The holiday seasons can be the catalyst for a magnification of feelings. For some, a time of an increased sense of happiness, and for some a time of an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. This year, December took me by surprise. An opportunity opened up for me to participate on a project creating a marketing campaign to find employment openings for juveniles being released from detention facilities like Beaumont. These kids have a “criminal record†and have had far less chance to have acquired job skills or work history. The first meeting for this sub-panel of the Virginia Offender Workforce Development Partnership will be on January 16. The beginning research on this will be fun.
My son has a degree in Business Administration, and is better at marketing than he lets on. He is a great story teller and relates the two basic schools of thought of “get your name out there†and “referrals and trust based relationships†to using two different techniques of luring squirrels in the park to come and get peanuts from you. The issue is to find the balance between letting every squirrel within a mile radius know there are peanuts to be had by hollering and shaking a bag of peanuts in full view of everyone, and on the other hand sitting down on a bench laying out a peanut at a time closer and closer to the bench.
Wow! Getting to work with state professionals on workforce development and asking my son to share his expertise at the same time. It doesn’t get any better than that. Then a friend calls. He is having problems with a home painting project. Give advice over the phone? Not a chance! I’m there in a flash, with all necessary brushes, rollers, drop cloths, …So it can get better. Helping a friend successfully complete a project is more important for heart health than cutting empty calories and saturated fats from your daily dietary intake. I came ALIVE like I haven’t been for awhile, even when I was graduating from VCU in the top of my class. My body isn’t doing all that I want it to, but my mind is still in the game.
That having been said, knowing that my mind is still in the game is simply a fact. Self employment is, first of all, identifying the knowledge I have which is saleable. In what market is my knowledge valuable, who are my potential clients, what competitors are already in place, what steps do I need to take to reach potential clients and convince them they will get more for their purchasing dollar than any other competitor? Questions like this are never answered while we are stationary. With self employment the goal, begin to find answers for these questions and you will be on your way.