The making of ‘The Independent Professional’

• As the service industry expands the world of opportunities for the independent professional has exploded – mostly in the Financial Services, media, technology and other niche verticals
• It is never easy to leave a familiar comfortable professional setup & sail into the unknown world of going solo – change is painful & human nature will always resist it!
• What matters is where your heart is – go with your heart, always! Do not start something till you are ‘totally’ committed irrespective of potential rewards, hearsay or advise from friends & family
• After listening to your heart – research the field inside out, understand the pitfalls & dependencies, judge your potential abilities & skills and determine if you have what it takes to succeed. In general I see most successful independent professionals as disciplined, focused, self motivated, extremely organized besides being great communicators just as ALL other successful people!
• Test the waters first before fully committing yourself. Reality often is not what it seems when viewed from the outside! Doing the right due diligence will save you time, money and lost opportunities. Its best if you do this diligence with other people’s money, work for an organization in a similar capacity before going in on your own
• The buck will stop where you stand. The independent professional’s success or failure depends solely on the individual – there is no organizational support. The individual IS the organization
• Clients and networks from the past make up the initial prospect base for a new independent professional – not ‘burning your old bridges’ holds a whole new significance
• Being an independent professional is about being ‘independent’ – independence in terms of time, effort & earnings. Professional discipline is therefore key! Countless talented independent professionals have gone down because they lacked work ethics & discipline
• The commonest barrier to entry in the profession is (not having) a client base. While old networks can help jumpstart the journey, cold-calling (however painful J) is a MUST. No one likes to do it but if you are serious about succeeding, you will need to grind on and spend time cold-calling through out your professional life.
• Your addressable market needs to continually grow to enable you to grow your results. Smart usage of web & messaging technologies can help in accomplishing this. Just be aware of the privacy laws!!!
• Ability to handle rejections is key to a successful cold-calling process. If you are unable to handle rejections, then do not be in any ‘people’ interface business – go back to my point on determining where your heart is and be honest in judging your ability & desires
• Once you have a client, the challenge will be to keep the client for ever. Empathy, sensitivity, knowledge, trust & quality of service are often the primary factors here. Very often providers are more intent in selling what they have in their bags rather than what the customer wants to buy. Understanding customer needs and providing a suitable solution that addresses them sounds like a Sales 101 cliché but is often ignored even by experienced pros
• Once you have wow-ed the customer you will begin to generate a revenue flow that will become more predictable & will require lesser effort provided you do not forget your customer retention skills
• You will still need to continue to cold call though… growing your customer portfolio is like providing lifeblood to your initiative. As you start to build the right skills and begin to see success, even cold-calling can become fun…