Roles on a Team and How They Apply to the Enterprise | The Future of Work

Several of the companies I've worked for in my career have used personality profiling and character metric tests during the interview phase to determine what qualities and characteristics applicants could bring to the team. While I find some of the tests irrelevant, one of the tests which I've taken - DISC Personality Profiling - was spot on in regards to "profiling" my personality. Here's a great infographic by Social Cast on the roles of team members in a group and how they apply to business.

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Don’t Be An Expert, Be A Trusted Advisor For Your Customers - Flowtown (@flowtown)

Source

Every professional wants their customer base to consider them well-informed and in the know, but there is a fine line between being an over-authoritative know-it-all and being a trusted advisor. The latter territory is what all professionals should aim for. Being a trusted advisor means your clients feel comfortable going to you for their needs because they feel confident you have their best interests at heart. Still, some professionals have difficulty cultivating that type of relationship.

The “Expert” Trap

To achieve success in your field, you must have a competitive edge. And you must, of course, know what you’re doing. But promoting your “expert” status may not be the best strategy. Gaining true expert status takes time – journalist Malcolm Gladwell argues that it takes 10,000 hours or more – and the term is overused in marketing. Not only has it lost much of its prestige, consumers may hesitate to contact an expert for fear of being overwhelmed by facts or numbers. When searching for goods or services, consumers want to go to a source they’re comfortable with. You’d rather take your problem to a trusted friend or a college professor – and consumers would too.

Trusted Advisor Territory

Marketing Consultant Ian Brodie calls being a trusted advisor “the holy grail of professional services,” and it is the ideal role for you to fill. A trusted advisor is reliable and approachable – a person with the perfect combination of knowledge and wisdom. Consumers reach out to these individuals because they feel a personal connection and are reassured that their best interests are in mind. Becoming a trusted advisor is essential for every professional. Creating this type of dynamic with your client base adds to your overall value. If consumers feel confident and comfortable with you, they will be more loyal and likely to recommend your services to others. Cultivate this reputation, and your business will grow.

The Keys to “Trust”

So how do you become a trusted advisor in the eyes of your consumers? Pay attention to the key word: Trust. As writer Doug Hall points out in Businessweek, ”when distrust rules, it’s harder for entrepreneurs to sell customers on the wonders of their new products and services.” Therefore, you must first cultivate a personal relationship with your clients. Savvy consumers know when they’re being treated as a number and not a person. Therefore you must use every opportunity to establish trust by emphasizing your personal commitment and professional knowledge. Remember that maintaining your reputation as a trusted advisor takes constant effort. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Always listen: Really listen to what your consumer is saying. Showing that you care about and understand their problem validates their concerns. When you can present yourself as the solution to their problem, they’ll feel they are truly being taken care of – and that increases your value.

Be accessible: Let them know you’re eager to help and always available to answer questions. This way they won’t hesitate to contact you first in the future.

Show your knowledge: You’re already involved in your field, so you certainly know what you’re talking about. But make sure to show consumers that you follow the latest trends and news in your industry. Even better, help them understand what’s happening and how it affects them. They want you to talk to them, not at them (a big difference between advisor and expert). If they understand what you’re saying, they’ll feel more confident in their decision.

Continue communication: Luckily, with today’s technology you can continue to strengthen your consumer relationship even when you’re not having one-on-one time. Use social media and other platforms to present yourself as a trusted advisor. Blog about your customer’s problems, address industry news, create resource directories, and reach out to your network to offer solutions and welcome dialogue. Fostering that communication will make consumers more likely to approach you – or recommend you — next time your services are in need.

So, how do you plan to become a trusted advisor?

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Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Web Designer?

Being a web designer, whether it’s freelancing or working in house, is a difficult job. There are a lot more skills needed than just knowing how to code a web site. If you’ve ever considered becoming a web designer, continue reading to see some of the skills needed to compete in the job and freelance web design market. Some of the skills might surprise you.

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Web Designer?

Writing Skills

Your writing and editing skills should be excellent. This skill is important if you want to become a truly effective web designer. The skills with graphics, Photoshop, HTML, CSS etc are not enough, trust me. Your writing is what appeals to the customers when they first visit your site. This helps open a communication channel between you and the client. Don’t worry about using fancy words, you just need to have the writing skills to explain to the customers what you can do for them.

Still if you can use some fancy words, that can make the communication more effective. It’s just like designing a web page. A web page will be more appealing if you make it so. The more effective your words, the more impressive your portfolio and project will be.

Apart from having good writing skills, your writing should also be fast, because the faster you can type, the faster you’ll be able to code, and the faster you will be able to reply to emails. This will help you finish your tasks before the deadline and impress the client.

Unique Style

You must have your own style. To stand out from all the other web designers out there, including the freelancers and the companies, you must have something that no one has. And to be different from others you must simply have your own style. This makes it easy for the customers to recognize that your work is indeed different from others. The important factor in having your own style is having a distinct signature, because I have seen many web designers with the same style, in one way or other.

Social Media Marketing

Your social media marketing skills also play a role these days because of the trend of marketing turning from offline to online. Due to the change in technology, after having a grip over the computers, printers and other necessary equipments, you need to know all the social media sites and about their usage. This is because most of the online businesses share their products and news on the social sites like Facebook, Twitter and other sites. This skill proves to be very effective because of the high usage of users on those sites, and so you can use them for your marketing.

Communication Skills

Your communication skills should  be strong. It’s very important in every part of every business. As a web designer you must be able to communicate, not just in writing, but also verbally and visually. Along with it, the listening part plays an important role too. You should be a good listener and listen attentively to your clients so that you can make them feel that you always try to understand them well and give the impression that you can give them tips.

Management Skills

Project management skills is something that can make you stand out. These includes managing resources, planning a project, and executing a project. Customer satisfaction mainly depends on your management skills which can help customers avoid headaches.

Knowledge About HTML & CSS

HTML & CSS is a must have skill for a web designer, I know this should be obvious but I know some web designers merely come up with the idea and outsource the actual coding. They might sometimes put their signature on and it won’t leave a good impression on your client if they have a code related issue and you can’t answer it immediately. XHTML and CSS are not that hard to learn and are actually the most important tools in web designing, so you need to understand the usability and accessibility of HTML & CSS.

Business Sense

You must have some business sense. Freelancers might ignore this area, but trust me, even if you are self-employed, you need to know business basics. It will help you make decisions about how to approach your projects, or how to better help your client be successful. This area is not that complicated, because it’s just common sense that you must need to understand what your client is telling you, whether that client is an individual or a company.

Creative Thinking

Creative thinking is a very crucial skill you should have so your clients to come to you more often. You should always be thinking out of the box and trying to be more creative in your designs. This way you can develop your own style and create a great project and increase your number of clients.

Survive Being a Team Player

You should be a team player. Sometimes you are just part of a project team and not the lead. This is a good opportunity sometimes to polish your skills working on the one task you are appointed to. The appreciation that you get from the whole team is something that will keep you motivated. Occasionally you won’t like a teammate that much and it can become a hindrance to your work and you should always try to ignore or resolve the problem. You can also face a time when the whole workload is on you and the team expects you to overcome it. That is the time when you have to be calm and prove that you can be a team player and can be counted on.

SEO Skills

You must know the basics of SEO. Optimising your web pages for search engines is indeed a vital element in web design. This is because your project doesn’t have to end with the completion of the web design, you can make yourself stand out (and some more money) if you know what you’re doing with SEO.

Time Management

You should be able to manage time effectively. Every project has a deadline and you have to be conscious of the amount of time things take you, and always try to finish your work before the deadline, so as to have the time to re-check everything and correct any errors. Completing the task before the deadline leaves a good impression upon the client, and it is a good thing for you in the long-term.

Problem Solver

You should be able to solve problems. Projects are never without their problems and indeed you will encounter some. You need to be able to overcome any problem you encounter. The client doesn’t care what problems you may face while completing their project, so learn to face all the problems and solve them.

Through today’s post, we have mentioned some of the essential skills that you must have. So start judging yourself with respect to these, and be realistic and true to yourself, because polishing these skills will make you go far in your career.

Protecting yourself as a designer | Webdesigner Depot

Graphic design is one of those job that everyone needs but whose value perhaps not everyone appreciates.

People who don’t understand the true value of graphic designers will try to take advantage of them, especially if they’re newbies.

Others will try to calculate the time and effort involved in designing and then assume you’ll meet their expectations, however unrealistic.

This can wear on you both financially and mentally, so you have to find ways to protect yourself. Here are four ways to keep your work and your clients in check.

Have a look through them and let us know your experiences and whether you would add anything to this list.

1. Contracts and terms of service

Whenever you land a gig, be as clear as possible with the client so that they understand what will happen. I like to have a full consultation with new clients, and once we come to a basic agreement, I go over what they can expect from me and what I expect from them.

You may want to draw up a contract to get everything down on paper and to make sure everything is clear, just in case you run into trouble later on. There are a few essential things you’ll want to put in the contract or terms of services…

Deliverables

What exactly will you be giving them when all is said and done? This is usually specified by the client; they may want your PSD files or perhaps just a format that can be printed. Let them know what they will be getting so that there is no confusion.

Contributions

In addition to the deliverables, let the client know a bit about your process and what you expect from them. One of my biggest pet peeves is clients who don’t answer emails in what I think is a timely fashion; if you’re the same, why not put that in your contract? Spell out (and agree on) what you expect from the client and what they expect from you. This alone will clear up much confusion and hold each party accountable for the duration of the project.

Revisions

This is the cause of most headaches for designers. Spell out as clearly as possible what you consider to be a revision. This is key, because one person’s idea of a revision may not be the same as another’s. Is a revision moving the logo to the left or completely redesigning the page? Once you’ve come to an understanding, specify how many revisions you think are reasonable for the project (and the budget).

I personally don’t mind minor revisions, but complete redesigns are the death of me. To avoid this, you may want to provide several different designs at once and then narrow down as time goes on. But if you do this, make sure it’s contracted. Be up front when talking about revisions as well, and when you submit updates, remind the client what you’ve agreed on.

Payment

This is probably the most important part of the contract. How do you want to get paid? Do you want a deposit? If so, how much? Answer all of these questions so that the client knows what to do.

I strongly suggest some type of deposit before you start a project, just so that you know the client is serious about getting work done. Some designers require payment in full up front, while others have certain conditions depending on the total amount of the project. Figure out what works for you, discuss it with the client, and go from there.

Cancellations

We never like to think that someone would cancel on us. It’s one of the worst feelings in the world. But the truth is, it happens, and you need to protect yourself in some way. Perhaps give the client a time period in which they can cancel, or request a non-refundable deposit. Find something that works for you, and, of course, state it clearly in the contract. You never want to do a ton of work only to have the person back out on you with no consequences. Make no exceptions.

2. Say no

Some designers are so eager to stay busy with work or make money that they have a hard time saying no to projects. Too many projects coming your way is not the worst problem to have, but eventually you’ll get frustrated or burnt out. You’ll want to avoid certain types of projects…

Baby budgets

Be absolutely clear with yourself about how low you are willing to go on price for the work involved. You may have to pass on a ton of projects, but people who are willing to pay will eventually come forward. You don’t want to find yourself zipping through a bunch of cheap projects.

Outside your skill set

Be honest about your skill set. When I started out, I took on projects that were outside my skill set, just so that I would stay busy. I had no working knowledge of Flash, but I would guarantee someone a Flash intro or banner. That was a huge mistake, because I had to learn the skill and execute the task to the client’s liking by the deadline. That’s a recipe for stress.

Only take on work that falls within your skill set. Be honest with yourself and your client. Perhaps you could convince them of an alternative solution that does fall within your skill set.

Full plate

If you’re already up to your eyeballs in work, don’t take on more. You’ll just be getting more deadlines and more stress for no reason. Pace yourself; avoid burning out or getting into a creative slump. Give yourself some breathing room between projects so that you have time to rejuvenate and come up with fresh ideas.

Speeding through projects and working at your limit all the time is not good for your mental or physical health. Don’t be so quick to accept whatever crosses your path. Just let good work come to you, and do it on your own terms.

3. Charge more

Protecting yourself has a lot to do with the types of clients you attract. If you attract ones who you just don’t get along with or who are rude and hard to work with, consider increasing your prices.

The amount you charge correlates to the value (and quality) of your product. If you charge pennies for big projects, you might attract a bunch of clients, but they won’t necessarily understand the value you are delivering. When people don’t understand your value or feel you offer little, then they will treat you accordingly.

If you purchase a $100 digital camera, you can enjoy the product, and if you drop it or scuff it up a bit, you won’t be terribly upset because it was only $100. If you purchase a $1500 camera, you’ll be much more careful with it. That’s the kind of mentality most people have with service providers.

Unfortunately for us, working with people who don’t value our services can be very stressful. Consider increasing your prices in order to attract a different type of client, one who values your work.

4. Set barriers with family and friends

This is a touchy subject for most. We all cherish our friends and family, but we are often the only graphic designer they know. And when they come to us for work, they expect a deep discount or even no charge. Figure out beforehand where you’ll draw the line.

If you offer a discount, make sure that at least your time spent on the project will be covered. Beyond that, treat them just like a regular client. Of course, you might want to be a bit more flexible in the number of revisions you allow and things of that nature, which is fair.

Dealing with requests for free work is a bit more difficult. If I accept a project for free, I treat it as my own personal project. I retain total creative control, and once it is delivered, few or no revisions are allowed — and certainly no redesigns. Again, figure out what’s best for you and your business, and sit down and go over it with your relative or friend.

6 Steps Before Creating An Affiliate Website | Search Engine People

I started an affiliate marketing niche website in January this year - hopefully the first of many!

I got into it really quick and spent a considerable amount of time into getting it up and running. To cut a long story short, my excitement fizzled after a couple of months.

Factors like the addition and updating of content and general site administration started sucking up way too much of my time - and as a husband & father in full time "9-to-5" employment that freelances during moonlit hours - it just started getting a bit much for not much...

However... I've been doing A LOT of research over the last 4 or 5 months and have now learnt a lot more invauable information and useful tricks to get my affiliate marketing activities back on track.

Here are some steps - and questions you should ask yourself - before getting started with creating a niche affiliate marketing website.

affiliate-sites

There are basic things to consider before building an affiliate website. Once you understand the basic concepts of good preparation, these methods can be repeated time and time again when you create a new website or blog.

So why do we need to follow these guidelines? To rank well in the search engines, there are some easy, but specific things to apply first. The following will help you to not only achieve higher organic rankings for your keywords, but also encourage a more highly targeted audience. Google loves high quality, on topic content! After all, this is what they want – to provide their users with a great  experience when browsing. They want people to be able to find what they are searching for quickly and easily.

The first step is to find a profitable market. You need to bring together a few things in order to determine whether or not you have a niche topic worthy of creating a website around it. Dig more deeply into information about what people want, and if you can find an appropriate affiliate product or service to match. Remember, your key objective is to find what people want  – and give it to them via your website!

6 Steps To Follow Before Creating a Website

  1. Will people be interested in what you have to offer? A keyword tool will help you determine if there are enough people searching for the product or service you are thinking about selling. The free Google keyword tool is a great place to start your search. You can look at search results returning a high level of broad matches, or a lower amount of exact matches only if it specifically targets your target keyword phrase used in your site's title and or description.
  2. Google Insights is helpful for a general forecast of your keyword's future popularity. The benefit of using Google Insights is also to check which countries are searching for your keywords. Add a few possible keywords into the box to make a comparison of which ones are attract a higher search volume.
  3. Determine the competition for your keyword phrase in your niche. Are there many AdWords ads on the search results page?  If so, there is probably money to be made in this affiliate niche. This gets back to being successful – learn what other successful people do – and model off that!  Some people think it is better to avoid strong competition, but if you are patient and accept it may take a little longer to rank for the more competitive keywords, then this is not a problem. (This can also depend on whether or not you are wanting to build a large or small website). High rankings in the search engines may take time, but you will have a long term asset. Your affiliate website will grow stronger over time as your links spread around the internet as your site ages.
  4. Be sure you choose a niche that offers an affiliate program if you don't have your own product or service to sell! This seems basic, but can sometimes be overlooked in the excitement of finding a new hot niche or keyword for a domain name.
  5. Choice of domain name is also important when building an affiliate website. Along with an easily memorable name, you will need to decide on a domain name that preferably has the keyword in it. This is especially important for affiliate niche sites. The bottom line is – your Google rankings will be better with your chosen keywords in the title and description.
  6. Google and other search engines prefer domain extensions which are .com then either a .org or .net. They will outrank the other extensions most of the time.

These are the very basic building blocks before starting an online business. The Google help page will explain more about what the search engines are looking for when they index your web pages.

Written by Cat Kozar 

I am interested by the constant and ever changing challenge of website SEO. In the quest for improving and adding value to the web, I enjoy sharing information about SEO and link building on my website at AffiliateMarketersCollege.Com

Internet Marketing For Beginners

On the manufacture of treadmills - Paul Madden @ Automica

If there is one thing that I have become known for it is the removal of the day to day grind of office life and the replacement with freedom through automation. I think when talking to people about that subject that they truly believe that automation solves all problems and is the goal. It isn’t.

The true goal is, for me at least, the ability to be where I want, when I want and the the freedom to decide each morning what to do with my day.

Imagine the freedom that comes from waking with a clean slate ahead of you, no appointments, no boss screaming, no need to do anything…

Of course it cant be like that everyday but thats the aim. Some people want to buy a bigger house, to drive a better car, to have lavish holidays once a year. I want to be able to scoop up my family and go find a beach somewhere warm and just spend the day with them walking along the shoreline whilst the waves roll in. I also dont want to disconnect to do that as that means its a holiday and not a lifestyle. Thats where this post comes in…

So the primary thing I think of when presented with a work problem isn’t “can I automate this?” – what I really think is “am I building a treadmill?”
By ‘treadmill’ I mean anything that requires me to be on call to it 24×7. That could be a person, a client or a business process. Anything that needs to own a part of me to operate…

So heres a brief example of that thinking in action: -
So I have a process that I need to do that normally requires a raft of staff, in fact the process is similar to 3 other processes that normally require staff.

Job 1.
Deskill…
Take the process or workflow as it exists in a successful business you are aware of and write it down as a procedure. I normally use a mindmap for that and I always do that on paper with a pencil, its just how my tiny brain works I am afraid.
Now once we have the stages mapped out we look for ways that we can separate the process into modular tasks that are easy to identify or allocate to a specific brief.
For example say we wanted to build a site we might start with someone providing look and feel roughs and then pass those to a logo provider who would come back with options, the designer would then evaluate the options and choose the best.

Once you have each of the main processes deskilled you should have a clear idea of where and what the skilled work is. You can then decide who is best to do that skilled work. Maybe its you or maybe its someone you know, I am sure though that as a discreet task its far cheaper for them or you to complete if the non-skilled parts have been removed.

Job 2.
Automate
Now we have a procedure with non-skilled tasks and the skilled parts identified we can go ahead and look at the best way to achieve each one.
For non skilled work look at automating via scripting or via the building of teams in oDesk etc.
For skilled work look at partnerships or how you can manage set times to do set tasks.

Job 3.
KPI’s
Key performance indicators or ‘KPI’s’ are set measures that when taken in isolation mean nothing but when looked at as a set indicate the performance of a business or process.
For example if I was running a manufacturing plant I might want to know things like: -
Number of units ordered
Number of units produced
Staff hours worked
Debtor payment days
Supplier credit days
Etc

Its from these indicators that the true picture of the management of the process comes.

Job 4.
Isolate, remove and delegate.
Once we have a business process defined, deskilled, automated and measured we can then empower someone within that process to keep tabs on the day to day and we can retire to looking at the KPI’s.

I tend to make those KPI’s available on my iPhone so even if I am on a beach in the med or in a casino in Vegas I can simply glance at a set of numbers and know what the health of a process is and because its modular you know who looks after each node and can repair its operation with one or two quick emails.

Building a team who youll never meet.

In the last section I talked about deconstructing a process to make it work without you being involved. Often that task involves building in a team of humans to do set tasks.
Humans, as you may be aware, suck. They suck big time. They are needy and whiny and they want feeding and praising.

Im not the maternal type when it comes to staffing. Im fair but to me most of the time you are performing a part in a larger machine.

I know that makes me sound like a victorian mill owner but I am not some bald fat white dude in northern England with a mill. Well to be fair I am all of those things but I dont have a mill, the old bakery I work from isn’t a mill despite the outward appearances… anyway…

So on with the reason I am writing this. Building a team of outsourced staff is about one thing, process…
The start point is oDesk. Post a job that defines the task in a way that gets the most people possible to apply. By this I mean dont add a description like “Article writer for the medical industry” – Just write “Creative writer, perfect english”.

Once we have a number of applicants we go through them and we email at least 10-20 with something like: -

“Hi we are looking for someone to fill our job (X) and thought you might be ideal. What we would like to do is hire you for a trial period. We will send you the tasks you need to do and if the standard of your work meets what we need we will extend that to a full time position”

Then those that accept get the tasks to trial. I then monitor how they do and after a few attempts I will hire perhaps 5 and ditch the rest (Leaving good feedback).

Now we have the start of our team. They run for about another 2 weeks before we review their results. There will normally be one of the team who has produced more results than any other or whos ability to communicate has been outstanding. I will then name them as ‘team leader’ and give them responsibility to manage the other team members and a bonus scheme to hit the targets as set in our system KPI’s

Now having designed that pyramid of people and scripting to plug the gaps inbetween the task for me to scale the system up or down is simple.

I log into the admin
I go to settings
I select the KPI I want to turn up
I increase the number

Having done that task, the team leaders hire or release workers and work their node to the point that the number gets hit.

Delegate or die: the self-employed trap - Derek Sivers

Most self-employed people get caught in the delegation trap.

You're so busy, doing everything yourself. You know you need help, but to find and train someone would take more time than you have! So you keep working harder, until you break.

Here's my little tale of how I broke into the delegation mindset:

In 2001, CD Baby was three years old. I had eight employees but I was still doing “everything else” myself. Working 7am to 10pm, seven days a week, everything still went through me.

Every five minutes, my employees had a question for me:

  • “Derek, some guy wants to change the album art after it's already live on the site. What do I tell him?”
  • “Derek, can we accept wire transfer as a form of payment?”
  • “Derek, someone placed two orders today, and wants to know if we can ship them together as one, but refund him the shipping cost savings?”

It was hard to get anything done while answering questions all day. I felt like I might as well just show up to work and sit on a chair in the hallway, just answering employees' questions, full-time.

I hit my breaking point. I stopped going to the office and shut off my phone. Then I realized I was running from my problems instead of solving them. I had to fix this, or I'd be ruined.

After a long introspective night of thinking and writing, I got myself into the delegation mindset.

I had to make myself un-necessary to the running of my company.

The next day, as soon as I walked in the door, someone asked, “Derek, someone whose CDs we received yesterday has now changed his mind and wants his CDs shipped back. We've already done the work, but he's asking if we can refund his set-up fee since he was never live on the site.”

This time, instead of just answering the question, I called everyone together for a minute.

I repeated the situation and the question for everyone.

I answered the question, but more importantly, I explained the thought process and philosophy behind my answer.

“Yes refund his money in full. We'll take a little loss. It's important to always do whatever would make the customer happiest, as long as it's not outrageous. A little gesture like this goes a long way to him telling his friends we're a great company. Everyone always remember that helping musicians is our first goal, and profit is second. You have my full permission to use that guideline to make these decisions yourself in the future. Do what makes them happiest. Make sure everyone who deals with us leaves with a smile.”

I asked around to make sure everyone understood the answer.

I asked one person to start a manual, and write down the answer to this one situation, and write down the philosophy behind it.

Then everyone went back to work.

Ten minutes later, new question. Same process:

  1. Gather everybody around.
  2. Answer the question, and explain the philosophy.
  3. Make sure everyone understands the thought process.
  4. Ask one person to write it in the manual.
  5. Let them know they can decide this without me next time.

After two months of this, there were no more questions.

Then I showed someone how to do the last of the stuff that was still my job. As part of learning it, they had to document it in the manual, and show it to someone else, too. (Learn by teaching.)

Now I was totally un-necessary.

I started working at home - not going into the office at all.

I had even taught them my thought-process and philosophy about hiring new people. So our two newest employees were entirely found, interviewed, hired, and trained by them. They used that manual to make sure every new employee understood the philosophy and history, and knew how to make decisions for themselves.

I'd call in once a week to make sure everything was OK. It was. They didn't even have any questions for me.

Because my team was running the business, I was free to actually improve the business!

I moved to California, just to make it clear that the running of things was up to them.

I was still working 12-hour days, but now I was spending all my time on improvements, optimizations and innovations. To me, this was the fun stuff. This was play, not work.

While I was away, my company grew from $1M to $20M in four years.

There's a big difference between being self-employed and being a business owner.

Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles.

To be a true business owner, make sure you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left.

(If you're interested in this stuff, read a book called “E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber.)

© 2011 Derek Sivers