by Hope
I share on Tuesday that I finally settled on a course of work. I’m moving forward with laser focus on building my clientele for my consulting business again.
Today I start with my second new client. (I’m enjoying the part time job I started a few weeks ago.) Between the two clients, I have now committed to approximately 30 hours a week. All from home! I am so grateful.
In addition, I have been hired to do a redesign of a flooring company’s website. Woot, woot! Things are turning around and this time, I am not compromising my kids, my integrity or my dreams.
New Business, New Attitude
Between the book, Your Money or Your Life, our lower cost of living in this small town and my resolution to not give up my dreams again, I am in a better place mentally then I have been in a long time.
My financial goals have also evolved and are much more solid. In addition to a priority on paying off my debt, exemplified by my time here, and saving as I have been doing this past year, I also know that having ENOUGH is all I need.
Business Plan
I’ve got to buckle down and come up with my business goals now. But first, settling into a new work routine with my two new clients is the priority while getting the flooring website completed. I realize I have to find a way to scale up since my own hours are limited.
There is no local SCORE chapter here, although they are trying. I’m going to set up a meeting to get myself a mentor. They say, two heads are better than one.
The name of the game is bootstrapping so I’m working on a new personal budget that will stop the quick drain of my savings while also giving me some money to put into the business. My business cost priorities right now are to join the Chamber of Commerce ($190) and get some sort of marketing going locally.
With that being said, tell me what resources you would recommend as I find my new direction, looking into scaling my business which has been a one woman shop for 12 years and any tips or tricks you might have to starting over with a business.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
I would still look for a steady job and build your consulting business as a side gig/hustle. It’s possible that your consulting business could take off, but you need that regular, steady income for a while.
Deep down, I feel that you are always doing what you WANT to do in the end, not what is the most expedient, sensible and financially sound thing for you at this time. Sure, it would be great to be your own boss, have a flexible lifestyle, pick up and travel when you like etc., but that is not possible for most of us.
I caught up on the posts you wrote, and a big, red flag to me was the money you had been spending for manicures. The comments were generally positive, but I feel completely the opposite. There is absolutely nothing to justify that expense in your present circumstances, and to me, it seems to be a reflection of a general lack of commitment to getting on track with your expenses. It may seem like a small thing to others, but it’s something that should have been learned a long time ago in your debt journey.
Omg, yes! Thank you for bringing up the manicures. I was shocked that the comments were only positive. I’m completely debt free, have a corporate job and I wouldnt dream of spending that kind of money on “self care” Hope, the way you spend your money is your choice but what bothers me is that you’re a blogger for a financial blog and not providing any hard numbers. You’ve never once mentioned this expense yet you’ve been doing it all along? Its fruitless when we have 10% of the story
Seriously, we have Ashley with $1000/month on food and Hope with these manicures and who knows what else. I’m beginning to feel like a complete fool, following “Blogging Away Debt.”
I think readers fail to take into account that my last job search took 15 months to find a “corporate” job. And I have been looking for another corporate job since November when this one let me know they were letting me go in February.
It’s not that I haven’t been looking…most of the last three years has been me looking for whatever everyone here seems to think is the sensible thing. It has not panned out. And that’s with over 200 applications in just the last 5 months. All over the country, all over the world. The first thing I do every day is look for work on a variety of sources.
That being said, in the last month I have now landed 2 steady clients and one larger project. Between those I have 30 hours of committed work per week, and a side project. Rather than continue to burn through my savings, I need to focus on something and go for it. This is why I’ve finally settled on this path.
I completely agree with these observations. I don’t get the sense Hope has ever been fully comitted to making a traditional 9-5 work and, instead, is constantly on the hunt for short cuts.
It’s interesting to me that the consensus of the BAD community seems to be that being an entrepreneur is a “short cut.” In my 12 years of experience, compared to 16 years in the corporate world, being an entrepreneur is far more taxing than the corporate world. Longer hours, more stress and so on. I don’t call running your own business a “short cut.”
Not saying that there aren’t advantages to both sides of the coin, but saying I’m taking the “easy way out” and such seems off the wall to me.
I think fear is what is behind your choice to pursue consulting work. You’ve said yourself that you’re an extreme introvert and you clearly have something against the corporate world. You insist on working from home and making your own hours even though you are no longer homeschooling. What would be best right now is an out of the home job with medical benefits, life insurance, 401k, etc. It would probably also be beneficial for your mental health to be out of the house and collaborating with others daily. It might be uncomfortable at first, but take a leap of faith and do what’s best for yourself and your family
My work this past year was outside the home. And I’ve been searching for that type of work for the bulk of the last 3 years. It’s certainly not for lack of trying that I am not working in the corporate world.
But truly I LOVE what I do as a consultant and I always have. The issue was I got content, especially with clients who were with me for 8+ years. I didn’t anticipate and prepare for a change from them. I won’t make that mistake again.
I think some of the reason people are worried is that starting your own business usually involves costs. They are worried you might resort to credit and head in the wrong direction. The big thing you need to do is lay out a new budget. It’s important to figure out if you can survive on what you are bringing in. If you are only bringing in 30 hours a week it might make sense to get a side gig. It could be something as simple as sales clerk if you can’t find a job doing what you’ve trained for.
Have you tried using a recruiter? I think for the level of position you are looking for (based on salary), employers probably aren’t hiring much from resumes they get through their system/Indeed/etc. They are hiring from recruiters, employee referrals, or referrals from contacts in their industry. There’s a reason submitting 200 resumes hasn’t worked—either your resume needs tweaking, you aren’t applying for jobs that are a good fit, or you aren’t applying for jobs where you have a personal contact.
Find a recruiter for your industry. You don’t pay them, the company who hires you does. They will help you with your resume, interview skills, setting up interviews, and negotiating salary and benefits (mine have done this anyway). I know an 8-5 job isn’t as flexible, but imo the stability more than makes up for that.