New Years Resolution – Jobless
earlier.
Employers took 1,797 mass layoff actions in November that resulted in the separation of 165,346 workers
(US Bureau of Labor)
Canada unemployment rates reach 9.3% in November
( Stats Canada)
European Union employment rates reach 9.3% in November up from 7.13% a year before.
(Eurostat)
Doom and gloom in the job market – unemployment rates unlikely to get better for another year – even though the economy or may not be growing
There was a brief moment in the post second world war period when jobs were secure. When pensions could be counted on.And life was linear.
But that was really only for one generation. People born between 1918 – 1925. They skipped the Depression as adults – had the inconvenience of a world war certainly- that killed a large majority – but if they survived they had -in the Western World – job security and pensions and a house and a one income family.Secure. (for the most part, unless of course you were a minority race)
And that brief time has somehow got into our mental make-up as the way IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE.
There is no true security of income , because – well because the Universe is not in your control.
But if you want at least some measure of control of your financial life in the Western World – become an entrepreneur.Get into business for yourself. Your business.
Jobs are very good for one thing. Allowing you to get some money to build your own business. You make a living 9-5 . You make a life after 5 pm.
An entrepreneur controls his or her own financial life. After all, the contract with a job, real or implied is They(the employers) will keep you (the employee) for as long as you make finacial sense to Them. And not a second longer.us. When that ceases to be – you are gone. They are in it for the money. You may be in it for your family and your mortgage – but that is your problem, not Theirs.
And they are right – its is not their problem.
Its yours and mine. So how do we take away the problem? Become an entrepenuer. Its always a good time to be an entrepeneur(self employed business person). But there had never been a better time. There has never been a cheaper time.
Make yourself a real New Year’s Resolution – get into business for yourself.
Pros:
- You get to use your own money before the Tax Grabbers do. Tax systems in North America are designed to favor the self-employed.
- You need a raise – apply to yourself
- Your work directly affects your income
- Only you can fire -you
- You set the hours
- You avoid the uncertain ups and down of the ‘economy’
- There is no ceiling on income (ie build a scalable business)
Cons
- Your work directly affects your income
- There is no ceiling -or bottom- on your income possibilities
Most entrepreneurs fail, more than once. When you ‘fail’ at your job there may or may not be repercussions. When you fail at a business – you FAIL.
But then you start again.
To start again at a new job is agonizing – if you can find one. And when you do you realise – its just not You
To start again in a business, now, in this Internet based economy – You just , well, start again.
With the advent of the World Wide Web and its ability to make information easily available anywhere, knowledge was doubling approximately every 18 months by 2004, according to the American Society of Training and Documentation (ASTD).
And now IBM predicts that in the next couple of years, information will double every 11 hours!
This vastly increasing store of knowledge, with its virtually unlimited and unfettered access, has changed the way we use it. We once made a faithful trip to the library or bookstore to obtain books on a particular subject. Now, in areas where change is quick, the wait for such books would be interminable and, when they finally arrived, the information contained in them hopelessly outdated.
Today we can get our information from the Internet.Which is not only the vehicle that carries the information – but it is also the warehouse for the information.
Whatever is new, whatever is considered important ,or even marginally important is placed on the Web.Somewhere. One huge connected World library. And (thankfully) we have these highly developed sophisticated search engines – Yahoo and Google and Bing etc. And then specialized Search engines for specialised tasks.And these billion dollar investments.Are Free.To You and me.Free
And you don’t need a monk or a priest or an IT guy to find and use the great library. Its open to all.
And not only is all the knowledge on the web, all the people are too. (Ok not all the people – but lets look at it from a business point of view – the marketplace is on the web, whichever one you are looking for)
You want to sell some specialized whatdoyuocallit to lawyers or doctors or underwater yoga instructors?
How on earth would you do that before? And what the chances of failing (running our of money and/or enthusiasm) before you find the marketplace?
Now – set up a web site, use Google (or equivalent) ad words. You will reach your market in Oh about 15 minutes!
Thats unbelievable!
It costs about $130,000 to get a Subway franchise up and running. McDonalds needs you to have $250,000 cash in hand (non-borrowed) to even apply. And don’t believe franchises don’t fail. Everything can fail. The say small business fail, rate is about 61%. (National Federation of Independent Business’ Education Foundation say over their lifetime 39% of small businesses make money) They say 90% of Franchises succeed. They mean Frachisors, not Franchisees, .Franchisees fail at the same rate or more than small business.
And you will fail too.
But then put up another web site (that’s starting a while new business).
Use a different ad campaign on PPC (that’s starting a whole new business)
Start affiliate marketing – that’s a whole new business.
Go after a different niche market.
That’s a whole new business.
Pre-Internet - that required huge debt and huge re-investment of time and energy and resources and market research and capital investment and new equipment and new products etc etc.
Now you just click a different part of the screen
That’s unbelievable!
Give yourself a New years present – go into business for yourself. Use the Internet as your medium.Avoid the job crushing cycle. (as they say) Get a life
PS- Whatever it is – take your time – do the research.
And don’t quit your job until you have livable income
Happy New Year
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Hi Martin,
Nice to meet you. It’s pretty strange how things seem to happen for a reason. I recently called it quits on a former successful site I owned and immediately started to rebuild. In the process of doing that, I created a new Twitter account and within a few hours you either manually added me or if you had auto-follow software do it. Regardless, it lead me to read this post and I found it pretty amusing based on the fact that I am pretty much an example of what you talked about. Super nice work on the post Martin and I look forward to reading more of your blog.