Embracing ever-increasing complexity

I've just finished Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants.  The central thesis of the book is that technological advance is an inevitable extension of the natural development of, well, everything.  Kelly grandly posits that technology ('the technium') should be seen as the seventh Kingdom of Life, alongside archaebacteria, eubacteria, protista, fungi, plants and animals.

Kelly describes a number of key trajectories for his technium, one of which is 'complexity': -

This arc of complexity flows from the dawn of the cosmos into life.  But the arc continues through biology and now extends itself forward through technology.  The very same dynamics that shape complexity in the natural world shape complexity in the technium.

Kelly, p.287

I've spent my entire career working on product launches; i.e. trying to anticipate the Next Big Thing the consumer wants, building that thing and making it available.  I've always believed this drive for novelty to be one of capitalism's fundamental impulses but I'd not before seen it as embedded in the very fabric of the universe.  It makes sense: increased variety engenders complexity thus life will get evermore complex, be it in the jungle, supermarket or hospital pharmacy.

Last Thursday I was discussing an upcoming oncology launch with a new client.  I made the pedestrian observation that ever-expanding choice in cancer treatments added complexity to the medicine and therefore to the marketing task also: -

Once upon a time there was no treatment for cancer at all.  Then there was surgery.  Then chemotherapy.  Then radiotherapy.  Then tumour-activated monoclonal antibodies.  And so on.

The oncologist's job has gotten more complicated at every turn, especially as alongside a dizzying variety of potential combinations, sequences and so on, the original option (do nothing at all) is still on the table and must always be entertained.

Me

Marketers charged with launching a new drug must acknowledge that they are automatically complicating the customer's working life.  Doctors understand that part of the job of medicine is to understand all of the available options, which in a launch-heavy specialty like oncology can seem like a full-time job on its own.  Time-poor doctors will often actively resent the advent of a new therapy, especially if it doesn't represent an immediate and obvious medical advance.  There has to be clear communication that this additional complexity is justified by a worthwhile improvement in clinical outcome for a sub-cohort of patients.

Inexperienced marketers tend to focus on the novelty of the treatment (hence the proliferation of messages around 'mode of action', etc.) whereas the key word is sub-cohort.  Because we now know too much about genetics to take an undifferentiated approach to therapy disease, no cancer drug will ever again be right for all patients.

We are in the business of increasing complexity in the world and we need to embrace it.  It is the inevitable consequence of a defined population of cancer sufferers getting better treatment today than yesterday.

Engaging the disinterested customer

The WSJ recently ran a piece on the growth of digital marketing in American pharma.  As with so many of these articles it begins with dark portents of the death of the drug rep and then frantically rows back from there to conclude that reports of this death are greatly exaggerated.

All pharma companies now have some sort of 'digital' capability, however, the buzzword is too broad to be useful in dissecting industry trends.  Digital is employed by pharma in two broad ways: -

1. Shinier presentations on iPads given to reps
2. Websites for doctors to access information

Whilst the same eMarketing department / digital agency can handle either type of project, the underlying effect of each should not be confused: the former is an animated sales aid with an infinite number of pages whereas the latter requires the doctor to make the first click to succeed at all.  Digital is only as good as the people who see it.  A client of mine is deploring a subordinate's budget request for a medical journal (i.e. print) campaign to drive doctors towards their underused website; old media giving succour to the new.

Vast amounts of time and energy are being spent on luring doctors' eyeballs to pharma company sites, including novel and generally useful activities such as having a key opinion leader Twitter his impressions of a major congress in real time.  Yet as with any other online campaign getting potential customers to your site is a balancing act and compelling someone to visit you is rightly seen as obnoxious.  Pharma companies must be especially careful because the doctors they're trying to attract represent a relatively small and definitely finite population, pretty much all of which is valuable.  The 1% success model that drives the rest of eCommerce definitely does not apply.

The article quotes a German GP -

Christopher Luyken, a general practitioner near Cologne, Germany, says he exchanges views with other doctors online, but sees some of the industry’s online marketing as “spam.” He says he’d rather hear about new drugs from a sales rep he knows and trusts.

Online is certainly cheaper than reps; pharma sales teams are the most expensive comms channel in any form of marketing.  But reps are compelling in a way that websites can never be, especially with those customers who aren't especially interested in what you're trying to say in the first place.  Unlike markets where you really make your money just from those customers who want to buy from you, pharma success requires that everyone be aware of what your product does and for whom.  The uninterested doctor must be engaged with or patients get suboptimal care and a website cannot achieve this.

And what about all the sales reps that Dr Luyken doesn't really know or trust in the slightest?  For what is a rookie rep with a list of target doctors and a shiny new iPad if not spam incarnate?  Delicious to Polynesians but annoying to everyone else.

Manufactured urgency

My projects fall into two broad categories: -

1. Product launches
2. Institutional / cultural change

Implemented correctly, my IP has value in both scenarios, however, it needs to be positioned  differently in each case to achieve the desired outcome.  Any project that seeks both endpoints (i.e. successfully launch a product + change a sales culture) will almost certainly fail.

I prefer working on launches.  The heady combination of defined timelines and clearly understood success criteria brings out my best.  Who doesn't enjoy the challenge of 'getting it right the first time'?*

Institutional change is different.  These projects are too often plagued by a poorly manufactured sense of urgency driven by soft deadlines and project teams who are easily distracted by higher priority tasks (like product launches).  This is not to say that such projects aren't vital, just that the organisational benefits are often subtle to the point of immeasurability.

This is not solely, or even primarily, an external consultant's perspective; being invited to work on a product launch is an unambiguously gilt-edged opportunity whereas a cultural change project is often perceived as a poisoned chalice.

None of this is especially noteworthy.  Neither is, I suppose, my conclusion: that smaller consultancies are better at finite, high octane projects like product launches.  We don't have the manpower or the willpower for the endless meetings that come with cultural change projects.  We tire of writing 'reminder' emails to follow up on proposals written in good faith and great urgency in response to artificial deadlines.  And unlike the likes of McKinsey, we rarely have the stomach to bill by the hour for work that doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Perhaps it's my performing background but I do interventions better than processes.  I find it easier to enact change in people than systems.  In fact the first thing I'll do if you offer me process work is convert the project into a series of face-to-face events so that I can focus the system's attention and demonstrate value.  Which is, of course, just another way of manufacturing urgency.

* A long-standing joke of mine is that launch is the only marketing activity that pharma knows how to do well; its instinctive response to any other scenario is 'relaunch'

Interlinked levels of branding

When a pharmaceutical salesperson sits in front of a prescriber there are three interlinked 'branding' interactions in play: -

1. Corporate: doctor's opinion of the pharma company
2. Product: doctor's opinion of the product
3. Personal: doctor's opinion of the individual representative

Product is by far the most important of the three; the doctor's main priority is to his patient so this is where he focuses her attention.  As most doctors will tell you: -

What makes a good drug rep?  A good drug

No rep ever wants to hear this.  She wants to believe (must believe) that her specific input makes a difference.  How the hell do you get about of bed every morning otherwise?  The thing that every experienced salesperson cherishes most and discusses least is her credibility, aka her personal brand.

The very embodiment of 'passive aggression' is a roomful of salespeople, arms folded, listening to a marketer some outline some brilliant new 'brand building' initiative.  The lens through which they view everything the marketer asks of them is this: -

If I undertake this activity will my personal credibility (brand) be enhanced or diminished?

Any product manager who treats a sales team as merely an especially expensive comms channel is a fool. If the team fails to execute the clever, agency-wrought strategy it's not because they didn't understand it but rather they didn't bother executing it at all.  Marketing activity must enhance the credibility of the individual salesperson or it's a waste of time and money.

What of corporate branding?  Would a doctor shy away from trying Horizant (a new GlaxoSmithKline treatment for restless leg syndrome) because of concerns over Avandia (its diabetes drug linked to increases in heart attacks and subject to $6 billion in law suits)?  Not if Horizant is as good as the data seems.

But will the GSK rep selling Horizant have to work that bit harder to establish her own credibility in the face of all the negative Avandia headlines?  Almost certainly.

In a perfect world these three branding level complement each other; a credible salesperson selling a valuable drug made by a respected company.  That alignment happens regularly.  Even so the salesperson has to earn that credibility just as the company has to earn that respect.

That begins and ends with honest, straightforward conversations about a new, needed therapy drug that does some genuine good.

We’re not into high science R&D; we’re into making money

My recent thinking on Pfizer may be a slight case of jumping the gun.  Pfizer isn't shedding 100% of its R&D, although it is reducing its spend from around $9.4 billion last year to perhaps as little as $6.0 billion in 2012.  A massive decrease but still a huge investment (second only to Roche).

My argument is better made by Valeant, a Toronto-based company run by a J Michael Pearson,  ex-McKinsey consultant.  Instead of the usual combination of medics, pharmacists and scientists, Valeant has assembled a group of very smart venture capitalists as its board of directors.  Everyone's favourite Pearson quotes come from a recent Bloomberg profile: -

We’re not into high science R&D; we’re into making money.

We’re looking for companies that have products in them that we could grow and maybe do a slightly better job than current owners.

The thinking is that there's room for one or two of these in the market but no more than that.  An entire industry that thinks in this way will become increasingly risk averse, giving less leeway to researchers to follow that 100-to-1 hunch that leads to the Next Big Thing.

And let's not forget that because this is pharma, that Next Big Thing is almost by definition a further alleviation of human suffering.

What is it that you do again?

Recently Pfizer announced that is shedding European jobs in R&D in order to expand its sales/marketing operations in China.  Leaving aside the basic business motivations for this, the existential implications are worth exploring: -

Remind me again, what does Pfizer do?

For well over a hundred years the raison d'etre of every pharma company has been the scientific development of medicines that assist in mankind's fight against disease.  As obnoxiously as the pharmaceutical industry has behaved over the last few decades (although certainly less so than, say, finance), it has been broadly tolerated because the fruits of its labour have to led to us all living longer, more pleasant lives.

Pfizer's move is a hard-headed reaction to the bleak news that the salad days of the 1990's and 2000's are past and unlikely to return.  But is it the right reaction?  Sure, the industry believes itself to be in trouble: at the front end, ever-deepening legal exposure and a pickier FDA have massively increased the cost of getting a drug to market whereas the enthusiastic championing of generic manufacturers by insurers and governments has severely curtailed ROI at a minute past midnight on the day of patent expiry.

All of which may mean that the profitability of a sector which has historically outperformed the wider economy will come back to the pack somewhat.  Individual companies will perform better or worse but pharma as an overall sector won't be so profitable nor its stocks be seen as such a safe bet.  Yet this unpleasant fact isn't reason enough to toss all the toys out of your pram.

Pfizer, once rid of all but the safest prospects in its pipeline, will join the evermore frantic hunt for the next small, sexy biotech with decent clinical trial results, pull out its chequebook and pick up ownership of a product that's ready to launch.  This is not an entirely negative outcome because Pfizer does global product launches better than most, many people will gain access to important drugs.

The long-term consequence is that Pfizer may be seen to have opted out of the (noble) pursuit of science in favour of the (unseemly) business of marketing.  And what is marketing if not the shaping of how you are seen by the customer: -

You used to be one of the good guys, beavering away in lab in the hope of one day cracking the code, using science to help relieve the suffering of millions.  Now you're just a big company with a lot of cash to spend.

You don't innovate any more

You're Dell not Apple.  You're Disney not Pixar.  You're GM not VW.

Which is fine for now but the only genuine advantage the West maintains over the developing world is a superior genius for innovation.  Throw that away and what are you left with?

Personalised medicine v. National debt

Another day, another expensive cancer treatment gets rejected on cost grounds.  This time it's the turn of Novartis' renal cancer drug Afinitor: -

Despite appeals from Novartis and Kidney Cancer UK against the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's decision, the watchdog maintains that Afinitor (everolimus) simply does not provide enough benefit to justify its high cost...

The overall treatment cost (is) about £34,235 per patient per year, or around £205,000 for a full course of treatment.

Pharma Times Online, April 19

These stories are commonplace across the Western World and for the moment, they are seen as part of the everyday argy-bargy of Big Pharma's negotiations with the national governments that are their ultimate customers.

But note the complete alignment between the pharma company and Kidney Cancer UK, a patient advocacy group that most likely receives funding from Novartis.  As stated previously, I have no problem with pharma companies pushing the patient to the centre of the treatment discussion.  There are neither cloaks nor daggers here and Kidney Cancer UK would exist even without the support of the various purveyors of renal cancer therapies.

As cancer is a quasi-chronic condition (i.e. one you see coming and so fight on your own behalf), sufferers and their families tend to be highly motivated people with an automatic tendency towards political agitation.  Cancer is hitting the baby boomers hard and they're unlikely to accept the withholding of any therapies whatsoever.  They will place inordinate pressure on a health system, which often leads to politicians creating release mechanisms: -

If doctors feel that any of these individual patients would benefit from the drug then they can still apply for exceptional funding from their primary care trust or the Cancer Drugs Fund, the Institute noted.

Ibid

All of which is fine if you live in the UK (and have a doctor sufficiently motivated to fight the good fight on your behalf).

But what if you're a Greek, Portuguese or Irish national?  As sad as your story undoubtedly is, given its current financial predicament, can your government honestly justify spending €38,500 on one citizen when that amounts to a year's wages for a senior nurse?

Watch the Greek, Portuguese and (especially) Irish baby boomers heap increasing political pressure on their governments; directly via advocacy groups and indirectly by turning up in person at British, German and French cancer centres.  Then watch for renewed pressure on the cost of the drugs themselves.

Identifying the scarce resource

Most definitions of economics stick pretty close to that of Lionel Robbins: -

The science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses

The debate over how to best allocate finite resources amongst infinite demands is a commonplace and nowhere more so than in in the health care arena.  We're all going to die of something so the expense of sickness will always outstrip funds available for cure.

Successful pharmaceutical marketing is the process of ensuring that the condition treated by your drug enjoys as high a priority as possible in the system in question; be it the WHO, the NHS, a Strategic Health Authority (SHA), a Hospital Trust or the patient cohort seen by the individual GP.  The truth is that resources (time, money, beds) given over to HIV is a potential denial of diabetes treatment.  HIV wins so diabetes loses.  Or vice versa.

At an intellectual level we generally accept that quasi-objective measures like the QALY (quality adjusted life year) are necessary yet they seem wholly callous when applied to the treatment of people we love.  Tabloid papers thrive on stories condemning the cruelty of the 'postcard lottery' which is just the shorthand for the situation whereby different parts of a country have different health priorities.  For example, it is far better to get cancer in the southeast of England than west Scotland because Glasgow's cardiovascular issues are (still) a higher priority than cancer.

Doctors are trained to react subjectively (i.e. in the best interest of the individual patient) which often puts them in opposition to the objective needs of the system (NHS, SHA, Trust).  Pharma selling exists in part to exploit this gap.  This is not unethical per se; the representative is trying to promote the interests of the patient whose health needs will be best met by her drug.  Win-win.

The scarce resource most important to the pharma company is not the drug budget (although this is of course vital), but rather the motivation of the individual doctor to fight for the individual patient / drug.  Every day almost every doctor in Britain is faced with the prospect of having to fight for access to a treatment for a particular patient.  Not every doctor takes up every patient's cause as it would be impossibly exhausting to do so.

Identifying which customer has the energy to take the fight to the system on your behalf is a vital task for any salesperson selling into a complex system, especially when that system uses inertia as a cost control mechanism.

ANZAC Day

“When the Rakuyo Maru went down with seven hundred Australians and six hundred British aboard, it was the Australians who tried to preserve the biggest prisoner tribe.  On the third day in the water, some Englishmen who were almost finished sighted a mass of black shapes.

As we drew nearer we saw there were about two to three hundred men gathered on a large pontoon of rafts.  They had erected a couple of lofty distress signals, coloured shorts and other bits of clothing fixed to spars of wood.  As we paddled up we saw there was a large outer ring of rafts linked to each other with pieces of rope.  Inside the circle were other rafts, unattached but safely harboured.  They seemed organised compared with the disintegrated rabble we had become during those last two days.  They may have been drifting aimlessly as we had; but at least they all drifted together.  A lot of them still wore those familiar slouch hats – we had caught up with the Aussie contingent.

One of them looped us in with a dangling end of rope.  ‘Cheers mate,’ came the friendly voice.  ‘This is no place to be on your lonesome’.”

British Account of the Sinking of the Japanese POW Ship Rakuyo Maru

2B or not 2 B2C

On Thursday I did what I suspect was one of my last ever stand-up gigs.  I'm not sure when the absolute last one will be but it's fair to say that I have many more gigs behind me than ahead.  It was a pleasant enough show run by an old comedy friend in a country pub.  My set went well but it's a long time since a gig felt like a portal to anywhere special and in the five years I've been learning this craft my life, especially my business life, has moved on.

This was crystalised for me by a throwaway line in a podcast about the 90's Dotcom boom.  The discussion centred on the two basic business models operating at that time:-

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) versus Business-to-Business (B2B)

A distinction that perfectly illustrates the divide between my comedy and my consulting.  It is the divide between Art and Commerce.  As much as I like to think I have something to say to other individuals (B2C, Art), I have twenty plus years evidence that what the cosmos wants to reward me for are my insights into how companies operate and how they could do so better (B2B, Commerce).

Set out in print it's obvious.  I am a journeyman comic who's happy to pick up a few quid for a twenty minute set in the back room of a pub in rural Wiltshire but I am also one of the highest paid consultants in my field with clients all over the globe.  My ability to make a few punters laugh on a Saturday night is passable whereas the effect I will have on your pharmaceutical sales/marketing operation is unsurpassed.

From an early age it seems as if we're programmed to aim first for Art.  My parents stumped up for lessons in music and drama and art.  They spend their weekends ferrying me and my sisters to performances on stage and sporting fields across rural NSW.  Yes, I know that a child's participation in sport or art is its own reward but buried in there somewhere in there was the message that if I had the talent then Art (including sport) was the direction my life should take.  How many conversations have we each endured with disillusioned friends and colleagues revealing that they were actually 'quite good' at some Art or other, lamenting the day they threw it over in favour of the financially secure embrace of Commerce?

Commerce is Plan B.

In generations past Art was something that you did on the side.  Few people could afford to give up their day jobs.  Nowadays new media's appetite for 'content' has led to rampant inflation in the earnings of our top sportsmen (but not sportswomen), actors, comics and the like.  Papers and magazines responded by overpaying snarky columnists to retain readers.  Needing something or someone evermore 'outrageous' to write about they in turn opened the door for the BritArt master branders like Tracey Emin and especially Damien Hirst to parlay scarcely deserved notoriety into massive financial windfalls.  For a chosen few Art now pays like never before.  The rest of us stand, necks craned, on the far side of the velvet rope.

I've suffered ferocious writers block with my comedy for almost two years.  It's gotten so bad that in the cause of generating interesting and unique material I've contemplated taking on some strange, arduous new experience like the Three Peaks challenge, the Alpha Course or fatherhood.  This is what middling comics do when they've extracted all available humour from their upbringing and neighbourhood.  Yet my experiences as a stand-up have helped take my consulting to another level.  Not only has my ability to command attention in a room been strengthened but my arduous experiences in comedy have also afforded any number of interesting and unique angles as a consultant.  Oh, the irony.

I am a quite exceptional marketing consultant and an entirely unexceptional stand-up comic.  My talents obviously lie in B2B.  Why is it so hard to admit this fact?  When I meet someone at a party why do I want to describe myself as a performer and writer rather than as 'a marketing consultant who helps drug companies sell their drugs better'?

What isn't to be just isn't to be.  I think I'm sufficiently free of self-delusion to know that I'm not just one more stand-up gig away from fame and fortune.  The fortune is more or less covered.  It's the fame I'm denied.

Will you know if you've failed the audition?

Whenever any of us takes a leap in life and doesn't meet with immediate gratification the cold, hard fact of failure being a possibility appears: -

What if, at the end of the day, it's not meant to be?

How will you even know? How will you ever know? How long will you give this adventure and what needs to happen to trigger your retreat to some safer place? Will you stop when the money runs out or will it take that someone who you know genuinely loves you to burst into tears and beg you to quit? Perhaps your idea of success is more relativistic; what about the day you open the paper and see that all those second-raters you started out with have made it where you were planning to go? That poses a different question: -

What if, at the end of the day, it's not meant to be me?

This is a harshly different proposition. It's bad enough for the idea that prompted the leap into the unknown to suck but so much worse if it's just you that failed the audition.

I don't know that I've got much positive to say about this scenario. There are those around you who love and care for you who will tell you to persist and others who will tell you with equally genuine love to give it away.

Why consultants aren't popular

I spent much of the week working with a team of experienced and largely successful salespeople.  As my job was to change them in some way they rightly resented me from the off.  Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, said it best: -

People hate change and with good reason.  Change makes us stupider, relatively speaking.  Change adds new information to the universe; information that we don’t know.  Our knowledge – as a percentage of all the things that can be known – goes down a tick every time something changes.

And frankly, if we’re talking about a percentage of the total knowledge in the universe, most of us aren't that many basis points superior to our furniture to begin with.  I hate to wake up in the morning only to find that the intellectual gap between me and my credenza has narrowed.  That’s no way to start the day.

On the other hand, change is good for the people who are causing the change.  They understand the new information that is being added to the universe.  They grow smarter in comparison to the rest of us.  This is reason enough to sabotage their efforts.  I recommend sarcasm with a faint suggestion of threat.

The Dilbert Principle (1996)

The cliches imply that unless you 'embrace change' and 'face the fear' and 'seek out new experiences' and so on then you're some sort of loserish Luddite.  This is offensive towards anyone who aspires to be good enough at her job to get paid fairly so that she can channel her enthusiasms elsewhere.  Like raising a family.  As a friend of my father's used to say: -

You can't argue with decency

Every time I walk into a new room my first task is to overcome the natural, rightful resentment of the decent people whose behaviour I've been paid to change.

Seth Godin on failure

Seth Godin's site still throws up some decent insights from time to time...

Here are six random ideas that will help you fail better, more often and with an inevitably positive upside:

1. Whenever possible, take on specific projects
2. Make detailed promises about what success looks like and when it will occur
3. Engage others in your projects. If you fail, they should be involved and know that they will fail with you
4. Be really clear about what the true risks are. Ignore the vivid, unlikely and ultimately non-fatal risks that take so much of our focus away
5. Concentrate your energy and will on the elements of the project that you have influence on, ignore external events that you can't avoid or change 
6. When you fail (and you will) be clear about it, call it by name and outline specifically what you learned so you won't make the same mistake twice. People who blame others for failure will never be good at failing, because they've never done it

I especially like 3.  Involving others is the first necessary step away from self-employed solipsism.

When is a hobby not a hobby?

If in your heart-of-hearts you believe that your hobby is a potential portal to something else then it isn't a really hobby is it?  If you kinda-sorta think this thing you do on the side might one day make you wealthy enough or famous enough to supplant your 'real' job then you'd do well to treat it with the seriousness of an actual job.

Anything less and you'll always feel a little bit short-changed.

Why China is hard on trainers

I do some consultancy in China and like every businessperson in the Western world I'd like to do more. 

An interview in Bloomberg sets out one key reason why I won't hold my breath when it comes to a huge uptick in work in developing markets.  Abbas Hussain is GlaxoSmithKline's president of emerging markets on his teams in China and India: -

Every year, about 20 percent of GSK's sales force quits to take jobs at rival firms, Abbas Hussain says.  And that's about average for the pharma industry in those markets, meaning that most if not all drugmakers share the turnover problem

Even in good times this is a key difference between established and emerging markets.  In Europe, North America and Australia the most common reason given by a salesperson voluntarily leaving is 'Lack of development' whereas in China and India companies are in a straight-out bidding war.

My stuff certainly enhances a team's professional (and personal) development which is why I work mostly in stable pharma markets like Europe.  Unfortunately it's still hard for a Chinese COO to justify flying in a London-based consultant to deliver in Beijing or Shanghai if he knows for a fact that 1 in 5 team-members are on the verge of quitting. 

35 & unhappy at work?

How long does it take to get good at something? I mean genuinely properly world-class good? Good enough for the world to beat a path to your door. Good enough for you to consistently exceed the expectations of that world when it does.

The answer sort of depends on your chosen field but usually the answer is: -

Longer than you'd like

And certainly longer than every Internet self-help guru who says that whatever your age, all you've got to do is want something badly enough and put enough time aside for your ascent to be automatic. Even if you go buy some shiny Apple products to help you along the way.

Can we be honest? There are few fields of endeavour that you can enter for the first time at 35 years of age and make it to the very top. Even fewer at 40.

The obvious example is anything that requires extreme physical performance; only the deluded expect to become professional athletes after about 25.

But there are barriers even in seemingly non-ageist careers like Law when you do the maths. If you're going to start studying Law at 35 you're about five years away from actually practising and, unless you're truly exceptional, your chances of making partner at a Magic Circle firm are zero. At 40 you won't have the stamina to put in the hours required of an Associate. Of course you may still end up with a job that you love but can you honestly clock up the hours to get genuinely good?

Besides which, does the world really need another lawyer?

I've long envied those contemporaries who just knew what they were going to do in life. It gave them an internal consistency that translates into a massive career advantage. Early on they got called unimaginative and dull but as the years go by their ascents have come to be seen as inexorable.

I am not that person. Never was. I was the clever kid who, when told that he can achieve anything he wanted in life, believes it a little too much. Intoxicated by the possibility of everything led to years of focusing on nothing. Only in the past few years have I reconciled myself to the fact that I will never ascend to the top of any organisation because I've never shown the slightest loyalty to one.

People like me are plagued by the F Scott Fitzgerald observation that 'American lives have no Second Acts'. So plagued that often we never getting around to having a First Act.

So here's my tip: -

If you reach 35 unsuccessful and unhappy then you need to think very hard before cutting all ties with everything that's gone before in order to invent yourself anew. No matter how much you pretend to be a twentysomething just starting out it'll be clear to the world that you're older (but not wiser)

Any choice you make from now until retirement has to be informed by what you've done before, no matter how unsuccessful or unsatisfying it was. A change of direction is okay. As is a change of emphasis or company or country. All of these can be made to fit a narrative. What makes most sense is tracking down the coolest company in the world that does what you do now and taking a paycut to be there. Relocate at your own expense if you have to.

But that Brand New Thing that you've always liked the idea of doing? Well, sooner or later you need to accept that there's a real reason why it remains undone. 35 is about that time.

If my comedy was going to put me on TV it would have done so by now. But I would've had to have been monomaniacal in that pursuit from about 23 onwards and I wasn't. Now I'm 43.

I'm 43 and I'm writing this on a plane to Vienna where I have to make a lunchtime presentation before flying to Stockholm for a dinner with a different client. Neither company is the slightest bit surprised by my workload or my promiscuity. They value me and accept that others value me also. After all, I've been doing this gig (consulting to the health care industry) for fifteen years. I've earned the right to charge what I charge. Every day I set out to re-earn that right.

I acknowledge that I left it pretty damn late in starting my First Act. I also acknowledge that whatever I do next must be an extension on those last fifteen years, an elaboration at best. A complete departure would be a negation of all of that and be like diving back into a poolful of hungry twentysomething sharks.

I have accepted that in every other endeavour I will be no more than an enthusiastic, if perhaps gifted, amateur.

If you want to successfully change your life at 35 try re-reading your resume before burning it.

Appealing to the better angels

A big part of my job is motivating sales/marketing teams; getting everyone to do the right thing for the right reason. Getting a large population to do anything in unison is challenging but the starting point is always cohesive self-image. We have to see ourselves as part of the group before we can develop group values.

In the last few weeks I've been lucky enough to get along to two big international sporting fixtures; England v. France in Six Nations rugby at Twickenham then Chelsea v. Copenhagen in Champions League football at Stamford Bridge. At both occasions the crowd was asked to stand in silence to honour the victims of two horrific earthquakes (Christchurch and Japan respectively).

Getting a crowd to stand in silence is a really interesting challenge; it can only work if absolutely everyone participates. The many are held hostage by the few.

At Twickenham 80,000 people were so quiet, so still, that I could hear traffic noise outside the ground. It lasted two whole minutes and made the hair stand up on the back of your neck.  At no time did Stamford Bridge manage complete silence, even for a few seconds. A few people in the South Stand kept talking and were shushed by others nearby.  They reacted by talking louder. More shushing. Louder talking and so on until some presumably well-meaning soul from the other end of the ground screamed: -

"Shut up you c***ts!"

At which the referee decided enough was enough and blew his whistle to end the ordeal.

Much has been written about the contrasting ethos of football and rugby and here it was writ large. Twickenham had many French supporters just as lots of Danes were at the football so I don't think the differing behaviours can be attributed to a misunderstanding of language.  Rather it seemed to me that the rugby crowd wanted to behave well whereas the football crowd didn't care so much.  Rugby celebrates universalism, football cherishes tribalism so perhaps it will always be easier to appeal to the better angels of a crowd watching rugby than football.

There's no point in trying to influence group behaviour if no self-reflexive sense of the group exists in the first place.

Marvelous teeth... and a reputation for not being above skullduggery

Much of my life is spent dealing with pharmaceutical sales representatives (aka 'drug reps').  These are the perfect physical specimens you see chatting to the receptionist whilst you're waiting to see your doctor.  It's a strange sort of career; you're degree educated, generously paid and you work for a well-known, well-respected company yet what you actually do is of questionable value.

For fifty or so years drug reps barely registered in the public consciousness; unless you worked in the health care profession or for a pharma company you didn't know the job existed.  I'm always meeting people who are genuinely bemused that a brand new life-saving medication needs a sales force.

Over the last few years reps made their way onto the edges of popular culture; Heather Locklear in 'Scrubs', Catherine Heigl in 'Side Effects' and Jake Gyllenhaal in Love and Other Drugs.  As beautiful as these actors are for once they're probably a representative sample of the profession they're portraying.

My favourite observations about drug reps in pop culture come from a 2009 discussion thread on the fansite for the American version of the reality show 'Survivor': -

"Is it me or is there a pharmaceutical sales rep cast every season?  Does casting have a booth at pharmaceutical sales conferences?  This season it's Natalie; Gabon - Corinne; Palau - Stephanie; Thailand - Penny.  I'm sure the list goes on.  Evidently it's a job exclusively for women."

"Daniel from Panama also falls into that category."

"I can think of a few reasons for having sales reps as regular cast members, as well as people from certain other fields:

1) there are a lot of pharmaceutical reps in So Cal, the casting ground for Survivor.

2) they tend to be young, good looking, and have marvelous teeth.  (it's a sales job where the clients are physicians and other health professionals - clean looks are essential)

3) they have a reputation for not being above skullduggery, which makes the show more interesting

4) it's not a big deal to give up the job for the show."

"Pharmaceutical companies hire good looking men and women to go shmooze and get the attention of doctors.  At least that's what my wife says, I never worked in a hospital or office.  Heard the same story from a friend who has a father and brother and sister that work together at a clinic.  You also have to be a go getter too.  Two good qualities for being on this show."

This week I'm working with a Swedish sales team; a ridiculously beautiful subset of a population that's already ridiculously beautiful, but less of a reputation for skullduggery so I suppose that's something.

Live stand-up? I went once...

A Birmingham promoter named James Cook writing on Chortle: -

If your first experience of live stand-up comedy is a night at your local where you've paid a fiver to see eight comedians, only three of whom looked like they knew what they were doing, there is a very high probability that you will never go to see live comedy again.  Not just in this venue, but in any venue, even the big ones.  Not only that, all the punters at these sort of gigs are likely to tell their friends.  'Live stand-up? I went once, it was shit.'

My point exactly.

A bird in the hand is worth...

This post may be a bit dry for some.  I'm going to try and set out the new way of forecasting that I'm applying to my consulting business.  The more I think about it the more I'm sure that these principles apply to most freelancers including stand-up comics, graphic designers and the like.

Every successful freelancer struggles with the 'feast or famine' phenomenon whereby you're either too busy to scratch yourself or else you're sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.  The problem stems from failing to generate future work whilst you're preoccupied with the challenges of the present.  Most of us fall into the dreadful habit of not worrying about the blank page in the diary until that actual day.  The oh-so-astute Kate Smurfwaite nailed this with an observation that you often go through periods of always gigging with the same few comics because they emailed with the same promoters s you on the same day three months previously.

I can't remove the need to constantly be prospecting for new business but there are ways to be smart about it.  Firstly, focus on the money, not the diary.  For fear of an empty diary it's easy to fall into the trap of selling your at a discount.  The logic is that it's better to be busy but underpaid than, I dunno, going to the gym and then reading a book.

This diary / money nexus has to be inverted.  The question you need to ask is: how much do I want to earn in a year?  Work out how much do you need to pay the bills, to add to your savings and still have a little left over to splash around to prove to yourself and the world that this self-employment malarkey is working out.

Let's call that 'annual earnings' figure A

Have a good hard look at it.  If it doesn't look a little daunting then you probably haven't got the maths right.  Once you're happy, divide it by four as we're going to work in quarters.

Let's call that 'quarterly earnings' figure Q

Now rather than one big problem (A) you've got four smaller problems but they won't seem to be problems of equal size.  If we say we're going to start this new regimen on April Fools Day then the challenge of earning Q for April-May-June probably seems much more daunting than for January-February-March.  Or maybe your diary's looking good up until summer and you've got less of a handle on July-August-September.  Either way, the psychological challenges represented by Q fluctuate over time.

From here in on you'll need pen and paper or (better still) a spreadsheet.  Create four columns, one for each quarter with three rows.  Write Q at the bottom of the first row as per below

Now get your diary and enter every definite job in the appropriate quarter.  Only include those where you are 100% sure that your services will be needed and that you will be paid.

Let's call these 'definite earnings' D

List the details of D in the top row of appropriate quarter and subtract that from Q.  Call that new figure Qa

This example roughly follows the pattern that my business follows: few clients book me a long way in advance so I have to be comfortable with a 3-6 month horizon.  I know I should be worried that the end of the year and early 2012 are looking thin but I also need to know what to do with that worry.

Go back to your diary.  Now list every probable job by quarter.  Define 'probable' as anything where there's a better than 2 in 3 chance of your services will be needed and that you will be paid.

Let's call these 'probable earnings' P

List the details of P in the top row of appropriate quarter.  Now divide P by 1.5 and subtract that from Qa to get Qb

Why 1.5?  Because we think there's about a 2 in 3 chance of the job coming off.  And look what I've learned; I'm probably going to miss my budget (Q) for April-May-June by 17 but I'm more than fine for July-August-September.  More importantly for the period between October and March I still have a lot of work to do.  Even though I might bill another 360 in October-December, which would get me to 510, the jobs aren't booked yet so I'd be a fool to bank on them.  And I still have plenty of work to do for the start of 2012.

We have to make up the difference in the bottom row.  This is where the diary is of less use than the old the contact list, that stack of business cards and the guy who said to give him a call some time.  We're deep in maybeland.

So let's call these 'maybe earnings' M

There are only two places that these earnings can conceivably come from:-

1. Finding new clients (Mnc), or
2. Selling new products (Mnp) to old clients

I've had my UK business for almost six years, so I have enough data to know that my average time from first meeting with a client to actually delivering a project is 8.67 months.  I've never been able to reduce this.  I now accept it as a fact of my working life.  So even if I met a potential client today I can't realistically bank on anything (Mnc) before January.

Another problem is I'm not especially good at putting time aside for new product development (Mnp).  Almost all of my innovations have emerged as solutions to problems articulated by clients and I'm actually quite crap at building the thing that meets the unrecognised need.  But I do have a few ideas that have worked in one market but have yet to be taken up in others so there's hope for me yet.

I guess we'd better input M into our spreadsheet

This bottom row always has a fantasy element about it, however, the rule is you must keep the Qc fantasy to the right hand side of the page.  If I could realistically anticipate any new business in the next six months then it should appear in the middle row (Qb).  If I need it to happen later in the year it's a task, needing it tomorrow makes it a prayer.

In keeping with my 8.67 month average I've assumed I'll get no new clients (Mnc) before next January.  This means that all of my October-December earnings have to come from existing clients (Mnp).

To temper the fantasy just a little you'll notice that I reckon there's only about a 1 in 3 chance of any Qc earnings actually coming off; remember that we're selling either something that doesn't yet exist or to someone we haven't met.  So we have to be able to identify three times as many Qc opportunities.

Summary
My imaginary business might just survive the next twelve months.  Well done me.  But for that to happen I've got to find new things to sell to my existing clients as well as speaking to new ones.  I knew that already.  The nasty truth I've was avoiding was that both these tasks have to happen now.

Variations
There are a few obvious variations to this basic model that will make it more applicable.  For example, I've assumed that the demand for my stuff is constant throughout the year (500 / quarter).  If your business dries up in the summer then you the initial Q figure for that quarter and compensate with higher targets over the rest of the year.  Anyone contemplating the Edinburgh Fringe may well have a negative figure for July-August-September. 

I've also gone for conversion rates (1.5 and 3) that are a realistic reflection of the way my industry operates but may be questionable elsewhere. 

In Conclusion
As I said at the beginning this is a new technique for me and I apologise if in my excitement I've overcomplicated it.  Like many good ideas it seems to clarify something that I've long known but never articulated.  I like knowing where I need to focus my attention.  I like that it shines a harsh light on the naive expectation that 'somewhere, someone unknown to me is about to come to my rescue'.

I like that if I can see a feast on the horizon then I can decide that next week isn't a famine but a chance to finish that book.