Boom or bust, it’s always a good time to sharpen up your key skills in preparation for opportunities that can and will present themselves. Even if you are on top of your game and things have never been better, you will benefit handsomely from taking your key skills to the next level – especially the three covered in this article.
Triple your value with three golden skills
In terms of maximum return on the time and effort you invest, there are three skills that will increase your value to customers, employees and colleagues:
1. Commercial skill: your ability to manage money and time. It’s about cash-flow, ROI, budgets, margin, profitability, deadlines and workflow – all the things that control the money in people’s pockets – your pockets! It’s not about becoming an accountant but about focusing on delivering the numbers that count.
Everyone says they are interested in making money. We love making money, but when it comes to the actual ‘boring bits’ of making money – the commercial realities – people often switch off. It’s too hard. They just don’t understand it. They would rather focus on what they find easier and more interesting – more fun. Such as your…
2. Expert skill: your ability to do your job. It’s about technical competence and specialist knowledge. It’s what makes you the expert in your job – able to solve problems, generate ideas and share detailed information.
People tend to be more interested in developing their expert skill. It’s what they know and love, and it tends to take up all of the available time – doesn’t it? No, not if you’ve made time to develop your…
3. On-trepreneurial skill: your ability to turn others on when you communicate. It’s about communicating with others – presenting, selling, pitching, informing – in a way that gets them turned on and motivated to act. And it’s not just relevant when you are ‘selling’, but anytime you communicate face-to-face, voice-to-voice or screen-to-screen.
There are people who are technically and/or commercially competent who completely ignore their on-trepreneutial skill. They tell you about their great idea or give you the business facts – and if you don’t ‘get it’, then it’s your problem, not theirs.
Become the C.E.O. of your career
Take the first letter of each of these skills – Commercial, Expert, On-trepreneur and they spell C.E.O. You can become the C.E.O. or Chief Executive Officer of your career by developing all three skills. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a team member inside a large company or an online business owner, your real advantage comes from being strong in all three - especially nowadays when there is no guarantee of job security and opportunities can suddenly spring up.
As with a company C.E.O., people will pay more for you and will pay much more attention to you if you are commercially astute, technically competent and on-trepreneurially powerful. This triple strength is called the C.E.O. Sweet Spot.
Build your C.E.O. skills
Now is the perfect time to develop your C.E.O. skills. The following steps will get you started:
a. Rate them: give yourself an honest assessment of your strength in each area. A score of 1 means it’s a weakness and 10 means it’s a strength. You could even ask others what they think.
Commercial skill: ______ (score out of 10)
Expert skill: ______ (score out of 10)
On-trepreneurial skill: ______ (score out of 10)
b. Prioritize them: put them in order of your weakest to your strongest;
c. Strengthen them: start where you are weakest and aim to become strong in all three.
Helping you strengthen your C.E.O. skills will be an on-going theme at this site. In the meantime, I look forward to your comments.
Discussion points for your comments:
- What C.E.O. rating did you give yourself?
- How did you arrive at those ratings?
- What are your ideas for improving your C.E.O. skills?
28 Responses to this post
May 31, 2009 at 2:27 am |
Great first episode John / Robin! Really informative and I’m really looking forward to part two.
Not seen anything like this out there tailored towards this industry. Brilliant resource!
May 31, 2009 at 5:42 am |
Enjoyed the chat, John and Robin. I rated myself as average in the skills and entrepenerial catagories. Where I really need to work is the accounting / margin area. Math and figures have never been my friends (unless they’re fonts in a motion graphics gig).
I’ll be interested in hearing about some of the resources. I have considered taking a few business courses at the local college, but just can’t find the time to fit it into my busy freelance schedule – got to make the client deadlines. It’s a real Catch 22 situation.
I’ll be watching the whole series and thanks to you both for sharing some hard earned knowledge!
Brett
May 31, 2009 at 7:35 am |
very instructive interview.
thanks a lot for sharing.
May 31, 2009 at 10:40 am |
Thanks for sharing.
I just wished that the quicklime controls did not disappear, I wanted to scrub through pretty annoying also.
Thanks & Keep it up!
May 31, 2009 at 4:00 pm |
Thanks for all the info guys….
I’m new to motion design and am very enthusiastic about the industry. Currently I have been thinking of starting my own studio or get some experience in a studio first to get the feel of the industry. What is you opinion on that subject?
I am super excited for the next episode.
keep on keep’n on
May 31, 2009 at 5:13 pm |
Thanks for posting this guys. I’m curious to hear the info included within, it seems relevant to what I do, but I don’t think the format is quite working for me. I usually don’t have time to sit through 14 minutes of two guys talking. Maybe consider a quick blog entry to go along with the conversation? You can pique my interest with the text and then if I feel there’s something useful within, I could watch the video. Or perhaps cut out the non-relevant bits and get the video down to two or three minutes.
As it stood, you lost me after a couple minutes of chit-chat and I’ve moved on to the next thing.
Maybe others would disagree, but a linear conversation format like this might not be the ideal way to convey the information.
I appreciate the effort none-the-less and like the blog!
May 31, 2009 at 5:32 pm |
Thanks for your considered comments everyone, keep them coming. Tex, we’ll be adding a key points text summary to each post for those who don’t want to watch the full discussion. Also, not all discussions will run this long, we’ll be working to keep them as short as possible.
Denis, starting your own studio is a big step, perhaps getting your feet wet might be a good first step? Feel free to contact me if you’d like to discuss further.
Noelle, you can download any movie on the site by right-clicking on the link and choosing to download.
May 31, 2009 at 7:07 pm |
I really wish I had heard this when I was first doing freelance. Great knowledge, thanks for sharing.
June 1, 2009 at 3:52 am |
Hi Robin and John,
Great first discussion… myself rating wise I think would be:
1. Commercial Skills: 5
2. Techincal Skills: in motion graphics 4; design in general a 6
3. On-trepreneurial skill: 5
I think in the design industry in general, with everyday people having access to the programs and higher end machines, it is hard to put across to “some” clients the value of good design and the strategic thinking behind it.
I have had clients say to me why should they pay me $X amount to brand their business when they could get their teenage child to do it at home on their MacBook in PS Elements. It is very hard to not to be offened and say something you will regret. It is all about education and having the skills to communicate the value of your service without sound like a knowitall or belittling the client.. Really looking forward to the next installment.
Thanks again guys
Cheers
Ben
June 1, 2009 at 3:13 pm |
great stuff robin/john! I’ve only realized the importance of knowing the business side when I tried to start freelancing. I could do great work but couldn’t get people interested. I then realized I needed to focus more time on relationships and building confidence with clients – then it all happened.
June 4, 2009 at 5:55 am |
Nice post, but you forgot lying as a key skill.
June 4, 2009 at 11:24 pm |
^ Cameron
Key skill if you want to be in the unemployment line after a few months.
June 9, 2009 at 12:02 pm |
Great discussion, thanks !
I found out what my skills are currently :
technical skills : less than the average,
commercial skills : the average,
on-trepreneurial skills : more than the average.
For the technical skills, no surprise since I’m new in this career, after 10 years spent in sets and sceneries (real 3D ones !).
Maybe I’m not so bad, since people are happy with my work !
)
But that’s where on-trepreneurial skills come into play : before passionned, being profoundly happy while working on AE, being eager to enter a new career, giving its own enthousiasm to all the people around, and especially to clients and employers… making collegues feeling like working with you…. That’s absolutely critical, not only to get the job but also for everyone -others and yourself- , just to live happier … 
But the truth is that I spent each time a few nights before looking for tutorials and trying and learning… to be able to make good works that I would have been unable to make a few days before !!!
It’s really fun to live like that ! … Well… when it works of course !
July 1, 2009 at 9:25 am |
That was a great episode, and I’m glad you’re handling this subject. On the Commercial Skills, I would rate myself as a 5. On Expert skills, I would be a 6, and on On-trepeneur skills, I would put myself as a 3.
The business end of graphics/editing is becoming a lot more exciting for me, and I’m tending to shy away from the technical end.
Thanks so much for providing your resources.
Sincerely,
Peter Baker
August 6, 2009 at 11:29 am |
This post is amazing. I found it to be thought provoking, and highly inventive! Love the circle graph and explanation.
August 6, 2009 at 11:43 am |
Hey Baker, thanks for your encouragement.
By the way, congratulations on your ‘Baker The Brand Intro’ video. It’s rough, honest, creative and inspiring. You deserve to be very successful. Is that really you running up that hill?
FYI, Baker’s video: (http://beyondsuccess.wordpress.com/test-forward/)
Best, and thanks. Robin
August 7, 2009 at 9:59 pm |
I really like this self assessment tool. In my field of software development there are too many who shun working on these very critical yet fundamental skills. One of the attractive things about the areas of focus is that you have to have a well honed skill. One of the complaints of the developer community is that many in management are very light in terms of skill, including communication skills beyond the PowerPoint presentation.
Good stuff. I really enjoy your blog.
August 8, 2009 at 4:35 am |
Hey Robin,
Thank you! Yes that’s really me running up that hill. It was an excellent location just outside of Chino CA. Re-tweeted your post!
Gratitude,
+Baker
August 10, 2009 at 7:13 pm |
Good post. There is more to raising your “personal stock value” than just being good in your particular specialty. With the economy being more about consultancy and freelancing, it’s important for people to learn the peripheral business skills associated with their own line of work.
@David Robbins commented on a post on my blog on a similar topic (“5 training courses guaranteed to boost your career”). He mentioned that I should come visit this site as I will find it interesting and related to what I talk about. I was right. Thanks for the suggestion David.
-Arif
August 14, 2009 at 6:41 am |
Thanks, David. Great feedback. That ‘silo thinking’ seems to pervade many industries. People get so focused on their core skill that they lose the context – the ability to communicate effectively and add real value.
Best, Robin
September 29, 2009 at 10:32 pm |
Wow
October 11, 2009 at 2:09 am |
I really enjoyed this article. Very insightful.
I posted it on http://www.optimistlist.com for readers to enjoy and learn from!
Keep up the good work!
Mike
March 31, 2010 at 5:56 pm |
Being a C.E.O of your career takes leadershp qualities as well. You should be adaptive enough on mastering the different approaches in relating with your co-businessminded customers.
This article is another learning material especially to the “Wanna-Be” entrepreneurs out there, like me -:) Personally, I rate myself good in the ‘Commercial Skill’ area and I should work on with the rest of the E and O part.
June 10, 2009 at 3:29 pm |
Reading your comments Boreale it’s clear you are indeed a passionate person. Good to have you in the Motionworks community.
August 10, 2009 at 7:20 pm |
Thanks, Arif. And thanks David!
It’s interesting the way you refer to ‘personal stock value’ and an economy moving to consultancy & freelancing. There is great benefit in developing those ‘peripheral’ skills as companies are forced to reduce headcounts because of economic pressures. As you demonstrate, the Internet is a very effective and timely way to help here.
Best, Robin
October 13, 2009 at 9:11 am |
Thanks, Mike. I appreciate your feedback. Thanks for the link to http://www.optimistlist.com. It’s an excellent resource.
Cheers,
Robin
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