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I'm Dale, the author of Going 1099

Going 1099 is a book that teaches you how to become a solo federal sub-contractor and gain control of your working life, earn more money and unlock more free time. I wrote it because quite a few people have asked me how they can become a 1099. I figured it was best to write a single book that I can send them and that I can share with others who are interested. This newsletter goes out Monday - Friday and covers topics that will help you succeed in starting and maintaining successful 1099 career.

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Featured Post

1099 freedom

W2 on left, 1099 on right. In real life, my office is exactly the same: drab government work station. Nassim Taleb is one of my favorite authors/thinkers. In his book, Skin in the Game, has has a chapter called "How to Legally Own Another Person." Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (Incerto) Here are some gems from the chapter: "In short, every organization wants a certain number of people associated with it to be deprived of a certain share of their freedom. How do you own...

about 22 hours ago • 2 min read

Watering a networking tree; it can take a while for things to pay off I asked my neighbor how she got her current job (she is a lawyer). She was working elsewhere and was curious about hotel/hospitality law. She met an attorney at a law firm her employer did business with and who was in that field and asked to meet up with him for coffee. He told her he was too busy and to call him again in six months. So she did and they met for coffee. He said the economy is terrible and his firm wasn't...

2 days ago • 1 min read

Don't waste money on the wrong types of marketingSource: wildlingsval.tumblr.com/post/86723380717 Big companies spend a lot of money on marketing. This includes advertising, commercials, high end websites, in-person and online demos of their product, etc. So you may wonder if you need to spend time and money on marketing yourself to be a successful as a 1099. The answer is, YES. You absolutely do. But here's what marketing looks like for a solo 1099. Doing great work for your clients and...

3 days ago • 1 min read

If you're willing to learn new tech, you can go 1099 When I automated some data analysis in Excel for one of my earlier projects, my client thought it was magic. They didn't care about the actual calculations or VBA code. They cared that a report that took a few days could be done in a few minutes. This made the client look good to her boss. -- One of my employees is using ChatGPT to write some code for his work. This has increased his output dramatically, and the team lead has noticed. --...

4 days ago • 1 min read

David gets itSource: www.cbc.ca/schittscreek The other day I met up with someone that I wanted to hire for a project at a coffee shop in Fairfax, VA. 29th Parallel Coffee I'm not sure if it's going to work out with hiring him, but he offered to put me in touch with several of his friends who might be looking for work. He also knew a few other folks in the government contracting industry that just happened to walk in while we were there so he introduced me. Oh and he knew the shop owner and...

7 days ago • 1 min read

Ahhh the rare, happy employee.... I recently read the book, The Six Types of Working Genius, and took the assessment (my results are in the link at the bottom). The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team Working Genius Assessment My strengths are Wonder and Invention, which together, makes me a "Creative Dreamer." My frustrations are Enablement and Tenacity. This means I am not energized by supporting others or getting things done....

8 days ago • 1 min read

Don't listen to advice from an idiot though...Source: www.peacocktv.com/ A friend recently asked me how to respond to a part of a sub-contract related to cyber security. The form was basically asking what, if any, safeguards he had in place to protect sensitive data. He was afraid if he didn't answer correctly, he would lose his sub-contract/1099 opportunity. I didn't know what to write down on the form, so I gave him my usual advice: ask the prime's sub-contract administrator. The subk...

9 days ago • 1 min read

The 1099 switch I have a colleague at work who I met last week at a team happy hour. She works for the prime, but she mentioned that until the a year prior, she had been working for herself as a 1099 for 20 years. Naturally, I wanted to know how she became a 1099. A few interesting tidbits: She worked as a PeopleSoft developer at DoD for a sub-contractor (I think it was Booz) Booz wanted to "green" the contract and basically replace more expensive, older folks with younger, cheaper folks to...

10 days ago • 1 min read

Classic business owner juggling act... I'm trying to grow my business and it's tough. One of the tougher challenges is recruiting (in large part due to being in the cleared space) and is, in fact, probably the main challenge. I have tried using ClearedJobs before but the results were meh. You don't get much inbound interest because you compete with other postings, and cold e-mailing candidates has a very low response rate. Candidates get bombarded with e-mails from recruiters so you just...

11 days ago • 1 min read

My coffee breaks weren't quite like this but you get the idea. One of the reasons I wanted to go 1099 was because I'm not really a team player. I like to do my own thing. I always rolled my eyes at company parties at social events. They always seem forced and awkward. So going 1099 was right for me. BUT, there is a risk you can isolate yourself. Going solo means you actually need to be more deliberately social than if you work for a bigger company. This WSJ article wrote about a Swedish...

14 days ago • 1 min read
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