What are you doing right now, this week to ensure that you will have income this month?
January 5, 2010 by admin
Filed under Crafting A Living
By now you are likely back to work after the holidays. I hope you enjoyed time with family and friends or just relished some quiet solitude, if that’s what you desired.
“Back to work” has a different meaning when you’re self employed, particularly if you love what you do and where you do it. If you are in an area of the country experiencing winter storms, you’re probably feeling extra grateful that you don’t have to bundle up and scrape the ice off your windshield before you brave the icy roads for your longer than usual commute. This morning as the airwaves buzzed with school closures, traffic delays and treacherous road conditions, I sure appreciated my self employed status. If you already work from home, is your business meeting your financial expectations? Are you finding your work fulfilling? How are you dealing with potential isolation?
Maybe you are still working for someone else but have promised yourself that 2010 is the year you’ll break free and start your own business.
Whether you’re looking for ways to supplement your income, increase the volume you are already doing in your business or just starting out, January is the time to map out your immediate and long term business strategies.
What are you doing right now, this week to ensure that you will have income this month?
If you’re thinking that people are not spending after the holidays, you’re missing out. Whether you sell a tangible product, information or service, January can be a strong month if you stay open to thinking differently about your potential clients or customers.
Think about all the people who receive cash gifts for Christmas! They may have been eyeing that handmade piece you showcased in December but were in the giving rather than “self-gifting” mindset before the holidays. Now, they have “me” money but unless you remind them you are still out there making fabulous stuff, that money won’t find it’s way to you.
What about the people whose new year’s resolutions involve eating healthfully or learning a new skill? Now is a better time than pre-holiday to market your personal chef, fitness training or voice coaching services. Let’s say you teach macrobiotic cooking or jewelry making or sell supplies? Both the recipient of cash gifts and the new student are your potential customers.
There are also a number of little known holidays in January. Just google “January holidays” and you’ll find that today is National Bird Day. Who knew? I have no idea who comes up with these fairly obscure days of celebration but had you known this earlier and planned ahead, you could have arranged a show and sale of your handmade bird ornaments or bluebird earrings at the Audubon club.
Think of what you could have done had you known that tomorrow is Dia de Reyes. Tonight, January 5, figurines of the Three Wise Men are added to the nativity scene. Before bed, Mexican children place their old shoes under their beds, where the Wise Men will leave them presents.
Next week is Japanese Coming of Age Day and the 24th is the Anniversary of Gold Discovery Day in California. (1848). My head is spinning with ideas for marketing your creative services and handmade crafts on those and other January holidays like Chinese New Years and Australia Day, both Jan. 26th. If you’re asking yourself what those celebrations have to do with you, have you forgotten that you are reading this on the “world wide web”? As my friend Barbara Winter says, “your clientele is no longer limited by geography.” So, go explore what’s being celebrated in your neighborhood and around the world. Rather than thinking you’re too late for Christmas, you’ll find you’re early for some creative offerings or craft selling opportunities. What are you doing now to ensure you’ll have cash flow next month?
My Most Cherished Gift
April 7, 2009 by admin
Filed under What's New?
My story is more about where I came from than where I am now. I don’t for a minute believe that I’d be who I am had my dad not been the oldest child of poor Russian immigrants, with the responsibility of supporting his mother and siblings at fourteen.
The last time I saw him, shortly before he died, my dad gave me a cherished gift. He told me Read more
How to Feel like a Genius
April 6, 2009 by admin
Filed under Crafting A Living, What's New?
When was the last time you were in an Apple Store?
Even if you aren’t a Mac owner, (and if you aren’t, you don’t know what you’re missing) check out your local Apple store.
There are few retail stores where the staff seems to be having so much fun. Note the t-shirts on the Genius Bar staff: “I could talk about this stuff all day.” Their genuine enthusiasm makes it obvious that they love what they do. Can you imagine feeling like that about the way you spend your work day? I can- because I do and so do most of my self employed friends and you can too. In fact, when you’re doing the work you were born to do, you don’t even differentiate between work time and playtime because when you love what you do it’s seamless. Now if you’re thinking that your friends and family will find you boring if you talk about your business so much, you’re hanging out with the wrong people. Start surrounding yourself with entrepreneurs and you’ll find the enthusiasm inspiring. Try it-gather up an unlikely group of happily self employed friends: an artist, a geek, physicists and a financial planner. Difficult to imagine this foursome having anything in common, right? But assuming they’ve all created work they love, even if their specific fields are foreign to one another, there’s a passion in the air so powerful you find yourself longing to feel what they feel. If you don’t feel like an Apple Genius, it’s time you start doing something you “could talk about all day.”
Why a Recession is the Best Time to Start you Own Craft Business
April 4, 2009 by admin
Filed under Crafting A Living
Do your friends and family discourage you from starting your dream business “in this economy.”? Is their reasoning that you’d be unwise to “leave the security of your job in a recession?” I’d find that humorous if it weren’t so sad because,most likely, these naysayers have never been self employed and haven’t yet been victim to the mass layoffs of “valued employees”. In the present economy, the only secure job is the one YOU CREATE for yourself.
Yes, I do listen to the news. I know people are losing jobs and retailers are shutting their doors. And I also know that most of my self employed friends with small businesses are reporting record breaking sales. Because when you’re self employed, you create your own economy. When something isn’t working , you can make changes quickly without the bureaucracy of a board of directors. On the corporate level, by the time reports are generated and changes approved, it is frequently too late. Too much has been lost. Not so in Read more
Lose Your Job, Find your Passion…and Financial Security
March 15, 2009 by admin
Filed under What's New?
In an article in yesterday’s New York Times, reporters Matt Richtel and Jenna Wortham featured several twenty-something college grads who turned what could have been the misfortune of losing previously coveted jobs into an opportunity to make their own fortune.
Truth be told, I don’t normally read the technology section-for me it would be like reading the Shanghai daily news (and not the English version), but the headline, “Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own” obviously caught my attention. Being an avid self employment advocate, I thrive on any proof that entrepreneurs are more secure than employees.
Richtel says that Alex Andon, a graduate of Duke University, was laid off last May from a biotech company. After months of looking for work, he started building jellyfish aquariums in his San Francisco apartment. Using new technology to keep the fragile jellyfish alive, he’s already sold some tanks, one to a restaurant for $25,000. He’s also selling desktop versions on his website.
Four of Andon’s roommates have caught the entrepreneurial fever and started businesses of their own, including laminated, fold-out language guides for travelers.
The Times article also mentions 25 year old Monica Zaminska who was laid by her PR firm and after meeting with several recruiters and sending out countless résumés, started a restaurant review website for food enthusiasts Zaminska says, “I love working so I made work for myself.”
While the headlines are filled with reports of Doom and Gloom, whether you have been laid off or are losing sleep over the next round of job cuts, you can either join the negativity or see this as the perfect time to get started on those entrepreneurial dreams. If you don’t have any idea what you’d like to do, you probably ought to spend an hour with a life coach and unearth those interests. If you know what you love, but can’t see how you could possibly make a living doing it, or you know what it is you’d like to do but don’t know where to begin, send me an e-mail at themuse@inspiredlivelihoodcom. We’ll look at your idea and figure out how to make it happen.
As one of Andon’s roommates, Erin Kitchell said, “This is a good a time as any to try something entrepreneurial. There’s not a lot of opportunity out there right now” (for jobs). And as the self-employment muse, I’m telling you, there sure are lots of opportunities out there to start your own little empire.
