twanless

Mentor For Rent: The Older Independent’s Value Proposition

Older inde­pen­dent pro­fes­sion­als can’t com­pete against younger peo­ple on speed, idea gen­er­a­tion, and tech­nol­ogy under­stand­ing. But they can stand out if they apply their wis­dom and ana­lyt­i­cal skills and rein­vent them­selves as hired men­tors. Many years ago, while train­ing in project man­age­ment,  I under­took a role-playing exer­cise in cor­po­rate...

twanless

Experience Doesn’t Make You An Entrepreneur

When they begin inde­pen­dent busi­nesses, older skilled peo­ple have a wealth of valu­able expe­ri­ence in their par­tic­u­lar spe­cialty. But that expe­ri­ence can also lead to a some­times arro­gant belief that they know every­thing there is to know. They don’t. An info­graphic from Con­tactMe, the soft­ware peo­ple, points out that the aver­age age of entre­pre­neurs ...

twanless

Your Aging Brain Is A Competitive Strength

Mid-life entre­pre­neurs have a dis­tinct advan­tage because their brains are better. If you have fled the cor­po­rate straight-jacket for your own entre­pre­neur­ial pro­fes­sional busi­ness, you’ve prob­a­bly wor­ried often how you’re going to keep up with all those young hot­shots out there. Maybe you saw glimpse of that in your old work­place. For 20 years you toiled in the...

twanless

7 Reasons Why Clients Will Hire Your Services Business

Because you’re expert in some­thing doesn’t mean peo­ple will pay for it.  To start a new advi­sory busi­ness or make one thrive in a crowded mar­ket, inde­pen­dent advi­sors must under­stand what clients look for. Most man­agers and pro­fes­sion­als who go inde­pen­dent do so because they’re look­ing for a bet­ter way to deliver their spe­cial expertise. The think­ing is that...

twanless

What You Should Know About Maturity

The dic­tio­nary defines matu­rity as “the state of being fully grown or devel­oped”, which I guess is tech­ni­cally right, but sounds like it has an ele­ment of wish in it: I know many peo­ple who are fully grown and are any­thing but fully developed. But per­haps the dic­tio­nary is try­ing to be inspir­ing. Cer­tainly, it has syn­onyms for matu­rity that sound more real. For...