Self-Employment, 12 Months Later / Cameron Moll / Designer, Speaker, Author

Self-Employment, 12 Months Later

published 15 September 2010

In just two short weeks I’ll complete my first full year since rejoining the ranks of the self-employed. What a ride it’s been — exciting, inspiring, tiring, challenging.

As you may recall, I published four objectives for my business shortly after making the leap. What follows is an evaluation of my performance for each of these objectives. Scores are based on the U.S. education system, with ‘A’ being the highest score and ‘F’ being the lowest. The ‘+’ and ‘-’ characters add granularity to the letters.

1. Reduce multi-tasking and distractions, increase focus.
Score: D-

My remarks one year ago haunt me today:

Motivation to get things done is of no concern for me — I have no shortage of things I’d like to do nor passion to make them happen. But staying focused is of great concern…. I intend to do less throughout the day, and by doing less, maintain a healthier work ethic.

Let’s be honest: To remain focused on the work at hand requires an incredible amount of discipline in today’s always-on, always-accessible, Growl-enabled, tabbed-browsing, mobile-alerting society. What compounds this issue, however, is that “the work at hand” is rarely discrete and singular.

Consider Twitter, for example. In one aspect, my Twitter account (@cameronmoll) is a powerful marketing medium for my business. In another, it’s a terrific resource for acquiring and sharing knowledge. In yet another, it’s a convenient and effective networking tool.

So, while I might disconnect from Twitter for a day or even a week to bear down and get “the work at hand” done, the act of disconnecting may have long-term consequences on other components of my business if done frequently. Interacting with more than 20,000 followers, therefore, is sometimes the very work at hand.

However, none of my remarks on this subject should trivialize the greater issue at hand: I need to do a better job of reducing multi-tasking and increasing focus. It’s not easy. But this does not excuse me, nor should it you.

2. Increase residual income.
Score: B+

I currently have only one active client, and it’s the same client I contracted with shortly after returning to freelancing. Between Authentic Jobs and my letterpress posters, my income for most of 2010 has been almost exclusively what one would classify as residual income.

However, to naively phrase my efforts over the last 12 months as ‘residual’ would be a miscalculation of the labor required to grow, maintain, and support Authentic Jobs as a fully functional incorporated business (S-corporation). Today, as the founder and president, running Authentic Jobs is very much a full-time endeavor for me. Toss in the time spent creating, marketing, and shipping posters, speaking at conferences, actively publishing content online and it all adds up to plenty of after-hours work.

I’m beginning to discover that there really is no such thing as purely residual, passive income. Either you pay your dues upfront (figuratively speaking) at the creation of the thing that generates income, or you actively sustain it along the way, or both.

In retrospect, I think I’ve done fairly well in this area.

3. Maintain physical contact.
Score: C

Here’s what I wrote a year ago:

There’s undeniable merit to be found in human-to-human contact, and too often we technologists underestimate this fact. Email, Twitter, even video-conferencing can go only so far. Physical contact is not only healthy for personal reasons, it’s good for business, too.

I still believe that. But I’ve given myself a score that lies somewhere in the middle because I’ve not yet convinced myself of the ROI of this principle.

Admittedly, I’ve never been overly social, though for as long as I can remember I’ve been thrust into positions that cure me of any inclination to isolation. I’m the father and husband of a six-member family, I interact with others in my community each weekend, and I have the pleasure of meeting plenty of wonderful people at conferences. Typically I’m not found lacking physical contact with other humans.

But picture this: Before returning to self-employment, I worked for a large organization in a cubicle-laden environment with no shortage of meetings. If anything, interaction with others was at an all-time high in my career. The consequence of this was frequent interruptions, among other things.

I now enjoy uninterrupted stretches of work, although I work from home with homeschooled children, so that’s not entirely accurate. In contrast, for me to do a lunch meeting for the sake of fostering physical contact, it usually equates to a 2-hour time commitment. As a one-man shop, making time for such a commitment on a regular basis isn’t an insignificant sacrifice. Yet, as I observed in the first objective, if that time equates to sustaining and growing business and cultivating lasting relationships, it shouldn’t be considered any less effective than Twitter or other intangible activities — nor any more intrusive to one’s schedule than the same.

Long story short, I haven’t yet proven the value of maintaining satisfactory levels of physical contact. I know there’s value in it. I probably just need to do a better job of convincing myself of that.

4. Reduce expenditures.
Score: B-

This is a really difficult one to evaluate. In short, I can still do a better job of spending less; of evaluating the true value of each expenditure. But you know as well as I that spending less does not always contribute to a healthier bottom line. In fact, often the opposite is true.

For example, I purchased nearly $5,000 worth of Canon 7D camera equipment in order to film the Colosseo being printed. (Watch “Reimagining the Roman Coliseum with type” on Vimeo.) The resulting film has played an integral role in the marketing of the poster.

Today, more than 600 copies of the Colosseo have been shipped to customers in a few dozen countries around the world. You can do the math and make your own judgment call about the wisdom of purchasing $5,000 worth of equipment. Could I have rented the equipment instead? Possibly. But in my mind, it was a wise investment.

Yet, what I knew before and what I’m learning anew is the fact that the small expenditures are what can kill a small business. Before you know it, you’ve spent $5,000 on trivial hardware, services, and T-shirts — each of which were purchased for less than $30. Undeniably, the sum of these items and their contribution to the success of your business is highly questionable.

So, while I’m doing better than before in this area, there remains plenty of room for improvement.

Average score for the last 12 months? C+. I obviously have plenty of homework in the next 12.