Gear up for some tips on Home-Based Businesses

This month’s Entrepreneur has an interesting article about starting a home-based franchise business. While most of the franchises in their top 101 list seem to be cleaning businesses and overall, the list did little entice me into jump-starting my own franchise-specific savings account, it does beg the question if working in your skivvies is ultimately what we’re all after.

So what skills should a successful home-based franchisee or independent contractor/freelancer possess? Assuming we’re all into working in our skivvies afterall…

Let’s start with basics:

• Know Your Legalese: As an independent contractor/freelancer, you set up shop under your own name, so to speak. You’re working under your own business guidelines, free of any legal ties to a franchisor. For either scenario, legal counsel will be helpful in assessing your business’ liquidity and giving you sound peace/piece of mind.
• Keep Figures Straight (or Know What Software to Utilize): For savvy bookkeeping business owners with a penchant for Accounting, keep track of the #s might not seem daunting, but to the less skilled, it can be. Keep this in mind as you get your freelance business or franchise off the ground. You’ll want to seriously consider investing in efficient bookkeeping software.
• Consummate the Relationship Early On: As stressful and time-consuming as a day gig can feel (Did i mention soulless and thankless too?), remember that whether it’s your side business or you’re committing to a franchise or solo contracting biz full-on, it will take the guts and guts inside the guts out of you. What distinguishes this from all other relationships you’ve had in the past is your commitment to its success so be in it for the long haul .
• Don’t Start Every Bullet Point with a “K”: It’s ok to spice it up once in a while as I just reminded myself in the last bullet. The most interesting gigs I ever embarked on that eventually led to more serious professional relationships were started on a “trial” basis. It allows you to test the climate and the waters to know if you’re ready to jump in head first, especially relevant when going the freelancing route.

For more useful “starting your own franchise” information, go to AllBusiness.com.

I happened to catch the newly released soccer flick, “Rudo Y Cursi,” this weekend and while I’m no fan of soccer (much to the chagrin of my husband), I’m usually up for some Gael Bernal Garcia with a twist of Diego Luna. The former more than the latter, but no need to get choosy here.

The movie tells the story of two brothers – Rudo, played by Luna is the brighter and more motivated of the two and is determined to be a soccer star at all costs to himself and his family and then there’s Tato (nicknamed “Cursi”), the more likable of the two, and possibly the more talented, but also the more foolish one. Each of them has their own vice (for Rudo it’s gambling and cocaine; for Cursi it’s women and his short-sighted desire for fame in the form of becoming a singing sensation).

So while the movie is a cliche in its own right - not to mention another variation on the theme of what happens when you take 2 neglected hicks and feed them into a world of overnight success and lavish attention on them, there is something deeper that the flick hints at which I think a lot about in my own career – the distinction between passion and talent.

The most successful people are the ones that can objectively (if that’s possible) look inward and package their talents in a way that makes them desirable candidates for the work they pursue. It may not reflect their passion, but it speaks to their ability to know their strengths and work it to their advantage.

 While Cursi is drawn to music, soccer is the device that allows him to pursue his passion and what makes him such a tragic figure is that he unabashedly takes for granted the very thing that enables him to follow his passion.

But the glib side of me thinks, “How much $$ is this guy shitting through and complaining about?”

For many of us our day jobs aren’t our passion. In my vernacular, this then translates to it not being my career. The tension builds to frustration when our talents ARE completely aligned with our passion, and yet we can’t seem to make it work so that our day job = talent + passion.

But I also think it important to not take for granted the very thing that acts as my form of self-expression for the 9-10 hours I work a day because as John Lennon might suggest, “Your career is what happens when you’re busy making things happen all day long.”

Taken from Recentlylaidoff.com

Last week I had a short email exchange  with a former co-worker whom I had just learned  recently “resigned” from a former employer. Reading between the lines her version of “resigned” sounded like it might be more synonymous with another person’s “laid off.”

Either way she was out and onto better things, she assured me. The company wasn’t the same place she knew and it was time for a change. The longer and the more descriptive the back-story around her departure became, the less convinced I became of the amicable nature of it, but it got me to thinking about human behavior and the lengths we go to, to explain away our failures.

Don’t get me wrong. Failure might seem like a harsh descriptor in the scenario I’ve just described and while I don’t equate her imminent departure as one, judging by her reaction, she clearly did.

I’ve gotten the royal boot twice in my life and they were both in consecutive jobs. In the first, I was laid off after less than a month. It barely left a scratch on my resume or a dent in my career. In fact so small and insignificant was it, I left it out entirely from my resume rather than paying it any more airtime that it warranted.

The second job, however, made enough of a mark in my career and professional development to rear its head in job interviews. I debated going the “I left the job to pursue other activities” route, but in the end opted for an approach more true to my brand. In short, I ripped that band-aid right off and was upfront about the job – its strengths, the relationships I’d cultivated, the skillsets I’d developed.

As transparent as I was about the jobs strengths, I was also brutally honest about getting laid off. It’s never an easy convo, but after the 1st interview, subsequent ones were easier and I never left feeling shamed or incompetent, especially because I played up the desirable qualities I’d obtained as a result of this job.

It was a natural conversational piece and moreover, I kept it on the positive (employers love this) and started to gain a new appreciation for my former job and the person it allowed me to become. in fact, I felt strangely empowered and the point is, what I ended up projecting more often than not, to potential employers, was “What the heck was that employer thinking letting her go.”

I bring all of this up because listening to my former co-worker made me think of all the wounds a lifetime of professional experience will inevitably leave us. The ball’s in our court, however, with how we handle the situations life throws us. And as anyone who works in Marketing knows, it’s all about the angle.

And the spin. So think carefully about presentation and how you want to be perceived. If you’re lucky you won’t have to fake a thing.

The List

Last week was a marathon interview week for me. In fact, it was so intense it seems to have gone by in one big blur of a nanosecond. Long story short I had two job offers on the table and ended up deciding on one of the places. How did I arrive at my decision? Well, it wasn’t incredibly easy but it was a well-informed one that required a plan.

In an effort to help other job-seeking candidates in similar situations, I’ve bulleted out some key criteria to keep in mind when choosing on the right job for you. Heed them wisely. They come with a lot of wisdom and growing pains.

• We Can’t All Be Actors, But We Can All Have Defining Roles: Up until now, I’ve always been the type of person in my professional life that opts for place over role. This place has usually been a smaller company with a start-up vibe that gives a lot of lip service to words like “values” and “people.” The pay is never great in these gigs and the job I end up doing never what I’m promised, but as I’m a writer by trade and usually seek extra-curricular freelance opportunities, I figure I’ll get my creative/mental fix in the form of whatever I do outside of my day job. WRONG. (well, kinda…)
  This time I decided to put the premium on the role I would be playing at both companies and assessed both the short term (the day-to-day tasks, deliverables) and long-term (my career trajectory) and it was a no-brainer decision for me. I guess it really depends on where you are in your career. Certain things such as benefits and other corporate perks are also important, but at the end of the day you need to be happy with the work you’re contributing and dare I say, “the difference you’re making” to feel truly fulfilled.
• Straight Talk: If you can avoid going through a 3rd party staffing agency, I would highly recommend it. It’s important to create as direct a line as you can with your future employer. If not, this dynamic can spill into every aspect of your relationship which can only hurt you. Leverage a company’s internal HR when it comes to negotiating for pay, but I would steer clear of going through a 3rd party when you’re negotiating in general. You want to be able to own that relationship and as long as someone else is brokering it, unfortunately, you’ll never have a stake in the opportunity and might lose out big-time.
• Be Open & In And Around “The Box”: I went in for a job interview for a Marketing position last week. Well, I didn’t get it, but I walked out with a spiffy new contact and a potential freelance opportunity that interests me way more than the job I was interviewing for.
• You Can Have it All…You Just Can’t Sleep: I used to think that if I worked full-time I couldn’t do freelance. The reality is that I’m a pretty driven and dedicated day worker and this sometimes flows into night so this can impede my ability to have time left over for freelance/side projects. What I have learned from freelancing in the past few months and working under tight deadlines is that I can spend a weekend working non-stop and pull all-nighters. Will I want to make a career of doing this? Depends on the freelance opportunity and what it might bring me.
• Do Your Due Dilligence: Research the companies you’re interested in working for. Go to their websites and check their “investor relations” section to see their annual reports. These are for public consumption. Do some comparative analytics to see that the company is healthy and not going anywhere anytime soon. Also check the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal and the local papers where the company is located.