career

This is a short story from my book, A Survival Guide for New Consultants:

A long time ago -- 1991 to be exact -- a friend of mine named Joe was a contractor for the aerospace company I worked at. Just like a consultant, Joe was paid by the hour.

Just a quick note today that while I've been busy working on my next book (which will be printed by a major publisher), I just noticed that sales of my last eBook, "You Want Me to Do What?

As a consultant, you're expected to run a professional business meeting. In the few minutes before a meeting starts you can be as nice as you want, ask your client how their kids are doing and so on, but once the meeting starts it should be as quick and efficient as possible.

The "secret" to making a meeting snappy is simple:

Know what you want out of the meeting before it starts.

I don’t remember where I heard it first, but possibly the most important phrase I’ve ever heard related to the consulting field is this:

Where there’s mystery, there’s money.

Wow, a friend of mine sent me an email yesterday that echoes my sentiments exactly, and he doesn't hold anything back. With his permission, I'm sharing it here:

Man, I'd rather die than create another friggin' web app. I mean, who really gives a crap about web apps? What the **** are these apps doing for the real good of the world? Who cares if you can order a pizza online, or share photos easier than we did 10 years ago? I just don't want to look back on my life and think that I spent it creating friggin' web apps.