Super Quick StartUp Advice

Here is another installment in my series of super quick [possibly tweetable] Business Startup Advice.

"The best entrepreneurs have a combination of a desire to create amazing things coupled with the unwillingness to compromise in anyway to achieve this."

Do you have this?

Super Quick Startup Advice

Here is the first in a series of super quick [possibly tweetable] Business Startup Advice.

"Building a category through PR and awareness is very expensive but telling your own story isn't."

I hope you find them helpful.

Are you willing to work for free?

A lot of has been written about Chris Anderson's new book "Free" and while I haven't read it yet (I have it on my nightstand) I think there is a different kind of "Free" that people don't talk about enough...or actually do.

I am talking about free work.

Call it Advising, Consulting, Working for Food, whatever, it is something that you should do a little of if asked because (and this is the closest I get to preaching) the more profile you get for your work and if you want to get along in life you have to be prepared to do a little free work.

I get asked to give advice a lot and up in till now I have almost never said no, and being honest I am going to have to start being choosier because the sheer number of requests is growing too fast, but one of the reasons I do say yes so often (and that you should too) is because it is the Free Work that keeps you sharp and is usually the real fun projects that allow you to do the work that you can later use as examples to get paid work.....or if that isn't an aspiration of yours you can use these fun projects to use ideas and skills that just don't come to play in your day job and there is enormous value and self worth in that....just be careful not to be taken advantage of.

My Dad once told me that "if all the ideas you dream up are being executed on then you don't have many ideas". I could write another 5 paragraphs about that observation alone but I am going to leave it hanging so you can find your own meaning in it.

....and for those who where hoping this post would be more about Chris Anderson, I am sorry if I let you down but I hope you got something out of this and below is a video of Chris so this post has something for everyone :)

Would being a Social Media consultant make you happy?

I think a lot about happiness...and for the most part I am a pretty happy guy, sure there are small things I would like to be different but generally I am in a good place.

I started thinking about this more today because of two things:

1- My friend Anjelika Jinx from the podcast Naive London Girl
was asking me to rate my level of happiness. I gave myself a pretty high rating based on what I explained above.

and

2- Because I travel a lot and get to meet a lot of great and interesting folks and I am always surprised at how many people really don't enjoy their jobs or even what they do for a living, I see these as a separate thing because you can love what you do and just not like where you are doing it. Whenever I am told this I ask "What job would make you happy?" and the answer I get more than anything is "Social Media Consultant"

Well today is your lucky day because I am going to give you the secret to getting started!

Disclaimer: To actually pull this off you are going to need to understand all about Social Media and how to use it all. I am going by the assumption that you already know all this stuff and just need a push to get work.....and like all my advice on this blog it is probably bad advice :)

Did you just hear that?

That was the sound of big companies all over the world calling their advertising agencies saying the words that give Social Media Consultants goosebumps...you know, "What is Twitter?" or "We need to get on this Facebook thing"

Yes these calls are happening and while some agencies understand all this stuff and do it very well, there are a bunch that don't...but they will soon. after picking the brain (or getting taught) by someone who understands the interwebs (both of them) backward and forward...and there is no reason why this person can't be you!

If I was going to venture out as a SMC tomorrow I would call every respectable agency I could find and offer to come in and do a presentation on the tools available in the social media playground that they could be using to help with their clients.

*This is important* I would charge a fee for this talk (doesn't have to be a lot) because you want to set yourself up as an expert from day one and experts get paid for stuff...and if you devalue yourself from the start you will never get top dollar when you start to work on projects.

Be prepared for a lot of rejection because what you are selling is still misunderstood to a certain extent but if you do get a chance to present you have to treat it like any other job interview and knock their socks off...and this part is super important...if it was me (again probably bad advice) I would finish my presentation with the words "Thanks for sitting through my presentation, I am happy to work with you guys on a one to one basis and my rates are $200 an hour" and then I would walk out.

I would do this because in my opinion there is an amazing window of opportunity RIGHT NOW to make a bunch of money in Social Media Consulting but it is getting smaller and smaller, and the more time you wait will harm your chances on benefiting because either someone else will grab your potential clients or these companies will figure it out themselves because they realized they could just promote the kid in the mailroom to become VP of Social Media.

Did any of that make sense?

I guess the only final thought I have on this is that if you are fortunate to get a job with one of these big agencies you should insist on contract work because this will allow you to work with several people at the same time and use the fact that you are working with COMPANY X to land you some work with smaller companies.

Also go into anything with the understanding that you are a teacher and like all students, they graduate! So you better keep learning as well because if you cant keep bringing new ideas and tools to the table your clients may end up a better "know it all" then you are!

Is there anything you would add to this?