Guest Author: Sherri Garrity on Building a Business to Fit Your Life

There’s a reason the first question I ask a client is “what do you want your life to be like?” It’s because without a clear and vivid vision of what YOU want, you won’t be very likely to get it.

This sounds trite and flippant, but I assure you, it’s by far the most important question you need to ask yourself as you build a business.

Who you are, what you love, what you hate, how you like to work, how you like to play, and how much money you desire and need are all important ingredients that will allow you to create the business that really fits you best. Doesn’t this sound better than if I were to ask you what business model is right for you?

Here are two scenarios of people in the same kind of business, yet set up completely different:

Peggy absolutely loves to nurture and care for her clients and enjoys lots of interaction with them. Her passion is taking care of her clients’ needs and making their lives easier.  In her career she was a high level executive assistant in the corporate world. She left her job in her early 50s to care for her husband who became unable to work. She also has a daughter in university. She needs to have a consistent income, and a predictable daytime schedule. She needs to be at home. What works for Peggy’s virtual assistant practice is to work very closely with mainly local clients, from her home office. She does administrative work for a small number of ongoing clients in a particular industry. She can be available to them during their business day. She takes on a small number of virtual clients outside of her geographic area for task-oriented, as needed projects to diversify her income.

Sandra has a pre-school child and gave her letter of resignation soon after going back to work so that she could be home with her young child. Her income from her job was not enough for her to make working for someone else worth it financially and emotionally. Her schedule is completely erratic and she requires absolute flexibility. Her income needs are not high, and is a second income for her family. She loves variety and the satisfaction of turning projects around quickly and moving on to the next one. She tends to get bored quickly, just likes to get the work done and move on. She dislikes the day-to-day administration and works best when she has a clear direction and a definite project end.  Her passion leans toward technical problem solving and creativity. What works for Sandra’s virtual assistance practice is a specialty in online marketing software. She sets up electronic newsletters, and manages the back end of her clients’ shopping cart systems and email marketing. Because she is so specialized, she often is not the sole virtual assistant for her clients and frequently is a member of a project team. She likes this because she doesn’t want to be the point person and also due to her schedule, she isn’t suited for customer service and regular interaction with her clients and their clients. She can handle a higher number of clients and most of the work she does can be done at any time of day or night as long as she meets her deadlines.

As you can see from the above examples, Peggy and Sandra have entirely different needs. Had either of them chosen each other’s model to follow, they’d be miserable. Their businesses would soon feel like a job, and you can bet their relationships with their clients would be less than effective.

So, how do you avoid this in your life and business? Take the time to figure out what you truly want, and custom fit your business to your life plan.

Here are some tips to get you thinking:

1. What’s your “sweet spot”?

Jim Collins, the author of the Good to Great leadership books, says it is where all of these three things intersect:

• Something that people will pay you for – these are your marketable skills that you have
• Something you’re passionate about
• Something that you’re put on this earth to do – the elusive “purpose” many of us seek

2. What kind of lifestyle do you want?

Explore and carefully consider how you want your life to be, now and in the future. Look at each of these areas:

Personal and family responsibilities

Financial obligations and desires

Amount of time you want to spend “doing” client work

Degree of flexibility in your schedule

Willingness to travel, or need to work from local base

How you prefer to work (degree of autonomy and interaction, short turnaround or long haul)

Energy level (prefer steady and predictable, or adrenaline junkie)

Risk tolerance (lots of security and stability, or open to uncertainty)

3. Who needs you?

There’s a client out there right now, just waiting for someone like you who understands their needs and is ideally matched for you.

If you “do the work”, you’ll reap the rewards. These guidelines will help you to identify what you really want and what is ideally suited to you, so that you can build the business that is your best fit.

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Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success SystemTM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and live outside of the ordinary. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful and extraordinary business. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for information and step-by-step resources to take you from overwhelmed employee to extraordinary entrepreneur.

Small and Do-able Ideas

Great, you’re thinking, lots of people are writing about that topic with big ideas and plenty of criticism to go around.  Not Professor Kanter, her ideas are small and do-able, and instead of criticism, helpful observation and positive, applicable ideas.  Granted, she still doesn’t share how someone without an income can make it while they work to find work, but I at least appreciate the attitude!

Advice for the Jobless Middle Manager

Here’s Kanter’s advice for the well-educated manager whose job has disappeared and is no longer even counted in the unemployment statistics because they’ve given up.

“What do I tell these jobless professionals who are holding their lives together with duct tape? I can say: Hang in there. Don’t give up hope. Develop a big idea to use later. Start your venture. Volunteer at a community organization. Find partners. Think internationally. Befriend immigrants with ties to an emerging market. Restore your sense of purpose. Remember what truly matters”

In the meantime, I think that there is other good advice out there for those in the well-educated middle:

• Now is a time to try that thing you never thought you would try.  What do you have to lose?
• Focus on some other aspects of your life.  Are you using this down time to exercise, eat right, learn a new skill, language, or perspective?
• Remember when you dreamed of working a shorter week or part-time?  What were you going to do with those hours?  Can you do that now while you keep working your “job” of finding a job?
• Take advantage of what your community has to offer – use the library, visit local sites, go to a park, find a new local diner, get to know the world that is right around you that you’ve never had time to experience before.
• Meet people – reach outside your first circle to your second or third.  Have a cup of coffee and broaden that network.  It may be more and more tangential to your job search, but sometimes the innovative idea is on the periphery, not in the core.

Asset Maps for Middlers

And another idea for “middlers” — I don’t mean those related to Bette, but those in the middle of their job transition and maybe even tired enough to be approaching things now in a bit of a middling way — draw your “asset map.”  You’ve probably already thought about the assets you are bringing to your job search, but what about the assets you have to offer to others?

Kanter mentions small ideas that collectively could build jobs.  She’s calling for a movement of small ideas based on all our assets – what do you have that you can offer to the solution of job growth in America?  “Imaginative small actions could aggregate to bigger impact. Underutilized office space can become an incubator for others starting a business. Shared work and living spaces are becoming more common for recent graduates working on new ventures; communities should encourage and facilitate this. Those with international business ties can encourage business partners to invest in the U.S.; good people and cost-reducing incentives are available now.”

I like Kanter’s small ideas and I hope more individuals and organizations will embrace them.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could see a movement across the United States, a movement of both workers and the organizations who hire them?  I am hoping that organizations — companies, foundations, associations, universities, government, nonprofits — will get creative and think about different ways to do things.  It would be a wonderful thing to see a boom of creativity and diversity in how we do things – our work, our products, our services, our decision-making, our politics, our day-to-day lives and our perspectives.  Thanks Professor Kanter.

Yes! You may use this article by Barbara Demarest in your company newsletter, blog or website as long as you add the following bio box:

Barbara Demarest (www.barbarademarest.com) received her MBA from the Babcock School of Management at Wake Forest University and her BA from Duke University. After 20 years at the Center for Creative Leadership, Barbara launched a strategy consulting practice focusing on people leading change in associations, foundations, universities, nonprofits and knowledge businesses.  You can find Barbara’s executive coaching profile on www.thecoachingassociation.com.

How to Succeed in the Age of Going Solo

If you are someone who has not searched for a job in several years, you may need to brush up on how to use online profiles to position yourself for career advancement or transition.  In addition to being a helpful tool for your actual search, using LinkedIn also shows employers that you can navigate social media.  Don’t scoff!  Social media is working its way into the workplace and employees at all levels will be using these platforms within their organizations.  Don’t be surprised to see the technology behind social media showing up in your knowledge management systems, your internal and external communication tools, and your orientation, learning, and development structures.  Make sure you keep learning!

My approach with the Labs, both Twitter and LinkedIn Labs, is to do some information sharing on the phone and then dive in and have participants try things out on their computers.  I take questions and we don’t follow a prescribed format.  Instead I try to respond to people’s questions and make sure that they come away from the session having tried something on the site.

That which I hear, I forget.

That which I see, I remember.

That which I do, I understand.

– Confucius

To sign up for the LinkedIn Lab, please choose one of the following methods:

1 – Send me an email: info@barbarademarest.com and let me know which session you would like to attend.  Then please send a check to BarbaraDemarest.com 1577D New Garden Road, Suite 161, Greensboro, NC 27410.  Please make checks payable to Barbara Demarest for $15.00.

2 – If you would like to pay online, all you have to do is use the PayPal button here and in the box let me know if you are planning on the Monday, Nov. 16th session at 5 pm or the Thursday, Nov. 19th session at 9 am by typing in the word Mon or Thur so that I have a count.  You can also send me an email at info@barbarademarest.com so that I have your email address to which to send any instructions.

Looking forward to working with  all of you on LinkedIn!

I am attending (Mon or Thur)

Well done FIRST Line folks, this is quite an impressive compilation:

FIRST Line Unemployment Resource Guide this is a pdf focusing on unemployment and job-seeking resources in Winston-Salem, NC.

Obstacle: How can high school grads compete effectively when compared to college graduates?

Response: Self-confidence. In this market, most companies are under the gun to keep expenses down and production up. They want to hire employees who can hit the ground running, who are as efficient as they are effective. They look for people who can combine strong work ethic with high- octane performance.  In other words, if you can sell yourself as energetic, focused, and flexible, with a track record to match, you are competitive.

Obstacle: How can you overcome a bad case of interview-jitters, particularly when you’ve always been scared of authority figures?

Response: Focus.  Authority figures scare most of us. The trick is to remember that you’re a responsible adult, not a dependent child. The person sitting across the desk or standing across the room hasn’t the moral or legal authority to judge your beliefs or your behaviors unless you give them that right. They may approve or disapprove of your actions, but you get to choose what to do about it.

Focus on what you’re there to accomplish. Tell your story and don’t get hijacked by your emotions. Ask good questions. The best questions enable the interviewer to describe the challenges the company and department must confront and what they need and expect from their best employees. Then, respond according to your strengths and abilities.

Obstacle: When responding to ads, whether in print or the internet, I know I’m going up against hundreds of people who are as anxious for that job as am I. How can I move to the head of the line?

Response: Network. People who position themselves ahead of the crowd rely on and dedicate at least 80% of their search time to networking. Networking contacts can introduce you to decision makers who get you in the side door without your having to wait in line.

Here are three examples of how it works:

1. Talk to people who work where you would like to work or know people who work there. If you don’t know who they are, (I realize they don’t walk around advertising the fact) ask people you know to help you find them. Next: tell the person why you’re interested in that particular company (have a few good reasons) and ask who you might speak to, to learn more about opportunities there. Note: you didn’t ask for an interview. You want a “conversation” to determine that there’s a match between what they need and what you do.

2. Talk to people who are supervisors or managers in their respective places of business. Describe what you do best and ask them for recommendations as to where you might look and with whom you might speak.

3. Talk to people you know personally and with whom you have a great deal in common. Describe what you do best, which, to no great surprise, is what they do best. Ask them to brainstorm with you regarding job possibilities and, hint, hint, who would be good personal leads for you to contact.

Obstacle: What can you do when you’re your own worst enemy?

Response: Affirmations. Negative self- talk does you more damage than what anyone possibly could think or say about you. Believe in yourself, and say so. Believe that each encounter you have, each meeting, each interview, is a positive opportunity for something good to follow, and tell yourself so.

If you found Joyce’s comments helpful (I always do), you may want to sign up for her blog at www.RichmanResources.com.  You can also link to her WFMY appearances and to her articles for the Greensboro News & Record from that site.

This event was sponsored by WFMY 2 Television as a community service. The idea was to have coaches from a variety of disciplines providing “curbside consulting” for people seeking jobs.  Each person would pass through for about 3 minutes to get some headlines on how to improve their chances in looking for a job.

My one-page handout (in WORD) from the event can be downloaded here:
Tips for Using Technology in Your Job Search Jun2009

Although the handout is short, here’s a summary of the points I make:

• 85% of jobs are the result of networking – so use social media and online networking tools to your advantage.
• Make it easy for people to find you – and make sure that what they find online about you is employee-appropriate (don’t have photos or comments in your profiles that would turn off an employer).
• Make it easy for people to help you – have your resume and information email-ready.  And be succinct and specific in your requests for help.
• Use online tools to research the best ways to describe yourself for the jobs you want (keywords) and to find out about employers.

I also think that LinkedIn is a must for job seekers — whether it is a full-time job, a consulting job or a temporary contract job.  There are some great blog posts already out there about leveraging LinkedIn, here are some of my favorites:

Guy Kawasaki’s February 2009 Post:  Top Ten to Use Linked In to Find a Job

I often find the About.com posts a nice compilation, here’s their take: LinkedIn and Your Job Search

Here’s a quick quote from the Guy Kawasaki post to help you get motivated on filling out your LinkedIn profile:

LinkedIn has over thirty-five million members in over 140 industries. Most of them are adults, employed, and not looking to post something on your Wall or date you. Executives from all the Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn. Most have disclosed what they do, where they work now, and where they’ve worked in the past. Talk about a target-rich environment, and the service is free.

I still contend that 85% of jobs are filled by using networking — connecting with people you know who know people with opportunities — jobs sites can be helpful for research purposes and that other 15%.

You can download my Word document here:

Job Websites Jun2009