The Pivot

Recent changes to the consulting gig I'm on have made me decide to reevaluate my business operations.  On Sunday, while completing a wholly unsatisfying weekend watching football, I decided to get in touch my old friend Gemini about business strategy.  After spending a good 4 hours throughout the day with it, I'm fairly satisfied with the suggestions it designed for me as a jumping-off point.

As much as I'd like to find an application or software process that I can leverage to generate passive income, that's conceivably a longer and more precarious road than other revenue streams.  So I started by using Gemini to suggest ideas for consulting income and marketing.  I informed it that I was never going to be the type of bloke who's good at marketing himself, but that I have some runway to let things settle in (in addition to the 2 1/2 years' worth of runway so far - I must be a VERY big plane), so I instructed it to find a lower-stress way to look for income sources without needing to recreate scenes from Glengarry Glenross or The Boiler Room.

Most of the directed feedback was around my LinkedIn profile - specifically adding skills to the Services section, which is indexed for site users looking for expert help.  It also helped me determine an hourly rate given my experience and how to structure engagements to guard my precious time (I'm surprised this didn't occur to me when I first set my rate, but I also knew that I was willing to start off at a lower dollar amount just to prove that I could actually get paid).

Then I asked it the question that perpetually keeps me up at night - what about posting frequency?  I was surprised by its response.  Rather than delve into some long defense about posting 2-3 times a week on LinkedIn to maintain a social presence, Gemini indicated that I really only need to post once a week with content that ties into the services I'm providing.  At least for this half week, that gave me the impetus to write a few small blurbs about the project I'm working on.  This is certainly the most I've posted on LinkedIn in months, but the stakes (though low to begin with) aren't high, so I'm less worried about maintaining a certain number of impressions on the site.

When I asked it about my blog, it suggested 5-6 deeply technical pieces in total to capture the audience in search of my consulting services.  I can't envision myself writing just 5-6 flagship pieces and tinkering with the details while I let the rest of this wonderful creation lie fallow, but I also like that it didn't give the usual 'always be posting' advice that a lot of other sites spout.  I probably will use this as an excuse to spend more time procrastin..., er, planning more involved content, but this blog is a mainstay of my post-corporate identity, so it's here for the long haul.

After setting up my consulting bona fides and reassuring me that I'll eventually make money (we'll see, but it's no real risk to tailor my LinkedIn profile according to its guidance and give the whole thing a try), I explored (eventual) passive income opportunities.  I won't go into all of them, because it's not worth your while, but I was surprised that it mentioned "writing a document storage site for small HOAs."  It surprised me because, at that very moment, I was writing budget tracking for my HOA.  Now it's entirely feasible that it suggested this because it's Google and it knows everything I'm doing, but I don't recall searching for HOA-related subjects in the recent past, so it probably cherry-picked this idea from somewhere else and our passive income stars aligned.

Because the idea has been so acutely a part of my life recently, I've decided to spend more time on it as a viable income opportunity.  This is nice, because it gives me a few options - 1) invest some time in prepping myself for consulting gigs (and the communication strategy that accompanies that prep work - always valuable in itself) and 2) providing a side project that has the capacity to make some income.  For the first time in a while, I feel like I've got a solid path laid out in front of me for a chance to grow my business.

Until next time, my human and robot friends.