Have you ever texted (SMS from your cellphone) the person you’re moaning about, rather than to the person you intended? If you have, then you’ll know what an embarrassing, toe-curling nightmare it is.

I have done this several times in the past. I nearly did it today… I wanted to send my buddy a text message to tell him why I was annoyed by someone, but almost sent the text to that ’someone’ instead.

Why does it happen?

I know why. I’ve done this in a highly emotional state. It’s almost always because I am pissed off with someone, and their name is emblazoned in my mind through the red mist. So when I begin to write the text, I’ve accidentally selected their name from my cellphone’s address book.

In some circumstances, this could be a career-limiting move. What if I am upset with my boss, and then text my boss to that tune?

It can cause untold embarrassment.

Talk about embarrassment: check this quick story out where a teenager accidentally texted her dad about her ‘first time’…

If this hasn’t happened to you yet, heed my words. Make sure, for pete’s sake, you don’t text your message to the wrong recipient! Before you hit that send button, make a quick sanity check.

It’s a cautionary step you won’t regret.

Texting is very popular in Europe and the East, and is growing in popularity in North America. Infrequent users of SMS/texting are at the highest risk of making these kinds of mistakes. Here is a great book that tells you all you need to know about the language, culture and style of texting – Txtng: The Gr8 Db8

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

People say the dumbest things, right? Especially in the workplace! The invasion of consultant-speak means we all have to sift our brains for the meaning of what should be a simple statement of words. I don’t know about you, but I have had enough…

I recently decided to monitor myself for using bullshit language in everyday business. It surprised me how often I used it. I had to slap myself! Since I started, by contrast I’ve noticed how often colleagues and managers try to sound clever by using words and phrases that most lay-people don’t know the meaning of.

I’ve also discovered that I can still articulate myself effectively, and maybe even better. The truth is, corporate bullshit doesn’t really impress anyone, and is more likely to confuse people. Plus, the invasion of corporate bullshit also means that if somebody doesn’t understand what is being said, they’re often too embarrassed to ask, and they would rather allow the conversation to go on in ignorance.

The worst of it is that whilst writing this post, I am continually hitting the delete button to wipe out the very same bullshit that I am standing against! I hadn’t realized how habitual it is.

I wonder, though, if I am being too hard on the use of corporate speak. Is it just me in a mood, or are well all a little bit fed up of it?

I don’t think so. If you have seen the ‘Bullshit Bingo’ game you can play during business meetings, then you’ll know that there is a growing intolerance, and mockery, towards it (download your Bullshit Bingo card today!)

Here is a funny case. OK, it’s perhaps childish and silly, but it proves the point. Some years ago, a manager in the organization I was working in (I’ll call him Dave to avoid using his real name) liked to mop up corporate bullshit. If he heard a word that sounded clever, then he would use it too. Often completely out of context. Now me and my buddies decided to play a childish prank. We made up several words that had no meaning at all and began to drop them into conversation with this manager. Within a week, he was using these words too. To his embarrassment, he would use them with his boss, who happened to be the CEO. He fell foul when the CEO asked for clarity, and he couldn’t give it! (If you’re reading this, Dave, you know I have apologized many times over!)

I think enough is enough. When somebody uses corporate bullshit with you, then make a point in asking for the real meaning. Even if you really know what it meant by it. Why? Well what about the next guy who hears it? Will they understand? Will they ask? And what if the word of phrase being used is really misunderstood by the person using it? If it’s important to understand what is being said, don’t leave that to chance!

Can you sniff out the BS? Discover the real meaning behind those bullshit phrases in this very funny book: The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit: An A to Z Lexicon of Empty, Enraging, and Just Plain Stupid Office Talk. It’s 192 pages of side-splitting humor on the everyday bullshit that has invaded our workplaces!

Buy Now: The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit: An A to Z Lexicon of Empty, Enraging, and Just Plain Stupid Office Talk

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

If you’re a graduate struggling to land your first job, then you really must watch this short video that shares some insightful research. Your struggle could be explained in a different and surprising way!

The research was based on the response of over 200 recruiting managers. Guess what – lack of experience is NOT the main reason. Heck, it ain’t even one of the TOP 5 reasons!

Watch the video – learn what they are.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Sometimes, a story is so unbelievable it must be true. Occasionally, we’ll read something that sounds so ridiculous, that you couldn’t make it up! Here are ten stories that will make you laugh and cringe…

Here is a link to an article from a great blog I found JobMob. If you don’t laugh, you’ll probably cry!

Top 10 Funniest Job Horror Stories.

Some of these stories make me think what the heck were they thinking? (Especially the one where the company fired the married couple…)

Do you have a funny story that you’d like to share? Then please tell us by leaving a comment below.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Only a few years ago, the gossip in the workplace centered around the water-cooler; a meeting place where the latest news about colleagues and management-decisions were discussed and often bitched about. More recently, the water-cooler is becoming lonely. Social media is taking over as the gathering point for gossip. Has it for you?

If you don’t Facebook, you probably know someone who does. (Why don’t you Facebook?) Or maybe you prefer something more high-brow like LinkedIn. Social networking platforms enable you, your friends and your colleagues to relate to each other, provide support , argue – whatever you feel like talking about. It’s a gossipers paradise. You don’t even need to be in the same country, let alone floor of an office.

And why not? It’s fun! It’s an easy way of sharing your news and taking a quick break. We all need a break. Because of that, more and more people are using Facebook in the workplace. Do you?

Why do you use social networking whilst at work?

Sarah Perez shares the results of research conducted by Nucleus Research on the blog ReadWriteWeb. Their study tells us that 87% of the 237 people who responded admitted that their use of Facebook has nothing to do with their work, which resulted in 1.5% drop in their productivity. If this research is read by your boss, what would the reaction be? I expect that FACEBOOK.COM would be blocked right away… or maybe you’d accept a 1.5% pay cut? (Err… nah! Don’t think so)

Do you agree with the conclusion of this research? Does your Facebooking time result in less work?

Personally, I don’t agree. For many people, taking a break from work – even a few minutes – gives us time to sort the clutter in our heads and allows us to get focus and clarity on the job in hand. If you’re like me, a short-term distraction gives your inner-brain an opportunity to solve the problems your working on without you becoming tired or frustrated. I’d say my productivity increases, significantly.

In 2008, the conclusion that Facebook reduced employee productivity was also being challenged by Goldsmith College in London, UK (as reported by the Telegraph newspaper). The research discovered that most of the 1,700 workers surveyed felt more productive after an ‘e-break’ (using the Internet) than they did following a traditional kind of break.

Sarah Perez also shares research performed by the University of Melbourne which confirms this view. The research concludes that people who take short breaks are, in fact, 9% more productive. Those are not just Facebook breaks, but any kind of break.

At least with a Facebook break, we remain at our desk and contactable…

Where it Went Wrong… (an example)

Did you see this story?

“Teenage office worker (Kimberley Swann) sacked for moaning on Facebook about her ‘totally boring’ job”.

To summarize the story: Kimberley Swann added comments to her Facebook profile that she was bored in her job. She didn’t mention her company name in the updates, but those who know her will guess who she is referring to. Her ‘mistake’ was that her boss was also one of her Facebook friends, so he read the comments, got pissed off, and gave her the boot.

Do you think this is fair?

If she had said that at the water cooler, would Kimberley have been treated the same way?

The two sides of this debate are a) employers don’t want their reputation damaged in the public eye, b) employees want to share views on their life (of which work is a significant aspect of) with friends in a private forum.

So doesn’t the debate center on what is ‘public’ and what is ‘private’? In the case of Facebook, you actually have to be a ‘friend’ of someone to see their updates, which requires mutual consent. In the case of other platforms like Twitter, you can follow the updates of anyone you like, providing they don’t block you or mark their updates as private. So is it reasonable to claim that anything you write as an update to your Facebook profile is ‘private’ and therefore confidential?

It’s a grey area. How does your employer know how selective you are about who you make friends with online? Employers are bound to take the side of caution. Still, does it make it fair to restrict what an employee says in a private forum, no matter who is a member of it? I think it is unfair – damned unfair – but I don’t make the rules.

Until social networking becomes accepted as the norm by employers (which is an inevitability), should we exercise some restraint if we want to avoid any kind of recrimination, regardless if we think this is right or not?

My advice – use common sense. If you must bitch, make sure there isn’t anyone connected to you who will be offended. Yeah this is really boring but if it’s my livelihood at stake I’d rather make sure that wasn’t under threat.

The other thing I suggest you do is to find out if your organization has policies that specifically govern your use of social media. You could simply ask your boss what the deal is with commenting on Facebook.

Organizations must begin to treat its staff like responsible adults.

Contribute to the Debate

Do you think Kimberley Swann faced rough justice? Or was she just being naive? And do you think that your use of Facebook at work is legitimate?

Share your view in two ways:

1) Take the Facebook at Work survey to see how you compare with your peers. Results will be posted on 15 October 2009. Subscribe to the RSS feed to see them.
2) Leave a comment below and tell us your opinion

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

The job market is a fierce competition as employers look to fill their job vacancies with the very best, highest calibre people like you. How do you position yourself as the ‘very best’ and seek and fill those great opportunities?

You can do just that with a new FREE mini-course over 7 days! This course leads you through 7 steps to becoming an expert job hunter by showing you some insider tactics and methods to build a high-impact external profile and engage people inside your potential employers – people who will sponsor you and invest themselves into bringing you into their organization.

You’ll enjoy the wisdom of several years into research into how to build relationships and trust with many people who want to connect with you for your experience, skills and support. Your connections become your allies and the whole process of job hunting will present YOU with employment choices. Who could want more than that? This is how job hunting should be.

Learn these guerrilla tactics today by signing up for this mini-course using the form below:

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

If you’re looking for a job, then we need all the help we can get, today.

If becoming a Job Guerrilla isn’t for you, then job sites are the best channel for casting your net wide to search across thousands of jobs quickly. Here is a collection of job sites and tools that I reccommend:

• JobGuerrilla Job Search
• The Riley Guide: Sites with Job Listings
• Top 100 job board niches
• The Top Ten Job Search Engines on the Web
• Monster.com
• Totaljobs.com
• Jobsite.com
• JobShouts.com
• TheRecruiterNetwork
• Headhuntersdirectory
• Onlinerecruitersdirectory
• Findarecruiter
• Recruitersdirectory
• Free Tools for Job Seekers
• Online Job Search Tips, Tools, and Strategies
• Tech and online tools for your job search
• 100 Useful Job Search Tools for Recent College Grads

Happy Job Hunting!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Would You like to join me in searching for a better job than we are currently in right now?

If you would like to join me, I am going to conduct an experiment to find what jobs are available using online job search tools that are better than the one I am in at this time.

Job search websites have matured and expanded so much over the last few years (particularly now as so many people are looking for employment) that I think online search is the best method as it puts us in control, and gives US the choice of roles to put ourselves forward for.

Are there are Myths to Dispel?

Through this challenge, I aim to prove or dispel a number of socially conditioned beliefs of this time:

1. A shift in job is a shift to only a ‘lower’ job (although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing)
2. Only entry-level or junior roles are being created
3. Executive and management vacancies don’t exist
4. There are too many applicants for the same job
5. You won’t find a better job than you’re in now

So I am going to start, right now, in searching for a better job and analyzing the results. (I don’t actually have to apply for the jobs, but I will take note that I have a future choice to!)

Want to try to beat this challenge with me?

I am going to start today. I will search online for a better job. And see what happens… it could be fun!

Find a Better Job: Today… that is the challenge!

Can YOU find a better job that you could realistically apply for, and get, using an online job search? Why not give it a try? You don’t have anything to lose, other than a few seconds. Who knows, it could prove that there are jobs available to you should you need to look for one!

The Job Search Engine I will be Using

Here is a job search engine I recommend, as it contains thousands of jobs across all industries and geographies. Just enter your role, or industry, and your city, state or zip code:

Subscribe to my RSS Feed to find out when I publish my results!

Good Luck – and share your results by leaving a comment below.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

LinkedIn Questions & Answers is a valuable source of business wisdom; chances are that somebody has faced a similar opportunity or challenge before, so why not use their experience to your advantage? The other great aspect of Linked Q&A is it’s an awesome platform to use in your job search.

In the JobGuerrilla Report, I show you how using LinkedIn Q&A is a great lever to stimulate and build business relationships with potential employers and their network. LinkedIn Q&A is an ideal tool for demonstrating how you apply knowledge to business opportunities and problems, so it’s little wonder that people are using it to connect and work together.

The best thing about LinkedIn Q&A is that it is a fantastic platform for showcasing your knowledge to people YOU have chosen as potential employers, and your efforts are rewarded with new connections and even recognition if your answer is the best returned. It’s an awesome feeling when you’re awarded a ‘Best Answer’, and it’s also something that employers will notice when they view your profile. I know of some people who also mention this on the resume! Social Networking really is changing how we approach business and employment.

Here is a great video on YouTube which shows you how to use LinkedIn Q&A effectively to build relationships and add to your network.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

If you could buy just ONE BOOK to help you with your Performance Review, which one would it be?

I’ve been scouring the web for books on this subject: phrases for effective performance reviews. Why? Well I’ve been interviewing a number of graduates of my ACE Your Performance Review CRASH COURSE and discovered that the people who have enjoyed the best results of all were able to articulate themselves really well – in other words – use the most effective phrases to describe their achievements, behaviors and activities.

So I started to look around to find out which books can help other people achieve the same outcome.

There are a fair few books available, to my excitement. Surprisingly, the best book I found on this subject is actually intended for people who are reviewing their staff. Why I like it is it puts you, as the reviewee, in the shoes of your reviewer. Taking this approach means that we can engineer our phrases we’ll use in our reviews to press the right buttons and hit the note of what our managers listen for. Hey – I’m the first to suggest that our Performance Appraisal is about US, not our MANAGER, but it’s an effective tactic to use the right phrases to ensure our message is understood – right?

The book I found is 2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews: Ready-to-Use Words and Phrases That Really Get Results by Paul Falcone – you can buy it now at the discount price of $8.58 (a steal!).

But what about you?

What book would you buy to help you with your Performance Appraisal if you could buy only ONE? I’d love to hear it. I challenge you to find a better one that Falcone’s – browse around here and see if you can discover one. If I like your suggestion that much, I’ll buy it!

UPDATE: Game Is On!

My wife, Claire, just started the ball rolling. She found How To Say It Performance Reviews: Phrases and Strategies for Painless and Productive Performance Reviews which she thinks is better! Have you found one yet?

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Your boss hates you – what should you do?

This is a common problem, I’ve discovered, when checking back through the many emails where I have been asked that very question. When you find yourself in this position, is it a lost cause?

I don’t think so, and here is what to do about it.

First of all, it’s vital that (from this point forward) you keep an open mind. For two reasons:

1. If you have asked yourself the above question, then you must care about fixing the problem. If you didn’t, then you’d have consigned it to the ‘don’t give a crap’ box and moved onto some other challenge. So to fix the problem, you must consider opportunities to fix it before dismissing them outright.
2. There is a chance that your boss doesn’t hate you, in fact, but rather that’s how you have interpreted his/her actions and behaviors towards you. To solve the problem, it’s crucial that you dump any baggage you have first.

If you haven’t yet read my posts ‘5 Reasons Why Your Boss Hates You ‘ and ‘The ‘mystery’ boss: why your bosses behavior may occasionally look strange ‘ then do so now, and then come back to this post. They provide you with great insights into the mind of the typical boss, and possibly suggest why you might be thinking your boss hates you.

Do you recognize any of the ‘crazy behaviors’ that you thought could be hatred towards you, but are possibly more benign? Or perhaps you did discover a reason why your boss thinks you’re a dufus?

If you’re still unclear as to why you suffer a sour relationship with your boss, then now is the time to find out. The best way forward is to understand what problems need to be fixed, and how they should be fixed.

I should just say that I’ve known some people to try to go around whatever problem there might be – most of the time not knowing what the problem is. What tends to happen is that they turn into a kiss-ass. In order to gain new found favor with their boss, they engage in a sickly-sweet charm offensive. You have probably seen other people do this too… or maybe even engaged in it yourself. The effect is often successful, but temporary. When two people don’t deal with their problems (just like in marriage I guess) then any phase of reconciliation is cut short when the problem re-surfaces. And when you don’t know what that problem is, then you’re doomed to repeat it.

So here’s the deal: you’ve got to deal with the source of the bad blood between you and your boss directly.

Don't Give Up!

What If You Don’t Know the Source of the Problem?

What I’ve discovered is that I was most effective when I opened up the discussion with a question about the relationship. It’s about getting on the front foot by creating an opportunity for your boss to provide some feedback. I would ask something like “I’ve noticed that we haven’t agreed on things lately; am I letting you down in any way?” This question isn’t a confession, or an admission of guilt – it’s an avenue for your boss to open up to discuss the problem. This may be the magical question that brings out the source of the problem.

Failing that, I’ve also learned that an outright confrontation works too – but not an aggressive one. If I’ve had problems with my boss that I couldn’t fathom, I have found an opportunity to make an approach on neutral ground, such as the car park or cafe, and state that I have sensed a problem and that I would like to work it out.

Sometimes, this process takes a while. You see, in uncomfortable situations, people often lie. They lie to get out of the situation. Don’t take this personally, but don’t give up too.

So what you might find is that you only discover a part of the problem, or a symptom of the problem. What this means is that you will have to rectify the disclosed issue first (and prove you are serious about rectifying the relationship with your boss) and keep working at the relationship until all the problems have been heard.

The last resort concerns the fact that your boss has a duty to you to provide you with feedback on your performance and treat you fairly as they do their other subordinates. Not only is this a typical organizational policy, but in most countries it is law.

If you notice that your bosses actions look unfair, then you should ask why you were treated unfairly. This is a right you can be expected to exercise, and you should also expect to be given a straight answer

If you’re still not satisfied, then the only way forward is to approach your HR department, or if your organization doesn’t have a HR department, approach your bosses superior and explain the steps you have taken so far to attempt a reconciliation.

When You Know What the Problem Is…

This is a great situation to be in. The ball is in your court, and you should have a specific action to complete or behavior/personal trait you need to change.

The best approach is to take action, without delay. Your response demonstrates how serious you take the rectification. Slouching now will look bad on you, and possibly confirm to your boss why he/she developed bad feelings towards you in the first place.

Next important step is to provide regular updates to rectification activities, in person if you can. If the problem is behavioral then you will need to ask for feedback on the behavior. This is a good excuse to continue building your relationship. Don’t get defensive if the feedback doesn’t tell you that the problem has completely gone, but rather ask for advice on how to continue with the change.

If the source of the problem is personal then this is less straight forward. I once knew a guy who had major body-odor. Bluntly, he stank. His boss really didn’t like this, and made it personal. The relationship turned very sour… but his boss didn’t tell him what irked him because it was embarrassing. Eventually, the truth came out. The smelly guy did change his personal hygiene and the source of the problem went away.

History, and Baggage

I’ve mentioned so far that in order to reconcile with your boss, you need to lose your baggage. Once you’ve turned the corner and you’re dealing with the problems, this needs to persevere.

Truth is, you won’t really lose the baggage. Neither will your boss. The road to reconciliation is a long one, especially if nasty things were said or done before – folk don’t forget that.

Take the example above – the smelly chap – he didn’t just get over that. His experience was painfully embarrassing, and it took a while for him to get over that. Equally, the experience was painful for his boss. His boss wasn’t proud that he discriminated his smelly subordinate, and was also embarrassed by his behaviors. This wasn’t forgotten overnight.

Don't Pick the Scab! Let it Heal!

Those initial days and weeks will be awkward, as you and your boss try to forget (and fail in the early days). It’s much like a scab on your skin: it’s easily opened up and it takes real guts and determination not to pick at it, no matter how frickin’ itchy it is.

Remember These Things…

• Unless you initiate a discussion to learn what the source of the problem is, then you won’t resolve it. This is where the open-mind comes in – get the conversation going with your boss without carrying any emotional baggage with you, and don’t assume anything. The early days of this process is shaky, and both you and your boss can easily read the wrong thing from what’s said.
• You’ll also be hearing the voices in your head and applying listening filters to the conversations with your boss. Most people want to hear the worst, because it confirms what they already knew and tells them ‘they were right’. It takes courage, but switch those voices off!
• When you’re getting the feedback from your boss, don’t be defensive! If you start defending your position on problems of the past, you’ll close down the conversation. Even if you believe your boss to be wrong, don’t fight back or you won’t rectify the situation.
• Avoid caffeine and nicotine before the conversations with your boss. Being hyper-stimulated isn’t going to help. If you’re buzzing, you’ll appear nervous or distracted.
• Don’t use email. Period. Email is not an appropriate communication channel for dealing with relationship problems. Using the phone is OK, but discussing matters in person always works far better because it lets your body language communicate your desire to resolve the problem.
• When approaching your boss to talk, do it with a non-aggressive stance and don’t invade personal space – this is particularly important if you are tall (like myself, I am 6′4″).
• When faced with being forced to deal with problems that are painful, people can sometimes run for cover. So it’s got to be done at a pace that is not threatening or too painful – and this applies to you AND your boss.

Have You Had a Bad Relationship With Your Boss?

What was your story, and how did you rectify the situaiton? Have you got wisdom to share with us?

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

It’s amazing how many people can’t describe their achievements in order to maximize its impact. Whether its in a resume or in a job interview, your ability to describe your achievements is a critical factor for success.

So many people underplay their achievements! Question is, do YOU?

Are you submitting your resume for that job you want, or even need? Or perhaps you’re preparing for an interview? What about setting up your profile in LinkedIn to search the hidden job market?

When you finally get the opportunity to talk about what you have achieved, it’s an opportunity you won’t want to waste. I’ve pulled together 7 keys to guide you on describing your achievements for maximum impact.

1. Clarify Your Involvement in the Achievement: Use powerful words that describe your contribution. For example, ‘created’, ‘reorganized’ or ‘established’. Passive statements like ‘did’, ‘performed’ or ‘was involved in’ don’t indicate your level of involvement – they’re worthless, so don’t use them.

2. Describe a Start, Middle and End: mention the starting conditions, such as ‘poor performance’, ‘high costs’, ‘unpalatable risk’, and follow with a statement on what you made happen (the project, change initiative, etc), and cap it off with the result – was the desired outcome achieved?

3. Quantify the Achievement: use numbers and hard measures where you can. For example, say ’saved $50,000′ rather than ’saved operating costs’. The more specific you are, the greater the value of your statement of achievement. In almost all cases, a percentage value has a higher-impact than an absolute number. In some cases, what might look like a minor achievement, when quantified, it could be a major achievement as perceived by others.

4. Don’t Forget Over-Achievement!: If you set out to save $50,000, but instead saved $60,000, then make sure this is known. So many people forget to do this.

5. Indicate Your Personal Award: Some achievements warrant special reward, so mention them. If you were promoted, or awarded a bonus, then add it into your statement of achievement.

6. Include details of challenging circumstances: If the achievement was tough due to business events or conditions, then make sure you say what they were. It’s important to describe any challenges you faced. For example, if there were many layoffs in your organization whilst you were tasked with improving team morale, then make these conditions clear.

7. State the Effect of the Achievement, 360-degree style: Describe the achievement not just from your own perspective; also describe what it meant for your colleagues, subordinates, management and customers (where appropriate.) Don’t forget to quantify the effect for each of these groups of people too.

How Do You Describe Your Achievements?

Have you an effective or unusual way of describing your achievements? Then share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

A leader has five sources of power, and each has it’s place. Use of power in the wrong way often means that a leader loses their followers. How should the balance be struck?

How often do you tell, and when do you sell? A leader with authority has the option to do both, but each is a path with widely different consequences.

When we tell (instruct using Positional Power), we give an instruction that must be followed without question. Followers are not consulted, but specifically directed without giving them their own opinion on how to achieve the desired outcome. The advantage of this path is that the desired outcome tends to happen quickly. The downside of this tactic is that it often undermines followers and disengenders them. What often follows, a little later, is a reduction in respect and loyalty.

When we sell (persuade using Personal Power), however, we give followers a choice. They’re not required to achieve an outcome in the manner we suggest, but make their own mind up. The advantage of this path is that the relationship between leader and follower is enhanced – trust and respect grows. Followers gain a learning experience. The downside of this tactic is that it often takes too long for the desired outcome to realize, and sometimes the result is total failure.

It’s a fine line to tread – a leader must use either tactic. It requires experience, judgment and insight. I believe there is a rule of thumb to employ which can guide us in which path to take:

If a leader’s assessment of followers is such that followers are not motivated enough to achieve the desired outcome by themselves, they must TELL (instruct). If followers are motivated to achieve the result off their own bat, then they must SELL (persuade).

In a nutshell, to make the best decision on what basis of power to employ, we must assess if the short-term goal is more important than a dip in our followers’ confidence and motivation, and our own position of influence.

Need to know more?

Check out this great paper available on HBS Working Knowledge – Authority versus Persuasion.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Could the ‘bartering economy’ help your freelance business? Thousands of businesses think so. It could save you shed loads of money and build new business relationships too.

The bartering economy is the oldest form of economy around. Before coins and banknotes appeared, bartering was the only way you could get food (if you weren’t a farmer), clothing (if you didn’t know how to sew or tan leather) or exotic fruit (if you didn’t live in the tropics).

When I started school, my mom would give me potato chips to take as a mid-morning snack. Not satisfied with the usual flavors, me and my buddies would often swap chips. Some kids were lucky and had rich parents – they were the ones with the real tasty flavors and the more prestige brands (like Monster Munch, pickled onion flavor.) So I would have to swap 2 chips for one of those. It seemed a fair trade!

I was bartering with the other kids. I’d joined a microcosm of a bartering economy that specialized in potato chips.

Later in life, I bartered other stuff – often the crap presents I’d received after a birthday or Christmas. In my professional life, I have bartered too. I’ve often done work for a local business in exchange for beer, or a service of their own. Currently, I am building a website (I did that once!) for a neighbour who is an architect, and he is going to design my new garage.

What’s great about it is that no money changes hands, and no taxes are levied. It’s a real cheap way for me to have my bespoke garage designed by an architect, and of course he gets a great website built by someone who hasn’t used notepad in 10 years…

Personal Bartering

The point is, bartering creates one of those unique outcomes – a win:win. If you have read my article on freelancer negotiation, I don’t believe in win:win outcomes where money is exchanged. But when bartering, there is much less need to go for the jugular – it’s a friendly agreement that doesn’t find its way onto the books.

I think all freelancers can benefit from bartering. Freelancers are specialists, and with that comes a high price, and ultimately, high taxation. When two buddies exchange services, why should you always assume the IRS should have their slice of the action?

Before I go on, I should point out that the legalities of bartering and associated tax differ from country to country, but in most, business bartering is STILL taxable, and still represents a cash value. When done between businesses, bartering isn’t a way to avoid tax. The kind of bartering I am referring to is a personal exchange of services between people who have formed a relationship outside business. Luckily for freelancers, these kinds of relationships are very common.

A great consequence of bartering is that the whole process is based heavily on trust, and if that trust is honored then what results is a strong relationship. (Maybe your buddy might even refer you to their peers and their own customers…?)

If you have a buddy who is a freelancer that you could exchange services with, why not ask?

A word of caution – I advise speaking to your accountant before you barter. There may be some consequences, especially if you use raw materials in the process. Those materials have to be accounted somewhere, and they would appear as a loss on your books.

Bartering between buddies is strictly an off-the-books affair, and is complementary to business rather than a replacement. Avoid turning a personal exchange into a business exchange and it could save you serious money if done right!

Business Bartering

As I mentioned above, business bartering is different. When goods are bartered, it has a cash value that tax must be levied against. Both sides of the exchange have to pay it. So an exchange of goods worth $50 counts as a $50 sale, and a $50 expense.

There are advantages for the freelancer who barters in a business relationship. Because (most of the time) no money really changes hands, both sides of the exchange value their services at the same price point. So why not agree a low price point to lower your tax liability? Nobody, especially the tax man, can tell you how to price your goods (assuming no loss is made when viewed as the cash equivalent).

Sometimes the value of the exchange isn’t always initially the same, just ike my school-day example of the premier brands of chips. What then? In these cases, something called a ‘Boot’ is added to equalize the value of the exchange. Say you’re designing a logo in exchange for a TV, and you don’t think the TV is worth enough for your time. You’d ask for a Boot; it could be a wall bracket to hang your new TV on, or simply some cash.

If you’re considering using business bartering, I strongly urge you to speak to your accountant about it and check out the legailities and how it will affect your tax.

Bartering is Best When…

Bartering comes into its own when you have over-capacity or you’re over-supplied. In other words, it’s a very efficient way of exchanging surplus for value. As a freelancer in a knowledge economy, the thing you might have most surplus of is time. If you’re not fully-utilized, then that spare time goes to waste and returns no real value to you. So if you can exchange it for something of real value, it makes total business sense.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Did you know you can use Twitter to find a job now? Thousands of job postings are entering the twittersphere, if you know where to look and who to follow.

If you haven’t discovered it yet, there is a great service that specializes on this channel – it’s called JobShouts.com and it’s free to join. Job postings are streamed onto their Twitter feed. I think it’s a cool application of the technology.

There is a downside. In this sense, Twitter’s strength is its weakness; job postingd must fall within the 140 character limit. As Peter Gold says on his blog Hire Strategies:

I did a quick search on a big job board for a few jobs and still find that the job advert content is as dull as ever. I’m not sure if the job boards should limit the amount of characters similar to the way Twitter does so that content would need to be VERY focused on the key message. Or are job adverts never going to change?

Because this limit means that less information is shared, you (perhaps) have to drill into many postings before you find something of interest.
JobShouts.com is a good intermediate application as links go through to their site to give you the extra detail. They also provide an RSS feed, if that’s your bag.

You could also try the JobGuerrilla Job Search site which gives you job vacancies in your local area, as well as nationwide – and that’s true for the US, Canada, UK and Germany.

Have You Found a Job Using Twitter?

Share your success story and tell us how you discovered your job using this emerging channel – provide encouragement to others!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Does planning salary increases in your department gives you a headache? This isn’t a straightforward process as salary caps (especially now) are putting pressure on fairness and agreements we might have made with staff.

When you have only a small pool of extra cash to divvie up between staff, I often feel that I am letting someone down! I can’t remember a single occasion when I have had more funds to give the deserved increases than I needed. Have you?

Well, I don’t think this emotional strife is easy to overcome – it seems inevitable. But I have found a tool that provides a template that helps us manage the data and arrive at the fairest spread of increases possible.

I found it in an IT Business Edge newsletter I received, which I share with you: click here to access the template.

Do You Use Templates Like These?

Tell us how you get on with using templates like this. Share your experience!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

We all want enjoyable, lucrative and progressive work, right? So how should we go about finding that kind of work?

You know, I admire people who take a job and then leave shortly afterwards because the job turns out to be way different from the one they applied for. It’s a huge risk, but if a job is going to make one miserable, or to a disadvantage, why continue with it? Journeymen can pay a huge penalty for this behaviour – if they repeatedly move from job to job until they find a sweet-spot then they ultimately find getting any job difficult. What’s needed is a tried and tested method of finding a great job before one even enters the workplace, without wasting the time and cost of enduring long recruitment processes. Both employees and employers welcome such a thing, right?

It’s the advent of Web2.0 tools that now makes such a thing possible.

Have you heard of the ‘hidden job market’? It’s exactly as it sounds – jobs that aren’t advertised. This is because they don’t exist yet, or are in the formative stages of being defined. It’s the people who can search this market who are in the position to influence the shape of jobs to their own needs and desires. In other words, they help create their dream jobs, rather than walk into a job that has been defined by someone else.

Web2.0 tools enable us to search this hidden job market by building relationships with potential employers and identifying job opportunities as they emerge. It’s a matter of getting yourself on their radar and building trust and credibility upfront. Business networking sites such as LinkedIn provides us all with the facilities to connect, engage and nurture a relationship with people within organizations that we want to work in, and it’s scalable and repeatable. Never before was such a thing possible at this magnitude.

Once relationships have been initiated, it’s now possible to provide demonstrable evidence of your potential by building authority in your subject area, using the Web2.0 tools. For example, LinkedIn Answers is a great platform for showing others your dominance of your subject, and be recognized for it.

There is a catch: the Web2.0 world means that we have less and less time to spend on relationships, so the process of finding great jobs needs to be optimized to avoid wasting your time and that of potential employers. You need to be sharp, direct and add value. Nobody likes to have their time wasted.

There is a solution to this catch. You can find a ‘best-practice’ for optimizing your search of the hidden job market, building relationships and gaining sponsorship. JobGuerrilla is a special report which shows you the seven stages you will go through to optimize this process and how to approach the recruitment process, once it begins.

JobGuerrilla is a method that effectively gains you access to your choice of employers using free Web2.0 tools and less than 10 bucks to gain quality leads through specialized personal marketing. This really is the new model for job hunting – one which turns the world of recruitment upside down, and to your advantage.

This isn’t just a PDF to read either – JobGuerrilla is supported by personal coaching of your ‘campaign’ so you’ll enjoy the benefit of experience too.

The thing is, so much time can be wasted finding that dream job. I prefer to cut to the chase and get it right first time. If you’re like me then I recommend you try JobGuerrilla and learn how to do just that (and preferably before someone else does).

Here is the link to JobGuerrilla: http://jobguerrilla.com

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

You can now search from thousands of job vacancies in your country, state, city or even zip code with a new job search site: JobGuerrilla Job Search . You’ll find many thousands of employers currently hiring in the US, Canada, UK and Germany.

It’s easy to find jobs in your local area using keywords specified by you – e.g. ‘Project Manager’ or ‘Java Developer’. It’s free to use too.

What I like about this service is that it looks just like Google, so you can search and navigate with a familiar interface. The other thing is that there are jobs posted from across all industry sectors and all job types, including freelance posistions.

http://jobguerrilla.com/jobsearch.htm

Use it, and Tell Us!

I’d like to know how this service works for you! Try this job search site and out tell us about your experience… did you find jobs that you’ll apply for?

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Do you know how to distinguish between job ads/offers that will bring you genuine income from those run by sheisters who will take what little cash you have left off you? Here are some tips to help you. In touch economic times where unemployment is on the rise, there grows ever more desperate people to earn an income to keep themselves and their families in food and shoes, and with them, comes unscrupulous blockheads that try to rip them off. Actually, they’re not blockheads at all. Most of the scams that prey on desperate people are run by intelligent, creative people who have chosen the dark side of the force.

If I can help just one person avoid being ripped off, this article serves its purpose.

Most of the common scams you’ll find on the web today involve an offer of work with high pay, yet you need no skills or experience to do the work. Work like that is typically one of two types:

1. Work that no rational person would ever do – dangerous, unethical or distasteful jobs like a naked janitor in a high-security jail, or a food taster for Osama bin Laden.
2. Work that isn’t work, just a reason to get money from you – the job is fake and offered to get some upfront cash from you

OK – I assume that you would spot which jobs fall into category 1, yes!

Jobs in category 2 are often just as easy to identifiy too. As I said, these jobs are often listed as lucrative, but you don’t need experience and skills, and you can work from home. Sounds great, huh? But these ‘jobs’ come to you with a ‘registration fee’ or some kind of upfront payment. It’s this money that the scammers want from you.

Some of these jobs, instead, require you to buy raw materials from the scammers to produce a physical product and then sell back to them. Great! But of course, their ‘quality control’ rejects your product, no matter how great it is.

You might have seen some ‘data entry’ jobs advertised. These are a scam too. The offers are designed to get you to impart some cash, and the work doesn’t materialize… well the cash certainly doesn’t. The same goes for the jobs where ‘all you have to do is post links on Google ‘.

There is a ‘filter’ I want you to develop in your mind, and it looks like this:

Why sell to us when they can keep the money for themself?

If the ’systems’ and ‘jobs’ that so many people are telling us about (and they want us to buy the information to learn how), are so lucrative (those that say you can earn $45,067 in less than 5 days) then why don’t they keep them quiet and use them just for themself?

These people are not community-sprited and small-time philanthropists. That’s for sure!

If you’re still not convinced, maybe some simplified economic theory might help explain it.

Economic Theory: Perfect Competition

In economics, there is a theory called ‘Perfect Competition’ which I will explain by discussing carrot farmers. (Yes, carrot farmers) The thing about carrots is that there is very little to differentiate the carrots from one farmer to the next. A carrot, is well, a carrot. Not just that, but the practices used by one carrot farmer and the next are pretty much alike too. And then the raw materials are the same – carrot seeds, muck, water, sunshine and maybe some way of getting rid of the bugs.

So from any carrot farmer, you would expect the same product, the same farming practices, and the same raw materials. Once you know this, anyone can become a carrot farmer. The barrier to entry is just making sure you can get this stuff and some land to grow the carrots in. Supply will always outstrip supply, unless there is some kind of major disaster.

If one farmer decided to hike his price up, then he wouldn’t last long. Because the market (carrot eaters) can get carrots from other farmers at a lower price, then nobody would buy at his price.

This is perfect competition. No farmer can distinguish their product to allow a rise in price. The cost of a carrot will be very little above the production costs.

You might be wondering where I am going with this. Well here goes…

In the jobs where skills and experience are not required (just like the scammers say) then many, many people can provide the labor. The raw materials (your time, maybe a PC with an internet connection and some electricity) are available to most people too. Everyone, to draw a parallel, can grow these carrots. There is a massive labor pool willing and able to do these jobs. So…

… why would they pay so much? Surely they would pay just to cover your costs and a little bit more? If it was a genuine job, then they would pay little, and be honest about it. Because the ‘employer’ could gain such a massive labor force then they wouldn’t need to pay much at all. There is perfect competition for the jobs.

But they tell you that you can earn mega-bucks, don’t they?!

So walk away. It’s a scam. Leave well alone. Look for that janitor or food-taster job instead.

As Rachel Zupek quotes on the CNN Living blog :  if it seems too good to be true, it probably is .

Have You Been Scammed?

Have YOU become a victim of one of these scams? How did you feel about it when you found out? Please share your story and help other people avoid them.

Stay Tuned…

I’ll soon be discussing the things you can do that are genuine ways of supplementing your income. Subscribe to my RSS feed to find out when!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

The route to success is often a tough one that involves hard work and sacrifice. I’ve proposed two general paths to wealth (a form of success) – guru, or entrepreneur. Both routes, as does all form of success, are built on mastering something. Mediocrity does not have a home here.

What does ‘Mastering’ mean?

Simple definition: you become the best you can possibly be in a skill or subject. Add to that: you are recognized for being the authority in it. Being a ‘Master’ (in the genderless context) means that you are known and valued for whatever you have become truly expert in.

Being a Master is relative, though. You don’t need to be the world’s #1 in trigonometry to be a Master in it. You’re a Master when there is little competition in your organizational context, and you are capable of delivering to the full requirements of the role. All successful organizations have a Master of Marketing, as indeed a Master of replenishing the vending machines.

Why is this critical for success?

If a colleague, leader, executive or indeed a follower or subordinate can go to someone else for better advice, service or knowledge, then they won’t go to you. That about sums it up. You may be given an opportunity to contribute to whatever is happening, but you won’t be recognized or rewarded as the person who made it happen.

The Master is the point person in a situation, and commands the resources (people, money, tools,etc) to create the desired outcome. Applying resources and observing their effect (with the full context of the situation known) aids learning, develops knowledge and becomes more confident – the Master becomes more Masterful.

As a Master, you’ve always a lot to learn

Masters are not the final product. They never will be, and that’s what makes them a Master in the first place. No, I haven’t gone crazy. Here’s what I mean. As a Master, you have such an acute awareness of what can be improved, developed and enhanced in your subject: there is still much to know. Do you think a Master brain surgeon has no ideas on what they can do to improve the practice of brain surgery, and their contribution to it? No. Of course they don’t.

A Master innovates and pushes boundaries, and this is what creates massive value, and therefore success, wealth, recognition, an abundance of sexual partners… whatever your poison.

You only need to Master ONE thing

Just one! You might have other interests you desire to develop and spend time doing, and you might even master those too. But all you need is just ONE thing that you’re the Master in, and your path to success is laid before you.

Stop spreading yourself so thin!

If you’re having to do many different things on many fronts, chances are you’re not developing your skills, knowledge and authority in a narrow-band. Hey! You’re a Jack-of-all-trades-master-at-none! Guess what? You’ve slipped into the domain of mediocrity without knowing it. You’re easily replaceable once the work dies down a bit.

You don’t want that do you?

It is impossible to develop future success this way: the value you add when working like that is temporary and subjective. This happens to the greatest of masters at times, but it isn’t their modus operandi.

Just for clarification…

Let me be clear that it is common and often desired to support and enable a public figurehead who appears to be the ‘go-to’ guy for something, yet you’re the one that really makes things happen. Is this success? Or are you a chump that is too afraid of the limelight?

This IS a successful tactic: in these situations, a figurehead has dependence on you, and should therefore pass on much of the fruits of success (if they didn’t, I guess you would walk), yet you don’t have to suffer the rollercoaster of being in the public eye.

Success, and how you measure it, is entirely down to how you define it. Only you’ll need to Master ONE thing to get there.

Are You a Master?

Have YOU mastered something? What has it meant to your career success? Share YOUR story!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Do you know what the unemployment rate is in your State? Here are the results of current research. It could reveal to you the extent of the challenge you’re facing in your job search.

I found a revealing article on blog Applicant.com which shares the current employment rates across US States.

The range is between 4% to 12.9%, with Michigan being suffering the worst rate of unemployment and North Dakota enjoying the least unemployment.

If you’re statistically minded, you’ll also spot in these numbers that Oregon has suffered the worst jump in unemployment since 2008 to 12%, up 6.4% from last year.

Are YOU one of these statistics?

Have you found yourself to be one of these numbers? How does it make you feel, and what are you doing to become more than a number? Tell us YOUR story…

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

The Recession has created massive competition for the fewer jobs that become available, and it’s graduates that are paying the price. Lack of experience in industry seems like an obvious reason why graduates are not offered job placements, but surprisingly, this is not the primary reason (according to a survey of 200 recruiting managers in the US, UK and South Africa).

I recently polled 200 recruiting managers for their opinions on why graduates don’t get jobs. I was amazed at the results – as you will be. Lack of experience IS NOT the main reason. Here are the TOP 5 reasons why:

1. Anti-social tendencies – according to the poll, anti-social tendency is one of the top 5 reasons why employers are not giving graduates a start to their career. One recruiting manager, ‘Big’ George Papadopoulos in London, UK, said that “… when I get a bunch of graduates together, it is often like being on the set of Jackass .” The opinion is that graduates have been so used to living without the constraints of organizational standards that their behaviors often conflict with corporate norms. This is a big risk for recruiting managers, and they would rather stay away. It wasn’t just behaviors; many respondents cited problems with dress standards, even in the more ‘liberal’ of organizations. Some mentioned ‘highly  inappropriate t-shirts’ and ’shocking hairstyles’.

   What can be done? If you are a graduate currently struggling to gain employment, is it possible that you exhibit anti-social tendencies that might offend others? In a world of free-speech and liberal attitudes (for the most part) changing yourself to ‘conform’ might seem a backwards step but I wonder if trialling changes as an experiment would pay off? This is a personal thing, but take note what recruiting managers are saying.
   

2. New-skool vs old-skool – over 50% of recruting managers polled described situations where graduates could not integrate well into environments that could be described as ‘behind the times’ in some areas. In other words, those organizations who were not at the leading-edge of technology adoption, e.g. in the use of social networking. It was said by several respondents that ‘digital natives’ face big challenges when working inside an organization that is not as technically dynamic as that in their university.

   What can be done? If you’re a student who takes current technology trends for granted, then it’s possible that you will face organizations who haven’t caught up yet. This is the reality of the business world. In these instances, I think you have a choice whether to wait and find an organization that does use digital technology in their core business, or join a lagging organization and use your influence and experiences to help them move on and adopt, at a risk to yourself that they will always be behind the times. This  is your choice.

3. Your mobility -  I was somewhat surprised by this one. Over 30% of respondents said that in these times, training and development budgets must yield the greatest value to their organizations. This should have always been the case, but in tought times,training budgets have been severely cut. The result: employers are reluctant to train and develop graduates who become increasingly mobile towards other employment. It’s a case of confidence (or lack of ) in graduates’ commitment.

   What can be done? If you’re a graduate who has dreams of hitting the big-time, then beware of the signals you may be giving away during your interviews. Employers want to see commitment for their training investment. You need to demonstrate that you are fully committed to your potential employer (in the mid-term at least) to avoid a rebuff.

4. Communication – the ‘language of youth’ has always been a step apart from that of the older generation. When this language is used in interviews, it often leads to confusion! It’s a simple fact that recruiters struggle to understand graduates who use this language. Marion, an IT recruitment manager in Fresno, CA, described a situation like this: “In an interview once, a graduate talked with such slang that I had to frequently ask for clarification about what was said, even on the simple stuff. It took me over 10 minutes to understand what subjects the graduate had studied. In an organization, this kind of language creates major communication gaps and would be entirely disfunctional. ‘

   What can be done? Perhaps a simple one to fix (perhaps not, but it’s something that can be learned). In interviews, use language that is simple and slang-free. The oldies won’t understand you otherwise. (OK, this maybe their problem in fact, but it’s your livelihood and future prospects you are putting on the line if you don’t!)

5. Commitment to yourself – this is perhaps a tough one where there is no easy solution. Respondents with many years of experience in employing graduates told of their stories where they had secured hot young recruits who could really hit the big time, only for the recruits to leave shortly afterwards once they realized the industry ‘wasn’t for them’. Truth is, many people turn away from the industry that they have studied in once they realize that it wasn’t what they expected. This was a problem in the 80s and 90s when IT graduates entered an industry that had moved on from the subjects they studied. There were not graduate courses on the Internet at that time.

   What can be done? My take on this is that this is the right thing to do. If you’re a graduate disengendered by the industry you had passion for as a student, then you’re much better to move on than prolong your misery. If you haven’t yet begun your career in your chosen subject, then I recommend that you take an internship to gain experience and learn about the industry to see if it suits you, or connect and network with people who are already working in the industry to learn what it is really like.

Heart-Break!

So many grads dreams have been shattered when they discovered that the employment opportunities they expected to come to THEM haven’t appeared. If jobs do materialize, they’re often the jobs that any Tom, Dick or Harriet can walk in off the street and begin. It is a heart-break!

I’ve found this really great book called College Grad Job Hunter: Insider Techniques and Tactics for Finding A Top-Paying Entry-level Job which is an expert guide on starting your career with the job you expected to land, before you graduated. It’s over 300 pages, and it’s jam-packed with the kind of advice I think adds value – not just the stuff you can view for free in blogs. The ‘insider techniques’ focus on building your resume, your job search and interviewing, and it’s all in-depth and throughly laid out.

Are YOU a Graduate Struggling to Find Employment?

Do you recognize any of these observations in yourself? Or maybe you don’t, and you’re STILL struggling to get that first job of your career. Leave a comment to tell us about YOUR story…

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

What are the 12 most stupidest gaffes a network manager can make? More to the point, have you made one, or experienced one yourself? See if you recognize any of these clangers?

Data-security breaches are front-page news items now, and any company that finds their name on there is going to suffer. CIOs won’t tolerate their name emblazoned on these news stories – especially when the accountability lies on the head of the Network Manager. Here are twelve common, totally dumb mistakes that Network Managers should really know better than to allow on their systems.

The first ten of these mistakes I found on a great article by Carolyn Duffy Marsan on CIO.COM which is the result of research recently completed and published by Verizon , based from 285 Million compromised records.

Yes, that’s 285,000,000 compromised records . Wow.

I added another essential two (11 & 12) which I didn’t see in the original list, but I have to include them as these are equally disastrous based on my own experience.

1. Not changing the default passwords on all network devices – it’s gob-smacking that many devices are installed onto networks without having their admin passwords changed. Maybe vendors should not build in default passwords? Rather they, should should be setup as a mandatory installation activity, and won’t function until set?
2. Sharing a password across multiple network devices – this is just like the above, although the ‘default’ is that used across and within the organization. It’s used for convenience, but once a technician or hacker gets access to one device, then heck, they’ve got access to them all!
3. Failing to find SQL coding errors – the dreaded ‘SQL injection ‘ is the most common vulnerability where SQL code allows hackers to run their own queries on your database. Thing is, this is a long-known issue with well documented solutions. It’s unthinkable to leave your SQL database open to such attacks, but it is still prevalent. Any network manager who doesn’t close them down should be shot.
4. Misconfiguring your access control lists – often the result of lazy or inexperienced engineering. Network equipment should only be allowed to talk to each other if there is a business reason to do so.
5. Allowing nonsecure remote access and management software – in this age, nonsecure access is suicide!
6. Failing to test noncritical applications for basic vulnerabilities – your security is only as strong as the weakest component on the network. A lot of focus is placed on making the public-facing application, such as web, bullet-proof, but less attention is given to the noncritical applications. But in an inter-networked environment, any vulnerability will be exploited at some point. Network managers must insist that ALL components are tested for vulnerabilities, not just the critical ones. If the money-men don’t like it, then remind them about the cost of failure!
7. Not adequately protecting your servers from malware – intrusion-detection systems should run on all servers, not just those that contain data. Malware is smart, and often undetectable by anti-virus software.
8. Failing to configure your routers to prohibit unwanted outbound traffic – most of the attention is placed on preventing unwanted inbound traffic, but what about filtering outbound traffic ? If malware finds its way onto one of your servers, it can begin sending all sorts of traffic to harm your infrastructure, unless you prevent it. A mail server should send just mail traffic. So allow it only to do this.
9. Not knowing where credit card or other critical customer data is stored – if your data is spread across your network, and you don’t know exactly where, then you’re in for trouble. If you can’t locate the data, you can’t protect it!
10. Not following the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards – if you’re the ’standards-shmandards’ type, then you’re putting yourself at risk. Nobody has lossed their job for following standards (well, the right one, anyway). These standards exist because they are best practice. Why take an unecessary risk by ignoring them?
11. Not accounting for the human-factors - rigorous security measures often mean that your people have to do more to work with them, often at their inconvenience. Frequent password changes, for example, means that people must remember what their new password is. So what happens? People write them down, or do something equally as dumb. Remember, too much rigor too quickly can mean that people don’t cope with it and totally destroy your efforts by creating different vulnerabilities like this.
12. Assuming the threat is restricted to sources outside of your network boundary - especially when it’s been long-known that most hacks are done from the inside . Almost all human endeavor is based on trust, somewhere along the line, but too much trust in your people means too much risk. Smart network managers apply as much focus on internal security measures as they do on the external environment.

Made Any of These Mistakes?

If you have made any of these mistakes, how did you feel about it, and did you learn to put it right? What were the consequences to you? Share YOUR story…

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

I need your help! Last year I raised over $1,000 for Cancer Research Charities, and this year I’d like to raise more funds.

You see, I became a cancer survivor myself last year – so I am grateful to these charities for all their hard (and often un-noticed) work; please help me help other people survive this disease too by taking just a few moments to write your own review of my blog on Technorati .

For every review written about this blog, I will donate $10 to Cancer Research charities on your behalf.

How To Contribute

It’s quite simple, and takes only a few minutes.

You can add your review by going to this page on the Technorati site: http://technorati.com/blogs/www.simonstapleton.com/wordpress

Add your review into the box (see image right) by typing a title for your review and then your thoughts about my blog in the Body section.

And please don’t forget to choose the Twitter This option too!

If you don’t have a Technorati login then you will be prompted to set one up which takes a matter of seconds.

The Money Raised

I will send the funds raised on the first day of each month to the Association for International Cancer Research (www.aicr.org.uk)

Please Help

Charities suffer big time during recession. Donations to charities are often the first things cut when household income comes under strain. Let me source the funds – all you need to do is write a review!

MANY THANKS in ADVANCE

Simon Stapleton

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Dang It!

The Become a Smart and Effective Freelancer course was due for launch on July 1st… But time ran out for me this month! It’s been a hectic mêlée of juggling several projects on the go so I decided to push the launch of this course out so that I can make sure I don’t rush it and deliver top quality content.

Become a Smart and Effective Freelancer will now launch on August 1st 2009!

The Become a Smart and Effective Freelancer Course Outline

When you complete the objectives of this course, you will have mastered…

• How To Use Learning to Enhance Your Freelance Business and Boost Profits
• How To Enjoy Quality Feedback
• How To Use Feedback to Optimize Your Business for Customer Satisfaction and Increase Profits
• How To Assess New Opportunities and Destroy Threats to Your Freelance Business
• How To Build a Customer-Centric Business Change Strategy

SPECIAL OFFER!

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©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

I recently launched a brand new blog dedicated to your performance review: ‘ACE Your Performance Review‘. Here is are some great articles that will really help you ACE your performance review and become a superstar in your workplace.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

One of the hotly debated topics between freelancer and customer is the issue of rate escalation. Customers don’t want to pay more; they’re savvy enough to know that if you provide services year-on-year, you haven’t been subjected to marketing costs to land the gig. Nevertheless, your costs go up with inflation. What do you do?

If you’re not in the fixed-price project game (rather, you offer your knowledge and expertise as a service) then you’ll know that it is a tough game to increase your price in accordance with your costs. You want to achieve the same profit margin. You may also want to re-price the gig if you low-balled to start with (possibly to prove your capability and lower the risk to your customer). You inevitably have to raise the subject with your customer, and it’s often a nervous occasion that can also be explosive. It’s amazing, though, that 88% of freelancers I surveyed don’t include escalation rates into the pricing of the deal. In other words, the expectation that rates will increase, year-on-year, is never set. So no wonder it goes down like a sack of shit.

Firstly, it’s a Reasonable Request!

Customers should be used to paying escalating fuel bills. Wages go up most years (I say MOST, perhaps not during recession) and business rates (premises tax) go up too. So why should your customer expect you to provide services at the same rate every year? Fascinatingly, they often do. But who can blame them? If they can deter your rate increases, it saves their organization money. So it’s in their interest to use whatever levers they can to deter it (although not always resist it – they still need to buy your services, after all). Such levers might be a play on your relationship, or perhaps a reminder of ‘the prevailing economic conditions’, or maybe even quote some fictitious company policy (I’ve seen it done!) It is a negotiation, through and through. And often a heavy one.

You Might Avoid Such Heavy Negotiations…

The solution is to create that expectation, right up front. This may cause a stir in your customer, and may even put them off somewhat, but it’s much better to be totally transparent about it rather than wait until you stick another contract in front of your customer. Your relationship (I would expect) is to be based on trust, and with trust comes transparency.

And when it’s time to renew a contract, make it clear beforehand that your price is going up. I advise you to make this very explicit when conversations about your contract are under way, perhaps not to the point of obsession, but don’t leave any doubt that rates will be changing. The ‘Business Planning’ process in most companies involves lengthy discussions on budgets, and this process often happens annually around the same time. For one customer, the process begins in July where business plans and budget are set for the following calendar year (the fiscal year). Now, if I was to leave the conversation about rate increases once July is through, then my customer (if they were to accept my increase) will already be set to overspend before the fiscal year even begins!

So to avoid an angry (or reluctant) customer, make sure you a) find out the annual business planning cycle, and b) warn of your (agreed) rate escalation before the process begins.

What escalation rate should you use?

This largely depends on  your industry. The most common rate is the  inflation rate of your currency, but this doesn’t always work. Some industries are very sensitive to price fluctuations in raw materials such as metals and the cost of oil.

Alternatives to inflation may be suitable. Consider, instead, using your country’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) which is the average price increase of retail items such as food, clothing, household fuel bills, etc, which is probably the most appropriate if you work from home.

It’s really something to discuss with your client as your choice has implications for both of you. Inflation and CPI vary at different rates and at different values. In 2009, inflation went to below 1%, although negative inflation (’deflation’) rarely happens due to government intervention. CPI, however, is a more ‘truthful’ view of how costs change, particularly for a freelancer, and can dip below 0% into negative – as indeed it has in 2009. So an escalation rate that mirrors or tracks CPI could mean that you actually lower your rates instead of increasing them.

What if your customer doesn’t like, or agree to, the increase?

Put simply, you have gained a choice. You can choose to not increase your rate and accept lower profit for the next year, or walk away. And your choice is at the right time – not moments before renewal. At least this way you have an opportunity to close the gig off on the right terms and not burn all your bridges. Besides, in about 50% of cases, customers eventually accept your increase before the gig is over because they can’t replace you.

The disasterous alternative is to leave it to last minute to attempt an increase in your rate – and I’ve seen it dozens of times – customers think you’re trying to ‘have them over a barrel’ and respond irrationally… they tell you to piss off.

In Summary…

One thing for sure is if you don’t set the expectation that rates will change as the economic conditions change, it will be a surprise to your customers (whether it’s genuine or an act of pretense). If you avoid the conversation because you fear a backlash, then you’re consigned to the said surprise, or instead you’ll be impacting your profit margin year-on-year as you keep your rates the same.

Only when you’re clear and upfront will you be able to negotiate and engage on the subject. If you don’t know your customer sufficiently well to gauge how they will react, then it really is time you found out!

In recognition of this quandry, I will soon be launching a course designed for freelancers that gives you the method and tools for obtaining and responding to customer conflict and feedback:

Become A Smart and Effective Freelancer

All I can say right now is that this course gives you all you need to engage your customers smarter and build transparency and trust. It will launch in August 2009 to a limited number of freelancers – only 50 places will be available at launch.

Pre-registration will be available soon, so subscribe to my RSS feed and find out when!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

So you want to be a millionaire? Well let me tell you that you won’t be, unless you are clear on your purpose.

We’re all sold dreams of success and wealth – it’s what we’re bombarded with in the media and those annoying emails you get. Truth is, only a small percentage of us become that wealthy. The recession has reminded us that the economy is volatile, and heavily balanced on risk. But still, we’re told that riches are ours if we buy this product or that.

Here is the problem: many people expect to become millionaires overnight without really doing anything. At best, they think that a small burst of effort brings the rewards home. Life ain’t like that! If it was that easy, we’d all be following that path. And if we all follow it (and indeed, we are successful), then the reward will be diluted to the point that it’s worthless.

So who becomes a millionaire? Except those who inherit, or win the lotto, the people who make the big bucks are the people who take risks and apply themself with clarity of purpose . Let me emphasize this: it takes both of those things to be a millionaire.

You can take risks… invest in a startup, take that course, become an expert in XYZ technology… but without clarity of purpose and application, they remain as pure potential that is never realized. Application with clarity of purpose is the way we turn risks into opportunities that pay.

What do I mean by ‘application with clarity of purpose ?’

I mean this: you focus your effort and energy towards a clear goal envisaged by a powerful vision. It’s about knowing why, what and how.

Too many people ‘do stuff’ without really knowing why they’re doing it – they’re automatons without freedom and choice. When we have clarity of purpose, we know why we do stuff, how we do it and what it aims to achieve. And then the real magic comes when our clarity of purpose creates passion !

People without clarity of purpose (and the vision which creates it) will never be millionaires. Instead, they will meander through work and life not knowing why they do what they do.

One of the reasons why clarity of purpose doesn’t materialize is that it takes momentum to build it up. Small failures can create lost confidence and a drop in energy, leaving doubts and confusion. Truth is, most of us give up far too easily. It takes real courage to get back on the bicycle after a fall… but if we didn’t pluck up that courage the bicycle industry would have gone bust decades ago.

Do you give up too easily? Do you let your aspirations to become wealthy wither and die because of a metaphoric graze on the knee? Then I say you lack clarity of purpose.

The other reason why momentum doesn’t build up is because folks don’t play to their strengths. They do jobs because they can, but not necessarily because they’re good at it (or enjoy it). When we don’t use our strengths, we’re destined to repeat failures over and over again – it becomes a prison in our minds – a stagnating place where we don’t grow and develop or take risks. It’s amazing how many people are like this, but perhaps don’t even realize it. It’s only when they take a long look at themselves to identify their strengths do they also identify their passions and desires, and then a vision.

Find out the benefits of playing to your strengths in my Free eBook ‘The 10 Habits of Highly Effective IT Professionals‘ – download it today.

This ain’t the end of this piece. Soon, I want to tell you about how you can get back on track to becoming a millionaire (or whatver you desire) by building clarity of purpose . Find out when by subscribing to my RSS Feed !

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

All organizations have culture. Culture is intangible, and a description of the default behaviors, tendencies and styles of its workforce. Your freelance organization is no different, but what is your ‘culture’?

Many organizations have ’strong’ cultures that set them apart from others. We can look to Dr. Fathi El-Nadi (who writes his article ‘Examples Of Strong Corporate Cultures’ ) for some examples:

• Wal-Mart. Founder Sam Walton’s concern and respect for staff from the foundation of the company creates an environment of trust that persists to this day. Walton met staff, calling them by their first name and encouraged change to maintain the competitive edge. To this day, staff think about “how Sam would have done it”.
• Southwest Airlines. Its relaxed culture can be traced back to unconventional CEO Herb Kelleher, who encourages informality and wants staff to have fun at their jobs. Employees are valued, with Kelleher acknowledging births, marriages and deaths by notes and cards. Staff are encouraged to pitch in and help out, especially at check-in, giving Southwest turnaround times less than half the industry average.
• Hewlett Packard. Problems several years ago encouraged HP to change its culture; staff are required to formulate three personal and three professional goals each year, and are encouraged to cheer those that meet them, such as getting away early to be with family. Two years into the program, HP reports no loss in productivity despite staff working shorter hours and there is an increased staff retention rate. The program has been marked by the extent to which managers bought in, and modeled it in their personal lives.

The first two are examples where the founders have a heavy influence on the culture. Their organizations are created in their image, if you like. The organizations’ cultures reflect the principles, behaviours and style of their leaders. This is true for your ‘organization’ too – your freelance business.

Let’s face it – it’s unlikely that you’re going to create a business that isn’t akin to how you like to behave, and work. Why would you intentionally create a workplace that doesn’t fit you? If you did, you’d be crazy! But have you considered that this is a truism? Does your organization reflect your personality as you see it? More importantly, what do your customers think about your business… and what (in turn) does this say about you?

Laura Spencer (who I think is a great writer at the excellent blog FreelanceFolder.com ) tells us that in her long experience as a freelancer, she has seen 10 different freelancer types that have a strong effect on how business is done.

Laura says:

It can be fun and helpful to examine these freelancing personality types. Often times your freelancing personality type can show what makes you act the way you do as a freelancer.

Laura takes a light-hearted view – this analysis gives us a general view of the effect of personality rather than being a rule – although consider the point I made above: what do your customers see, and then infer about you as a person?

Well I hope to help you answer that question soon so you can understand how your customers view you and your business with the principle benefits being:

• Increased Customer Satisfaction and Engagement
• Increased Profits
• Lower Operating Costs
• Lower Business Risk
• Your Satisfaction and Increased Confidence
• Services Tuned and Optimized for Your Market
• Less Work, More Play

As a freelancer, it’s YOUR personality and behaviors that define, to what extent, how you achieve the above. They’re in YOUR hands! If you don’t know how your customers or associates perceive you, then how will you be effective in realizing them? Only by understanding how the world sees you will you know, and have choices how to respond. In this case, ignorance is NOT bliss…

As I said, it’s in your hands. However, sometimes we don’t know where to start! In recognition of this dilimma, I will soon be launching a course designed for freelancers that gives you the method and tools for obtaining and responding to customer feedback:

Become A Smart and Effective Freelancer

All I can say right now is that this course gives you all you need to realize the benefits above by engaging your customers smarter. It will launch in August 2009 to a limited number of freelancers – only 50 places will be available at launch.

Pre-registration will be available soon, so subscribe to my RSS feed and find out when!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Creating a successful IT freelancer business is not an easy prospect, at least to start with, and the stress of keeping the business moving forward (and doing all the admin tasks) is compounded when you’re not sure when your next invoice will be paid or where your next gig comes from. Does it need to be a brown-trouser moment?

Heck, you got out of corporate-ville for a reason – you want to be in control and probably earn stacks of cash whilst you do, but your penalty is the uncertainty and effort you need to put in, often during unsociable hours.

However, it doesn’t need to be difficult if you follow some basic steps and your common sense which will keep you sane and your head level as a successful IT freelancer.

Be Upfront With Everyone Right From The Start – Be upfront with everyone you associate with (friends, family, customers and associates) that you’re a freelancer and your job is to earn revenue to keep the business moving. Spend as much time as you need to explain that you will focusing on your business, especially when you’re launching it, and that you will be devoting a lot of time to building it up. You’re making a commitment, and you need their support.

It’s important to be crystal clear that your intentions are to build a successful business – not line your pockets or act as a charity. Share your view of timeframes and key events which you are working to, and make sure that people understand that during those key events you won’t have time for anything else.

Keep Your Expenses As Low As You Can – Your income is going to be unpredictable! Some months will be bear with very little coming in, and then some will also feel like bumper months. It’s important to avoid spending too much during those bumper months, as your next one maybe arid! So don’t go and blow cash on a new iPod because your bank balance increased by more than the usual monthly amount.

It take discipline to view income as a long-term benefit and keep your costs low whilst you can predict how the money will be spent or pay your taxes.

Plan To Make Considerably More Than Your Target Income – You’ve got to aim high as in reality it’s rare to earn more money than you expected to. If you need $4,000 per month to cover business expenses and your personal income, then aim much higher – say $10,000. So your sales and prospecting activities need to target $10,000 in order to ensure that when reality bites, you can cover the bills and your income.

When you predict revenues that barely cover your expenses you will inevitably have to lower your expenses or take less income during bare months.

Look For ‘Cross-Sells’– Getting a foot in the door is a prized outcome for salespeople. Making an initial sale often leads to more sales of complimentary or higher value products. Why should you be any different? One you have built a stable relationship with a customer, begin to look for opportunities to cross-sell other services to your client. This could be anything from simply more of what you are currently contracted to delivery (OK, not strictly a cross-sell) to selling in the services of an associate, which you could take a small cut or fee from. Use the fact that you have already sold to your advantage.

Be A Savage Invoicer – As a permie, you wouldn’t take crap from your boss if your salary was late. Would you? So why accept excuses and breaking of your payment terms from your customers? As a freelancer, cashflow is king. You must be totally ruthless in holding your customers to their payment terms and chasing every invoice, even if you have to pay someone to help you do it for a while. Once a customer is allowed to slip once, then they’re much more likely to slip again. [See my other article on chasing invoices here.]

Plan Your Week, Ahead – There is an old proverb ‘He who fails to plan, plans to fail.’ Just because you’re an independent freelancer, it doesn’t mean this won’t apply to you! I’ve found it easier, in fact, to slip on projects if you don’t have a boss supervising you. The result: a disappointed customer, and no repeat business.

It’s a simple remedy: create a weekly schedule of activities where you’ll track your projects, report to customers, create and send invoices, etc. And stick to it! Without the discipline to stay on plan, you’re putting your business at risk.

Another side-effect of being more rigorous in your planning is that you have greater visibility of how much time administration activities take, giving you a choice to a) stay as you are, b) make them more efficient by improving your process or finding tools to help you, or c) outsource them entirely. Having the knowledge gives you the option.

Minimize Loafing – Permies have some leeway in how much non-productive time they can spend. You must have done it, or seen it: it’s the browsing the web during the lunch, or chatting about the game last night to your colleagues. Not all time in the work place is productive. As a freelancer, this time – loafing – is at your cost. Because you won’t be getting paid for it. The occasional ‘five minutes’ can add up to many hours during a week, and it’s these hours that are burnt income. This isn’t the same as taking a break – it’s important to factor in down-time during your day to recharge batteries – this is the wasted time you lose due to being distracted.

It’s much easier to be distracted at home due to your home comforts, TV, and the trappings of hobbies. Just as Drew Douglass says in ‘Mistakes I Made as a Freelance Web Developer and How To Avoid Them’ :

just because we work from home doesn’t mean that we should act like we are at home all the time

You have to monitor what distracts you – is it the TV? The Radio? Your favorite porn-site? Tweet alerts from TweetDeck? Whatever it is, if it’s causing you to loaf then quit it before it costs you dearly!

Choose The Right Projects at the Right Time – Once your business gets off the ground and, with good tidings, customers are coming to you (rather than you chasing work), you will have choices in which projects you do, and when. Often, you will be delivering more than one project at the same time. It’s real important to focus on the right project at the right time. It’s tempting to keep switching between projects on a whim, but the process of switching mode absorbs a lot more time than you might realize and the outcome is reduced productivity. So it’s an absolute must to choose projects that are ‘congruent’, that is, have common aspects that enable you to optimize your delivery. For example, two concurrent projects where one is based on the West Coast, and the other on the East Coast won’t allow you to travel between customer sites often and easily.

Complete and Finish – I am not a natural Completer-Finisher. This puts me at a disadvantage. As a Freelancer, you don’t get paid until the job is done (generally speaking). So not pushing a project to completion and starting another means that you won’t get your invoice honored. I have to really push myself to complete a project so I can get the bill out. Finish… and get paid!

Be Courageous in Calling Out a Bad Project, as a Bad Project – Sometimes, a project doesn’t go to plan. Maybe your customer has changed their minds too often, or you’re not equipped to deliver like you thought you were. Your heart might not be in it. For whatever reason, some projects just don’t happen in the way you expected, and it’s a courageous freelancer who puts a project on hold to rectify the problem.

Here’s the thing – not calling this out hurts you more in the long-run. Why? Well these projects tend to cost you more, they don’t deliver to customer’s requirements, they damage your reputation, they damage your confidence, and they’re NOT FUN. Mustering the courage to call this out in order to correct it is the best thing you can do. Sometimes, you just have to drop the project all together. Or a crisis talk with your customer is an opportunity to make essential changes. Better late, than never.

Do YOU Have Any More Tips?

Have you discovered an essential tip that enabled you to build your freelance business? Share it by telling us YOUR story…

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

In a recent post on CIO.COM , it’s revealed which cities have IT jobs available for you to fill right now. I am not surprised to see that NYC and Washington D.C. are among these cities. Is Your city in the list?

What’s more, this report tells you an estimate of the number of jobs available and the average salaries for IT consultants and developers in these cities.

It’s backed up by data from PayScale . If you haven’t used it yet, PayScale give you free access to their average salary calculator for your role and location. This is a great tool for assessing whether you’re current pay rate is fair, or if you’re considering moving to another city.

You can use PayScale’s right now (US and Canada only) by checking out my article here .

Does this give you a sigh of relief, or compound your worries? Please leave a comment and tell us how you feel about the results of this report.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Leaving the safety and stability of a permanent job is a daunting task. Thousands (like You?) don’t chase their dream of being their own boss every day because they just don’t know how to make that leap of faith and hand in that resignation letter that’s gathering dust in their minds!

The risks are enormous…. well that’s the perception. The thing is, in our minds full of doubt and uncertainty, we can make the problem feel much worse that it really is. But of course, unless you’ve done it before, it’s also difficult to believe that statement! No matter how ready we might feel to actually make a success of a freelance venture, quitting can rarely seem the easier task. Maybe these things are going through your mind…

• I don’t have large SAVINGS account
• I am scared of doing the WRONG thing
• I am scared of FAILING
• I don’t want to end up working harder than I already am
• I don’t have a business that could replace my income
• I am worried about what my family will think if I left my JOB
• I am worried about what my friends will think
• I don’t know what I want to do that I really LOVE

Sound familiar? So what do you do?

Do you:

• Keep your job until some magic event waves away all the fear? No.
• Leap anyway even though you don’t know what you will actually do once you have? No.
• Forget all about it. Maybe this permanent job where I am told what to do isn’t so bad after all. NO!

Here is the Answer…

If you can muster the courage (and save up some money) then the best way forward is to seek help from someone who knows how, and knows all the pitfalls to avoid.

Your leap of faith, like a bungee, needs a safety cord.

Your ’safey cord’ is getting help from an experienced entrepreneur or business coach .

Finding a Business Coach

If you want to improve your golf swing, who do you see? That’s right, a golf coach. If your kid if falling behind on math, what then? Yes, you bring in a math tutor. A Business Coach is someone who has helped people with this challenge many times over .

Your situation is unique, yet a business coach will know how to help you make the leap after only a few sessions. Your business coach will prompt you to discover the real issues behind your uncertainty and provide you with ideas to overcome them. It’s so much easier, and quicker, to deal with these complex problems with someone who has experience.

Business coaches should be easy to find – sometimes as simple as looking in the Yellow Pages, and I also recommend you use your network or social network to find a coach in your local area that comes with recommendations. You could even tweet that you’re looking for a coach – try it!

Business coaches will charge varying rates, from as little as $50 per hour right up to $5,000 per hour ! Obviously, find a coach that you can afford, but don’t necessarily go with the cheapest if you can’t find a recommendation.

An Alternative…

Let me introduce you to something I found recently: ExitMyJob .  Here is where Bryant Jones shows us how to successfully exit from your permanent job and enter the realms of freelancing and entrepreneurialism through soul-searching, careful preparation and skillful execution.

It was not that long ago I was struggling in a JOB I loathed… – Bryant Jones

This isn’t a guide on how to set up your new freelancing business (there is a great one here, so use that one), rather, it is a coaching program that prepares you for the change by helping you examine your dreams and desires, plan how you want to escape permanent, deal with challenges and resistance and build up a team of associates.

It’s not a template for a resignation letter – it’s far more than that! What I like about ExitMyJob is that it guides you through all the stages you will take to do a proper job of exiting the workplace, step-by-step. It does this by making sure that you are ready and able to quit, by taking you through a journey of self-analysis and self-testing. It’s also more than the typical module-based self-study course; with Bryant you will thoroughly engage with him to get right into the psychy of the challenge you face, through 12 live job sessions where . And more than that too – with Bryant you will develop a life plan that takes you beyond the resignation to form a roadmap of your ‘dream life’.

It isn’t cheap. ExitMyJob is priced at $497 (reduced from $1,997) but I think that this is a good price if it delivers its promise to you. Even then, if it doesn’t deliver, you can ask for your money back with the 100% guarantee. So $497 could offer you great value if it means it sets you on the road to be your own boss and enjoy the benefits and lifestyle of a freelancer.

ExitMyJob is perfectly suited to a frustrated permie who has a compelling desire to be a freelancer, but isn’t confident in making the leap.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

I found a great article when I was perusing one of Eric Brown’s latest posts – ‘6 Small Things You Can Do When You Lack Discipline’.

Recession may be making you doubt yourself, or create a drop in motivation, or perhaps you’re feeling unloved by your boss. Or perhaps you’re just overwhelmed and you’re cutting corners. There are many reasons why your discipline drops.

What do you do about it?

Leo Babauta on his blog Zen Habits tells us that there are some small things we can do that can make a big difference (ain’t that true of most problems?)

My favorite of his list is the first one: Forgive Yourself. If you don’t do this then all the other things won’t really make much difference – at least in the short term.

This is what Leo has to say:

Forgive yourself. You aren’t perfect. No one is. Realize that beating yourself up will only make things worse. Take a few slow, deep breaths and let it go. Forgive yourself. And move on.

To be honest, I am not good at this. I am my own worst critic. I set high standards for myself and a lot of time, I fail them. I won’t stop doing this, but I must learn to not be so hard on myself when failures happen. In truth, it takes a while for me to recover!

But one realization I’ve just been through is in fact Leo’s point number 2: Realize that discipline is an illusion. Discipline doesn’t have shape or form, it is a concept of the mind. Because of my high standards, often I don’t see discipline where other people do. So I am not necessarily going to be persecuted by other people if I feel I lack discipline. It’s my problem… nobody else’s!

Check out the rest of Leo’s article here:

http://zenhabits.net/2009/05/6-small-things-you-can-do-when-you-lack-discipline/

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Do you manage expense? Whether you’re a manager, professional or freelancer, if you make decisions that involve spending money then you must ignore sunk costs.

This is the advice from guru Seth Godin.

Seth’s point is an important lesson: no matter what has been spent before, make the right choice going forward. Making decisions that are biased towards sunk costs are irrational.

Let me quote an example from Seth’s article:

You have two pieces of land. One you bought for $1,000,000, one for $10,000. On which one should you develop a gas station?

I know. The one that’s right next to the huge subdivision being put up, not the one next to the condemned shopping center. Does it matter how much the land cost to buy? No. Not at all.

In other words, don’t make a decision to throw good money after bad, but instead make the right decision based on current conditions.

If you’ve spent $10,000,000 on a IT system, and need to spend another $10,000,000 on it, but then a newer, better system comes on the market for only $5,000,000 that does everything you need – what should you do?

You should ditch the old one and go with the new.

Problem is, as human beings we don’t like to think we made bad choices. The guy who chose to spend $10,000,000 on the new system doesn’t want to be shown up. But who cares? Was that decision made with the knowledge that an even newer system would come along for just $5,000,000? Probably not. Making the decision to go with the cheaper system is the right thing to do, and no penalty should go with the choice.

But this is what happens – decision makers *do* throw good money after bad to avoid being exposed as foolish. But the fool is the one who doesn’t do the right thing with currently available information!

In the current economic climate, this is a reckless act of lunacy.

As Seth says: Ignore Sunk Costs.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Setting prices for freelance gigs is not an easy task. I am sure you know what I mean. It’s a dichotomy – you want to earn as much profit as you can, whilst at the same time offering an attractive price that your customer believes offers them value. Somewhere in the middle is the right price… ain’t it?

‘Price’ is a complex combination of real costs, emotional costs, perceived benefits (not always real ones), and expected profit. Unfortunately for us there is no accounting method for determining price based on all of the above factors. It’s also unfortunate for buyers too, so we’re all subjected to the same complex situation.
Existing pricing methods do not cover all the components. Cost-plus pricing could not be used because it deals with accounting cost plus expected profits. Value based pricing is based on the perceived benefits. Performance based pricing deals with outcomes only.

Price can be very subjective – especially around services pricing . For example, the prices for two software developers on a single development project can be very different, but the outcomes could well be the same. The client makes a subjective assessment on what factors they would use to judge rates of the individual programmers. The individuals may find it difficult to justify their rate back to the client.

A traditional approach is to determine your costs (often by intelligent guesswork), negotiate profit hard (without necessarily disclosing your costs) and schmooze the rest over an expensive dinner. It’s a tactic used by both customer and provider. It’s a game of wit and charm, and how great that meal tasted or how fine the wine is. The process is time consuming, costly, and lacks transparency. It assumes that rewards of finery create leverage for negotiation based on the pretext of a ‘good relationship’.

It also assumes that the social, political and economic agendas of both sides are irrelevant!

Schmoozing is not the way to set a price. It’s a risky method and it’s easy to be swept up in the moment. Avoid it!

Many ‘factors’ affect your costs, your profit margin and the good-will you apply in order to set a price. You won’t be sensitive to the same factors to each customer, not will those factors have the same weighting/impact. I can explain this best by giving you some examples:

• Will you set the same price for two customers when one of those customers costs you a lot more to service due to their poor management discipline?
• Would you set the same price for a gig that helped a business who clubbed seals for profit as you would a different gig for a charity that helped people, like your grandmother, pay their heating bills during the winter to survive?
• Or what if you’re a democrat pitching for a gig with your state’s democratic headquarters? What will you do then?

Here’s what you’ll do. You’re going to want to price yourself differently based on a number of factors you determine. But how do you do it?

The answer is that you will learn how to adjust prices against a number of factors through experience, or through the wisdom of a financial expert. If a financial expert isn’t on hand, then you’ll certainly have to learn such adjustments by trial-and-error. Quite often, the true cost of doing business isn’t known until the business is done, and then reviewed. Wait though – do you review how much profit you make (that’s if you did in fact make profit) after every gig? I guess not – because you’re chasing the next gig! So the learning process of setting price against numerous factors can be haphazard and far from even a rough science.

This is confirmed bu Mechele Pellebon at FreelanceVanity.com who described this quandry as one of the biggest issues for freelancer:

It takes even the most profitable freelancers a few months or even years to get into the rhythm of setting their prices properly.

But learn you must… or you will price yourself out of the market, or reduce (or even totally lose) your profit.

Learning is made easier, for example, if you work for a small number of clients. Over time, you learn about their behaviors, such as their management rigor, how they make decisions (and stick to them) or their social/political philosophies. Eventually, you strike on an acceptable configuration of price adjustments that match your factors, and you then only need to adjust one or two as your relationship develops or the importance of each factor changes.

If you’re setting a price for a brand-new customer, what then? You have to give it your best guess and suffer any financial losses, or damage to your integrity, whilst you learn about them, that’s what!

Under-pricing yourself is a costly mistake. Chris Garrett claimed that this was his number-one gaffe !

Many freelancers find this a gloomy prospect. I know I do.

So does Mr X (that’s not his real name… obviously, but Mr X chooses to remain anonymous). Mr X is a freelancer in Palm Springs who helps companies renegotiate commercial property leases. Therefore, he works with many customers as there are long delays between repeat custom. During the last 5 years Mr X discovered, much to his peril, that several customers required much more effort than others. Bound by a contract, Mr X experienced cashflow problems whilst customers delayed decision-making and requested further negotiation, before he received payment. Forced to finance his business through loans, Mr X has suffered terrible losses (over $55,000).

What Mr X desires is a structured method to set prices against risk factors. He doesn’t have the option of learning about the idiosyncrasies of each customer to set the price accordingly.

In general, freelancers need a complete and structured method which accounts for any number of factors resulting in a way of setting competitive and profitable prices.

The thing is, traditional processes around negotiating pricing lacks a finite framework (i.e. step A, step B, and then step C and Hey Presto! You have a price!). Telephone calls can be exchanged and contracts can be vetted, however while these may show that buyer and seller have established a rate – they do not lead the parties down an equitable path to establishing that rate. Having a point-by-point framework for price negotiation could create equity in the process and deliver a win-win outcome to both parties – or what might feel like one anyway (see my thoughts on ‘win-win’ negotiation here ). The best outcome is that you’re not screwed over, by your customer or by your own efforts.

When I heard Mr X’s story, I searched for such tools… I found only one: FactorHub .

FactorHub claims to provide tools and techniques for determining what price you should charge based on a series of factors that you determine. This tool can be applied consistently over any business request that might affect your costs and subsequently your pricing.

When you use FactorHub, you tell it what factors are important, and how important, and it tells you your ideal price to charge. When I ran through several evaluations I could see the effect of different factors on the price I was recommended. These numbers weren’t plucked out of the air though. This is where the power of FactorHub comes in…

The best thing about FactorHub is that it consolidates the experiences of a whole community of freelancers to weight the effect of factors to produce a recommended price. This means that as a user of FactorHub, you’re enjoying the benefit of experience from a plethora of your freelancing peers.

This is the way it works. Freelancers using FactorHub can choose to share their actual pricing adjustments with the community who use a common ‘template’ of factors – these adjustments are aggregated and levelled to produce a ‘standard’ recommended adjustment which can be used by any other freelancer using that template. By using the standard, you’re adjusting your price towards the industry norm – the norm being all other gigs where those factors have relevance.

FactorHub is a powerful tool for ensuring that all the relevant factors are accounted for and have an influence on how we set price, so it solves the problem! (I must tell Mr X…)

I can’t find any competitors to FactorHub on the market, so there is nothing to compare it to (well, except to the pain of learning how to factor manually, that is). This makes it a unique proposition. Well done to the guys at FactorHub!

Cut out that painful and expensive process of setting prices using Trial-and-Error. Leverage the experiences of your peer-group - FactorHub .

Keep your eyes peeled – next time I will be looking more at factoring and FactorHub as I learn more about how it works, and hopefully I will land an interview with one of the guys there too! To find out when I publish this article, subscribe to my RSS Feed !

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Many parts of the world regularly suffer from drought and famine. People and wildlife seem to adapt well (as a matter of course) to what is a cyclical phenomenon.

So is economic recession. There are many common characteristics between recession in the economy and the natural world, yet an economic downturn seems to come as a surprize and unprepared for. Why?

Nature – people and wildlife – has found rehearsed strategies in order to survive:

• They use their resources sparingly.
• They may migrate to regions which have more abundance. The annual migration of the wildebeest in Africa is one of best known examples of this.
• They understand and anticipate the side effects. These may range from an increase in disease or plagues of mosquitoes and locusts, to a rise in food prices (exacerbating the situation) and on to land degradation, bush fires and ultimately, social conflict and widespread death and destruction.
• They adapt, as best they can, to their new, temporary environment.
• They take advantage of unexpected opportunities – crocodiles and lions wait in ambush for the migrating wildebeest.
• Outside agencies attempt to alleviate the problems or at least, reduce the effects – Aid Agencies and other NGOs offer food and shelter in the worst effected regions.

As economic recession continues, are there lessons that we, in the business world, can learn from the natural world? Let’s take another look at the above strategies and see how they can be applied to the business environment…

• They use their resources sparingly – This lesson has obviously been learned by most of us. Spending is down (which is, of course, deepening the recession), many people are overpaying their mortgages every month and credit card debt is being paid off faster than before. ‘Eating In’ is the new ‘Going Out’ and the large supermarkets and take away chains are the main beneficiaries. In the workplace, budgets are being cut and we are all asked to ‘do more with less’.
• They may migrate to regions which have more abundance – Many people will look around for a new job, either at home or abroad. Whilst vacancies are more limited at the moment, those of us working in IT with strong transferable skills are better placed than most to take advantage of new opportunities.
• They understand and anticipate the side effects – The side effects, of course, include redundancies, and longer working hours for those who survive the cull. Personal relationships may suffer as a result of this and you must recognize if this is becoming an issue in your own relationships, both at work and (more importantly) at home.
• They adapt, as best they can, to their new, temporary environment – this point is absolutely key to your survival during this recession. Here are some thoughts for your consideration:
  1. Network – Make sure you get to know as many managers as possible in your organisation and make sure they know who you are. This means getting outside of the IT department!
  2. Operate above your payscale – Offer suggestions to your boss, offer to make presentations at departmental meetings. Take the initiative and start (or carry on) doing things that your boss should be doing but for which you can take responsibility.
  3. Make yourself indispensable – Help your line manager as much as you can. If you’ve moved around in the IT department, help those who are currently working in an area where you’ve worked previously (without annoying them, of course). If you know people in other departments of the organisation, spend time with them and understand their issues – can the IT department help them to overcome these?
  4. Go the extra mile – If your line manager asks you to help him/her prepare for a board meeting, for example, go the extra mile and prepare some presentation slides too. They may not be the finished article but it’s much easier to finesse something that already exists than to start with a blank piece of paper.
  5. Socialize with your colleagues – Integrate with your colleagues. Go for a drink after work. Get involved in societies and clubs. You never know who you might meet and the deeper you dig yourself into the fabric of the organization, the more difficult it becomes to do without you.
• They take advantage of unexpected opportunities – If your line manager leaves, for whatever reason, you may find yourself running the team in a ‘holding capacity’. Take the initiative and do more than just ‘hold the fort’. Make your own decisions and add your own stamp to the team. In times of recession, it is more likely that you will be offered the job permanently, if you show promise, rather than recruiting externally. Budget cuts may also offer opportunities for you to develop skills which are currently under-utilized. Perhaps you know some html or java but don’t use it at work because web development is outsourced. Offer to help with support and development – you never know where it may lead.
• Outside agencies attempt to alleviate the problems or at least, reduce the effects – In the business world, the government(s) is responsible for tackling the recession. They do this in a number of ways. Currently, interest rates are extremely low. If you have a mortgage that’s not on a fixed rate, overpay your monthly payments. You will be pleasantly surprized how this affects the length of your mortgage term. If you are on a fixed rate mortgage, check out how much you will pay in redemption fees to move to a Tracker mortgage. This may be worth your while.
  And haggle! If you’re buying something over and above the usual weekly shopping, ask for a deal. You’ll often get something off the price – it all helps!

There are many survival lessons to be learned from the natural world and a whole lot more that apply in our world. The most important lesson of all is that in YOUR life, it’s up to YOU – Nobody’s going to do it for you!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Thanks to everyone who has left great comments on this blog and sent me private messages. I really appreciate your support in keeping this blog alive and kicking.

I just love it when I see repeat commentators (the guys listed on the top commentator leaderboard – keep it up!), and I am also overjoyed to see new commentators coming in and sharing their views and asking questions.

Comments make this blog. I just wanted to show my appreciation!

Simon

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Is Web2.0 a drain on your productivity?

The explosive use of LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace has urged some companies to reevaluate their electronic-use policies. Some organizations have banned social-networking tools completely over concerns about a drop in productivity as well as data-security.

Has this happened in your workplace?

Let’s be honest, there is something inherently addictive about social-networking. CIO.COM report that (according to IT Director of Lee Michaels Fine Jewelry, Mark Lappin) some employees were spending 4-5 hours per day on it – quite possibly an exaggerated or worse-case claim, but I believe it possible. Even if it’s a half or quarter of that, this still creates a massive drag on an organization’s output.

Even if its use was kept to a minimum, it still presents a potential data-security risk. Hackers have refocused their energies toward spreading their crap across these services, resulting in compromized workstations and networks. Also reported on CIO.COM, David Lavenda, (a vice president at WorkLight) claims that email is in a steady state in the context of hacking, but social-networking tools present real opportunities to the villains out there, assumingly because the maturity of hack-prevention tools is low.

This presents a dilemma for CIOs and employees. How do organizations allow their employees to connect and communicate for genuine business purposes without opening the floodgates to loafing and abuse, securely?

One answer is a solution that each and every one of us takes responsibility for. That is, we use these tools responsibly: we limit our use to genuine business activities, including building relationships, and ensure that we comply with acceptable use policies as well as employ savvy practices to avoid malware penetration. Easier said than done. But if we take that responsibility seriously then we create the best opportunity to avoid a management backlash of shutting these tools down.

I have encouraged the adoption of these tools many times over. They enable genuine business advantage as well as for personal benefit (use for job-hunting), yet I have to encourage responsible use as we all do.

If we don’t, then it will be taken away!

So do you web-two-o too much? And more importantly, would your boss agree?

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Find out how to Stand Out when connecting with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the de facto business networking tool. Twitter is emerging as a prominent business networking tool, but right now it doesn’t come close to LinkedIn’s content and context richness.

Do you LinkedIn? I suspect you probably do.

If you’ve been using it for a while and your profile is complete, then you have probably been invited by people to connect. At first, the novelty is exciting and (if you’re like me) you accept all offers to connect. Thing is, LinkedIn are clamping down on such frivolous behavior. We need to be more selective.

So if potential connections are becoming more choosy, how do you stand out to make sure your invitation is accepted? You have One Opportunity – that’s all.

If you get just one shot at attracting a hot connection, then you probably shouldn’t waste it.

You might never get another opportunity to connect with this person again. If your motivation to connect is to create a business opportunity, or if you’re job-seeking, or maybe you want to tempt them to join your organization then this could be a costly mistake.

Ask yourself this: Do you use the boiler-plate invitation to connect, or do you tailor it to your invited connection?

Dave Crain is asking this question, and he has the answer on how to stand out. He presents an opportunity that costs you nothing but a few moments to attract the attention of choosy connections.

You can read Dave’s article right here. Why not make Dave’s day and leave a comment?

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Here is a book that tells you all you need to get set up as a freelancer…

Recession and economic turblulence is forcing many IT professionals to reconsider their future. Many are turning to freelancing as a way of regaining control of their future and putting some certainty back into their lives. It’s a simple principle of being ones own boss, and being in control of decisions and destiny.

The great thing about becoming a freelancer is that YOU choose what work you undertake, generally. Notwithstanding periods where work dries up, a freelancer has a choice of which projects they undertake. Sometimes this choice is driven purely by financial benefits, but it’s also commonly driven by location, technology and (emerging as a important factor) the philosophies of customers.

(I will soon be publishing an article on factoring, and why it is becoming even more important in customer engagement and pricing – subscribe to my RSS Feed to be alerted when…)

Your First Big Challenge: Getting Started

The benefits of freelancing are tremendous, but how do you get to the point to actually begin realizing those benefits?

Most freelancers that ‘fail’ do so because they don’t get started properly. Thing is – you gotta walk before you can run. The nature of freelancing is that it’s you – just you – so who is going to support you in getting started? It’s rare you find a freelancer who bought an operating business off the shelf. Freelancers must go through the pain of starting up.

Getting started is a multi-dimensional problem…

• You have to create a business
• You have to get a place to work
• You need equipment
• You need to have a proposition that potential customers buy in to
• You need to market yourself
• You have admin to do
• You need to deliver
• You need to get paid to generate cashflow
• You need to build relationships with customers and suppliers

The list goes on! And you have to do these things quickly, or your business won’t get off the ground.

Many freelancers just start and learn how to do these things. But this type of freelancer is most likely to end up in the ‘failure’ bracket. To be frank, a freelancer needs all the help and guidance they need to avoid failure, missed opportunities and wasted effort.

This is where ‘How To Be A Rockstar Freelancer’ comes in…

I have chosen to promote this book for one big reason – it is the best example of a guide book to get started in the market.

This book takes a would-be freelancer on a journey from concept to benefit realization. It shares all the steps you need to take to create a profitable operation, and better still, alerts you to the pitfalls to avoid.

The book tells the would-be freelancer how to choose the most effective freelancing path (part-time, home-based, full-time etc). Most people have a set image of a freelancer, and this book offers you alternatives to suit your situation. It also discusses finances, accounting, company creation and business planning.

Further chapters take you right through branding, your working day, finding projects, pitching to clients, referrals, project management, pricing, project delivery, client management, invoicing/receipting, marketing and business growth.

Everything you need. No gaps!

I wish this book was available when I started out. I could have saved so much time, money and effort (and a few embarrassments too!)

Best of all, this book costs just $29. That’s 29 bucks against the costs of failure and lost opportunity. That’s 29 bucks that buys you confidence and assurance. With that perspective, all would-be freelancers must buy this book. Heck, your competition has.

And get this – if you don’t like it, ask for your money back. It comes with a cast-iron guarantee that if it doesn’t add value, then you don’t pay for it. I’ll bet the 29 bucks is repaid a thousand times over, if not more.

If you’re a would-be freelancer chomping at the bit to get going, Buy This Book Today!

Click here to make this wise purchase.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Creating the right impression with a customer is something all freelancers worry about, especially if business is done long-distance. So much information is lost when we transact over the ether, which makes our communication skills that much more important and (even more nowadays) which tools we use to communicate with.

I recently wrote a piece on how to create a high impact on your customers by managing their expectations properly when doing business with them over a distance. If you didn’t see it, then you can read it right here: Freelancers: Get Client Wow-Factor By Managing Expectations.

Perfecting a *sustainable* and *repeatable* way of communicating with all your clients takes time, practice, and learning. It’s a long road, but well worth the effort. Once you’ve perfected it, it becomes easy and feels effortless, allowing you to be smug whilst all your freelancer friends still struggle to keep their clients uptodate!

Let me point you to a great article on the FreelanceFolder.com website – How To Successfully Work With People Long Distance, which discusses the intricacies of non-verbal communication as it relates to business at distance. Some great tips there!

It is because of these intricacies that I strongly believe in choosing the right tools to reduce the effect of lost communication. Choose the right tool for the right job! This is why web-based project-management tools work very well as they enable you to be very clear and specific about your project-based communication. Need to provide support to your client once you’ve gone live? Then choose a support ticket systems to automate your communication processes where appropriate!

There is always a tool out there to help you communicating with your customer, and manage their expectations effectively.

The challenge for freelancers is to find the best tool for the job. There are often countless options, so how do you know which to choose from? In my experience, trials are the most effective. Good news: A trial if often free (the software vendors want you to take a trial)! What I do is be explicit with my customers that I am trialing a new piece of kit – I bring them in on it. They’re often glad of it because they’re learning about new software too. Why I like to do this is if the tool doesn’t work out, we can agree to can it quickly with no loss of face. The aim is to improve our business relationship, and they know that, so being realistic and nipping it in the bud quickly only demonstrates that I have our mutual interests in mind. So don’t be afraid to try something, and then bin it if you and your customer both feel it’s adding no value.

Do you want to share your experiences of using tools to manage long-distance customers? Do you know of any new or unusual tools? Then please share them by leaving a comment!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

How do you know when you’re ready to quit your job and graze on pastures new?

This is a question asked by many IT Professionals right now. Maybe you’ve read the signs that layoffs are ahead, or you’re frustrated in your current role. You could even be considering joining the ranks of freelancers. It’s a risky move to leave a paid job. Especially if setting up by yourself.

It’s important that we understand the risk factors and take these into consideration when preparing yourself to quit.

Enter Mark McClure ’s recent post on this very subject. I love Mark’s writing because he says it as it is. No fluff. But with a bit of humor thrown in.

Mark isn’t advising against quitting your job, but he does highlight the risks associated with it. It’s education which adds to the quality of such an important decision. In his post he shares a great free resource that I strongly suggest you read if you’re thinking about quitting. You won’t regret it!

Read Mark’s post ‘Drinking The Quit Your Job Kool-Aid ‘ now.

Read my review of Mark’s ‘IT Career Engineer‘ too…

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

I launched the eBook ‘The 10 Habits of Highly Effective IT Professionals’ and since then it’s been downloaded over 3,000 times. If you haven’t downloaded your copy yet, then enter your name and primary email into the form on the right of this page and I will send it to you right away.

So I hope you’ve been able to read the book through, and…

Can I Get Your Feedback on This Book?

Please tell me what you think about this book. Maybe you could answer one of these questions:

• What did you like about the book?
• What did you dislike about the book?
• What changes would you make to this book?

I’m all for transparency! Please leave your thoughts by commenting against this post.

Thanks!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Just yesterday, I was totally impressed by a guy I met at a technology conference who has an amazing technique for organizing his projects and interests in technology.

So much so that when I revise my book ‘The 10 Habits of Highly Effective IT Professionals’ (if you haven’t got your copy yet, then download it for free by entering your name and primary email into the form on the right) I will include it.

What he showed me was something simple, but very effective.

Mark Jacques has a ’swipe file’ of information he collects and uses on a day-to-day basis. During any technical conversation, he can choose to pull out a page from his file to contribute to the conversation. It saves a lot of time and effort and it immediately helps the discussion get to the point and move on. Sounds too simple, but it blew my mind on how effective it is.

He collects pages from trade magazines (such as CIO, Information Age, etc), prints from web articles and just as importantly, scraps of paper that contain his own notes and data that he has generated himself.

Creating an Information Catalog is something I strongly suggest, and this is a real-time extension of that. Mark carries uptodate slices of information relating to current projects and initiatives, and also any ideas he is working on, as well as other snippets on current affairs in the technology space.

We all need a swipe file of some kind. We waste so much time re-iterating technical information and sharing knowledge from scratch, time which could  be best used working on problems or on technical delivery – this tactic solves this problem.

In my opinion, the most powerful aspect of Mark’s technique is that he carries his own notes around with him and is able to lay his hand on them at any point during a conversation. Over the years in IT, I have found that I have needed to explain a technology’s design/architecture or to demonstrate the idea/concept behind something – each time I re-draw it, sometimes missing something out or totally screwing up the drawing. I hadn’t figured that once I have struck upon a way of articulating something, I should re-use it over and over again.

This isn’t the same as formal technical documentation. The kind of drawings I am thinking about are the ones we’re asking to show non-technical people to help them understand why they need to allow time, fund something, or secure resources. They’re the kind of drawings you write on a whiteboard for executives or colleagues in Finance.

There is a much longer term benefit to this tactic Mark found. When he prepares documents this way and has them on hand, he is much more confident about discussing the subject. In turn, this makes him appear more impressive (as I found) and the impact he had on the listener is much greater, which increases his authority and trust placed on him. Because each presentation of the subjects are essentially well-practiced and highly-tuned. (I did note that when I asked Mark about some details on the drawings, he filled in more detail and can now use it again should he need to.)

How Do You Get Your Swipe-File?

Easy. It starts with a cardboard folder and a ring-bound notebook.

Many people use fully-bound books during their day-to-day activities, but tearing these pages out is a risky move (I’ve tried it, and torn right through my work!). Avoid these kinds of books.

When you’re drawing a design or an idea, write it in your book as you normally would. Review it afterwards and see if there are ways it could be presented better. Redraw it on a fresh page, and tear it out an place it in your folder.

If you read industry magazines, tear out articles or even ads for products that are relevant to your current projects and place them in the folder.

Each week, fortnight or month (depending on how often your environment changes), empty your folder and put back only the items that are currently relevant, and discard the rest (although I am a little bit anal and place those pages in an archive folder for future reference!). The point is, your swipe file should be lite and current, and most of all, easy to search and retrieve. If it’s full of crap, then you will get frustrated with it.

This is such a simple technique, but so effective it was worthy of an article.

For those of you who are digital-only (I still haven’t made that jump yet) then there is a technology which I think is brill – Evernote (the winner of my readers ‘Free Tools’ contest last year). This is an online swipe-file in essence. It enables you to record snippets of almost any digital content – text, images, audio, etc. and retrieve them using multiple client types.

Evernote has a great feature that might just push me over the digital precipice – text recognition. Say you scrawl a diagram on a napkin (I like to call these ‘napkinagrams’) you’d like to reference in the digital world. Take a picture of the napkinagram using your blackberry/iPhone’s camera, and then reference it in Evernote. Hey presto, you can search the text on your napkinagram like you will using any other content. Marvellous!

You can download an Evernote client for Windows/Mac/iPhone/cellphone or just use the web client from the Evernote website.

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Recession and job cuts have (at some time or other) caused us to consider a change in job or career. I have – I’m sure you have too. Sometimes, the reasons to change are great. But still, we might find ourselves unwilling or scared to do anything about it. What’s holding you back?

Get this – we’re much more likely to hold ourselves back because of excuses rather than genuine reasons. We use excuses to rationalize a fear or worry. Excuses are a convenient ‘truth’ we invent to avoid the perceived pain of changing.

How we generate excuses is typically dependent on our personality and the wiring in our head. There are two dichotomies of behavior that I think are especially relevant:

• There are people whose default response to a situation is to take full responsibility for it. I.e. they blame themselves. They might say “I’m not good enough” or “I haven’t got the money to do that”
• There are people whose default response to a situation is to take no responsibility for it. I.e. they blame other people. They might say “I won’t get the support from X” or “They want me to fail”

When we’re faced with a challenge we perceive to be painful, we might generate an excuse using our default response as above and rationalize it as a reason not to face the challenge. Our excuses hold us back, but we find comfort in our excuses.

I tend to take personal responsibility. When I make an excuse, I believe that I am deficient in something. I beat myself up, and put myself down. A close personal friend does the opposite – he blames to world and his dog for being held back. What he hasn’t learned yet (despite me sharing my opinion about it) that he is stifling himself.

How about you?

Do you recognize which of the dichotomies you fit? If not, don’t be surprised at first – the process of identifying how you respond can be painful itself. It requires some soul-searching and self-enlightenment.

But here is a simple way of finding out. You need some paper, a pencil, and a friend.

Start writing on the paper the outcomes you want to achieve, or the changes you want to make. Write them down as you think them so let it flow. Second step is to write down why you think you’re being held back – what are the reasons (rational or irrational) that success isn’t happening for you? Third step is to talk them through with a friend and get their opinion on the reasons. Make sure it’s a honest opinion!

So long as you have picked a good friend, this process will reveal to you whether you tend to take more responsibility for being held back than you should be doing, or the opposite.

Guess what – you will also find this process helpful in spotting which excuses can be wiped away (with some counselling from yourself, friends or colleagues), and which ones need more work. Your goal must be to remove all excuses and leave yourself with a list of genuine reasons – which become the real challenge!

These reasons are what hold you back, in reality.

Stay tuned (as I will soon be sharing some tips on how to overcome your obstacles) by subscribing to my RSS Feed

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

During economic turbulence, most of us worry about our jobs, our finances, and the future. Some of us worry much more than others. My mom is a professional worrier – she would win the gold-medal if worrying became an Olympic event!

Worry is like prayer in reverse – Michael Angier

Society programs us to worry. It’s the reason why we buy unecessary insurance. How often, as a kid, did you hear something like “you’d better start worrying about your future”? We’ve developed an anxiety culture, partly because it shifts said insurance and the health-and-safety industry. The recession that started in 2008 is as much as a perception fuelled by media as it is an economic reality.

According to Wikipedia:

Worry is an emotion in which a person feels anxious or concerned about a real or imagined issue, ranging from personal issues such as health or finances to broader issues such as environmental pollution and social or technological change. Most people experience short-lived episodes of worry in their lives without incident; indeed, a moderate amount of worrying may even have positive effects, if it prompts people to take precautions (e.g., fastening their seat belt or buying fire insurance) or avoid risky behaviours (e.g., promiscuous sexual relations or cliff diving).

Excessive worry is the main component of Generalized anxiety disorder.

My mom and other habitual worriers don’t develop and grow because of it, sadly enough. Worry is a reason not to do something, take risks, or try new experiences. When we worry, we close in and guard ourselves. Get this though – most worry is totally irrational, and has a far worse effect than if the things we worry about actually manifested.

Ask yourself this: What would happen if you lost that job, really? Is the effect of the worry causing you more damage than you would experience losing the job? (Adapt the question to what you’re worrying about!)

A chip off the old block

Coming from worrying stock, I used to be generally anxious. I used to worry about stuff – stuff that I can’t actually remember now. It’s interesting that I can think back and easily recall the pain of worrying but not the things I actually used to worry about. It proves my point.

The peak of my worrying days was about 10 years ago when the ‘dotcom bubble’ began to burst. I was surrounded by the threat of layoffs, and the company I worked in merged with another organization, so the E-Commerce Practice I had built up began to be broken up and fed into an existing structure, and my position was under threat. I worried like hell. I worried to the point that I verged on a total nervous breakdown. I can distinctly remember the eye-twitching, panic attacks and visiting the doctor about my blood-pressure. I nearly split with my girlfriend who is now my lovely wife. It was that serious. I will never forget those days, and the effect of thunderous worry.

Enlightenment

I don’t worry any more (well, I don’t to the point I would say I am a worrier) but this didn’t happen overnight. Far from it. But after the episode I described above, I decided to learn more about worry and do something about it.

This is what I did about it.

I accepted the worst. Whenever the emotions of worry emerged, I would just accept that the thing I worried about had actually happened. How I did this was to play the situation through in my head, and visualize the disasterous outcome. I subjected myself to a shock, in essence.

Once the shock subsided, my response followed. In almost all cases, my response was an action to cope with the disaster, or resolve it, or identify what could have been done to prevent it.

Is this a waste of time and energy…?

… asked by a student of one of my course once. No! Most definitely not. Here’s why I have strong feelings about that:

• When we accept the disaster before it happens, we take the biggest blow in a safe and controlled environment.
• Once we’re over the shock, we plough energy into finding solutions to the problem.
• Moreover, we often find ways of preventing the disaster happening at all and put them into action.
• Such mental gymnastics builds personal adaptability and resilience. It contributes to our personal growth and strengths.
• Best of all: should the disaster actually happen, we know what to do.

Practice in this tactic has meant I have built up serious resilience in the face of adversity. To the point that I am now considered as working best in a crisis. It is true that during crises in IT matters, I am invited to join the crisis team. I’ve turned worrying into an artform and a science, and certainly to my advantage.

Stop Worrying and Start Living

Back in 2004, I picked up a well-thumbed paperback by some guy I hadn’t heard about before – Dale Carnegie. What I learned was that Carnegie was a best-selling and prize-winning author back in the first half of the twentieth century. What’s amazing is that all his material now is still fresh and highly relevant. Sure, if you don’t read an adapted version of his book, you will experience some old-fashioned language, references to Christianity and the masculine text, but what the context and virtues are as current as any other book you will pick up from the bookstore.

In this book, Carnegie talks about some of the dire personal consequences (using many real-life examples) and how to free yourself from worry through straightforward practice. What I like the most about this book is it isn’t a science journal – the solutions are simple and articulated as thought exercises in the simplest form.

This book is a must read if you’re a worried now or are a worrier in general. I can’t believe it’s only $11.99 in paperback and only $7.99 if you one of those Kindle devices. (Get a used copy, like I did, for less than 6 bucks too!)

Get this book too!

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (Paperback)
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (Kindle)

Summary

Worrying is a natural response to uncertainty, but it’s a pain in the butt when it gets in the way of solving problems and personal development. I regret my worrying days. I was lucky though: I saw the light and pulled myself out (I’m still working on my mom!). It started with accepting the worst.

I have become so adept at dealing with stressful situations that I have become a specialist in dealing with crises. I don’t worry!

(I do wish I had read How to Stop Worrying and Start Living earlier in my life though, but I’m not worried about it )

Here’s another article that you will find useful:
5 steps to control your worry (How to stop worrying yourself to death)

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Two years ago, this question may have seemed ridiculous to you. In a growing economy, opportunity is in abundance and the challenge we had back then didn’t concern make-or-break, but which of the golden opportunities were the shiniest. Now the whole economic environment has changed. The economy is turbulent and unpredictable. So is it worth setting ourselves career goals?

This is a question I am asked a lot by the people I coach. It seems that confidence in the economy has hit such depths that some folks are wondering if there is any point in planning their future, but rather leave it to chance and take what comes.

Pretty grim, huh?

I can understand the lack of faith in the future, especially when folks work their butt off by developing skills for the IT industry which are deeply technical and specialized. People plough a lot of their time and money into preparing for, and starting, an IT career, and it takes just as much effort in maintaining it. Only for the economy to create downward pressure on business to lay these people off, or put their career progression on hold. Total bummer, when you look at it like that.

Chris Jones is a 23 year-old infrastructure engineer and a friend of mine. He went to University in Reading, England, and aced his degree in Computer Science. That’s four years and over $15,000 out of his pocket. He then spent another 12 months on technical courses learning advanced subjects about server and network infrastructure – another $25,000 out of his pocket (actually, his parents). He landed his first job in a Financial Services organization and set himself the goal of becoming a guru in VMWare as a specialism to lead to being a key influencer of virtualization architecture, design and buying decisions. He had totally committed to this goal. Then the recession took hold and his company began to shed jobs – Chris was one of the first to go because many infrastructure projects were put on the shelf.

Is Chris pissed off? Yes. Did he doubt that he can realize his goals? Yes.

After three months he remains in the line for jobs that don’t seem to come.  But after a month following Chris’s lay off, he realized he had a choice: give up on his goals, or reframe them. Sure, Chris didn’t have a job that would implicitly support his personal growth plans and the acquisition of skills and experience, but is it really then end of the line for them? At that point, Chris gave me a call and we looked at how he could still achieve his goals under new circumstances. And this is what he has to say about it:

Immediately after being laid off, I was in shock. The time, effort and money I had spent getting to that point in my early career was all gone, or so I thought at the time. Once the initial shock passed, I questioned whether having career goals was worth it. It was a sad time, I can tell you.

I am not naturally an optimist, but I am determined. A couple of week’s after getting the elbow I decided that I would find out if I can still achieve my goals without being in a steady job, as quite frankly, I don’t expect to be in one for a while.

This decision means I had to reconsider what my goals mean to me. Not being in a permanent job means I won’t be able to measure how much of a ‘guru’ I am by being the sole technical and acquisition lead on virtualization projects. I won’t be the ‘main man’. Instead, I am going to take a much more external view and measure that. In other words, I’ll achieve the same goal I committed by becoming a virtualization guru as recognized by the IT community and the authority I build using social networking and media. I’ll get there by taking on independent consulting work, hopefully gained by attracting buyers using a blog and writing articles that I will publish through Web2.0 based media outlets. The recognition I want will be for everyone to award and see!

I feel really excited about this now – I am still aiming to achieve what I desire but in a different way than I thought I would.

Chris used an interesting word towards the end of his quote – DESIRE. It is desire that I want to highlight as being the source of career goals – not money or a job title, or anything like that. We can all give ourselves a job title. Heck, we might even win the lottery. But if our goal is to achieve what we truly desire, then it doesn’t matter if we have to rethink how we get there. Our desire will maintain our motivation and create energy to achieve our goals that we didn’t think we had.

Steve Pavlina says it best. Here’s what he had to say about this when interviewed on the Zen Habits blog :

The way I see it, success isn’t about money or reputation or possessions or anything like that. Success is a decision. That’s all. Success is deciding what you really, truly want and committing yourself to getting it. If you’re making progress toward your desires, you’re successful.

Most people never get clear about what they want. Even if they set goals, the goals are often socially conditioned, not consciously chosen. Obviously you’re not going to succeed if you don’t listen to and accept your own desires, especially the desires that run afoul of social conventions. So not connecting with your true desires is mistake #1

That connection with desire is most important, and perhaps may explain if you’ve recently doubted yourself when facing your career goals. If you’ve been laid off, or if you’re worried about your job or how the economy effects it, then take a look at the career goals you’re aiming for and ask yourself if they connect with your desires. If you find yourself doubtful about your goals, or if you’re procrastinating instead of taking action, then it’s very likely that your goals don’t connect with your desires.

How Do You Connect Your Goals To Your Desires?

Doing this is as simple as your ability to listen to your inner voices allows. Creating goals that connect to desire stems from listening to the conversations inside your head, and then visualizing the outcome that solves the problems and opportunities. Career goals are no different from any other goals in this sense. You might find that visualizing your retirement day helps – what would you want to say about your career and its achievements as you receive your gold watch? You may even want to write your obituary, and describe what achievements you made there! These might sound goofy, but believe me they work when you want to focus your mind.

To summarize…

Career goals are as important as ever. A turbulent economy can mean well-laid plans are shot to pieces, but new plans can be made. The goals can remain the same, albeit achieved differently! If you can adapt and be flexible then goal-achievement is a journey without a map but instead a strong sense of direction. Connect your goals to your desires and you’ll find that your sense of direction is extremely strong and your motivation gets a boost!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

A colleague asked me yesterday why I put so much importance and value on performance management and my performance review. How did I answer?

I gave my ‘elevator pitch’ to her and answered the question, but it did spur me to review my reasons, because I felt the pitch wasn’t complete. I get much more out of my focus on performance now, since I wordsmithed my pitch in my head. My pitch was:

My performance is important to me because it’s how I deliver the best value to our organization and recieve rewards. When I acheive my performance targets, I know that I am contributing to the success of our organization in alignment to the organization’s corporate objectives.

So I reviewed my reasons and share them below:

1. I Achieve My Full Cash Bonus

I’ve put the financial reason first, because that’s what most people want to hear! By achieving my desired performance levels and delivering my objectives (well, I strive to totally ACE them) I meet the criteria set by my organization to receive my full financial incentives.

In most organizations, there is a performance-related financial incentive: often annual bonus (or Short Term Incentive Plan, or STIP), but frequently on salary, too. Other longer-term incentives (often called a Medium Term Incentive Plan, or MTIP) are contingent on sustained achievement of personal performance targets.

2. Demonstrable Track-Record of Achievements

When I persistently achieve my performance targets, I am building up a track record of high achievement which is referrable during performance appraisals and application for promotions. It’s also a valuable asset when seeking a good reference.

It’s not just what is on paper or my record on the HR system – in most organizations, the results of performance appraisals and our track-records are reviewed by our manager with their peer group (often to ensure fairness is applied across the organization), so it works as an excellent profile-builder in senior management tiers.

In addition, possessing a documented history of your achievements (recorded with their targets/success criteria and how they were measured) can be fed into your resume. Resumes work best when they talk about quantifiable achievements, rather than responsibilities or tasks.

3. Corporate Responsibility

When we’re set objectives and goals, it’s generally because the organization as a whole requires them to meet it’s objectives (generally set by stakeholders). If we fail, the organization will fail unless remedial action is taken – normally by spending money, or diverting resources, or taking extra risk.

Therefore we have a huge responsibility (no matter what level we are at in the organization) to achieve our objectives and performance targets.

As IT people, we are at the helm of a massive investment. We’re here to make computers do lots of valuable work. So if those computers are not operated, configured or designed properly, the organization will fail to meet it’s objectives. And fail big time. So whether you’re involved in the design, build, configuration, operation or management of IT equipment your actions and decisions (or lack of them) can have a massive effect on your organization. This is why our performance is important.

4. My Relationship With My Boss

I do my job to make my boss successful. In turn, my boss’s job is to make his boss successful. And so on. So when I achieve my objectives, I am helping my boss achieve his. This is good for our working relationship – it fosters trust and respect between us.

Goal-alignment also encourages a stronger relationship between us – when our goals are aligned we’re both working to the same objective, which creates co-dependence and the need to work closer together. I make a specific point of ensuring that the objectives of my boss are reflected in my own, and make corrections if they’re not.

Want to know what happens when goals aren’t aligned? 5 Reasons Why Your Boss Hates You.

5. I Am A Role-Model In My Organization

This isn’t a statement from a big-head (is it?) but all organizations need role-models and heros to show how it should be done. You will find role-models right the way through your organization if you look for them, and they’re not always in the obvious places.

It’s important for our colleagues to not just understand the theory of their work, but also see how an expert does it. By focusing on my performance I give others an example of how the work should be done, allowing them to emulate me if they choose to. Of course, I have my own ’style’ – not everyone agrees with the way I do things – but that’s OK, they don’t have to see me as a role-model.

Anyone can be a Role-Model. It’s not an exclusive right of senior management and leaders. There is a responsibility that comes with the role; a role-model has influence over those people who follow him or her. It’s this aspect of being a role-model that I enjoy the most – it keeps me honest, and sharp. If my actions and behaviors don’t just have an effect on my own performance, but also that of others, I am forced to be more deliberate, less irrational and very much more considerate than if I was a sole-operator.

6. I Become An Expert At Goal-Setting and Goal-Achievement

I don’t underestimate the value of being a seasoned expert at goal-setting and goal-achievement. It’s a meta-skill I’ve developed through constant practise. By itself it means nothing – it won’t pay the bills – but when I apply these skills to my objectives I am much more likely to ACE them.

When I am set new objectives and performance targets, I go about breaking them up into short-term goals (weekly), measuring results, and learning from them. It’s a pattern I evolve and iterate over. You can do the same, it doesn’t take special knowledge or skills to start – just begin and continue and your skill will develop over time.

7. Motivation And Confidence

A direct result of reason #6 is increased motivation and confidence. Achievement feels good, and in turn it gives me extra motivation and confidence to achieve the next goals and targets. Success breeds success! It becomes an ever-increasing circle of growth.

Don’t believe me? Well set yourself a small goal (no matter how small), and achieve it – just go for it. How do you feel afterwards? It feels good right? Now set yourself a slightly more challenging goal, and achieve that. How do you feel now? I expect you feel even better, and motivated. This is the effect I am talking about. Now scale this up towards your annual objectives… it’s no different in its application.

So What Is My Elevator Pitch Now?

The essence of an elevator pitch is that is can be given in 30 seconds or less, so how do I boil down these reasons to just a few words? I’ve given it my best shot…. see what you think!

My performance is important to me because it increases my influence, it enables me to achieve my career and financial goals, it improves my relationship with my boss and my team, it also increases my competence in achieving new objectives, and in turn it enhances my confidence and motivation to do it all again.

Bit wordy? Fluffy? Or spot on? What is your response to this elevator pitch?

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

The best answer you will hear, when negotiating, is No (find out why)

No sets a boundary. And once you know why your clients says No to your proposal, you have a foundation to work off. Cutting price is not always the best approach.

In this article, I will give you a serious edge when negotiating by sharing a few psychological techniques. These techniques rely on typical human behaviors. Use them to avoid a sterile approach to negotiating and give yourself an upper hand.

The fact is that most people like to win, and win for a clear and obvious reason. Negotiators don’t always strive for the outcome they have been given as an objective – a deeper psychological imperative is to come out on top on a number of levels, and the moral high ground is one of them, as is a position of superiority. It’s not just about winning the best deal, it’s about winning the personality game. If you want to come out as the best personality, then forget this next section as your emotions will get the better of you. To win in a negotiation, you have to put emotions aside.

The Un-comfort Zone

Why does the outbreak of tears turn a row into a reconciliation? What effect does pity have on an outcome? The answer is that they create an uncomfortable situation. Human beings like their comfort zones. And they do whatever it takes to avoid stepping out of it. This is a fact of human behavior that you can use to your advantage.

It’s like this: in any negotiation, who will most likely win – the guy in the sharp-suit and perfect hair, manicured nails, with a 100-page presentation and $800 pen, or the guy who bumbles, stumbles on words, with fingernails like a garden laborer and appears fragile?

If you guessed the first guy, then think again. The second guy will win most negotiations.

Why? It’s about the comfort zone. The first guy feels comfortable. The outward display of rigor and splendor says ‘I am comfortable, and I am safe’. He will probably be thinking that the other guy is not comfortable, and feel even safer in this belief. He probably thinks that he will win the negotiation because he looks more successful, he demonstrates the fruit of success in the sharp-suit and pen, and his well prepared presentation. He will feel in total control. He lacks belief that his opponent can put up a good fight, and any action on their part is random at best.

But the other guy… well do you remember the TV detective Columbo? He was a master of appearing inferior, and controllable to his adversaries. His dirty coat and beaten up car portrayed an image that encouraged criminals to feel no threat. He would appear to bumble around, turn away, and on his way out ask the killer question as if it was an after-thought. The criminal is totally unprepared for it.

What happens is that the second guy above, and Columbo, both step into the un-comfort zone.

The un-comfort zone enables negotiators to lure their opponents into a false sense of security, and then use it. Let your more ‘comfortable’ opponent in a negotiation feel safe and secure in their belief that they have the upper hand.

OK, for those people that really do enjoy the morale high ground, this might seem a totally manipulative tactic, but I say this: in a negotiation, a win:win is a false prophecy.

Let me explain why. You’re a business-person. You have bills to pay, a living to enjoy and a future to invest in. So out of any deal, you need to make sure you get what you require to make it worthwhile and valuable to you. Anything less, you should walk away from it. It doesn’t matter if your client ‘wins’. All you should care about is a ‘win’ for you – that it meets your financial objectives and fits your personal values.

But if your definition of ‘win’ includes the psychological prizes of feeling superior and having the upper hand, then you’re trying to step into your comfort zone. This isn’t a win, it’s a hollow emotional victory. Winning this is like my son finding his lost ‘taggie-blankie’ that he won’t go to bed without.

But it’s highly likely that your client will be wanting their blankie too…. so let them have it whilst making sure you get the result *you* want. The cost of appearing goofy is nothing compared to your desired commercial outcome.

Don’t confuse my point about the pointless win:win. There is always the ‘virtuous spiral’ that comes with providing great service to a client who gives you valuable repeat business. It’s not about screwing people and damaging the chance of this outcome. It is about giving your clients the outcome they desire, and if a superiority complex is part of that outcome then hand it to them. Give them that (their taggie-blankie) and take the rest!

Negotiate with a clean slate

Another psychological tactic is to take everything said at face value and not build up expectations. This is perhaps better explained by an example I remember from two years back.

A friend was negotiating a price for a large piece of work with a high profile client. At the outset, the client said that the potential duration of the project would be 24 months, and would like my friends best price. So he set the price at a daily rate of $800 for that project, a discount of $300 off his usual daily rate. But what then happened is the client said that they would give him a 3-month contract at that rate! He hadn’t priced for a 3-month deal, he set the price for a 24-month deal. So he then was in a hell of a situation to negotiate the price upwards, which of course he couldn’t.

What happened was he had built up an expectation of a 2-year project and had priced on that expectation. He saw the dollar signs of a guaranteed 24-months work with no gaps and became over-excited. His positivity got the better of him. He fell into a classic trap. With hindsight, he should have negotiated the price against a contract rather than pure potential.

The flip-side to this is negativity. Some clients like to screw you on price (probably because they feel that they have achieved some emotional upper-hand, see the un-comfort zone). They start with a price that you can’t make profit off. So what do you do? Rookie negotiators create an expectation that unless they can come close to that price, they will lose the deal. So what they do is to find the lowest price that they can turn a tiny profit (or break even). The skilled freelance negotiator doesn’t fall for this. They don’t make such assumptions, and build such expectations. They return with a price that works for them and waits for a Yes, or No, and negotiates the factors (price, time, quantity, quality) from there.

The trick, in both situations, is to listen your inner-voice and check that you’re not making assumptions. In a negotiation, unless it’s explicitly stated, don’t factor it.

Summary

Negotiation can be a game of conniving and trickery. If you believe that your client wants to achieve a win:win then you’re opening up the serious possibility that you will be the loser. Don’t assume the worst though, in fact don’t assume anything. When negotiating, begin with knowing what you need to make the deal work and don’t compromise. Go for *your* win. Forget whether your clients wins or loses – that’s their concern. Equally, they will think the same of you.

Stay tuned for more freelancer negotiation tips. I’ll soon be discussing ‘factoring’ in more detail. Subscribe to my RSS feed to discover when I do!

©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

I was with a group of recently appointed IT managers and we struck the conversation thread of our relationships with our boss. I just love it when people begin to talk about the subjects that matter to them.

The group shared their thoughts on how they have suffered from a bad relationships with their boss, and more to the point, how their relationships turned sour in the first place. It was such an interesting (and enlightening) conversation that I am sharing with you what I learned.

I distilled the conversations down to 5 reasons why your boss might hate you (although there maybe more, these are the biggies)

You are a Threat

If your boss believes you pose a threat to their job then they could turn nasty. If you walk around with a halo on your head (put there by your peers, or even your manager’s peers or superiors) then this could be perceived as dangerous to your boss.

This goes beyond the belief of your boss that you are after their job. By building up a strong profile inside your organization, which I fully recommend, it is likely that you a pedestal is also being built underneath you. If your profile creates support and sponsorship by senior members of your organization, then the likelihood of being knocked off is reduced, but there always remains the potential of being sniped off by a jealous boss.

If you suspect that this is the case, then you have a choice – continue as you are and live with the glory and the threat, or share your halo with your boss by ensuring that they always get 10% of the credit. (Number is arbitrary!). You do this by always mentioning their support and guidance as you achieve greatness.

You are Too Political

Politics is a banner of many behaviors, but roughly I am suggesting that your manager may get pissed off with you if you don’t consistently align with the truth and behave like ‘all things to all people’. Politics has its place, but over-emphasis on truth-economies can create distrust between you and your manager. Think about it: if they see you as a skilful player with your peers, then what do they read into your relationship?

If you’re in a politically charged environment (despite best will, this does happen) then it’s always best to disclose your political game plan with your boss. Even if they don’t play too, at least they know what you’re trying to achieve. Create a version of the truth that you both align to and will work together to achieve. Personally, I prefer work without politics, but if you must engage in politics then it’s important to have the support of your manager.

You are Not Political Enough

The flipside to the above, and probably a more likely situation. The higher you climb the pole, the greasier it gets.

Your manager may be playing many angles and operating in grey-areas to achieve an outcome… only for you to come along with an honest and transparent communication to destroy their game-plan.

My feelings towards this are clear – this is your manager’s fault and if they don’t involve you in the game (or at least tell you where the goal-posts are) then that is their problem. Nevertheless, your lack of awareness, or refusal to play, can build up bad feelings which are likely not to be expressed. Your boss’s hatred of you will seem irrational and may be sensed but not directly manifested.

There isn’t much you can do in these situations. Sometimes, a direct challenge might work but the same political behaviour will be applied in your manager’s response.

Lack of Rapport

Rapport is the X-factor in a relationship. When two people have rapport, they get along very well and the relationship flourishes. This happens when you and your manager perceive situations, and people, in similar ways and you make similar decisions and judgments based on that perception. Communication is effective. There is cohesion. It’s a foundation of trust.

What about the lack of rapport? The opposite of the above is true. Relationships die at the point of inception when two people can’t communicate effectively or agree on anything. When two people have two parametrically opposite personality traits, then building rapport is almost impossible. If you are a positive person, but your boss is negative, then it will be tough. If you are introvert, but your manager is extrovert, then it will be tough. Get the picture?

I don’t recommend trying to be a person you are not, in order to overcome this. You will come unstuck at some point, and to be frank, you will be miserable and stressed. The best way forward, when faced with this problem, is to just keep working at it. A lack of rapport will diminish over time providing that you and your manager are trying to achieve the same thing. It will be a bumpy road – so expect that – but eventually it will smooth out.

You Don’t Do What Your Manager Expects You To Do

Have you become upset when a mechanic didn’t fix the problem with your car? How about when your credit card company didn’t switch off payment protection, even when you ticked the option? It’s the same when you don’t do what you said you would do. Your manager gets pissed.

In modern organizations, strategic goals are cascaded from the most senior executives to junior employees. Your manager’s objectives are dependent on you achieving your objectives… and so on. If you don’t achieve your goals, your manager doesn’t too.

Worse still, your manager’s reputation can be drawn through the mud. Your failure could be a direct hit on your boss’s credibility. If this failure is caused by forgetfulness, or bad judgment, or incompetence then you can expect your manager to be upset with you. Persistent failure like this can lead to total hatred!

A more dangerous ground to tread on is when you’re going hell for leather for a goal that is different to the one your manager expects. It’s dangerous because the point of realization that your expectations are different is towards the end of the project or assignment. You might get into this situation if you and your boss haven’t built rapport.

This situation may be a deliberate coup by your manager if they’re playing political games or if they perceive you as a threat. Unless your objectives are clearly understood in the same way between you, your manager has a ticket to call foul at any point.

Truth is, managers rarely resort to these shenanigans, but much more common is a surprise moment a long way into an assignment when both of you realize your mistake of a difference in expectation. This is why it’s vital that you and your manager agree specifics, with little (or no) room for different interpretation. Especially so if your performance management, and your bonus, depends upon it.

I believe that total alignment of expectations is the only way to avoid pissing off your boss, and indeed achieving what they expect from you. I recommend you take a look at your current assignments now and check with your manager that your intended output is what he or she expects.

Want More Help?

I recently launched the ACE Your Performance Review Crash Course. This 5-day course takes you right through the journey of learning and preparation in order to ensure you can deliver your objectives, and achieve your full bonus.

Each day you receive a new Course Book which will share strategies and advice on how to do just that.

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©2009 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.