Unleashed - How To Thrive As An Independent Professional

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

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 sunnyb

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 h

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 gratef

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

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 stranger

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://mazar

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

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 man

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 re

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 wi

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 help

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 Juli

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.

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 lea