Make Your Own Lane: Be Useful; Be Resourceful

If you know by now - that your high scores, degrees, experience and skills that got you here is likely not going to take you there, where you want to be – you are reading the right blog.

I touched upon craftsman and passion mind set here

I have no idea what type you are however what I know for sure is you have had some education. 

Education, Knowledge and Learning - Google these words to read their definitions because it is only then you will know

a) Being educated does not mean you are knowledgeable

b) Having the knowledge does not mean you have learning

c) If you know something and not using that knowledge for personal or greater good, what does that knowledge mean to you?

When you are learning something new there is seriously no need to drown in the details initially. If you get the fundamentals right, you will not do activities mechanically – you will think, evaluate and then apply

You should avoid these three R

Rush:          An inexplicable urgency to complete what you are learning

Revise:       Knowing absolutely well, if you did not get the output right after your learning for the first time, you can always revise

React:         Just to prove that you did learn, you begin to defend your work

You should instead adopt these three R

Respond:    Think before you comment. To think, you should be able to listen first.

Repeat:       Practice what you learn several times not to aim to be perfect but to make it a habit or your second nature. If you repeat mistakes, you will be good at it. If you repeat

Rationale – Logical thinking. Reason brings purpose to what you do and why you do

I know I am jumping topics and there is a reason I am doing that. This is what most adult learners do. In fact I did that the whole of last year in the name of learning.  

a)   Trying to learn something that is not relevant to my real work (which is as good as surfing through face book) – The topic I am trying to learn is great, interesting, hot, trending and I felt a sense of accomplishment after I gathered some idea about the subject. However it did not further the project I was working on. So, I can call it research in my calendar to keep track of my daily activities, but it was actually just taking a break.

b)   I wrote about WIGs here. Do you have your WIGs right? Is online income one of them

c)   What you learn for fun is fun – You are part of Whirlwind or daily grind 

d)   What you learn for work is work – You are working for your WIGs

If you lose sight of the purpose (Goals, say online income), the learning objectives are defeated, even without you knowing about.

If you miss your learning routine and road map even once, the power of habit is defeated 

To grow you brand, authority and income online you have to be useful, be resourceful.

If what you do for your client is not useful, your knowledge, education and learning hardly matters. It is just your vanity metrics

If you fail to follow client's instructions, the assignments have to be revised due to your comprehension issues, you are wasting client's time and bandwidth.

Go back to the three Rs above what you need to avoid and focus on the three Rs to adopt - to make the most of what you know and what you learn 

***Click here to open your Payza account to receive your online income***

Make Your Own Lane: Live Feedback on Choosing Projects and Clients

This is one of the most frequently asked questions from people who are new to online income and are in the beginning stages of bidding.

How do we find a genuine client who will appreciate good work for long term business relationship?

Assess buying behavior

First of all you need to understand why the buyers are outsourcing a particular project instead of doing it themselves or using an in-house team.

1] Is it lack of knowledge, expertise and experience?

2] Is if lack of time?

The one who has knowledge will know what it takes to execute the assignment and will call out his budget accordingly, based on skill, market and industry standards.

He is probably unable to do it himself as he is pre-occupied with more critical activities of the same or another project. He is probably unable to focus due to his travel plans or other priorities.

As he is aware about the amount of time required to complete a project of this nature, he will usually allocate budget to suit seller’s expectations.

How will you know he has knowledge about what he is asking you to do?

1] He will give you the required inputs because he is sure you will need that to complete the project

2] He will be a great facilitator with research material, his rough drafts, his notes before he call out his expectations from you.

Assess language/ responses

I have had buyers who wanted to and fro communication while the project is being executed. That is because they have had past experiences where they lost time and money due to poor execution and they want no such thing to happen again.

I need to think holistically. I ask all my questions before I accept an assignment. I do extensive research, prepare my notes and then begin working on client’s project.

Ongoing communication, therefore, is a huge distraction for me and I do not allow that. I submit the final output with a rationale document. If my clients want even a single revision, they have to beat that rationale first. I do not allow any revision based on whims, fancies and afterthoughts.

When you put across your points one by one, why you are unable to comply with any of buyer’s request, their questions/ language after that is a huge hint regarding the following:

1] How the client will accept your submission?

2] Trust level developed between the two of you

Assess need

You can spot a small minded client based on how he describes his project and the budget he indicates.

Even if I give benefit of doubt to the buyers that they are unaware about prevailing rates and hence allocated budget incorrectly, the project description is such a big give away about what is going on in their mind

Here are two samples you need to immediately discard and choose not to respond as you are getting into a very difficult situation regardless of budget.

Sample One:

1] Need professional and customized presentation.

2] Need 5 such power point design based on company branding for this and future requirements:

Headings (Verdana)

Text (San Serif)

3] Every presentation should be ready within 24 hours.

4] Only experienced, talented and professional designer with good business acumen and market intelligence will be considered

5] I will need business graphics, charts, Smart Art, table and relevant images

6] See attached sample

7] Budget $ 25

Now note my comments/ interpretations of the numbered points

1] Standard template is not acceptable

2] This is a cheap bait - Hinting at ongoing work for seller to consider future business and volume discounted rates for services. 

5 designs for each presentation means he wants variety to choose from and does not have definite sense of color schemes, industry presentation standards and aesthetics. His knowledge of company branding is limited to fonts only. 

3] I prefer not to comment on this. It takes more than 48 hours sometimes to research and another 48 hours even to think of a story board considering the mental caliber of target audience.

4] Pick on seller's brain for free

5] The need is not defined but scattered which is another huge hint that he is not sure what he wants

6] If the sample belongs to his company - that is probably to set standards. If the sample belongs to another company - It is unethical and the buyer has creative crisis even to describe his requirements

7] Do not waste your time even reading the project brief. It is not worth it.

Sample Two:

1] Business plan around 70 to 80 pages on XXXX with the following:

2] Projections required:

One-year 

Three-year 

Five-year 

3] Provide all realistic costs for license, incorporation etc

4] Budget: $50 / $500

Here the budget does not matter.

1] Check what inputs you have received - absolutely nothing. You will not get anything either, even if you ask.

2] Look what his primary need is - Projections. He is clue less about the financial part and due to lack of research, he has no idea when the business will break - even; first year, second or after 5 years?

He wants three different financial plans because he does not know his target audience either - what they are likely to ask?

3] 70 to 80 pages - When an entrepreneur has not done even basic research about a business idea or the market, he tends to ask for more pages in a business plan. The expectation is - the plan will do the selling. 

Will you choose to do the Herculean task to educate this entrepreneur or just discard the project?

How to recognize an entrepreneur who knows his business?

An entrepreneur who has been working on a particular idea for a long time, even if he is an amateur in the startup ecosystem, he will have loads of information, scribbled notes, what he tried to get done from his team to share with you.

As long as he is trying to assist you to the best of his ability so that you can do good work for him, you can let him know based on your experience what works and what doesn't so that he can take an informed decision.

Write to advocating.outcomes@gmail.com if you have a project that you are not sure of - we will share our perspectives, key pointers and even clarification questions you can ask your client to get you started.

When Will You Conclude That Your Training Need Analysis Is Complete?

You can ask a few fundamental questions first before you begin the analysis:

1. Whose training needs are you trying to identify?
2. Is it the training scope for an individual, business or organization?
3. Is it technical, behavioral, product, leadership training?
4. What are the learning outcomes that business is trying to achieve through training?
5. Who will sign off the training content prior to roll out?
6. Have you identified stakeholders who will measure training effectiveness?
7. Have you taken a call on the time frame or the measurement cycle period?
8. Does the learner know regarding knowledge gap or skill needed or training scope?
9. Who will deliver the training - Internal team or external training consultants from professional training companies?
10. How will you deliver the training - in a class room or webex?
11. Have you identified the business leaders you will talk to get an understanding about training needs?

There is no particular order however when you run these questions in your mind before a training analysis, it will be increasingly evident to you that you have to adopt a target based strategy to conclude the analysis. In short it means,

1. You have to validate the training need from different stakeholders
2. You have to list all the business outcomes the training will impact
3. You have to identify a leader who will own assessment after the training.

You therefore cannot conclude your training need analysis as complete unless you have the answers and a definite approach to address these three questions. 

When you validate training needs in such depth, the content design has to fall into place to suit that need so that immediately after the training a high level measurement process can be initiated.

If the training need is not properly assessed, the content and module can be highly misleading that can bring altogether different results and not the desired outcomes.