I know Pam and Jill… and strongly encourage you to sign up for this no-cost webinar tomorrow. From an email Jill just sent out:
Hi All,
In the past few weeks, we’ve seen numerous articles on how long it’s taking to find a new position today. Plus, there’s been lots of talk on the need for job seekers to be entrepreneurial and the growing trend for people to have multiple jobs concurrently.
That’s why this upcoming webinar is so darn important for you to attend.
It’s about how to live, survive and even thrive in this changing economy of ours.
You need to attend, even if you desperately want to return to “cubicle nation.” Why? Because it’s really about taking back control of your life again.
UPCOMING F-R-E-E Webinar Escape from Cubicle Nation
The collapse of our world economy in 2009 brought tremendous hardship, but also tremendous opportunity.
If no work configuration is secure, we are all self-employed. This gives us many ways to earn a living, if we just know the way to research opportunities and market ourselves as employee and entrepreneur.
Join Pamela Slim, business coach and author of Escape from Cubicle Nation as she guides you through a way to develop a career strategy that will translate regardless of your personal work situation.
In this session you’ll learn:
The starting place for any career path: a sound life plan
The critical steps to start a business
How to build a supportive tribe of supporters, peers and mentors to further your opportunities
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
I won’t have many fans from within that industry, but everyone tells me the time is ripe to disrupt it…. someone is going to do it, why not me?
I want to be in charge of the disruption. Or at least, one of the early disrupters.
This year, tens of thousands of people have had their careers disrupted.
Instead of being in charge of the disruption, they have been disrupted. Many feel like the carpet was pulled out from under them. Some got up fine, others lay on the ground wounded.
Would you rather be a disrupter, and have some control over the direction (or at least feel like you have some control), or a disruptee, and lay down wounded, wondering what the heck’s going on?
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
I retired the Personal Branding Award series a few months ago and said I was going to start a new series…. well, this is it. I want to interview people who are doing something DIFFERENT.
There is an irony I live with every day. Some people think I am hear to help you land your next gig… to find your dream job.
You see, I personally don’t think a dream job exists… not in the way it did a few decades ago. Even if you find the dream job you might not have it after 6 months or 6 years.
You are always in transition, always a job seeker, and thus, always CEO of Me, Inc.
Part of that, as I’ve mentioned before, is to figure out personal income security.
That’s what this series is about – thinking outside the box of “I’m getting my dream job soon!” to “I think there are other ways to crack this (income security) nut!”
Welcome the first person in the series – Gary Vaynerchuk (aka, GaryVee).
Gary is beyond a rockstar, although he’ll deny it. His energy makes me think all I’m suited for is a government job… but he claims it is not the craziness or energy that makes you WIN. No, not win, that makes you CRUSH IT! Crush it is the name of his new book, which should start shipping today.
I interviewed Gary for about 45 minutes, you can listen on the BlogTalkRadio channel. Lots of gems to apply to your own career here.
And check out his book Crush It - it’s less than $15 at Amazon. I’ve got mine in the mail and I’m anxious to get into it!
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
I was talking to my unemployed cousin about doing this and I said:
I guarantee you, as you knock on doors, whether you get the job cleaning the garbage can or not, people will ask you what kind of work you are looking for.
Think about it… if you do this you are showing a good, strong attitude, work ethic, creativity, humility, etc. These are things that employers look for. I’d gladly introduce someone like this to a networking contact. I’m not positive that this person would be the right hire, but this person is out doing something to make it happen, rather than wait for the job to come in.
This might be one of the best networking tactics you employ – and you can make some serious money each day!
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
I was checking out some local Utah business blogs and read one of my favorite entrepreneurs, Jeremy Hanks. I’ve met Jeremy on a number of occasions and love watching the progress of his super-cool company. He has achieved a lot and I look up to him as an example.
A couple days ago, I got a knock on my door, and a guy that was wearing blue rubber gloves was there when I opened it. He said something like: “I lost my job a while back, and got sick of not working, so I’m out providing a service today. I’ll clean out your garbage cans for $10 each, or two for $15. I use a pressure washer and industrial strength bleach and I literally climb inside them and scrub them by hand.”
I hired him on the spot, for two reasons: 1. my garbage cans were nasty; 2. I’d have hired him anyway, because here’s a guy down on his luck making his own.
The story is awesome… remember the Thom Singer post where I talk about pride and humility? I doubt this guy is too proud… don’t you think? In the next paragraph it says:
He says a lot of days, he makes $300-$400…
Can you believe this? I absolutely love this.
$300 – $400 – that is a lot of money. Here’s the math:
$300 * 5 days = $1,500/week
$1,500 * 4.33 weeks in a month (avg) = $6,495/month
$6,495 * 12 months = $77,940/year
That is a LOT of money.
In my neighborhood we have a ton of people who want to mow our lawn, or do our carpets. But never have I had anyone come up to wash my garbage cans for $10. I would pay it on the spot.
Why am I sharing this with you? Some of you are beyond getting anywhere with your job search. This is an idea that can help you pay your bills… even save your house from foreclosure.
Want a bonus idea? Check the blog on Monday and I’ll share why this business idea is the bomb.
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Amy Franko, a business coach out of Ohio. We had a very nice interview where we talked about a number of things – you can get a download of the interview (as well as a transcription) from this page (I’m #4).
Some of the stuff we talk about (her audience is not job seekers, it’s entrepreneurs):
thoughts on being an entrepreneur,
stuff about my book and how I’ve used it as a marketing tool,
the name of a movie that had a major impact on me as an entrepreneur (I saw it on my way to a speaking gig in Turkey),
and a number of thoughts on using LinkedIn.
If you have a few minutes and any entrepreneurial inclination, check it out
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
This weekend the U.S. celebrated our national independence holiday. We appreciate the freedom to choose, be, think, live, etc.
It is quite a contrast from my last job, where I wasn’t free at all.
If you don’t feel free, whether you have a job now, or you are looking for a job that will not allow you to be free, then perhaps you shouldn’t have a job. Perhaps you should own your own gig.
That’s the choice I made about three years ago – to stop my job search and move forward with JibberJobber… and it has been such a ride! I can’t imagine having a job now, although I work harder now for my new boss (me) than I did when I was the general manager of a software company a few years ago.
This freedom is not easy, and not without consequenses. If you have any thoughts of choosing this route, let me recommend one book to buy TODAY (buy a highlighter and red pen, also, as you should be marking up every page of this book):
I’ve known Pamela Slim virtually for a few years now… I really admire her work and her popular blog (Escape from Cubible Nation). She is relentless in sharing her message and vision, and helping people see an alternative to the cube life.
Not that escaping is for everyone… and her book points that out. What I’ve found in her book is a practical reality-check to help you understand what you are getting into … she compaires the rush you get from being an entrepreneur to the rush you get from a crack pipe, she interviews the Grammar Girl and learns that she is bogged down with administration (as opposed to focusing on her passion: grammar), and gives the low-down on health insurance and business structures.
It’s not a “hip-hip-hurray, screw Corporate America while I go get rich with my own ideas,” rather it’s an excellent guide you need to read if you *think* this is the direction you want to go.
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
It’s not every day your product gets mentioned in a poem, that is in a published book! Check out what very-clever John Steensen wrote (the part about JibberJobber is in bold green). You can get his book of 32 poems, all based on technology, from this page.
Google the Elephant
I posted my resume on Monster last year,
I got very few hits, no help for my career.
So I freshened it up and got on LinkedIn,
It would surely raise me above the awful din.
But alas, I was mistaken, for no hits were to follow,
My career plans were looking a little bit hollow.
I thought “I’ll start over” and erased all the words,
I’ll do something quite different – I’ll stray from the herds.
I’ll create a new “Me” – one no employer can resist,
A resume that says “read me first, I insist”.
I’ll heed the advice of social networking gurus,
I’ll weave in hot topics still fresh in the news.
My new resume screamed “hire me this minute”,
Your company cannot succeed unless I am in it.
I may have stretched my qualifications a bit,
But within a few moments I got my first hit.
So I posted it widely on every job board and
Into JibberJobber each day I dutifully recorded,
My interviews, follow-ups and each telephone call,
I didn’t miss one – I recorded them all.
Things were looking up nicely, I was suddenly in demand,
I gave my own back a pat with my hand.
For I had created a most perfect candidate,
Into dozens of jobs, it was clear I would fit.
But suddenly the hits screeched to a halt,
The recruiters stopped calling, what could be the fault?
What evil had happened to stifle my quest,
For the perfect job letting me be my best.
I found out too quickly my old resume,
Had leapt to the surface, much to my dismay.
You load up your odds but you’ll lose all your bets
For just like an elephant, Google never forgets.
I love what he’s doing… combining a passion with wit… great way to showcase his personality and ability and creativity. From his book page (where you can buy the Technoprose book):
Although I’ve written poetry my entire life the efforts have always been directed at a particular special occasion – a birthday, a graduation, a wedding. One day in the fall of 2008, after a particularly engaging conversation with my daughter over the amount of time she was spending on her Nintendo DS, I was inspired to capture my impressions of this encounter in the form of the poem. My wife still insists it was an attempt at self-therapy. I realized that, because my life had been immersed in technology, the verses flowed almost effortlessly. It grew from there. Here is a collection of 32 poems that try to capture the diversity of experience that technology brings into our lives. Many are humorous, some are downright geeky, but all are inspired, for better or worse, by real-world events in both my life and the lives of my family and friends.
John, great job, and thanks for giving props to JibberJobber!
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
Mitchell Levy, the publisher at Happy About, asked me over a year ago if I was interested in being the Executive Editor of the Now What??? series. I had written I’m on LinkedIn — Now What??? and didn’t know that it was a series yet!
My response was “no way.” I did not want to worry about making sure that other people’s books would fit within my brand, that the quality would be good enough, and coddle authors along (aka, babysit people). I know there was a fair amount of coddling me when I was doing my books, and I couldn’t imagine having to do that with others while I was trying to build my JibberJobber business.
The first few ideas he pitched at me for Now What??? books seemed to be completely out of my brand, and it just made sense to focus on what I was doing.
And then, one day, I got a royalty check.
You may have heard that there is no money in writing a book. I kind of somewhat believed that, until I got that one royalty check. I thought ” geesh, if I can get this from one book… what could I get from more?”
I called Mitchell and told him that I was ready to talk about what it meant to be the Executive Editor of the Now What??? series. And then I started to think what my vision for the Now What??? series was:
What if the Now What??? series had 100 titles, and because of the value/power of the series, they could all help one another sell? What if they could be branded to some fraction of the Dummies or Idiots books, and companies or career centers would love to have them in stock? What if we could sell… say… 1,000 of each title each year?
There would be benefits: financial and brand awareness (for JibberJobber) might be two of the biggest benefits.
I approached a number of people who had knowledge or expertise in a certain area and have started down the road with a number books (about 20 titles). I am not ready to announce any of them yet, but am excited to see this stream move forward and mature.
Who’d-a-thunk: Me, and executive editor.
Has this series been helpful to you, as you figure out your other revenue streams?
Here is a breakdown of the revenue streams I’ve shared so far:
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
I’m not quite ready to share the other three revenue streams yet, so I’ll share the most ambiguous. This could be “all the rest of the stuff.” In this revenue stream I include misc stuff, which specifically includes:
Writing projects. I have been paid to write stuff, from white papers to blog posts on other blogs.
Affiliate revenue. This includes a few bucks here from my Happy About affiliate program, as well as other affiliate programs I’ve joined.
Advertising. Theoretically I might be able to make some good money from advertisers, based on the traffic I get on my sites (including this blog, the LinkedIn blog, JibberJobber the application, etc.).
Realize that some people have any of these three as their main income/revenue stream, and some people make a ton of money from any of the three. For example:
Freelance writers can make six figures from writing gigs (the issues include (a) getting the gigs (and competing with all of the other writers out there) and (b) actually doing the work – this is not easily scalable, which means you can only write so many hours a day/week/year.
I know of some affiliate marketers who make a few thousand a month from their affiliate programs, and others who supposedly make five or six figures a month. It sounds appealing to “make money while you sleep,” which is indeed possible, but it takes a lot of work and effort to make more than a hundred bucks a month. A TON of work.
Supposedly one of the top bloggers in the world, dooce.com, makes between “500k and $1M” from her blog. I’m guessing most of this is in sponsorships (at least six figures). There is only one Dooce.com, however… and many wannabees. In another space (web 2.0 tech pundit) Michael Arrington’s blog supposedly makes an easy seven figures a year, but realize they have an entire team producing content, programs, etc.
Below are thoughts about this revenue stream for me. I realize I could hit this harder and make more money in any of these three, and perhaps other revenue opportunities, I count all of this as “miscellaneous” because I’m focusing on revenue that I think is longer-lasting, and more value-add to my ultimate goals with JibberJobber and my company.
Writing Projects
This is hard work. I have only taken writing projects that come to me (instead of me looking for them)… the money is okay, but freelance writing is highly competitive, and for me the biggest problem is that once I get the project, I then need to carve time out to do it. I’ve become quite jealous of my time in the last year. Based on my experience, I can make five figures a month writing, if I pursued it heavily. Again, it’s a great profession, but not my focus. And to make five figures a month you really have to hustle (in getting each contract as well as meeting the deadlines).
Affiliate Revenue
A few months ago I put Indeed search into JibberJobber more prominently, as well as on my blogs (if you are getting this blog post via email you won’t see the Indeed search). I can easily clear a few thousand dollars a year on this income stream alone – it’s not a lot of money but I figure every $83/month stream adds up ($83*12 months is about $1,000/year)… if I find a better thing to put in some of the places where the Indeed widgets are I might do that, but I’m not actively looking to put a bunch of affiliate bling all over… some blogs overdo this.
I also have a number of affiliate links for books I recommend, although I have not pursued this with Amazon yet. Funny, I figure I should make at least an additional $83/month from Amazon, but it ticks me off that they are (or were, last time I looked) only giving about 4% of the sale to their affiliates. Happy About gives 30% (you can sign up for the Happy About affiliate program here).
Again, not a huge focus but I figure I’m leaving some money on the table by not pursuing this more.
Advertising
I met with internet marketing expert Carl Chapman last week (actually, he let me crash at the Chapman Hotel while I was in Atlanta, the entire week!), and he was convinced I should be getting a significant amount of revenue from advertisers on all of my websites (based on the traffic I’m generating). Carl suggested I find a cold-calling salesperson and giving him/her a healthy royalty on sales… I am almost-kind-of open to this, but I’m not excited about cluttering up my properties with stuff unless they the advertising will really pay off.
Here’s the interesting thing about this tenth revenue stream… the statement from above is:
Again, not a huge focus but I figure I’m leaving some money on the table by not pursuing this more.
So the question is – should I spend my time developing this $15k-$20k revenue stream or should I focus more on other revenue streams that are worth more… ? When I listed out 2009 revenues, and 2010 projections, I was quite shocked to see that this stream is a small fraction of the others (on paper). It made me realize if I didn’t do any of this anymore, that’s OKAY. But what I do in this stream is mostly passive, so I’ll just keep on doing what I’m doing, and not aggressively pursuing much here (unless I can find that key salesperson who can do a great job selling advertising or sponsorships).
Helpful information? If you have an information product, have purchased one, or want to have one, what do you think makes it successful? Share thoughts or ideas below
Here is a breakdown of the revenue streams I’ve shared so far:
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
