In the days of mainframe computing, there was a saying: “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.” The machines produced by Big Blue (as it was called) might be pricey, but they had a reputation for reliability. Their salesmen (and they were nearly always men) wore blue pin-striped suits that matched their company’s logo. The company’s reputation meant that any executive could defend the decision to choose IBM over its competition. IBM was the safe choice.

So, maybe you’ve been putting a lot of work in to blogging, social media, speaking engagements and other ways to get recognized as a thought-leader in your field. That’s time you can’t bill your clients for, and you can’t get that time back. And you may be wondering, is there actually money at the end of all of this effort?

Are you working hard on being recognized as a subject-matter expert or thought-leader in your field? And you haven’t yet been invited to address the Davos conference, write an opinion piece in The Economist, or give a TED talk?

Building your profile as a subject-matter expert in your field may seem daunting, scary and lonely. But it doesn’t have to be. You may have heard “it takes a village to raise a child” and that can be true of building your professional profile too. You don’t have to do it alone.

Do you need to reach the top levels of your target clients, if you’re to sell your services successfully? It could be that you do large, long-term projects with budgets that can only be signed off at the highest level. Or, you’re all about helping create strategic change, and that’s a top-level decision. Maybe you’re not targeting the top level yet in your work, but you want to be.As I’ve found out in building my own business, reaching an organization’s top tier can be frustrating.

Have you ever gone shopping for new shoes, clothing, electronics or whatever – and come across a product that is exactly right? The features you need, in the design that works best for you? That suddenly becomes a “must have” purchase for you – and the price isn’t much of a factor.It’s not a coincidence. Manufacturers put a lot of effort into consumer research and testing – focus groups and other ways to find out what customers are looking for. Their purpose is to create a product that will appeal to the customers they want to reach.As a businessperson, that should be your purpose too – to understand your prospective clients so well that you can design a service offering that becomes a “must have” purchase for them.

There’s a story of a visitor to a rock quarry in mediaeval Europe. The visitor asks one stonemason, “What are you doing?” and the mason replies, “I’m chipping flakes off this stone.” A second mason replies to the same question, “I’m cutting stone into square blocks.” But the third mason says, “I’m building a cathedral.”

Why do you create thought leadership content – blog posts, articles, videos, speeches and the like? It could be to get the attention of potential clients. Or it could be because you have insights to share, and you like helping.But it could be that the biggest beneficiary of your thought leadership program is you. Here’s how that can work.

For many people, having a career that is fun, pays well and does some good for the world is too much to expect. They’d settle for just one of those three benefits. But, all the three are available to business professionals who plan carefully and then execute well.

You can’t do it all, and you shouldn’t. Just about any organization needs to bring in help from freelancers at some point, and that’s particularly the case if you’re with a small organization, or a Corporation of One.

Are you working in a job now, but you’re not sure how much longer? You know that the project pipeline is running dry, and you’re hearing rumors about a downsizing?

Sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. Maybe you think that there is a better market elsewhere. It could be:• You’ve had good success in one industry, but you find it’s declining – and there’s good growth in another sector• You’ve been serving small clients effectively, and you’re ready to take on the big players• You’ve been living in one part of the world, and have recently moved – or are planning to move – to another, so you need to build a client base in your new place

“So where do I start?” It’s a question I get asked a lot by business professionals who are just beginning their journey to being seen as a recognized expert in their field.

It was a $10,000 conversation, but that’s not what I earned from it. That’s what it cost me. And I’m glad of it. This conversation over coffee took place in 1999, just after I’d jumped from a marketing job with a Big Four accounting firm, to start my own business. The meeting was with a business coach I’ll call “Judy,” as part of an initial consultation. I’d told Judy that I wanted to build a practice working with professional services firms. But I’d been offered a contract to do PR work for a wood-stove manufacturer, quite outside my area of interest. Just starting out, even with a good cushion of savings, the $10,000 contract looked pretty amazing to me. And I’d grown up in a house that relied on a wood-stove for heat, so I knew the product. Judy gently probed around that. Did I really want to step so far off my business plan and area of expertise, to focus on a consumer product? Wouldn’t the time I spent pushing wood-stoves be time I wouldn’t be building my profile with professional firms?

“When are you going to get a real job?” Every independent business professional has been asked this question. Maybe it was asked by your prospective love interest… or your in-laws… or maybe you were asking yourself. It might have been after you failed to land a client, or lost one, or just had a bad quarter. A steady paycheck looks good at such times. I know that feeling. I’ve had a real job. Several. My most recent job was the best one I’ve ever had, and it still had its, well, limitations. I was way too vulnerable to other people telling me what work to do, and whether I’d be able to go on doing it.The time is right for the skilled independent professional to spread his/her wings.This post talks about why this is the time to seize the day, and gives you some ideas on how to do that.