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working for yourself: taking action, part 2

To become an entrepreneur requires much enthusiasm, imagination and execution. If truth be told, we’d all probably prefer to be our own boss and create our special business. A common belief is that running your own business is fun all the time. What I hear from entrepreneurs is they enjoy parts of their work and dislike others. Just as employees do.

So why take that risk? Why stick your neck out to give up security for the unknown? As we saw last month, Marion, the bank VP, is wondering just that. Financially, if she continues for 10 more years in her current position, she will be able to retire with a good monthly income. Then at 60, what will her lifestyle be?

How will she spend her time, Marion wonders. Her mind drifts back to her clothes designing interest. “That’s how I want to spend my time now. I don’t want to wait 10 years in the future”. The thought of remaining with the bank for 10 more years is agonizing to Marion. She wants a plan to leave, but leave in a way that preserves her investment and prepares her for a more satisfying future.

The results from Marion’s financial health analysis detail her income, expenses, debts and assets. In preparation for this career change, Marion vows to pay off her debts, lower her expenses and save more. If she leaves the bank now, she will have a retirement account for the future. But she doesn’t want to deplete that money for her current personal expenses. If she stays, that account will grow.

Marion concludes she needs her bank salary to survive. She cannot quit and fund a new business without substantial savings or a benefactor. Rather than being discouraged, Marion is inspired to start a part time business on the side. She wants to answer some vital questions: do I really like doing design work, is there a demand for my creations, and can I make a profit at this?

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Marion decides she needs role models, people who are successful at designing and selling clothes. She wants to learn from people who do the creative work as well as the business side. She did some informational interviewing in Italy and now will contact professionals in her community as well as in U.S. fashion capitals. She uses her contacts and her knowledge of the field to come up with a list of people to call.

This outreach into an unfamiliar business community provides Marion an entree into her desired field. People contacted are generous about sharing their advice, support and start-up lessons. Just like with Positano, Marion is thrilled to talk business with these professionals. They share the same “fire in the belly”. Marion comes away with possible models for her design business. She shadows owners and offers to assist them where possible.

What results is a preliminary collaboration with a design firm that needs production assistants. In addition Marion is able to use their facilities to produce some of her own samples. Once she has a portfolio of dress designs, Marion explores her distribution options. Building on the advice of her mentors, she chooses two delivery methods: one is direct sales at a local market and the other is consignment to a nearby boutique.

Marion isn’t making a profit yet. But she is learning the parts of the business needed to excel on her own. And she discovers that design is the aspect of work she prefers. Sewing feels like a mechanical exercise that she would rather hand off to someone else.

As Marion grows her reputation, her products show up in more boutiques locally and nationally. She hones her signature style and receives requests for custom work. She continues to work at the bank to pay personal bills, but her business gradually becomes self supporting. At the bank Marion develops a special interest in small business funding and is able to create a department specializing in micro loans to new entrepreneurs.

The satisfaction from helping others implement their dreams as well as following her own allows Marion to stay on a path which will lead one day to leaving the bank and working solely for herself. The years of experience and exposure will ensure a smooth transition into her next act.

“Everyone who achieves success in a great venture solved each problem as they came to it. They helped themselves and they were helped through powers known and unknown to them at the time they set out on their voyage. They kept going regardless of the obstacles they met”

W. Clement Stone

Invest in your dream:

Choose your business niche
Join your community
Learn all you can
Ask to work collaboratively
Create your mark
Enjoy the innovation

Make your unique way and see you on the path!

working for yourself: the entrepreneur within

You have unique ideas. You dream of working at something you love. You feel bored at work. Your co-workers are nice, but your heart isn’t engaged in your present role. You aren’t even sure the organization’s mission resonates with you anymore.

Perhaps you have traveled this experience as far as you can. Or perhaps you can alter your current position to better things in the future. You can either unravel what is possible within or outside of your organization.

Often at midlife employees feel chained to their jobs. Some call it “Golden Handcuffs”. I first heard that term when I worked for local government. All of a sudden the job you took on a whim in your twenties/thirties has lasted 20 plus years and you are deep into the benefits package. Your lifestyle and responsibilities have grown and you are living well on those benefits. Alternate companies are no longer offering defined retirement plans, 5 weeks vacation, security, recognition.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now”

Chinese Proverb

What would make you leave all that behind? What leap are you willing to take? Some people have a burning desire to create their own business. After learning the ropes in a particular field, you want to be in charge, to do it your way, to be creative. Or you have a secondary interest that has followed you throughout your life. It never seemed practical enough to provide support, but it kept calling you.

Maybe you left it behind or maybe you made it a hobby. But it’s always brought you great pleasure and satisfaction. It’s something you could learn about and practice for hours without tiring. What would it be like to turn this love into a business?

The fear in taking this passion seriously is that it would erase the joy. It would become work and resemble what you are struggling with now. So you ignore the call and put it in the impossible dream category.

What if you had the courage to look at it differently? What if you examined the possibilities versus the unlikelihoods?

Marion loves designing and sewing. Since being a young girl, she has drawn and made her own clothes. Marion learned from her mother who created her children’s clothes for financial reasons. Marion has less time now to sew and more money from her job as a bank Vice President to buy designer clothes. But she’s still fascinated by the innovative, hands on process.

What can Marion do? It might be foolish to give up what she has developed as a professional. But every year she is feeling more restless, less satisfied. Her job is not very creative. She is extremely competent at her position, but has little wiggle room to operate differently.

Marion takes an Italian vacation and visits Positano. There she is fascinated by the unique stores selling handmade clothes and shoes. She learns the town has a long history of family workshops and begins talking with the owners, designers and seamstresses. She is in heaven to be around these people.

Once home to her real world, Marion cannot forget what she experienced in Positano. She wonders about having her own business. Is it an unachievable dream or something she could establish? Being a practical person with many resources, Marion begins researching the design trade. She locates people to interview. She begins drafting a business plan.

Having seen many business plans as a bank official, Marion is familiar with the required elements. Each one leads her to more thought and investigation regarding niche, legalities, expenses, marketing. She takes a local course given by a small business attorney to learn more. All the while, Marion is planning and building, weighing the costs and benefits. She is excited.

While Marion knows she likes to design and sew, there are more pieces needed to run a successful business. She identifies those and consults people who are doing them. She ponders the options of a brick and mortar store, or online sales or supplying inventory to larger companies. Which would bring her most satisfaction? Delivering the products into the hands of customers or being further removed?

All the while, Marion is examining her financials. What is needed to begin a business? How much does she require to live on? What is the risk of leaving the bank and going off on her own? What is the risk of never trying this?

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they soon seem inevitable”

Christopher Reeve

We’ll learn more about Marion’s decisions next month.  Meanwhile you can:

Identify your work passion
Ask what part of it intrigues you
Visualize developing a business
Find role models to learn from
Assess your financial health

Start dreaming and see you on the path!