What's your career worth?

I saw the above website and thought it might be interesting (perhaps even critical) to ask a similar question regarding one's career. Indeed, asking "What's your career worth?" can help you at two levels:

1. You find out whether you actually have a career, and if so, how exactly you define it.
2. Assuming you DO have a career, you find out what is the VALUE of that career. This will allow you to plan for future career development.

Note: I ask the same question to entrepreneurs that I coach, to drive home the point that "owning a business" is VERY different from "working as a free agent." I ask them: "If you were to sell your business RIGHT NOW (on http://www.acquizition.biz, for instance), how much would you ask for it?" Here, it's important to realize that it's not the SUBJECTIVE worth of your business that I'm interested in knowing. For instance, people will immediately say, "Oh, I would sell my business for a million dollars!" The real and useful answer is, rather, the OBJECTIVE value of your business, and that can only be provided by an actual person who is actually interested in buying your business. If nobody is willing to buy your business, then you're probably a free agent, NOT the owner of a business.

Let's get back to your career's worth.

If you were to "liquidate" your career RIGHT NOW, how much would you sell it for? For instance, if you have 10 years of experience, and a young person (say, a new graduate) came to you to learn EVERYTHING from you that would be useful to her as she is starting a new career similar to yours, then how much would you charge for all your valuable expertise, experience and insights?

This is a critical question, because it forces you to clarify exactly what is the value you provide to an employer. It also forces you to objectively and rationally evaluate the value of your human capital.

As we will see in future postings, you can sell your human capital on BitWine while using Linkedin Answers as a platform to develop trust-based relationships with future, potential buyers of your intellectual capital.