I finished the book over my vacation and the rest of the book is pretty much an extension of the first 10 chapters.
Chapter summaries:
11) Follow up - focus on opportunity rather than outcome, in other words, don't just let the "big score" happen - use good fortune to position yourself for later. And focus on "process" rather than "incident" - make a habit of follow up rather than cashing the customer's check and saying you're done.
12) Integrity - doing exactly what you claim is good (for) business, not just good ethics.
13) Ask - ask for favors; ask for exposure; ask for testimonials; ask for partnerships, collaboration, citations, etc.
14) Domino opportunity - "pimp" an opportunity for exposure to new prospects or to new business for all it's worth. Examples include a voice coach who was brought in to coach contestants for
The Apprentice TV show and capitalized on this with her own media blitz referencing the gig.
15) Passion - as he puts it, passion by itself is nothing. But so is doing something you hate. Find the intersection of your passion with a genuine market need.
16) See what isn't there - look for market voids - either niches in undiscovered businesses, or underserved positions in established niches at the bottom, the top or in the middle.
17) No boundaries - do not limit your business to the local area - avoid provincialism.
18) Clarity - make clearcut plans and formulate clear business goals and objectives. Even if you miss by a large margin you will be better off that if you don't do so.
19) Independence - avoid debt, avoid being, thinking and acting needy, and avoid business expansion that renders your business dependent and which creates a bad mental framework that forces you to compromise your goals.
20) Think value, not time - focus on factors that truly increase your worth to others, and not on "marking time" and thinking like a blue collar laborer type who expects to be "rewarded" for multiple years of employment.
21) Think equity, not income - introduces the idea of the building value in your business.
22) Marketing prowess - he says that you absolutely
have to become good at marketing yourself and/or your business in some effective way in order to be successful. You cannot be cowed into being demure, you have to be unabashed.
23) Behavioral congruency - model your attitudes and your on individuals achieving results that you want.
24) Act wealth to attract wealth - he says to literally throw your money around and to spend money in certain worthwhile or beneficial ways. Do this to stop thinking "poor."
25) Energy from people - mercilessly jettison professional acquaintances, employees, etc who drag you down and who inhibit progress toward your goals. Cultivate the people and associates who want to help you succeed.
26) Courage - to trust your own judgement, to act, to make demands, to set rules and boundaries, etc.
The rest of the book is mainly worthless chapters from "guests" and most of them are advocating some kind of pre-2008 housing meltdown real estate arbitrage.
Some bottom lines that I perceive from the good parts:
I don't really think that most of what Kennedy teaches here is going to benefit most IT contractors. We have to accept standards of practice and conduct (like dealing with borks and with commodity driven pseudo-employment practices) that don't allow a lot of leeway to imaginatively leverage your time or market yourself or your work product.
In like manner, employment and work culture - contractors aren't really immune to it - is
quite contrary to almost all of the points that Kennedy makes in his book. It would take most of us a lot of work to transcend the self-serving "hypnosis" that employers, clients and brokers have subjected most of us to in IT contracting.
As he notes, dedication to
passion alone is overrated and is dangerous to your economic pursuits. He pretty much says what I thought - find something that people will pay you for that is close enough to the kind of work that you want to do, and make that work your passion.
#16, "see what isn't there", is kind of the mantra of most IT product businesses and SaaS. If there is one lesson in this book that most mISV aspirants grok, it's that.
#18 - we're all bad at this.
#19 - the key problem shared by most wage slaves and many contractors. How many near-bankrupt guys do we have here? And most people I've worked around in offices are always, without exception, leveraged up to their eyeballs, somehow. Well, you can't accomplish anything if you're in fire fighting mode all the time.
#20 - I think most of us who understand market dynamics that run squarely against IT contractors have internalized this message and most of us expect no or even negative recognition for our work and our merit. For heaven's sake, DON'T assume that just because you have worked for 10+ years in the field that you are "better" than a new guest worker being hyped as your replacement.
#22 - marketing prowess - I always say that middle class people are trained to be bashful about self promotion, and we tend to jeer at it when a peer does it. We really shouldn't do either (except - I say it's OK to jeer when someone obviously doesn't deserve any success.
Ok, I kid.)
#23 - "behavioral congruency" - probably one of the best lessons in the book. Model yourself on someone who is doing great things, don't drift along doing the same crap that every other wanna-be is doing.
#25 - "energy from people" - I have already implemented this. I have no use for idiots and for detractors in my own circle.
#26 - "courage" - basically, act on it, even if it feels wrong and others are telling you "no".
ALL IN ALL:This book is a great, easy read and is quite eye-opening and "consciousness raising". I have nothing bad to say about it, only good.
4.5 out of 5.
