The New Nombray

Photo by hiddedevries

Personal Business

The largest growing employment space is know as "Personal Business": Consultants, contractors, and solo practitioners who have left the "security" of working for a big firm. "Personal Business" now accounts for 70% of the businesses in the U.S. If you're among them, you know that having to constantly drum up new work can be nerve-wracking and time-consuming. Plus, you need to keep up on the latest ways to drum up new business. There is an opportunity now that is disappearing fast.

Wine upstart

Imagine owning a little property in Manhattan in 1800. Or buying Microsoft stock in 1986 (How to turn $100 into $20,000). Do you know who Robert Parker is? Robert Parker makes and breaks wines. He's the most influential wine critic out there. Some wine producers wait for his rating before setting the price on their wines. Robert has been critiquing wine since 1978. Do you know who Gary Vaynerchuk is? Gary started out as the co-owner of a New Jersey wine shop, and in 2006 he started to produce a video podcast about wine. He's bombastic and irreverent. Wine purists hate him. But he moves cases of wine at will, and he's doubled Robert Parker's reach online. In 3 years, he passed the guy who spent 30 years building his brand.

The Matthew Effect

"For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away."
—Matthew 25:29, New Revised Standard Version.

Look at what successful people have in common. A history of success that runs back to a lucky break. Kottke.org is one of the most popular blogs out there. Go take a look. Wondering why? Look at the top. He's been blogging constantly since 1998. In 1998, you were 5 years from hearing the word Blog. He's got an early start, so he gets added to the list of "featured blogs", and that keeps him at the top of the list of blogs people read. In 2006, you're looking for YouTube content to watch, maybe about wine. Well, the most popular stuff is from Gary Vaynerchuck. A couple of years later, a lot more people are looking for that content, and he's still #1. Why? Because he was #1 before.

Your name is your business

Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) recently said:

Every individual now has a brand, so all must ask: what is your brand and how is it established? Every individual is becoming a small business, in this sense. The practice of this is in its infancy.

If you're out there on your own, running your own business, you have the opportunity to start using social media now, while the going is still early. What will be the importance of Twitter or Facebook to lead generation in 5 years? When I first saw Google in 1999 (I was at Excite at the time), search was out of favor, and I never would have guessed that they would become the dominant company they are today. For the sake of your career, and for your current job, you know you can't ignore this stuff.

Specialization creates value

Thomas Edison visited Henry Ford's factory, which was having some electrical problems. Ford asked Edison to help find the problem. Edison walked up to a dynamo and made a small X in chalk on the casing, and said "drill here". Ford was thrilled, and told him to send an invoice. The bill was for $10,000. Ford, furious, asked him to itemize it. Edison sent another bill: $1 charge for marking the casing with an X; $9,999 for knowing where to put it.

Think of the thing that you're best at. Think of the skill you have that you could charge the most money for. Every hour of work you're doing something else is an hour wasted. Find ways to outsource the things that aren't your core competency. The more time you spend on your expertise, the more valuable it becomes.

Nombray is personal PR

If you're a big business, you can afford to spend $10,000 a month on a PR person. If you're an independent, that's out of your reach. There's an opportunity in social media right now, but that's a whole other expertise. This is where Nombray comes in; we use social media to bring you affordable brand management.

• Using our proprietary reputation management system you provide us with the key elements you want your audience to know.
• Our Brand Specialists then create targeted campaigns on 17 social networks including LinkedIn, Facebook, Google and Twitter.
• We then aggregate your content on your own domain so when people search for you on Google or other search engines, they’ll find you.

Our one-of-a-kind system is based on a personal brand questionnaire, best-practices research, and inside information from the big social media sites. It includes over 200 actions we do to ensure both the quality and pervasiveness of your online brand.

Reserve your place now

We've been testing this for a couple of months with a close audience, and we've made good progress. We're now opening it up for a public beta. Feel free to email me any questions.