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October/November 2005 |
Volume 46, Number 2 |
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How to Earn a Six-Figure Income as a Technical Communicator: September Chapter Meeting ReviewOur first chapter meeting of the year dealt with a topic we'd all like to know more about: How to make a six-figure income. Jack Molisani, leader of several ventures including the Lavacon Conference, shared his methods with a captive audience at the September chapter meeting.  A lot of what Molisani talked about in his presentation boils down to basic goal setting and life planning. If your goals are modest and you don't need a lot of money to support your lifestyle, then there is no need for you to earn a six-figure income. And that's fine. On the other hand, if your goals are ambitious and your spending patterns tend toward lavish, then you need to earn a lot of money. If you fall in the latter category, forget about trying to earn this much money as someone else's employee, and think of ways you can supplement your income by getting people to work for you. Molisani is a charismatic speaker with a lot of enthusiasm for what he does. Incidentally, he does not "do" just a single thing—he is a business owner, a head-hunter for professional talent, a conference organizer, a community volunteer, and an energetic entrepreneur. He struck this reviewer as someone with a very high level of energy and initiative. Molisani showed us the typical career path for engineers; then he contrasted it to the typical career path for technical communicators. He pointed out how some professionals move into management, while others do not. He also discussed the pros and cons of being a salaried employee.  Molisani talked about his own career path, which has been rather varied, and how he ultimately added the LavaCon Document Management conference to his suite of income-generating ideas. Molisani stated that a six-figure income is definitely not the same thing as a six-figure salary. A salary implies money that comes in steadily and predictably, as it would if you were receiving a weekly or monthly paycheck. On the other hand, if you desire to make a six-figure income, you probably won't achieve that goal working as a conventional employee. You have to try other things, incur additional risk, and get out of your "comfort zone." If you decide to work as an independent contractor, setting your hourly rate is always a bit difficult. How do you decide how much to charge for your services? Molisani provided this rule of thumb:
Cautionary note: If you decide to work as an independent contractor, remember to include the cost of obtaining your own health insurance, which is costly, especially if you have dependents. Also remember it may not be possible to work every hour of every week of every year. Molisani talked about the importance of promoting your business, especially in the face of a looming recession or other economic downturn. He compared it to "launching ships"—ships that may return to port one day laden with good things, maybe even treasure! The idea of launching ships comes from Chellie Campbell, one of Molisani's favorite authors. For details about Ms. Campbell's books, refer to the bibliography later in this article. Molisani reminds us that with power (the power of owning your business and being in control of your own destiny) comes responsibility (responsibility to the various people who work for you or depend on you in some other way). It takes a high level of maturity to deal with the public, discipline yourself to work steadily on your projects, and to cope with the various expectations that are placed on small business owners. Molisani recommends these books:
 The website for Molisanis's main business is www.prospring.net, and his email address is jack@prospring.net. To see Molisani's complete .pdf presentation from the September meeting, click on this link: http://www.prospring.net/Resource/MakingSixFigureIncome.pdf.  |
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