Farming v. Other forms of self-employment

In my last post I alluded to the fact that I am a farmer's son.  I grew up on a farm near the town of Cumnock in the Central-West of New South Wales.  As the eldest child and only son it was actually an active choice for me not to become a farmer (see last post).

My father was a very good farmer and I long before I could articulate the reason why I knew that I didn't want to follow in his wake.  When asked about it now I explain that my definition of a good farmer is as follows: -

Someone who gets up at dawn on a rainy morning in the middle of winter to go and fix a fence that isn't broken yet.

As far as farming goes that was never going to be me.  I've never regretted the decision to do other things with my life but I do like to think that I carry that attitude with me nonetheless: -

Get up every morning and solve a problem before it even arises.

Talking to farmers

My wife and I spent a lovely August Bank Holiday Weekend in Norfolk as guests of friends who are farmers growing wheat, canola (rapeseed) and beans.  On Sunday afternoon we went to the local pub and met up with their friends, most of whom are farmers also.

As we stood around in the soft evening light chatting, much of the conversation revolved around work; in particular comparisons between the working life of a farmer and a self-employed consultant.  The similarities were all pretty obvious: self-employment, working alone and making every decision for (and by) yourself.

The differences were far more revealing.  There are the obvious things like the physical nature of farming work, the dangers of producing a commodity when selling to an aggressive buyer like Tesco and the near-total reliance on weather.

Harder to spot but far more interesting was the idea of 'cost of entry'.  With the exception of one man who was the farm manager of a large estate, everyone at the pub had inherited the land they worked.  The best way to become a farmer is to be a farmer's son.  In fact given that you can no longer go west and simply stake a claim, the only other ways to get into the business are to either sink a lot of cash (yours and the bank's) into buying land or to manage a large holding owned by someone else.  The barriers to entering the farming profession are thus remarkably high.

By contrast becoming a consultant requires nothing more than an email address and a business card.  Consultancy like stand-up comedy, motivational speaking and any kind of freelance writing has very low barriers to entry.  There is no blanket expectation that we be accredited like accountants or even be educated to a given level.

You are a consultant the moment you say you are.

This means that there will always be someone coming after you.  Some 'lean and hungry' type who will argue that your 'years of experience' equates to 'complacency' and that she can do a better job cheaper.

In no way am I saying that a farmer's lot is an easier one; I know that as a farmer's son.  But farmers should at least be able to see where the next big threat to their livelihood is coming from.  For all I know someone was made redundant last Friday who spent the long weekend deciding to go out on her own as pharma marketing consultant rather than applying for another job.  Today we don't even know that the other exists but my business depends on me behaving as if she does.

When businesses in high cost-of-entry markets fail its like the Titanic hitting the iceberg, in low cost-of-entry markets like mine its usually the death of a thousand invisible cuts.

A good day

Last week I successfully completed that job with the Finnish sales team.  There was certainly a buzz around the room when we wrapped up the project and yesterday I got an urgent request for information to be shared across the Nordic* region.  I knew that there would be follow-up at some stage but the speed of turnaround was especially gratifying.

When a new client comes looking for me; that's a good day.

* Here's something else I learned last week:  'Nordic' is a geographic descriptor for Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.  'Scandinavian' is essentially a racial term which applies to all of the above except Finland.

In Holland

This week I delivered a 1.5 day programme at a conference in Holland.  I arrive Tuesday night in order to work with a sales team on Wednesday and Thursday.  As arranged I make contact with the Sales Manager immediately upon checking into the hotel.

Over coffee she updates me on the event so far.  We speak for about twenty minutes but as we get up to go, in an attempt at an afterthought she says,

"I hope you don't mind but we're going to start your session an hour later in the morning.  There's some admin issues that we desperately need to sort out so we'll do that first."

I say nothing.

"If you like we can go a bit later in the afternoon to make up the time.  Until six o'clock if you like."

Again I say nothing.

"It really has to be completed before midday and there's no other time available."

We both know what's going on.  There's been misorganisation at some point and she's playing catch-up.  She's aware that she's taking high-value time from me at the beginning of the day in exchange for low-value time at the end.  There's no way I can go to 6pm without the team either falling asleep or mutinying.  It's hard to add value to a training room where the overwhelming sentiment is 'seething resentment'.

The Sales Manager so obviously wants me to airily say that it'll make no difference to my programme but I can't do that without lying.  Aside from fatigue issues, the later start means that I can't arrange the room the way I want.  The lost hour also means that my timings are out of synch with the conference coffee and meal breaks.  Of course I'll manage but I'm going to have to work a lot harder to achieve what I've promised her.

I smile and say that my philosophy is to 'play the cards I'm dealt'.

The change has an interesting effect on me: I could look at it and say that I'm going to get paid exactly the same fee for an hour less work.   I've also earned a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card - if the programme is deemed unsuccessful I can offload some of the blame on the effect of the later start.  It's like a little cartoon demon has appeared at my shoulder to tempt me with easy options.

But I don't get paid by the hour and I didn't get where I am by grabbing hold of excuses.  I claim to be only as good as my results and no one will remember that lost hour when the client considers whether or not to use me again.

I really do have to play the cards I'm dealt.

The session goes well enough although I have to work a hell of a lot harder to get it there.  It ends with a sense that there'll be a follow-up programme in the coming months.

This is what standing by your results means.

At the Edinburgh Festival 6

The Fringe is over for me for 2008.  I was only planning on doing my show for the first ten days but events elsewhere means I had to cut back even more.  My final performance was last Thursday night.

It was an almost entirely positive experience.  The beauty of doing a run at a single venue is that every night you build on what you learnt the night before; you feel your act sharpen and tighten as your timing improves.

Offstage I had time to think about the underlying mechanics of the festival experience; observing how the invisible hand ushers audiences out of one show and down the road and into the next.  I had the chance to consider what projects I might bring back here in the future, under what conditions and to what end.  Being self-employed I need to consider the opportunity cost of a month of late nights in Edinburgh.

At my last show we had standing room only again.  We ended on a high.

At the Edinburgh Festival 5

So much for the Scottish summer.  It's been raining for two days straight which makes flyering very unpleasant and even less worthwhile.  However, the audiences don't seem to be affected all that much.  If you're in town for the Festival, a collection of mostly indoor events, then rain is a reason to see more shows, not less.

But it does mean that audiences tend to stay in the one venue and see a series of shows rather than pick and choose between shows / venues around town.  Given that our show is quite broad in its appeal we benefit from this.  However, the act on immediately ahead of us is far more specialised.  The show is a work of genius but one glance at it's promotional material says it ain't for everyone.

My comments about Long Tail at the Fringe seem to be borne out by the fact that the model breaks down when the distribution (ie punters walking between venues) seizes up.

We had about 14 in last night.

At the Edinburgh Festival 4 (Long Tail analysis)

I was standing at the bar waiting for my drink when a local turned and asked,

"You up for the Fringe?"

"Yes."

"Wanna know what's wrong with the f***ing Fringe?  Too many of the f***ing acts are f***ing sh*t.  You cannae work out what's good and what's not."

(He was, after all, an Edinburgh local)

He had a point.  As I've mentioned in previous posts there are over 2000 shows and the Fringe positively prides itself on the total lack of quality control.  The very best of theatre and comedy is right alongside shows so awful that they beggar belief.

The obvious comparison is between the Edinburgh Fringe and the World Wide Web.  Let's look at the Fringe through the prism of Chris Anderson's 'long tail' model.  We have near enough to an infinite variety of products available and since audiences are happy tramping around the city to obscure venues at all hours, a surprisingly efficient mode of delivery.  The problem, as my drunken Scottish mate identified, is how do you know what's good and what's not?  Price is no guide as some terrific acts are performing in the free venues whilst terrible ones are charging £12 ($24 USD).

This is where the Long Tail analogy falls down I think: much of what's on offer out on the far left of Anderson's tail isn't merely outdated or obscure, it's just bad.  The Fringe is that tail in living colour.

In this environment the various Fringe reviewers wield immense influence as the only vaguely efficient guide of what to see and what to avoid.  I think the more important role is in warning people away from the bad rather than towards the good.  An hour in the company of a delusional idiot who thinks he's the next Eddie Izzard is an hour you're never getting back.

Last night we were standing room only again, which means over 30 in the audience.  And we got reviewed!

In Helsinki

I've had to leave the Festival for 36 hours or so to attend a meeting in Finland.  The shift in mindset I'm facing in the morning will take some work.

Self-employment, eh?

At the Edinburgh Festival 3

Performers' attitudes to the festival are as varied as their acts.  For acts established on the circuit it's often the one month of the year they get to do a show about something that they find genuinely interesting instead of running out the same lowest-common-denominator gags that work for office parties and hens' nights.  For newer acts it's a chance to try out longer routines (working up that 20-minute set in a relatively safe environment).  And for pretty much everyone it's a chance to laugh with (and at) old mates, drink too much and stay up way too late. 

All the usual showbiz mythologies are writ large here; talent will out, there's a lucky break out there waiting to happen, you've got to sleep with the right people to get anywhere, its about the looks these days and so on.  Most performers will lose thousands of pounds at this year's Festival yet few are willing to see the money as an investment to be capitalised on rather than a good time that they've paid for.  

In reality the Edinburgh Fringe is just a very long, very crazy trade show and the more focused acts spend every waking moment with an eye on the next opportunity: getting an agent or a run of better quality bookings or a TV deal.  Acutely aware of what shows to 'drop in on' in the hope of grabbing stage time, even in their cups they'll never admit to a single bad gig and mere socialisng loses out to networking opportunities every time.

I look at this relentlessness, this hunger, and see the same thing in the origins of my own company all those years ago.  And just as with my business, it wasn't ever talent alone that made it to the top.  Talent is 'cost of entry' but no more than that.

On Saturday night we had over 30 people in the audience (standing room only!) and last night we had 13.

At the Edinburgh Festival 2

An unavoidable part of any visit to the Festival is the flyering.  Across the city but especially near the major venues and along the Royal Mile are swarms of enthusiastic people thrusting brightly coloured paper flyers for their shows at unresponsive passers-by.  For a sector of society (ie performers and writers) purportedly concerned with environmental issues the waste is unbelievable.

It is an article of faith that a successful show Edinburgh relies on a minimum of one hour a day of flyering per cast member.  Yet the widely held rule of thumb that a 1% yield (ie one audience member per every 100 flyers handed out) is par doesn't bear out this argument.

I think that flyering has more to do with regaining a sense of agency in the face of the overwhelming odds against success; most shows lose money because there are so many shows competing for business; performers are reduced to attempting anything at all, regardless of its efficacy, to increase the chance of success, regardless of the efficacy of the action.  Your own time is cheap, why not use it?

Of course this grasping at straws is nothing more than superstition.  Although there is no logic in agency for agency's sake, most of us are guilty of those silly rituals that seem to pay dividends in the face of their illogicality.

Performers who would never deign to flyer their own show in London, instead employing kids who are happy to take a few quid for a few hours work, happily do so at the Festival.  Superstition notwithstanding, I suspect that the real reason is that this pointless task is a leveler; part of the shared 'Edinburgh experience' to bond over.

We had an audience of 9 last night.

At the Edinburgh Festival 1

For the next ten days I'm in Edinburgh performing at the largest arts, music and comedy festival in the world.

It is an especially brutal marketplace with the supply of shows far outweighing the demand; there are literally thousands of shows being staged.  They range from Joan Rivers to the 125th iteration of the Cambridge Footlights Review that gave rise to John Cleese and Peter Cook; and from serious, experimental theatre in purpose-built venues to stand-up comics in dingy rooms with a single mic.

Over the next few days I'm going to try and make sense of the stand-up comedy scene up as a market.  Being a stand-up is pretty much the ultimate n=1 proposition; you create and deliver your own product and your personal brand is your biggest asset.

Early on your personal style counts for far less than a proven ability to perform for a certain amount of time.  Strangely, the promoters who put the shows together are more concerned about the length of a show than it's content so comics must prove themselves able to be able to work to a time-based demand.  We're asked if we can do a 'tight ten' (ie a solid ten-minute routine that will work for most audiences) with no questions whatsoever about the content of the set.  Getting a reputation for 'not sticking to time' can be fatal for a newer comic.

Most promoters book acts solely on the basis of time and then leave it up to the comics themselves to worry about if their sets are too similar in topic matter or even if they're right for the audience in question.  It is within these strictures that all but the ultra-talented have to work to build their brands.

We had an audience of 16 last night.  The Festival average is 4.