Career Transitioning Advice and Tips

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Larkland

This could have been titled, changing your profession without a pay cut which means be ready to hit the ground running.  I am no expert on this topic but I can give some pointers from experience and observations of best practices. This whole issue of career transitioning could be very important for lots of people at this point in time due to the economic situation that we are in.

The first step about transitioning is the whole issue of passion for what you have in mind. Now, people may pursue a new career because it pays well but that may not mean its their passion and that can be a long term time bomb. The focus of my post will be mostly on mechanics. There are many books and guides on issue of discussing passion and strengths.

There are three basic areas that I would recommend for career transition at the moment. They are Mentoring, Reading and Research. I will use the field of computer engineering for examples but it can be applied to both related fields or any other profession.

Targeting

Before I get into the mechanics of the three areas, its important to look at what you want in terms of the targeted position or profession. My simple advice is to go on the most recognized job sites and take a few job description and try to understand what are the basic skill requirements. Then you can use this as a guide for your plan.

Mentoring

This is a big one for either just starting out or transitioning in general. I am not talking about overly formalized mentoring arrangements but mostly on someone who is mature in the field and also with good hands on experience as well. You can pay someone to help with this at least to give you some pointers in the right direction but I do think its best to get someone is almost like a friend to interact and get feedback on steps along the way. This means you will need to buy coffee, dinner and lunch quiet often.

Reading

I chose the term reading as oppose to take a direct class purposefully. Classes are good especially if the transition is very radical but I do think reading the right materials can be good for someone with five or more years of experience.

There is reading of basic text books but I would say try to find the most recognized book in the field with real focused approach to solving problems and getting things done. White papers and some blogs are also good reading materials as well.

Research

This could seem like an overlap with reading but lets assume it means practice. The word research here is to do with applying the knowledge and would mean when you read and have some knowledge put it to the test. This means to experiment and correct things as you go along. In the field of software engineering for example, one big  boost is the presence of open source code for practically any field. With this in mind, setup a simple lab environment at home and focus on implementing one good challenging project.

Summary

Overall, I would say with good discipline you could be ready in six months to get positions based on your studies and guidance, the mentoring could pay a good role in getting this done really fast. You can also test your theoretical knowledge with many online resources out there such as brainbench.com and many others.

How do you advertise your new knowledge? one thing in mind, is to take on a project and complete it and add to your resume, of course you could mention the relevant keywords related to your profession. Some professions will do better with Certification or an advanced degree. An example are project management with the PMP or Business consulting with an MBA. I do think in most cases with good background experience, whats more important is your passion, mastery of the subject and ability to demonstrate your competence. The one thing I like and would recommend strongly is to start a blog on the subject and discuss your opinion on issues in the field.

Bonus Tip: If you have had patchy employment in the last few years or out of a job for awhile, I would recommend to register a business name and mention your professional research work as an employee of this business – For example if you did some relevant short term consulting, develop software, generate white papers etc. Add it to your Resume to cover the gaps.

Here is one great book to check out on the subject – Harvey Mackay

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Business Tips for Engineers or any Specialists

Posted on April 23, 2010 by Larkland

This post will be focused on my own experience to start a business that I could have as income replacement and better. I am targeting specialist as we always tend to think of a business as just doing the same things at our regular day job for ourselves. Basically, working for yourself. This is a big mistake and I will try to explain in this post.

If you want to give the appearance of working for yourself, the simplest thing to do is incorporate a business, call yourself President/CEO then look for work as a contractor doing the same work as a full time employee. While you could probably get a better salary with this, it will be very difficult to ensure you will always get work. The frustration here is that when you get work, you would probably get several offers. However, when that contract is over, you run the risk of waiting for awhile before more work is available.

A few simple twist to the contracting model above. Focus on being a consultant that focuses on solving specific project problems. You can charge a lot more this way and you could take on multiple projects at the same time. Another twist is to get full time contracts but get other specialist to place on contract under your company. This way, you will get some income when you are not working directly. Long term you could convert the company into a consulting firm if things are in high demand.

Now, lets get into the mechanics of real business, still assuming its around your professional area.

Lets use the example of a good software developer for this case. The assumption here is that you know how to develop code for some type of products and you would prefer to do this on your own.

1. Try to think about what you want to accomplish for your life and how the business will help you achieve it. Then think about how you want the business to be. How big and what type of revenue ideas you have in mind. This process is important to set context of where you want to go long term.

2. You need to find a market problem to solve. Actually, anyone can write software if they really want to do this. Thus its not your ability to write software that will make money. Its solving real problems for businesses or consumers. This means you need to brainstorm on what problem you want to solve. This could be as simple as training other programmers or implement some patentable technology that you develop.

3. Do market research on the problem and existing solutions. Also look into how you would deliver your solution. Actually, a good way to do market research is to speak directly with potential customers to validate the idea.  Get as much data from established sources as possible before you move forward to build the solution.

4. Plan out your business implementation path. Now with some market validation, you need to plan how the business will look for delivering the production. This business will be in phases, so you want to focus in on what exactly is required at each stage. This is where you need to step out from just being a specialist and look at the big picture of each business function and when you need them. Most experts will say you need marketing and sales right upfront. All of this can be captured in a business plan. You also need this plan now, so in case things are really successful, you have plan to deal with that right away.

5. Focus on selling the solution. Most engineers and specialist hate sales but no business can survive without selling, so you need to focus on getting people interested in your product and gauge the interest. This could save you time down the road from building something people don’t want. Even if its a software product, you could start a website or information sessions around what the solution intention is. Get people to sign up and share ideas with them.

6. Hire the needed talent. You need to acknowledge again that you can’t do everything in a real business, so you will need to get help. This could be outsourced partners or part time employees initially but at least get help in some ways.  If you can find partners that will share the load that can be useful depending on how you want to pursue the ownership part of things. If you are planning to spend over a $1M in this early stage you may want to consider a CEO or someone that can take care of operational issues. Definitely, hire sales and marketing in some ways early.

7. Build and Deliver the product. Now its time to build the solution and get it to your customers. You will be good at this from experience, so now you want try to be more of an architect in your approach as oppose to just being a developer. yes, you will do lots of the work but you need to look at the big picture in getting this done. Work with your sales team to get the product to market as soon as its ready.

8. Grow the business.  This is the stage where you have your own product and its selling based on your early work to test the market out. At this stage, you really want to consider how organize you are to deal with customers and growing. Customer Support will be critical at this stage as well as all the other simple issues with running a business.

I will have more on this topic soon. A good book to read on the stages of business growth is “Ready Fire Aim” get it here – Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to 00 Million in No Time Flat (Agora Series)

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Deciding on Business Plan Versus Model

Posted on April 11, 2010 by Larkland

Ran into this great blog post yesterday about the steps you should take in launching your small business or product. The post is saying that you should approach potential customers first before you get too committed to building the product. The whole philosophy here is that you should let the customer guide you in the process instead of coming up with this great idea, build the product then no one wants it. Sometime you end up building something totally different after checking out the market place.

In the world of internet marketing, this is actually easier process as you can look at keywords, setup test pages or even design a quick survey and put it on pay per click or other platforms. If your product is B2B then you may not get much help from the Internet, you will need to find businesses that could be customers and ask them how they think a specific problem could be solved or present your idea and ask for feedback.

As the article says, when you have good feedback, then getting funding is way easier as now you have lots of interest out there in the market place. Take a simple example, you run a survey online for a product that would sell for $1400.00 and you get up to 20,000 responses with an affirmative interest in this product, do you think it would be hard to get someone to help you pull this off?

The issue in this article is not that you should not do a business plan as that is important to write down what needs to be done. Instead the writer is saying that you should look at how to increase your success factor closer to 100% by knowing what you need to be doing from your potential customers.

You can read the full article here at Business Model versus Business Plan

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Making the case for Tablet Computers

Posted on April 4, 2010 by Larkland

Today, April 3rd, was the first release of Apple’s Ipad tablet computer. It’s important to note that this is not the first tablet computer on the market, in fact I got myself an old Fujitsu ST 5022D off ebay.com recently which I think is about 5 years old in terms of technology. In fact Apple once had a tablet/large PDA called the Newton as well.

The Ipad is not the first of the new generation of tablet computers either as  there are several other brands out in the market except that the closest competitors in terms of functionality are from smaller companies. Now what makes the modern tablet stand out from its ancient siblings?

There are several key differentiating technologies that is changing the face of computing in general and will drive not just tablets but intelligent devices in general. The first is touch screen technology. This allows a user to interact directly with the screen on a device with fingers as oppose to using the pen on older devices. The other technology is battery in general. This has made the other devices very heavy such as the Fujitsu ST 5022D that I have. I took the battery out, and it weighs so much less. I think the evolution of battery technology and low power components is a big factor in driving the usage of portable devices.

The next key factor, is wireless data technology. Several devices came out on the market in the last few years from the blackberry which allowed corporate e-mail interaction to the Iphone that provides web browsing and applications in general. Several others came with options to surrounding those models but pretty much the same thing. The wireless technology I want to mention is 3G wireless. This allows much better data experience from literally anywhere. Of course, we know this will reach its peak soon and fortunately 4G technology is pretty much ready to go. We will see this in larger scales by 2011. Wifi should not be ignored, as it’s the technology that is still available in pretty much any decent locations nowadays including most homes. Bluetooth is another one that will help device to device communication in a limited space.

The next very important technology that’s driving the technology landscape is the issue of application deployment. I think Apple has set a trend with the launch of its Iphone Apps store and this will continue with the Ipad and other similar devices. The ability to find an application for pretty any function in one place is very big.

In summa I think the Ipad will do well as Apple is very good at marketing, but I do think it will improve significantly over the next few years as this is just 1.0. Other vendors will drive the competition forward but the question I have, is this the ultimate computing device? I doubt it. I think this is where Apple will beat the others. They will focus on having an Ipad answer will Apple is now focused on solving the next computing challenges for user interaction.

I do believe we are heading towards the time when we can have full video interaction anywhere. While, we have several means to get that done, there is still work to be done in that arena.

Here is a recent review from the different points of view on the Ipad – Goto Ipad Review.

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Some Business Technology Trends

Posted on March 21, 2010 by Larkland

Ran into this great article on business technology trends to watch from Mckinsey quarterly. Check it out at Eight business technology trends.

I am sure you will learn something can be applied to your business.

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The best way to approach Work!!

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Larkland

One of those quick blog but this can be a serious topic. There are many seminar providers out there including big names that keep saying you need to get rid of your job to be totally free to do what you want. I find this approach to be non-sensical. In fact to the point where I am seeing people who were once business people refusing to get a job to provide for basic living expenses. what’s the point if you have no money?

On the other hand, you may not be doing the right thing of approaching work blindly either. You can definitely make a good living from work once you plan your course accordingly. Remember making $300K or more a year in a job would come without the issues of managing or worry about a business. That’s one side to it.

If your goal is to stop working at some point before the typical retirement years, then maybe you would approach it in terms of how you could invest your savings or time in a way to realize that outcome. Basically, people would call this approach passive income generation. This could be done in many ways which could take several blog posts.

You only need to change what you are doing if you feel dissatisfied with the current situation. Don’t tell people they are stupid for not wanting to pursue some weird business building venture which most time is just an extension of those Gurus Ego.

The bottom line is that setting goals in life is important regardless of how you want to achieve them. Now in terms of performing at your peak, its important to find out what you really like to do and then work would not be a burden as it can be. This could mean trying different positions or changing companies etc.. Try not to get into a situation where you are only working because you have to pay the bills. This can be a lose-lose situation as you are not really into what you are doing but wanting to make sure you have an income.

You need to have some burning desires in life and that should drive what you decide to do.

Look out for an updated blog post on Peak performance coming soon..

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Personal Development – Video Presentation

Posted on February 16, 2010 by Larkland

Here is a great presentation by Jim Rohn of development

Another bonus video on the same topic by Brian Tracy

How you enjoy this video. More coming soon

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Life Coaching – A Simple Low-Cost Business Model

Posted on January 6, 2010 by Larkland

I was reading the other day and ran into one of those life coaching programs. It was going for less than $1000.00 and you get certified by taking an exam which makes you a certified professional Coach. Immediately you could have a business around that.

Coaching, life or business is an interesting field and can apply to any specific area of specialty. It could be an Engineer who would like to be a Manager or Someone that wants to achieve a certain level of wealth or even to lose weight. The coach is basically not necessarily the expert in the profession but that person will help an individual to set goals and actions to achieve them. The coach would also follow up on milestones and ensure that the individual stays on track or recommend recovery options.

Now, lets look at how this could work for you.  Here are the points I recommend to decide on this.

1. Interest – Do you like working with people and help them to succeed at whatever? do you have an area in life that you are passionate about? Then life coaching could be good for you in that context.

2. Research – Do some research on what life coaching really is. I am sure there are both books and lots of blogs and websites about this. Try to understand whats going on in the industry for your education.

3. Certification – Once you have an idea that you really want to do this, the best option is to pick a Certification program. My personal approach is to put them into a comparative spreadsheet then make a decision based on your comfort level. As mentioned earlier, there are several for less than US$1000.00 out there that looks rather reputable. This will also help with your marketing as well.

4. Business Setup – Once you complete the course and exam or even during that process, you could form a business entity to manage this overall business. You can look at several options such as LLC, C-Corp, S-Corp or a Non-Profit Structure. I personally believe once you start to deal with the public its good to formalize a business entity for many reasons. This should cost no more than $500 in most states with the required elements.

5. Marketing – Most of the certification programs do offer help in this arena and in fact some of them have memberships so you can ask for advice along the way. The best approach is to start with friends and you can even do it for free in order to build your reputation. Make out time per week to meet potential clients and other related activities. You would also need to have a pricing structure depending on how you plan to offer the service. For example you could do one-on-one approach or use group options. With the Internet, you could offer your service anywhere and have sessions online with free tools like Skype and others.

Overall, I think life coaching is a good low cost business venture to look at for anyone at any level. You could be seen as someones personal assistant at the low end or at the high end being the expert in the profession of choice to really help others to reach the top of their potential.

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The Good Side of a Business Plan

Posted on December 8, 2009 by Larkland

Another short and quick post. Most times you may think that a business plan is aimed at sharing things with outsiders but actually at the initial stage, its much more important for you actually. Its important to convince yourself objectively that you really have a good grasp of what you are trying to do. If you want people or banks to invest into the venture you need to convince them that it makes sense. Now, it does not mean your business plan has to be perfect upfront but the overall trust should be there to make the pitch without too much effort.

Some keys I can share to help with this off the top of my head.

1. Market research – this is a critical piece to see if there will be a demand for the service or product that you have in mind. Also look at the competition in terms of whats being offered in that market. If its a physical business; which location would suit you better?

2. Value Creation – How will your business add value to customers, employees and owners/investors? This is important piece of delivering something that will take you to the next level.

3. Cashflow Projection – Even without too much details, the key to success is to generate cash as fast as possible. You could get millions in orders but how much of that is cash in the bank to at least pay the bills soonest?

4. Execution Strategy – This is a critical piece before you get into details of operations and tactics. What are the strategies you will use to succeed long term. As we speak, lots of large companies are failing as they don’t have strategy in place to guide them for the long term.

Those are a good start for now, we will look into more details as I dig more into a useful and effective business plan approach.

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What exactly is your strategic vision?

Posted on October 25, 2009 by Larkland

This may sound like some big words and very sophisticated and the likes but we all do have a strategic vision. Whether we planned this out or not, that is the case.

To put my view on this in simple terms, whatever you are focused on, forms the core of your strategic vision. This means that if you are stuck in life and unhappy about your career, it means the strategic vision that you have now is leading you to that point.

On the flip side, when you have a specific plan to achieve some goals, then either you were wrong to set those goals in the first place  and thats making you happy or you really are focused on the long term achievement and taking all the steps to doing so. Of course it will not be smooth sailing all the time but there is a difference to having setbacks and just stuck without real direction.

Take an audit of your actions and see if its getting you anywhere and that would be a good start to moving where you want to go.

What I find is that if you are really convicted about something, you will not just achieve it, you will get this done much faster depending on the energy you focus on it.

Learn more soon

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