SMEs for the Sovereign Professional

This is an interesting post from Seth Godin for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, he is exploring how to get a job with a small company, noting that the Fortune 500 has accounted for a net loss in number of jobs over the last twenty years.  In doing that, Godin notes the different perspective of owner-managers (as opposed to large corporates) and the different approach required.

Secondly, amongst the skills he suggests acquiring are Selling (obviously) and Writing.

According to UK government stats, there are around 5 million private businesses in the UK, of which 99.9 per cent are Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).  Around 30,000 of those are Medium sized (20 – 249 employees) and 1.1 million have between 1 and 49 employees.  In all, SME’s account for 48.8 per cent of all employment.  That should make it a huge market for Sovereign Professionals (independent individuals providing B2B expertise on demand as Interim Managers, freelancers, contractors etc.).  However, it is not always easy to convince owner-managers to pay for for individuals on a contract basis, despite the obvious advantages of scalability and agility. 

Seth’s recommendations go some way to addressing this issue and thus help to open up the SME market for Sovereign Professionals.