAP book and the second one I am wrapping up now. I have exclusivity in my role as the career expert on one of the most frequented sites for SAP professionals. In terms of innovation, my new SAP web site will be a “Web 2.0″ kind of site with a daily career blog and podcasts. I have some useful online locations that come into play also, one example being that for the last two years, my SAP consulting book has appeared in the top five results on Amazon when the term “SAP” is typed in.

So when you look at my market niche, all of the main barriers to entry come into play. It doesn’t mean that other people can’t make money in my areas of specialization – in fact, some do, and that is mostly a good thing, though I do have to keep a wary eye on the competition from time to time. In the SAP arena, the efforts I have made to make it tougher for others to duplicate what I do have definitely paid off. I doubt it is a coincidence that I have had more success in this area than in my other so-called market niches where my barriers to entry are not nearly as comprehensive.

For some readers, the idea of constructing barriers to entry might seem like a hardcore tactic better suited for big businesses. But there is a ruthlessness to good business that cannot be denied. Big business tactics work for a reason. No, we don’t have to endorse ugly monopolistic practices or use them to bludgeon our competition.

Some business practices may be legal, but they just feel wrong. We should all draw lines that we can live with. The tactics I have described here are generally fair as long as they are fairly used. More often than not, we are the only ones looking out for our own interests. Knowing how to do that can make the difference between long term prosperity and an all-too-brief glimpse of the top.

Want to buy Free From Corporate America or see reviews of the final published version from readers like yourself? The printed book is now available on Amazon.com with product reviews.

You can also get a discounted version of the final book in eBook (PDF) format, or you can pick up a copy on the Kindle. The published version of the book is significantly enhanced from the web version available on this site.

But it’s now ready to play or download:

It’s a pretty large file (10 megs, 45 minute interview), so if you do the “play” option by clicking on the previous link, make sure you have some time and also a broadband connection. Dial-up folks should probably download the file first and then listen to it (right click on the link above and do “save target as” to save on most computers, or save in similar fashion).

The interview was broadcast by Valley Free Radio, based out of Northampton, Massachusetts. The host was Shel Horowitz, and I appeared as part of his weekly “Principled Profits” radio program on ethical business.

In this 45 minute interview, Shel and I touch on a number of topics that are central to the themes of the book, including:

- the origins of the book and the hard business lessons that went into it.

- why the era of white collar outsourcing (and how to respond to it) is integral to this book’s themes.

- the dream of getting beyond the corporate grind and what it takes to break away.

- the formation of my own company and how that changed my economic terms of engagement.

- the key tactics outlined in the book:

1. the importance of taking a chance on your passions but also finding a market for the work you love most.

2. distinguishing between “true assets” and “false assets”.

3. transitioning the “employee’s mindset” to the “owner’s mindset.”

4. why you don’t have to start your own business to change your economic fortunes, and the importance of branding yourself and not your employer.

- how the outsourcing of the information worker is changing the workforce and the nature of the corporate contract.

- how to respond to the loss of a job or to an employment shifts in your industry, and the importance of making pro-active skills changes.

- whether it’s possible to be ethical in business and also achieve financial success.

- why small companies may be more ethical than large ones.

- how the Internet can make it easier to market-test business ideas and accelerate the feedback loop.

I’d like to thank Shel for having me as a guest and I hope folks enjoy the interview!

Want to buy Free From Corporate America or see reviews of the final published version from readers like yourself? The printed book is now available on Amazon.com with product reviews.

You can also get a discounted version of the final book in eBook (PDF) format, or you can pick up a copy on the Kindle. The published version of the book is significantly enhanced from the web version available on this site.

I’ve laid out a roadmap. So what are the obstacles? What prevents someone from putting these tactics in action? In this installment, I’ll go through each of the major obstacles in turn.

1. Either you don’t agree with me, or you’re too rich or happy to care. Some folks don’t believe that their 9 to 5 careers are going to let them down. And they may be lucky enough to be right. If you have a steady paycheck and don’t agree with my conclusions about the instability of the “careers” we put our faith in, then there’s no urgency. And if there’s no urgency, then why make the push? Of course, for some, it doesn’t feel like a push at all. These unbalanced people (myself included) are infected with a passion for the entrepreneurial life. Absence that passion, we generally have to be punked out of our jobs before we rethink. Of course, you could also be too rich or happy to care. Why go back to the lab when you’re rolling? I just hope that those who are currently too happy to need this book have that foundational happiness, not the fickle kind that leaves you single and broke.

2. You don’t see yourself as creative enough to make the leap. You need the structure a 9 to 5 job provides. I run into people who agree with what I’ve written, but don’t see themselves as “creative.” We’ve been fed a line of b.s. which claims that only certain people are creative. I’ll grant that creative thinking comes easier to some than others. And not everyone is cut out to be an artist. But a creative approach to life is not confined to art. Creative living is not something to dismiss as New Age pap, due to its link with happiness itself. It’s hard to be happy if your life doesn’t have your own stamp on it. Imitation might sell records but it doesn’t save souls. The broad definition of “creative” I’m using here simply means the ability to initiate, manage, and market projects. Anyone can learn those skills.

The payoff? If you can learn how to conceive your own undertakings and then get other people to buy into them, there will come a time when you don’t have to work for anyone besides yourself. Creating assets is how you take advantage of the economic rules of an “ownership society.” The alternative? Grow gray hair for other people and let them cash out on your life. But what about those who excuse themselves from this conversation because they need the structure a 9 to 5 provides, no matter how crummy that structure is?

In truth, all ventures have structure. But sometimes you have to wipe the foundation clean and build your own structure from scratch. Maybe you’ll start with the intimidating emptiness of a clean desk, but pretty soon, you’ll fill that space with a structure of your own making. And it will be infinitely more rewarding than the one-size-fits-nobody-very-well structure that is imposed on you from corporate entities. And remember, you don’t have to start your own business to use the principles in this book. You can use a lot of these tactics within corporate settings to advance your interests, or you can launch side projects that will be your ultimate job security when they are fully formed.

3. You want to get started, but you have no time. You are waiting for a window of time to make your move. It’s easy to put off getting started on the basis that there’s no time. Our friends and family will nod in sympathy; no one will prod us to make it happen. I ran into someone the other day who dreamed of being a writer but had no time. He had a management position and a family to support. It sucks to admit it, but the time excuse is almost always a smokescreen for being afraid to get started. I used to fall into the trap of waiting for the right time. The right time never came, and the years piled on until my best dreams were buried far beneath. I finally learned that awful lesson: what you are doing now is who you are and who you will be. That is why it’s so important to establish a “theme” of change in your life.

Even if you only have one hour a week, that one hour makes a huge difference – not only in terms of getting projects off the ground, but in terms of the basic psychology of freedom. Knowing you are facing the challenge and taking action changes how you carry yourself. It seems odd, but once you put a theme in place, you will sense the shift. Even if your progress is molasses, you will feel movement where you were previously stuck in self-defeating excuses. You will start to get into a flow. I wrote this entire book during a year when I was deliriously overworked.

This particular chapter I am writing on two hours sleep. I’ve set aside three hours a week to write this book, and a year later, it’s almost done. Themes are very powerful. Legend has it that Toni Morrison wrote her first books with her children swarming around her. John Grisham was a full time attorney when he wrote his first book. The bottom line is that we almost always have time if we’re willing to give blood, so that excuse falls under the “failed attempt to justify my life” column. When we peel off the rationalizations, we expose someone who is understandably scared to get started. I know: I was one of them.

4. You can’t figure out how to make your passions marketable. You are torn between hobbies with no economic future and dull work that pays the bills. The majority of Americans hate their jobs. They see work as a means to an end. In some cases, they are correct. But according to the value of time, dull jobs are not only dull, but an unacceptable means to an end. Ultimately we stand a much better chance of enjoying our work and improving our financial picture if we launch some effective side ventures. And we should lean towards ventures that capture our imagination.

But the challenge remains: we still have to make our passions marketable. The marketplace is a constant negotiation between what we want to do and what other people are willing to pay us to do. Choose ventures that strike a balance between work you care about and work that has economic value. Sometimes that means recognizing our biggest passions should remain in “hobby status.” I love my guitar, but there’s no chance anyone’s gonna pay me to play it. Classifying guitar as a hobby clears the garage for projects that are a better mix between the market and what I’m good at. This book represents an attempt to find that sweet spot by writing about a subject I care about – one that I hope is compelling enough to find a marketplace.

Before you put your metaphorical guitar on the hobby shelf, first make sure that you can’t put a spin on your talents and make them pay off. There’s no tougher field than music, but I’ve seen musicians stay in the industry by becoming session musicians, studio producers, wedding singers, and even Elvis impersonators. Often they keep their own bands on the side. Sometimes what we just need to apply an entrepreneurial spin to the hobby and suddenly it’s a legit breadwinner.

I have a buddy who made a lot of money gambling online, a profession with a sketchy future to say the least, especially for a family man. I’ve encouraged him to look into setting up a tutorial web site and even writing books documenting his card-playing techniques. There are many ways you can spin your passions in a more marketable direction. And you don’t have to abandon your end game to do so. One example: actors like Nicolas Cage who take big Hollywood parts in order to finance their involvement in low-to-the-ground independent films.

5. You love your work but it pays like crap. Most people who love their work but have no money don’t view it as a problem. To be fair, they may be right. Most of the happiest people I’ve ever met fit this description. When you truly love your work, even when it doesn’t pay fairly, you’ve got your life in pretty good alignment. Still, some in this situation do get bogged in financial stress. It’s great to love your work, but as we get older, we see that our financial problems are going to undermine us when it comes to providing for our families and our own retirements. I know some social workers in this situation.

Social work is a potent example because the common response is to push for management roles where the pay is better. Problem: most social workers got into the field because of how much they liked working with people. The grassroots nature of what they were doing was a key part of the appeal. And from this book’s vantage point, the financial difference between being a social worker and a social work manager is not something to get worked up about. Unless the management track is appealing, it might make more sense to launch a side venture that pertains to the field. There are numerous options that might to the trick – writing a book on how to avoid burnout in the field, taking on a private practice, developing a series of weekend seminars. It’s all in how you spin it. An entrepreneurial approach to your chosen profession changes everything.

Some people make a huge mistake by avoiding low-paying fields even if that’s where their passion lies. I know people who are avoiding environmental work for that reason. But it’s not a particular field that pays badly; how you approach that field has a lot to do with how lucrative it can be. I have some buddies in Hawaii that started a car business for vehicles running on vegetable oil (good old-fashioned grease).

They stand to make a lot of money while innovating in a field they care about. Finding a way to make the profession you love lucrative is a damn sight better than choosing a job in a cynical way because it’s supposed to pay well. That’s a recipe for burnt rubber. Money can solve a lot of things, but it can’t inject passion where there is none. Another solution for someone who loves their work but needs a better upside is to launch a side venture, for example, developing a video game for PDAs or writing a children’s book.

5. You have more pressing issues than money. Books with endless disclaimers are tiresome. It goes without saying that this book is only directly relevant to those in market economies, and within that context, that there are plenty of people too focused on pure survival to take these tactics into account. Beyond that, there are many whose lives are too wrecked to deal. Take the example of the gambling addict: it doesn’t make much sense to spend two hours a week on a new business and three nights a week pouring paychecks into slot machines. There are times when we are legitimately pre-occupied with things more important than anything in this book. I have a friend whose child is going through hell in the public school system. Another just lost her best friend; her 14 and 16 year old daughters have no mother. I extol the virtue of relentlessness, but there’s a time to let forward projects slide and focus on righting the ship. Still, we should be a lot less tolerant of our excuses than we typically are. We need to insert these positive themes in our lives sooner rather than later. Eventually they could become a legitimate source of good news.

6. You hate capitalism; thus you hate entrepreneurialism. Or, entrepreneurialism is irrelevant because you are a dot.org. Let’s tackle the .org objections first. Some dot orgs believe that they don’t need to deal with business because they are provided for by academia or the public sector. Dot orgs may be less impacted by the globalization of labor, but this book still applies. Some of the most successful teachers I know found a way to market their ideas, reaching more people and boosting their revenues. The bigger stumbling block is ideological: what if you have contempt for capitalism? I draw a different line. I have a chip on my shoulder about big business but love the entrepreneurial life.

I wasn’t always this way, but I found that small businesses had more energy and less bureaucracy than the non-profits I did time with. Bottom line: if you hate capitalism, this book is the least of your problems. It’s hard to function in a market economy when you are superior to the system you are a part of. What I usually see is not revolutionary conviction but radical posturing combined with a half-hearted one foot in the boat/one foot out philosophy that gets everyone wet. It’s easy to rationalize a bad job by cloaking it in working class romanticism. My feeling is: either oppose the system with your heart and soul, or find a way to use it for your own ends. There’s so many ways to work the market, from ecological investing to the fair trade movement. Standing on the sidelines drinking coke (Coca Cola Corp) and smoking butts (RJ Reynolds) while pretending you’re not participating as long as you keep a low profile isn’t a bold stance.

Owning a business gives you a chance to leverage an asset as you see fit. Working for that same business doesn’t change much. You’re still playing the game, but your hand is inferior. Some people think if they stay close to labor they have more integrity than everybody else. Labor organizing is a worthy cause, but creating good jobs through entrepreneurial savvy is no less worthy. Struggling to the pay the bills might have more blue collar credibility, but being economically powerful is more effective. The glamour of sweat wears off; funding the causes you care about doesn’t. Academics with too much time on their hands are always the first to criticize my ideas. I can live with that.

7. Money doesn’t concern you – material goods aren’t important to you. This is a valid viewpoint only if you’re rich. In a market economy, those who are indifferent to money sooner or later pay the price. Rich is not the issue. The issue is financial self-sufficiency – the ability to call your own shots without being dependent on handouts. The more you can pick and choose how you participate in corporate America, the happier (and more effective) you will be.

This is not a great economy for martyrs. There was a time in the ’60s where you could dedicate yourself to a cause and know you’d have a couch to sleep on. Couches are hard to come by these days. There are a handful of folks (who are not rich) who can afford to be indifferent to the market. These are the geniuses and cultural warriors who are provided for by their handlers. For the rest of us, that’s not going to get it done.

I used to think that money was a sign of corruption. I had a higher purpose (teaching). My high purpose would allow me to coast over the demands of the material world. Turns out my high purpose was no match for the rent. Because I was expecting the world to take care of me in exchange for some kind of holier-than-thou contribution that no one asked me to make in the first place, I became a bitter man.

But I was able to get around the bitterness by changing my values. Not only was money important, it was largely a neutral value, assigned meaning by how I earned it and what I spent it on. The more I realized my job was to make money to take care of other people and finance my dreams, the more passionate I felt about unlocking the best in myself.

We each have our own financial riddles. We don’t have the same starting line or the same finish line. So forget about fairness, forget about getting back what you deserve. Focus on harnessing your talents and brining them in line with the marketplace – remembering that once you master the marketplace, you can pick and choose your involvement in it.

In an era of hyper-commercialism, the ability to use our money to build a fence around that which is not for sale is vitally important. Otherwise, we’ll sell everything we own to keep going, and we’ll lose track of where that soul-killing line in the sand was in the first place. Ending the month-to-month financial struggle will give us the time to make a bigger contribution on our own terms. If there’s such a thing as leaving your mark on the world, there’s no better way to do it.

Want to buy Free From Corporate America or see reviews of the final published version from readers like yourself? The printed book is now available on Amazon.com with product reviews.

You can also get a discounted version of the final book in eBook (PDF) format, or you can pick up a copy on the Kindle. The published version of the book is significantly enhanced from the web version available on this site.