Day Job Killer Consulting and The Three-Percent Solution

open road in montana (bikertect) 2

Announcement #1: The Finance Your Freedom blog is now in pre-launch mode.  See here for a sneak peak (see here for more information about Finance Your Freedom).

Announcement #2: Next week I’ll be interviewing my friend Chris, who does what he loves and makes mucho dinero. And get this: it only takes him 2 hours per day to run his fitness business. I wouldn’t believe it either if I didn’t actually KNOW this guy. Check back soon for that interview.]

Announcement #3: This week in the VERY FIRST Finance Your Freedom newsletter, I’ll be answering a questions by Frans D. who asks “If you had to start over tomorrow from scratch (day job) to funding your freedom; how would you do it, what would be the most important thing to do and what do you suggest I do to get a jump start?”  Sign up here to see my response:

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Most people can work from home and make a living if they’re determined and don’t mind working their asses off. That part’s doable. Working at home and actually loving it, however, is a different story: it can be hard as hell.

It’s Hard as Hell Because of . . .

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The blue circle represents things you really like to do. Something doesn’t have to be ostensibly important, significant, worthwhile, or respectable to fall in this circle. If you really like to dance, go camping, cook, or play with your children, then those things go inside this circle (something tells me you know what’s in your blue circle, but read this if you don’t).

The green circle represents the realm of things you can do IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE to earn money, support your family, and live comfortably. Your green circle isn’t just determined by you: it’s also determined by market forces, supply and demand, the global and local economy, etc.

For many people, there’s very little overlap between the things we really enjoy doing, and the things we can to do make a healthy living in the very near future. That’s part of the reason why so many people hate their jobs: they just can’t get paid for doing things they like to do.

By the way, I know plenty of people who work from home AND hate their jobs: working from home or owning your own business doesn’t necessarily fix your problems (it often makes them worse).

The Three-Percent Problem

The Three-Percent Problem is the reality that — for a hell of a lot of people — there’s only a 3% overlap (i.e. a VERY SMALL overlap) between the things we love to do and the things that pay the bills (as illustrated by the circles above). 3% is arbitrary. The point is that the overlap is small.

In fact, the overlap is so small that most people don’t even see that such an overlap exists at all.

At any rate, the Three-Percent Problem lies at the root of . . .

Two Reasons Why You Have Difficulty Getting Paid for Doing What You Love

Lots of people have difficulty creating a business that (1) actually generates a healthy income, and (2) they actually enjoy running.  One reason for this is that it’s really damn hard for ANYONE to find the overlap between their blue circle and their green circle.

The second reason is that it can be REALLY difficult to see the “green circle”(i.e. you may know what you like to do, but have no clue how to monitize your talents).  This isn’t your fault: assessing market demand and doing competitive analyses can be damn difficult if you don’t know what to do.

A Flood of Emails and 500 Survey Responses

In the last post, I asked you to fill out a questionnaire and email me questions about funding your freedom.  I received a flood of emails and ~500 survey responses (HUGE THANK YOU).

According to survey results, the #1 obstacle preventing people from financing their freedom was that they didn’t know how to monitize the things they actually ENJOY doing.  As one person said: “I’d be able to quit my job if I just knew how to turn my most valuable qualities into money-generating assets.”

So in response to the survey results, I’ve started doing “Day Job Killer Consulting” with a few people.  Today I’m making this service available to you.

The Purpose of “Day Job Killer” Consulting is to Help You QUICKLY Find This . . .

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After we help you find this pronto. We’ll work on a plan for extricating you from your office.  (If you already make money doing what you love, then we’ll work on ways to help you make more money in less time).

What You’ll Get . . .

  • Help matching up the things you actually like to do with profitable online business models
  • Help accessing demand and competition
  • Help projecting the your startup costs and time commitment
  • Plain ol’ help with internet marketing (including SEO, adwords campaings, social media strategy, and help with split testing, list building, copywriting, and customer conversion).
  • An assessment of whether your new venture can realistically be launched while you’re working a day job
  • Recommendations on products that may help you out (I spend over $1k each month on marketing information products and business education, so chances are I’m familiar with resources to help you out).
  • Selective access to my real-world social network of entrepreneurs, a few of whom are probably making lots of money in your niche.
  • (If you have questions about how to quickly build a blog’s subscriber base, then we can talk about that as well).

My fee is $97/hour, and I’m offering a handful of one-hour sessions each week. I’m not doing these on a first-come/first-served basis: I have a strong preference towards action-oriented people who care about stuff and are actually willing to make shit happen.

If you’re interested in working with me, then please fill out this short application.

I’m not asking you to fill out an application because I think I’m badass.  The application’s there to benefit us both: I only want to take you on as a client if I can help you get top-notch results. (And if things don’t work out, I have a 100% “no questions asked” refund policy).

This Isn’t For Everyone

Please only apply if you are dead serious about liberating yourself from your day job (or liberating yourself from a shitty home business . . .by making it work better for you).

You might not know how you’re going to do it, but you have to be committed.

If you fit the criteria, then I’d love to work with you.

For advice on how to quit your job, escape cubicle hell, and live anywhere, subscribe to the Finance Your Freedom Weekly Newsletter by entering your email address below:

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View Comments

Glad to see this is starting. I’m really interested to see what direction you’ll be taking this. All the best.


September 2, 2008
John Newton

This is brilliant. I’m signing up right now.


September 3, 2008

Sounds great Clay, good luck with it all!


September 3, 2008

Good luck Clay, this is all very interesting!


September 3, 2008
shaks

very interesting

http://www.home-living-news.co.uk/


September 5, 2008
Thomas Young

AWESOME call today. Thank you.


September 5, 2008

I think all you need is a little patience. Doing what you love is not an option. It should be the only thing you can do. This way, you will be forced to find a way to live off of it. The beginning may be rough, but the ending is worth infinitely more than the struggle itself. I went on this path 6 months ago, and have blogged about it to track the success I know is waiting.

Great idea, please post again to tell us how this works out.

http://yinvsyang.com/


September 5, 2008

Clay, I’m looking forward to our phone call next week. I think you and I are going to kick ass!!


September 5, 2008

:0)


September 5, 2008

Clay,
I can’t wait to see what you have for us! I recently quit my job (June 30)to start my own business (linked to my name). I am loving it. Now that school has started we are booking customers so it is starting to happen! I believe I am in the intersection on your Venn diagram. I get to teach in a very creative way, have more time to myself, be creative as I develop curriculum and new teaching ideas, and I don’t have the red tape of the public schools over my head. It’s awesome!!!

I signed up for your newsletter. Can’t wait to start receiving it!


September 11, 2008
Eric

Clay,
Great insight!
I wonder though if the venn diagram is giving a misleading limit to the number of things in either group. The way I see it the things we can do to make money are nearly limitless, and possibly true for the other side.
I think it’s about expanding the number ideas on how to do both and then choosing the best.


October 29, 2008

Great, well sophisticated article, Clay. You are totally right with your approaches. I’d like you to consider another obstacle. It


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