As a business school graduate, I have a very business oriented mind. I see business in everything; opportunities are at every corner, and there is undeniable opportunity for growth if you are willing to put in the work and strategize.
I think this is the case for your life, too. Rather, your professional life; business has it’s place, and it’s place is not in your marriage or with your kids and friends.
Here’s why I think you should treat your professional life like a business:
Marketing Yourself
Your ability to make money, especially doing something that you enjoy, hinges almost completely on your ability to market yourself. Whether you work for yourself or a company, you need to know how to put yourself out there and present yourself and your skills to get the best of the best.
Marketing covers potential customers as well, not just current customers. This means that you need to be constantly marketing yourself to your network. I use LinkedIn, and ensure that I’m always professional on it. I don’t add friends to my LinkedIn unless they are also a professional contact, because LinkedIn is not Facebook and should not be treated like Faecbook.
Customer Service
If you work for yourself, the customer service part is obvious; you must provide good customer service to your clients.
If you work for a company, your customers are your bosses, direct reports, and whomever works with you. Provide only great customer service to these individuals.
As a professional, this can also extend to your network. If you help people out when they ask for assistance (looking over people’s resumes, providing contacts, providing feedback), they are more likely to help you out when you need it. There comes a time in almost every professionals career when they need help with something.
Finance
All businesses have a financial aspect, and your professional life should too. Don’t work in finance? That’s fine. You still have a financial aspect.
This could be part of your marketing of yourself (how much money did you save the last company you worked for?) or part of your customer service. Businesses (including your own, if you work for yourself) are in it for the money. You should be finding ways to save them money.
Finance is metric orientated, so make some metrics for yourself and demonstrate how you’ve reached them.
You also need to be negotiating your wages for every company you work for, and every contract you pick up if you are self employed. Get the best price for the service you offer.
Human Resources
Since your professional life is your own, you need to ensure that you have adequate work/life balance, compensation, benefits, and that you feel comfortable and that you “fit” with the jobs you are picking up.
Don’t work for a company that you don’t like. This will reduce your morale which will make you market yourself poorly. You must be choosy with your job (but don’t throw in the towel too soon, either, as this can be just as damaging to your reputation as low morale).
Management
Self management and leadership is a good indicator of whether or not you would make a good leader and manager of other people.
If you can manage yourself well, you’ll be more successful in your professional life.
Success is almost always a derivative of your reputation (and hard work, of course). If you treat your professional life like it’s a business, your reputation will precede you.
Daisy! Yes. Why not run our professional lives like a business? It makes perfect sense and your arguments are clear and concise. The way most people conduct themselves makes me ponder how they could possibly expect to be taken seriously.
What a refreshing and clever way to look at career development! I think you could apply this to many other aspects in your life, too–getting the best ROI on your time, effort, and money other parts of your life.
Wow, this post just read like sweet music to my ears! I think when you run your professional life like a business, you stand a high chance of leveraging your reputation (brand) into something more worthwhile and financially rewarding. And beyond that, more often than not, you will never be out of a job or clients.
Great post! My entire business is built on the foundation of my reputation. That means that I actively attempt to keep that rep as sparkly as possible. I actually cringe when I don’t live up to my own expectations.
I agree and one important point many people seem to forget about work like is that you never know who is going to be your boss one day or vice versa. Don’t burn bridges and always be the best person you can be even if that means you make a crappy day better somehow. Being smart about business is the best way to get to the top.
As a self-(un)employed individual, I know of no other mode of operation. I am my business.
I tried a “job” type arrangement a few years ago. Worst 2 years of my life.
Never again.