We have rated each of the following employment vehicles based upon our interviews with a hundred portable executives. However, each portable executive must evaluate this criterion for himself.
Going Solo
Working completely alone is probably the hardest way to be a portable executive. The solo practitioner is required to do everything himself, from developing the service and the marketing, to the accounting and office support work, to delivering the product or service. Beyond the obvious disadvantage of spending one's time on non core skill related activities, practicing solo can be self limiting because, as individuals, we have only a certain amount of capacity. There are only so many hours in a day to service clients and attend to the daily tasks of running a business, such as administrative work and bookkeeping. Solo practice probably lends itself best to a creative skill such as commercial art, writing, decorating, or personal counseling. For example, Frank Gilabert, an early retired executive from Hattori Seiko, works alone creating books for high school students about how business works.
As more and more services become available at reasonable prices, the ability of the sole practitioner to expand his individual capacity becomes much more economically feasible. Tremendous technological advances-such as software programs to handle accounting, word processing, and desktop publishing, as well as time management and basic legal forms-can be effectively utilized to relieve the pressure on solo portable executives and greatly enhance their capacity.
Strategic Alliances
Strategic alliances offer portable executives a way to maintain their independence and expand their capability to service a broader market. These relationships involve formal or informal arrangements with other portable executives with complementary skills and ability. Paul Upham, a former senior vice president of human resources for Dun & Bradstreet's Donnelley Marketing, has fostered an informal strategic alliance with another executive to increase his sales capacity:
I've set up an informal partnership with a fellow in New York who handles the sales. Basically, he knocks on the doors and I come in and do the close. We have an agreement based on the standards of our business: We do the highest quality work we can and strive to build long term relationships. That's the way to build a business.
The key to forming strategic alliances is to build a relationship in which the core skills of each executive enhances those of the other and brings added value to both parties. Usually, these alliances develop when an executive recognizes the need to expand his services. In these arrangements, each portable executive handles his own expenses and revenues are shared. One positive aspect of the strategic alliance is that it can be formed or disbanded as the need arises, thus offering complete flexibility in expanding and reducing an executive's capacity on an as needed basis.
Niche Businesses
You can also create your own business by finding a market niche that your skills and services address and become an expert in that particular area. As Joe Cullen said, "A lot of people are knowledgeable about many things, but do not know much about any given thing." Operating from that wisdom, Cullen focused his efforts on becoming the expert on warehousing when no one else around him possessed more than a smattering of knowledge in that area. When Bob Hallam retired as vice chairman of development at the Marketing Corporation of America, he and his wife created a unique niche business. They recognized that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, all companies have to change their signage to accommodate people with various disabilities. The legislation requires signs with raised letters, Braille, appropriate tint or coloring, and contrasting backgrounds. Bob and his wife went to school and learned about the requirements of Title 3 of the Disabilities Act and became, in effect, experts in the signage requirements. They then contracted with a sign company in Florida to supply them with any signs for which they had orders. They approached various trade associations and became the preferred supplier to their members, mainly on the strength of their knowledge of the requirements.
The Hallams identified an unmet need in the marketplace and set out to fill it. As experts, they supplied the sign company and its clients with what is required under the Americans with Disabilities Act. They made a positive contribution to society, making the world more accessible to those with disabilities, and made a profit doing it.
One of the advantages of becoming a niche player or a portable expert is that, with only a modest amount of marketing and networking on your part, people will seek your services. It also opens up a definable market among users of a particular service or skill in the niche. Becoming a niche player enables solo portable executives to focus their limited resources on a highly defined target market.
