Unleashed - How to Thrive as an Independent Professional

In which the Engineer Officer told me that he expected me to get out of the wardroom and put my eyeballs on the jobsite. The lesson has carried over to my consulting career.

Nick Craig is the author of Leading from Purpose: Clarity and the Confidence to Act When It Matters Most, published in June 2018. Since 2006, Nick's firm, Core Leadership Institute, has helped more than 10,000 leaders discover and lead from purpose. In this episode, Nick shares his perspective on: What purpose is How to discover your purpose The benefits of leading from purpose While his firm primarily leads private workshops within organizations, they do have two workshops coming up that are open to the public: Boston from October 18-19, 2018 London from December 4-5, 2018 Learn more on their website at coreleader.com

Certain evolutions on a submarine require the Commanding Officer's approval. This short episode is what I learned from asking permission. The same principles can be applied in any corporate environment.

The day I reported to my submarine, I was given a stack of qual cards, one of the best training technologies ever. Do you want new hires to get up to speed quickly? Then consider giving them a qual card so they can take charge of their own learning.

As a young ensign newly reported to my submarine, I handed the Engineer Officer a draft that didn't meet his standards. This short episode is the story of when I learned about the concept of completed staff work.

Every independent professional needs to determine his or her internal billing rate, that is, what is your time worth to you, in dollars. Most independent professionals I've met have not thought this through, and this leads them to spend time on low-value activities that should be outsourced.

I recently received an email with the subject line: BS Questions. Hmm - not very professional, I thought. This short episode provides some thoughts on abbreviations, and one thing I do with abbreviations at the beginning of every study.

I've been working on eliminating decisions from my life wherever possible and replacing decisions with habits and routines. One area in particular that I've focused on for the past few years is my morning routine. I've tried adding and removing elements to see what works best for me. In this episode, I share the current version of my morning routine, which helps me win the day. I don't suggest you adopt my routine, but I do encourage you to find a routine that works for you. A book on the topic I recommend is My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired, by Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander.

Yify Zhang, a McKinsey alum, is also a singer - songwriter - violinist. In this episode, Yify shares how she combines her music with a career as an independent consultant. Do visit Yify's website, where you can stream all her songs, watch her music videos, and find out the dates of her upcoming live performances: http://www.yifyzhang.com/

McKinsey taught me this framework - the four conditions that are required to drive behavior change: 1) Understanding and commitment 2) Skills 3) Role modeling 4) Formal mechanisms This short episode gives an overview with an example of how to apply the framework.

This is a story about the actual wedding photographer who took the pictures at my wedding, Drew, and his fictional doppelgänger, Drew Prime.

Thirty years ago I stood at attention and, multiple times per day over the course of ten days, shouted "This midshipman has no excuse, sir!" What I learned from this experience at orientation before starting ROTC has proved to be a valuable lifelong lesson in extreme ownership.

Ready, Set, Go! is a great way to start a footrace. For any artistic or entrepreneurial project, not so much. When you have a new project in mind, there is no Ready. There is only Go.

Asking questions with the mind of a child can yield new insights. Here's a short episode on what a friend learned when his daughter asked a doorman why the soles of his shoes are so thick.

You wouldn't hire a plumber who isn't comfortable using a wrench, or a lumberjack who can't handle a chainsaw. A professional needs to master the tools of the trade. For independent consultants, a fundamental tool is Excel. For most, it isn't necessary to program in Visual Basic or write macros, but it is essential to master all the basic tools, including, for example, pivot tables, vlookups, if functions, date functions. In this short episode, I share some suggestions on how to sharpen your Excel skills if they are rusty, and some particular Excel tools to prioritize learning.

Per Sjofors runs a firm called Sales for Profit – they have developed survey tools to measure a customer's willingness to pay, and the help their clients determine what marketing method is most effective in their market which advertising targets the company should focus on which product features drive the highest willingness to buy and the optimum price of a given product or service In this episode, Per gives an overview of his firm's methodology and how they work with clients. One thing Per told me that surprised me is that he is getting a substantial number of leads from Quora. He's been answering questions on Quora, establishing himself as an expert there, and it is actually leading to business. You can learn more about Per's firm at https://www.sales4profit.com/

Are you thinking about transitioning to independent consulting? This episode provides eight steps you can take now to set yourself up for success when you officially launch your own practice.

Interviewing experts can be one of the most powerful sources of insight when learning about a company or a market. This short episode has 11 tips that I've developed to help get the deepest insights from these interactions.

Many of us stick with the 2-3 influence techniques that we are most comfortable with. Mastering the full range of 10 ethical influence techniques is a superpower. In this short episode I briefly describe each technique. My introduction to this range of techniques came during Initial Leadership Workshop at McKinsey, and I draw directly on a slim booklet that McKinsey provided called Interpersonal and Interactive Skills. That book isn't published publicly, but the author is Terry Bacon and he covers this material in detail in his book "Elements of Influence: The Art of Getting Others to Follow Your Lead."

Scheduling meetings over email is time consuming - I've spent more time scheduling a call than actually having the call. Last fall I found a solution: Calendly. In this short episode I share the basics of the tool. Check out the tool at: https://calendly.com/

Yogi Berra said: "If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there." I like to step back and reflect about once a year and write down all my goals. In this short episode I describe how I approach this exercise, suggest a few variations, and the benefits I've seen. Would love to hear your thoughts, and any questions you'd like answered on the show.

Chad Oakley is the CEO of Charles Aris, an executive search firm based in North Carolina. One of the firm's practice areas is Strategy & Corporate Development – and they've completed nearly 600 searches in that space. Charles Aris publishes an annual strategy consulting compensation study which is available free on their website. So Chad is one of the most knowledgeable people in the U.S. about the market demand for alums of McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and other top consulting firms. In this episode, Chad shares a perspective on how a stint of independent consulting on your resume can affect your job prospects if you plan to return to a full time role at some point. We also discuss, among other topics, resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and how to reach out to executive recruiters. You can learn more about Charles Aris by visiting the website, https://charlesaris.com/, and if you are open to new opportunities, you can send them your resume.

Our guest today is Umbrex member Kevin Nedd. Kevin is a McKinsey alum and independent consultant who focuses on running Project Management Offices, or PMOs. In our discussion, Kevin provides his perspective on when a company should set up a PMO, including examples of PMOs that Kevin has led the day to day work of running a PMO the tool kit used by a PMO, including templates and processes effective progress reviews PMO maturity levels We also discuss Kevin's service as a township committeeman and why he walks an hour every morning. You can reach out to Kevin directly at [email protected]

Our guest today is Umbrex member Ian Tidswell. Ian has a PhD in physics from Harvard. He did science for a few years but missed the human element and ended up as a management consultant at McKinsey. After McKinsey he worked at Vendavo, a software firm, and that is where he fell in love with pricing, which for Ian is the perfect mixture of the analytical and the human element. In this episode, Ian shares his perspective on pricing, including Why pricing is so important signs that a company has an opportunity to optimize pricing what good pricing looks like how to organize the pricing function and we walk through an example of pricing for a crop protection company. I enjoyed my conversation with Ian and I hope you find it helpful. You can follow up with Ian at [email protected]

Our guest today is Neil Booth. In our discussion, Neil shares how he became a deep expert in how to build a really well designed model – he followed what could be termed the Benjamin Franklin method. Neil then turned that skill into a career. Neil also shares some modeling best practices – such as splitting up your formulas – do one step at a time – cells are cheap. We also geek out on cell styles, how to define constants, and whether you should include macros in your model. Neil is currently working at the investment bank Houlihan Lokey where he established the firms' Financial Modeling as a Service group. His group offers corporate training in financial modeling best practices, and will also build the financial model for you. If you'd like to follow up with Neil you can reach him at [email protected].

Our guest today is Scott Skibell. I've heard from several people that video is the new thing, that video on LinkedIn gets much higher engagement, and that if you want to work on getting your message out, you need to learn how to do video. I took Scott Skibell's course, LinkedIn Video Marketing, and I thought it was great, and so asked Scott to be a guest on this show, to discuss video in an old-school audio format. What I really liked about Scott's course is his message: keep it simple, your videos are about creating connection, not perfection. That said, he provides some tips on how to up the level of professionalism, and shows how you can add titles, text, and B-roll to your videos, all from within the iMovie app on your phone. It isn't too expensive to get started. While all you truly need is your phone, it helps to buy a few accessories. In the show notes you'll find links to the accessories I bought, which include: Tripod for $17. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B074QV4MW7/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Tripod mount for $13 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B1GQ2T8/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Softbox lighting kit for $70 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B071GR11GT/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Cloth backdrop for $83 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BQLHFMM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Rode smartLav+ microphone for $66 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EO4A7L0/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I enjoyed my discussion with Scott and hope you find it valuable. To learn more, check out his course at: www.skillcasting.com

Our guest today is Tim DeRoche, a McKinsey alum and independent consultant who is also the author of The Ballad of Huck & Miguel, a novel published in February 2018 by Redtail Press. The Ballad of Huck and Miguel is a retelling of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in which Tim imagines that Huck is alive today and instead of traveling on the Mississippi with an escaped slave, Huck is living in Los Angeles and travels along the Los Angeles River with an undocumented immigrant. It is a fabulous novel with wonderfully inventive language and great fun to read. In this episode, Tim and I discuss how he came to write the novel, and how he combines this creative pursuit with his management consulting practice. Independent consulting provides the career flexibility to pursue a career as an artist in parallel, and Tim's experience is a great example of that. I hope you enjoy this discussion as much as I did.

Our guest today is Umbrex member Susan Drumm, a CEO Advisor and Leadership Coach with over 20 years of experience coaching entrepreneurs and executives. Susan got her start in consulting at BCG, and she is the only person I know who has graduated from both Harvard Law School and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Susan often facilitates off-site sessions for her clients, and in this episode she shares with me a set of best practices for making off-sites successful – including how to prepare, what a good agenda looks like, tips on facilitation, and how to ensure the benefits are captured. Later in the episode she shares useful tips for staying focused and organized. Susan believes that her professional career is a natural offshoot of her own interest in leadership and self-improvement, and says, "If you would read a book or attend a conference on the subject matter that is your profession, and you would do it without getting paid because you want to, because you're so interested, you're in the right field." You can find more about Susan's practice on her firm's website: meritageleadership.com

Sunny Bates is a legend and one of the master connectors of the 21st century. She is one of my heroes and it was really a privilege to have the chance to meet with her at her offices in Midtown Manhattan. Sunny is on the Board of Directors of Kickstarter, an Advisory Board Member at the MIT Media Lab, a Brain Trust Member for the TED Conferences, and an Advisory Board Member for the American Theatre Wing, which means she gets to vote for the winners of the Tony Awards. Sunny operates wherever executives, thinkers, artists, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, educators, philanthropists connect and collide around the globe. Her genius is developing networks of extraordinary people and connecting their ideas in surprising ways toward concrete outcomes. In our discussion, Sunny shared insights on what makes a great connection and how to nourish relationships. We also discussed her idea of an ideal day, routines, habits, books, and theater. You can learn more about her work on her firm's website, which is sunnybates.com

Our guest today is my good friend, Umbrex member Celine Teoh an independent strategy and marketing consultant in the Bay Area whose functional specialties include data-driven marketing strategy and execution, strategic planning and business planning. On this episode, we discuss steps firms can take to improve customer retention. We also discuss the benefits you can derive from journaling – in terms of productivity, creativity, happiness, and centeredness. Celine has been journaling actively for years, across several different styles, and I've been working to put her suggestions into practice.

Our guest today is a good friend of mine, Umbrex member Paul Millerd. Paul has experience at McKinsey and BCG as well as the Board & CEO Advisory Group at Russell Reynolds Associates, one of the top executive recruiting firms in the world. He currently has a wide portfolio of activities – he is a real Renaissance talent. He is currently an independent strategy consultant, a career coach, the host of a podcast, Boundless, an active writer who puts out great posts several times a week. He hosts Jeffersonian dinners, he is interested in the gift economy and the future of work, Paul has created a career transition playbook and other course materials including a story course. In this episode we have a wide ranging discussion covering just a few of Paul's interests – I encourage you to check out his website and sign up to his mailing list. Visit think-boundless.com

Our guest today is Umbrex member Whit Pidot, an independent consultant who was formerly a Partner in the Travel practice at McKinsey. His clients include the CEOs of some of the top travel companies in the world including airlines, rental cars, and hotels. Whit has been fascinated by the world of travel from an early age. As a hobby, he has been running a travel agency on the side since college. In today's episode, we first explore some of Whit's favorite travel hacks for business travelers, such as: For finding the best rates on rental cars, Whit likes Autoslash.com. For hotels, if you aren't going to book directly on the hotel brand's website, Whit's current favorite sites are Upside.com and Rocketmiles.com. For all travel properties, ask what the Triple A rate is: sometimes the AAA rate is better than the corporate rate. Whit once had an entire McKinsey team get AAA memberships because the AAA rate at the hotel they were staying at was better than the McKinsey rate. We discuss Whit's travel agency, and how being in the business himself with his own Sabre subscription has given him a pulse on the business that informs his consulting work. We also discuss Whit's consulting work, which has a strong focus on loyalty programs. I love hearing Whit's stories about the travel industry, and I hope you find this episode helpful.

Our guest today is Joachim Fischer, a mentor and good friend of mine who was an Expert in the Operations Practice at McKinsey when I got to know him a dozen years ago Joachim is the only McKinsey alum that I know who started his career as an apprentice cabinetmaker. As he explains on the show, the training he received as a cabinetmaker has been incredibly relevant to his career, probably more important than anything he learned in college. He still spends a lot of his free time building beautiful things with his hands, and that practical, craftsman knowledge informs his professional work driving improvement on the shop floor. Back in 2006, Joachim and I spent three days together on a quick operations diagnostic of maintenance workers doing A-checks on a 747 at John F. Kennedy airport, which has got to be one of the most fun things I did at the firm. Joachim started his independent consulting practice ten years ago, and after I started my own practice I've regularly called him for advice, and I'm really grateful for all the counsel he has given me over the years. On the show we discuss Joachim's three main areas of focus, including lean transformations, operational problem solving, and coaching and mentoring. Over ten years, about 95% of his business has come from just twelve clients, and he offers a powerful example of building deep relationships with clients that last for years. I always learn something when I talk to Joachim, and I hope you find this episode helpful. To learn more about Joachim and get in touch, visit the website of Fischer Advisors.

Our guest today is Tsavo Neal, who has thought hard about how consultants can generate more client leads with their website. Tsavo has written dozens and dozens of posts on this topic and you can find all his work on his website, tsavoneal.com, which is a valuable resource. He's got examples of best-practice consulting websites, dozens of specific ideas on how to raise your visibility, tips on how to convert website visitors into leads, and much more. Tsavo has many valuable insights on marketing professional services, and I hope you find the discussion valuable.

Our guest today is Aner Ravon, Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Zirra, a technology company focused on market analysis, using big data and artificial intelligence. Aner and his co-founder recognized a real pain point for investors and anyone else doing research on smaller companies: it is very time intensive to search the universe of sources and pull together a basic set of facts. They thought, wouldn't it be nice if we could use artificial intelligence to scan public sources and pull together the basic information, so that analysts can spend their time on processing the information and synthesis. And that is just what they built. Zirra's main product is a company snapshot that is built by a combination of artificial intelligence and a human editor who provides quality control. The snapshots are created on demand and take about 24 hours or less to deliver. I've tried out the service myself and I've been very satisfied. The report you receive looks like it was created by a human. It draws on dozens of potential sources, such as LinkedIn for number of employees, Glassdoor for employee reviews, websites of the company and its competitors. All the sources the report relies on are listed with live links. The price of this company snapshot depends on how many you are going to purchase. If you are buying only a handful, the price starts at $200. If you are industrial scale, the price can get down to $100 each. The ideal target to research using Zirra has revenue in the $5 to $100 million range. For smaller companies, there probably isn't much public on the web for Zirra to scrape. And for larger companies you can probably find some Wikipedia article or analyst coverage to get you up to speed. The ideal time to use Zirra is right at the beginning of a project. If you've already been looking at a company for a couple of weeks, you will probably already know most of what Zirra will tell you. The biggest value is using Zirra to quickly get up to speed so starting on Day 2 of your project you're prepared to ask smarter questions as you pursue your research. You can get started with Zirra by visiting www.zirra.com, click on the Pricing page and submit an inquiry. Aner himself will read your request and make sure you are taken care of.

Our guest today is David Topus, who helps his clients turn reputation into revenue. I think that's a pretty great positioning, encapsulating what David does in four words. And that's what you'd expect from a professional who has been running a strategic sales messaging firm for over twenty-eight years. In the first half of our discussion, we cover personal branding, with a focus on how to enhance your LinkedIn profile. In the second half of the episode, we discuss David's most recent book, Talk to Strangers, which is a guidebook on how to initiate conversations with strangers and includes dozens of examples of how David and those whom he has coached have turned conversations with strangers into business opportunities. I'm a bit of an introvert, and normally the last thing I'd do is to strike up a conversation with a stranger. But after my talk with David, and reading his book, I said, OK, I'll test this out. Over a few days of skiing I went outside my own comfort zone and initiated conversations with strangers on the ski lift. Now, I never went so far as to actually ask for contact info – I was just taking some baby steps. But I did end up having over a dozen fascinating discussions. I met a woman who works as a ski instructor during the winter and during the spring and summer produces car commercials. Met the owner of a gas refinery, at attorney at Bank of America who works on credit derivatives, a woman in college who is studying to become a dentist and who plans to join the family's 110-year old dental practice – she was helping with bite wings when she was eight years old. I met a professional rock climber, a woman who runs a business that checks on Park City condos while the owners are out of town, and the sales manager for the Western U.S. for one of the two leading printing companies. I hope you find this discussion valuable, and I hope you'll test out David's suggestion and strike up a conversation with a stranger today. Visit David's website: http://www.topus.com/ David's book: https://smile.amazon.com/Talk-Strangers-Everyday-Encounters-Business/dp/111820347X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521748374&sr=8-1&keywords=david+topus

Our guest today is Jonah Gruda, a Tax Partner at the accounting firm Mazars USA, LLP. In this episode, we discuss a wide range of tax-related topics relevant to independent professionals. We cover differences between various structures including LLC, S-corp, and C-corp. Before our conversation, I thought LLC was the obvious choice for most independent professionals, but Jonah made me realize that there are many factors that go into the equation and you really want to sit down with a professional to figure out what structure is right for your situation. We discuss bookkeeping, how to hire a subcontractor, various deductions to keep in mind, and nexus issues you want to be aware of. We also discuss the implications of the new tax law: the short answer there is that it is going to take some time for the IRS to issue guidance to resolve some of the ambiguous or even contradictory aspects of the law. To get in touch with Jonah, you can visit www.mazarsusa.com. Here is a link for Jonah's contact info: http://mazarsusa.com/about-us/our-people/jonah-gruda/ I hope this episode answers some questions you may have about the tax side of running your own firm, and raises awareness of important points that maybe were not top of mind.

Our guest today is Rak Chugh, the Founder of Byte Academy and the Architect of edChain. We met in his office in Midtown Manhattan. Byte Academy provides training in python development, FinTech, Data Science, Quant Algorithms, and Blockchain. They have a full-time program with modules that last 14 weeks, and a part-time program designed for working professionals. Their students include recent college graduates – even some with Computer Science degrees – as well as mid-career professionals who want to switch careers or just broaden their skill set. They also deliver customized corporate training programs. My belief is that as independent professionals, we need to be continuously working to stay current and build our skills, so I was quite interested in hearing about what skills Rak sees as most in demand. Right now, blockchain is a blazing hot topic, and companies in all industries and scrambling to figure out the implications of blockchain technology for their business and how to seize those opportunities. You can read more at byteacademy.co In addition to running Byte Academy, Rak is also the architect of edChain, which is an open-sourced, decentralized library that allows the sharing of educational content across applications and organizations. In the second half of the episode, we discuss edChain. Rak explains that his goal with the technology is to lower the cost for educators to publish content while providing full attribution and facilitating monetization across platforms. A second goal is universal access, so that students can gain access to the best of breed courses in the world, wherever they are. A third goal is to unlock value by enabling content to stay connected to an educator. And if the content creator allows it, her content can be incorporated into the courses of other content creators, and the technology ensures that the first creator would continue to capture a fair portion of the revenue stream from products that incorporate her work. You can learn more about edChain at edChain.io I'll also mention the social handles @byteacademyco and @edchainio, and you can find them on Twitter and all the major social networks.

Our guest today is Molly Leeds, a benefits account manager at Brown & Brown of New York. Molly helps small and medium sized businesses to obtain the best package of employee benefits to fit their needs. In our discussion, we focus on healthcare benefits. If you are a solo, independent professional with no employees and no partners in the United States, your main option for getting health insurance is Obamacare, via healthcare.gov. But if you have at least one employee, or you band together with another independent professional to form a partnership and have at least two eligible members in your company, you can start looking at small group healthcare plans, which can be a better value in some, but not all, cases. Molly walks us through the various options for health insurance and we also discuss how to find and select a health insurance broker. Molly's firm, Brown & Brown, helps clients with a wide range of products and services, including trade credit, business insurance, employee benefits, risk management, and more. You can learn more at their website, www.bbinsurance.com, where you can use their office locator to find an office near you.

Our guest today is Johnny Warström, the CEO of Mentimeter, which is a tool that can help you make presentations, workshops, and meetings more interactive. Here's a link: https://www.mentimeter.com/ The tool lets you take a live poll of your audience, and the results get updated real-time in your presentation. The audience doesn't need any special hardware – just a phone or any other device connected to the Internet. When I interviewed Johnny, I had not yet used the tool. I just got back from facilitating a professional development event with about 25 independent consultants where I tried Mentimeter for the first time, and it was a massive hit. Some of the attendees said that Mentimeter was their number one takeaway! We'd be having a facilitated discussion and presenting regular slides, and the attendees were engaged, but you could see the energy in the room starting to flag. And then we'd get to a place with a Mentimeter survey, and, Bam!, the room came alive. Out came everyone's phones, and you'd see the responses coming in on the screen, and people were looking up to see how their response compared to everyone else's – it was awesome. I can't imagine doing a presentation in the future to a larger group without including a few Mentimeter surveys. I'll also say the tool is incredibly easy to set up. I had put it off for a week, because of the activation energy involved in learning some new piece of software. I shouldn't have worried. If you can drag and drop, you can have a Mentimeter survey ready in about 60 seconds. One tip: while most of the survey templates are quantitative, do try out the "Open-ended" question type, in which respondents can type in free text. It is very cool to see all the responses popping up on your screen up in front. You might start a meeting by asking, using Mentimeter, "what are you hoping to get out of today's session?" Or you might end your meeting by asking, "What is your key takeaway from today's session?" or "What was most valuable to you from today's session?" The tool allows you to export all the responses, in either Excel or PDF format, so you can use in later analyses or presentations. Mentimeter has 16 million users – I'm one of them. I do encourage you to check it out and try it in your next meeting.

Our guest today is Josh Boltuch, the CEO of Fancy Hands and its subsidiary, On Demand Ops, and in this episode we talk about both firms. Fancy Hands is a network of thousands of U.S. based virtual assistants. You sign up for a set number of requests per month and pay a fixed monthly fee. Each request can be pretty much anything that can be done on the Internet or by phone – whether that is calling your utility company to complain about a charge on your bill, or researching the best BBQ joint to visit on your trip to Memphis. You don't get a dedicated virtual assistant: each incoming request gets farmed out to the next available person who is a good fit for that assignment. On Demand Ops was launched by Fancy Hands in 2017 and is geared more towards the enterprise customer. A key service of On Demand Ops is large scale lead generation, for example. They'll work with a client to develop and refine a script and a protocol, and then they will make thousands of phone calls that have the goal of setting up calls with qualified customers interested in hearing about the client's project. They have sophisticated quality control and analytics that Josh describes in our discussion. As an independent professional you might not need this service for your own practice, but you may well have clients that are looking for a solution like this. For those who are interested in trying out Fancy Hands, Josh kindly offered a discount code to listeners of Unleashed. Use the code Unleashed when you sign up and you'll get 50% off your first month's subscription.

Outsourcing research tasks via Upwork is a superpower that every independent professional ought to master. In this episode, I provide a range of examples that illustrate the types of tasks that I have outsourced to freelancers on Upwork, and then I discuss tips and tricks on how to use the platform effectively.

For many independent consultants, staffing firms are an important channel for getting connected to project opportunities. This episode presents 45 tips for independent consultants on how to work effectively with staffing firms and become their go-to resource.

On the show today Julia Bunte-Mein is back. Julia, a brilliant and accomplished sophomore at Harvard College, spent a day with me on a Winternship. On our last episode, Julia interviewed me about the advice I'd give to my college-age self, and related topics. On today's episode, I share the tips that I've learned on Getting (Some) Things Done. I loved David Allen's classic book titled Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. His system was a bit too complex for me, and I'll be sharing what I do in practice to get some of the things done that I want to do. Then in the second half of today's episode, Julia takes over and shares her productivity routine, which I must say is more disciplined and robust than mine. One of my goals this year is to improve my own ability to focus and get things done, and if you have tips, send me a message on LinkedIn. So there's no one right answer, and in today's episode you get two sets of ideas to think about incorporating – I hope you find something in here helpful.

On the show today our guest is Julia Bunte-Mein, a sophomore at Harvard College, who spent one day with me over her winter break on a Winternship. I'm pretty sure that I learned more from Julia than she did from me over the course of the day. One of the things I learned was that if I were applying to Harvard today, I would have had a lot less chance of getting in, as the bar has been raised over the past couple decades. Julia added real value on Day One. Little did I know, but she has deep graphic design experience, and she helped me dramatically improve a mailer I was designing that day. Julia has worked as a Researcher-Writer for Let's Go and had actual internships in Belgium, Spain, Australia, and South-east Asia. She is the Social Enterprise Director for Harvard Women in Business and all-around a very impressive person. In this episode, we turned the tables and Julia interviewed me, mostly about the advice I'd give to my college-age self, and related topics. It was a lot of fun being interviewed by Julia, and I hope you find it useful: maybe you'll even share the episode with a current college student.

Our guest today is Chris Doig, who has thought more about enterprise software selection than anyone else I know. I'd like to thank David A. Fields for introducing me to Chris. Chris is the co-founder and CEO of Wayferry, a boutique consulting firm with a very tight focus: their entire focus is on helping enterprise clients select software. The firm has developed its own proprietary software and processes to support enterprise software selecton. Chris is also the author of a book that was published in October and is available on Amazon: "Rethinking Enterprise Software Selection: Stop buying square pegs for round holes." For me, the takeaway from my conversation with Chris is broader than what I learned about software selection. He is a great example of how a consultant can build a successful practice by carving out a niche to serve one pain point. I know at least a dozen firms that provide a range of IT consulting services. But I know just one person with an exclusive focus on enterprise software selection. So the next time one of my enterprise clients is trying to select software, guess who I'm going to call?

Our guest today is Diane Mulcahy, a McKinsey alum and the author of The Gig Economy: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Work, Taking More Time Off, and Financing the Life You Want. Her book grew out of the MBA course at Babson that she developed titled "Entrepreneurship and the Gig Economy," which was names by Forbes as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Business School Classes in the U.S. Diane's book is structured around her ten rules to succeed in the gig economy, and in this episode we discuss several of those, including #6: Take Time Off Between Gigs. Independent professionals almost inevitably have time off between gigs, at least occasionally, and in our discussion Diane details an exercise she recommends to develop a set of ideas on how to use that unbilled time productively. Pursuing the life of an independent professional requires us to rethink many of the assumptions that employed professionals can take for granted. Diane's book is a great guide for getting us to think about the life we want to lead. You can read more about Diane on her website: dianemulcahy.com

Our guest today is Roger Lee, the owner of F1 Consulting. Roger provides remote IT support for independent professionals, home offices, and small businesses. He helps his clients with network design and installation, cloud services migration, remote monitoring, and offsite data backup and disaster recovery. One of the tools that Roger mentions in this episode is LastPass, a password manager. After Roger and I spoke I adopted LastPass myself and I strongly recommend it. Roger asked me to point out that he misspoke on the cost of LastPass – the monthly fee is two dollars, not one dollar. If you are an independent professional, you ought to have an IT professional like Roger on your virtual team. I picked up a ton of useful tips in this discussion and I hope you find it helpful.

Our guest today is Jennifer Hartz, a McKinsey alum and the founder of Corporate Hartz. Jennifer has several focus areas including business-driven community relations strategies, nonprofit strategic planning, and personal philanthropy. Her philosophy is that generosity and profitability can, and should, go hand-in-hand. Her lessons learned from helping families take a strategic approach to philanthropy can be useful to all of us – you don't need to have a $100 million fund to start a family conversation about giving. With the holidays coming up, and the tax year coming to a close, after listening to this episode you might be motivated to set up your own donor-advised fund. With a donor advised fund, you get the charitable deduction off your income taxes today when you contribute money to the account. Then you can disburse the funds over time to approved charities. You can start a fund at Fidelity with a minimum $5,000 contribution, and over at Vanguard with a minimum contribution of $25,000. In our discussion, Jennifer mentions her periodic newsletter, called Hartz and Minds – you can find an archive of all her past newsletters on her website, which also lists her very impressive set of clients and her philosophy on corporate philanthropy. Check it out at corporatehartz.com.

Our guest today is John Dranow, the CEO of Smart Revenue. John's firm has hundreds of trained, vetted field researchers available around the world, and his firm can help you fill in the data white spaces. Big data can help us analyze in exquisite detail what is happening, but it is hard to know from the data what isn't happening. How many people walk by a store but don't look at the window display? How many people look at the window display but don't enter the store? How many people enter the store but don't walk down the center aisle? How many people walk down the center aisle but don't buy your client's product? John's team has a range of tools to help fill in these white spaces. In our discussion we discuss field interviews, vision tracking goggles, how Panera might study a customer standing in line to order, and much more. John's firm does regularly work with boutique consulting firms as well as independent professionals – so if you have an upcoming project where this type of anthropological field work would provide compelling insight, check out his firm at www.smartrevenue.com