Librarian of Fortune

Info-entrepreneur survey report is out!

Every few years, I conduct a survey of people who own their own information businesses, also known as info-entrepreneurs or independent info pros. I just finished my 2011 survey and it's available at BatesInfo.com/2011survey. Highlights:

• 40% of long-time info-business owners have salaries of $60K+
• 70% of info-business owners in their first 3 years make under $20K.
• Two thirds of part-time info-businesses make under $20K.

I also asked the respondents what words of advice they had for new info-entrepreneurs. Here's a word cloud of their responses:

I also asked what would help their business the most; here's the word cloud.

 

These reflect what I see -- new info-entrepreneurs have to see themselves as a business and focus on clients, and most info-entrepreneurs know they need to focus on marketing and getting new clients.

21 tips for consultants and entrepreneurs

Alan Weiss, whose Kool-Aid I drink regularly, just came out with a fabulous list of 21 pieces of advice for the new (or re-focusing) consultant/entrepreneur. Based on my own experience, he's spot on, and I appreciate his get-to-the-point approach. Highlights for me:

 4. Call everyone you know. Explain your value and ask for business AND referrals.

 13. Never  be afraid of losing business. It’s the quickest way to lose business. Instead, focus on boldly acquiring business.

 14. Invest in marketing and in your own development. You cannot cut your way to growth or reduce you path to success.

 21. ALWAYS price based on value, never on time units.

 

Getting Your Emails Opened

I just published the latest issue of my Info-Entrepreneur Tip of the Month. This one looks at all the ways that you can ensure that people don't open your email (and some ways to increase your odds).

Preparing for your career or your business

I just read a great post from the SLA Future Ready 365 blog. In From Student to Professional: How I Became Future Read, Karly Szczepkowski talks about how a recent MLS graduate prepared for her career while still in school. Her perspective is equally applicable to anyone starting an info business. Highlights of the post:

* Gain relevant experience. [NB: I appreciate that she didn't say "how can I get experience if everyone wants experienced people?" Instead, she decided that she needed to gain skills and took responsibility for developing them.]

* Join a professional association. For Karly, it's SLA. For new business owners, it's the association their clients belong to.

* Create my personal brand. [NB: whether you're employed, self-employed, or not employed, you have a brand. Karly describes how she took ownership of her profile and found ways to demonstrate her unique value.]

 

Getting Your First Five Clients

I just finished writing a new eTool, Getting Your First Five Clients -- WOO HOO! I wrote a version of this for AIIP back in 1998, and I'm still getting requests for it. (No, it's no longer for sale and it's fatally outdated anyway.) Want to now what's in it? Here's a nugget from each section:

 

'So, what do you do?'
    Focus on what your clients value, not what you do.

Who Are My Clients?
    Your clients doesn't care what you do - just that you resolve their problems.

See Yourself as a Business
    Clients assume you price yourself according to your value

Hanging Out With Your Clients 
    Show your value, don't just talk about it.

It's All about the Network
    See every professional encounter as a marketing opportunity.

First Year Do's and Don'ts
    You have to be known to be referred.

What Doesn't Work
    Your goal is to find clients who set a high value on your services. Clients assume you price yourself according to your value.

See Yourself as a Business
    Clients assume you price yourself according to your value.

The eTool is available for $9.50 at BatesInfo.com/store.

"Is this all I get for my money?"

My latest Info-Entrepreneur Tip of the Month looks at consequences of not managing clients' expectations regarding what you will be delivering.

One of the most challenging parts of running any professional-services business is managing clients' expectations. We are delivering an intangible -- insights, information, analysis -- and we cannot anticipate what we will find when we first talk with a client. If we talk about the articles we will deliver or the charts we will complete, we are inviting our clients to judge us by quantity. If, instead, we talk about the insights we will provide, we frame the discussion around the value we bring. [...]

Getting those out-of-the-blue clients

I just got back from the AIIP annual conference; as usual, I have pages and pages of ideas to sort through. I had a great conversation with Jane John, a past president of AIIP and long-time info-entrepreneur. She mentioned that her clients have come from really off-beat connections. When I asked her to explain, it turns out that those crazy connections came from her practicing the fundamentals of marketing.

Her first example involved research that she did in support of a client's report. The client displayed the report at an exhibit, someone asked who conducted the background research, and Jane gained a new client. Random? Not really. By focusing on finding clients in the revenue-generating side of their businesses, Jane increased the likelihood that her clients will be talking with people outside their organizations. That's how she builds her word-of-mouth network, and she saw the results when she gained that new client.

Jane's other new client was a consultant she had brought in for help on a small project. They worked well together and when the consultant landed a much larger project, she called Jane, saying "I know you aren't familiar with this topic, but I know we work well together and I trust you to do a great job." Jane won that job because she demonstrated her professionalism and she showed how easy she is to work with. She didn't have to market herself; the consultant could see why she was the best choice for the job.

It sounds so hokey... it all comes down to how you interact with everyone you encounter. How's your marketing going today?

 

Do you have a spammy email address? Are you sure?

A friend of mine just got tricked by a spammer who claimed to be from a university but whose email address was a Gmail account. That in itself is enough for me to ignore someone -- if they are claiming to be with an organization but their email address is gmail/yahoo/comcast, I assume they're bogus. Yes, some people like using Gmail because of its filtering. I do too, and I still send all my business correspondence from my business email address. I want people to be able to see where I come from, and I have a lot more credibilty when I have a permanent (web) address.

So, if you're running a business, what does your return address say about you? A business domain and plain web site costs $20/month. What a small investment in looking more established!

 

Proactively addressing the Geezer Issue

I have been reading a discussion on the excellent LIS Career Options LinkedIn group about the importance of proactively addressing issues or barriers when talking with a possible employer or client (or anyone else for that matter). That got me thinking of a recent experience I had, and how to address the issue it raised.

I'm approaching 60 and last week was told by a Gen Y'er that she was amazed at how tech-savvy I am for "someone my age." I could have gotten insulted, but instead I took it as good input from someone who probably blurted what others think. While I don't let what I imagine other people are thinking to rule my life, it's useful to be reminded that people do make generational assumptions.

I now make a point of surfacing my social media profiles, and I don't lead any marketing conversation with a recitation of my decades of experience. My aim is to show that I embrace new technology and that I'm not resting on her laurels and killing time until I can retire. ("Retire???")

Sure, some people may still assume I'm behind the times simply because I'm not 25, but at least I'm not contributing to the perception. Perhaps now is the time to take up hang-gliding...

Dynamic steering - in organizations as small as one

Through my volunteer work with the Boulder Center for Conscious Community, I've had a chance to learn about and practice Holacracy<tm>, a non-traditional alternative to the top-down hierarchical approach most organizations use to self-govern. One of its tenants is "dynamic steering", which loosely translates to setting a goal, making decisions no sooner than they need to be made, and operating under the assumption that things will change. Rather than the predict-and-control approach, we're doing sense- and-respond approach. We expect that situations will change, more information will be available, and every decision can be revisited as appropriate for the situation. Yes, sometimes it's hard work, and the results are remarkable.

As I was talking with a coaching client today, I realized that this approach works for info-entrepreneurs as well. We're one-person businesses, so we have eliminated the organizational hierarchy entirely! But I used to approach my strategic planning from that old predict-and-control mentality. As I wrote my annual marketing plan, I would lay out the entire year, month by month, with bulleted lists of to-do items that I could check off. Done, done, done!

Now, I'm looking at my marketing plan from a more organic point of view. I know what my goals are for the end of 2011, and I have a good sense of what I need to do each quarter in order to accomplish those goals. But I no longer include month-by-month lists. Instead, I decide what I need to do this month, and do it.

At the end of each month, I look at what my results have been (using whatever metrics I find meaningful). If I'm making progress, I keep doing what I've been doing. If I'm not making progress, I stop and evaluate what needs to change. I usually ask myself:

Am I giving this approach enough time? How long does this effort need to take before I see results?

Am I talking to the right people? Do I know that the people I'm marketing to want, value and can buy my services?

Am I talking about the right things? Have I been 100% focused on my client in every interaction, or am I talking about my features and what I think the client cares about (experience, service-orientation, I save you time, blah blah blah)?

After I've answered these questions, I can decide how to best focus my time and energy in the next month. I know that I will be doing things this year that I can't even imagine now. That's OK; I am willing to dynamically steer my business so that I can get to my goals as easefully as possible.