Creating More Options For Your Future
By Cheval John
Disclaimer: I am an Amazon Affiliate and I receive a commission based off of recommendations of books.
I remembered the day I “received” my first college degree.
The atmosphere was really cool on that May of 2008 evening.
Mind you, I had already graduated with my Associates Degree in December of 2007.
The community college system decided to hold one ceremony for people who had graduated the previous fall, about to graduate in the spring and summer time.
For four years, I was working towards obtaining the first degree which led to me receiving my Bachelor’s Degree in 2009.
I had started college late at the age where most was receiving their degrees.
I was so focused on getting the degree as quick as I could that I prolonged the process of earning the degree.
I had seen many people who was making the money at their dream job thanks to the degree that they held.
It was standard for anyone who had a degree to obtain the great job with a great salary.
I was so ready to get out of the quote and quote part time job and joining the workforce where I thought people were working at a “stable” job.
I was soaking it all in and realizing that I was one step closer to finally joining the workforce and being able to finally achieve financial independence.
As the graduation ceremony went on, the speaker, who was a professor at the community college system, spoke about the different reasons of having a college degree.
One of the reasons he gave was the fact that you had more “options.”
Now when I heard that, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Sure I already knew the importance of a college degree.
I spent time looking at all of the statistics of the earning potential of those who held a college degree.
Like this one by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2008 report via the American Radio Works.com website which stated that a person who held an associate degree had a median earning of $42,000 while a person who held a bachelor’s degree had median earnings of $55,700 dollars.
The same report indicated that a person with a Master’s Degree had an earning of $91,000 and a doctorate degree holder would have a median earning of $100,000.
With those numbers, I had felt that I had finally achieved the goal of earning a college degree.
And according to the professor who had spoke about having more “options” because of the degree, I was thinking that I was very close to breaking out of the “unstable” part-time jobs.
Many did not foresee what was about to happen later in 2008.
Everyone was living the life because of the U.S. economy being stable.
The ones who were working in the stable jobs had the degrees and also seemingly had more options.
That statement of having more options with a college degree would not remain true thanks to the sudden “Great Recession” that took everyone by surprise.
The housing bubble burst.
Lehman Brothers went under and Fannie Mae was also under.
Stocks drop to a point that it caused panic in Wall Street.
The ones who were living the high life and were at their respective companies were suddenly out of work.
They did not see the sudden layoff coming.
The so-called “American Dream” of where people have the stable job and the white picket fence was over.
Even with the stock market rebounding, companies are still not hiring.
That is leaving many to wonder when the “middle class” was going to return so that everything will return back to normal.
What they don’t realize is that we are in the “New Normal.*”
They don’t understand that the jobs are permanently gone because companies are shipping most of the jobs overseas because it is saving them money.
I can say for certain that I saw this first hand when a newspaper shut down the sports reporter position after the original person left.
They saw it as an efficient way to save the paper more money.
What many should be doing right now is to create their own work and be in control of their destiny.
According to this article by Vivian Giang of Business Insider.com, 40% of the American workforce will be freelancers by 2020.
So if they are at the stable job and are making a living, they should create a side business so when they do get laid off, they will have something to supplement their income.
Nick Loper, who runs Side Hustle Nation.com, certainly has done a lot of side-hustle work over the years.
He has been an editor for authors, interviewed other people who have created side businesses that eventually led to their full time entrepreneurial journey on his Side Hustle Nation podcast, have written 6 books including repurposing his last two books from his podcast, “The Side Hustle Path Parts 1 and 2,” etc.
You must create your own work, whether it is on the side or full time.
The reason is you will have more options when the sudden layoff hits you.
Are you prepared for the New Normal? Have you created a side business? You can leave a comment below.
*Term New Normal was first said I believe by Hank Blank
The Flexibility Of Being A Small Business
By Cheval John
Photo Courtesy of Dream Designs
Everyone is celebrating national small business week.
It is in honor of all of the small businesses which plays a huge part in the United States economy.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2014 report, they were 28,443,856 small businesses currently in operation in the U.S.
The majority of the small businesses are non-employers (22,735,915).
Though these non-employer businesses would like to have employees, they probably enjoy being solopreneurs.
Another thing that you can factor in with these solopreneurs is the fact that their non-employer businesses could be side businesses because they are taking the small steps towards full-time entrepreneurship while they are at their current full time work.
One of the best things that small businesses have over the larger corporations is the flexibility to pivot when the market changes.
They do not have to worry too much about letting go of their workers if the economy is in a recession.
Though this is great news, you might still have the “I do not have enough money blues” to compete with the larger corporations.
That is not the mindset to have because you can still compete against the larger businesses even if you do not have the “large budget.”
Despite having “limited” resources, you have the ability to be very creative on how you market your product or services with the biggest game changer of all: SOCIAL MEDIA.
Social media is a place where anyone can interact with a person even if they are thousands of miles away.
With platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., you can be very creative in how your share your message.
My suspicion is that you are like many of the small businesses who understand that must engage with your audience on a daily basis to earn their trust and eventually a new customer.
You also realize that gaining the trust of the customer is a long term goal and that it will take time to earn their loyalty.
If a corporation want to get their message out in the world, they buy advertisements, sponsor television events like college football, basketball, etc. to get in front of the large audience that are tuning in to watch the events.
That is why the smartest companies, intuition says the majority of small businesses, are participating in group chats on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn to build their audience.
They are also blogging to showcase their expertise.
Like Stephanie Shirley, owner of Bennis Public Relations Inc.
She shares about the ups-and-downs of running a business through her company’s blog
Mrs. Shirley was very creative in building a loyal following of nearly 1,000 fans because she has been very transparent with her readers.
Because of her transparency, she has taken her business to the next level.
Another way that small businesses can market their product or services is through a podcast.
You might be thinking “Why not just a blog?”
Though blogging is very, very important, the blogosphere is over populated.
According to statista.com, there were 173 million blogs in the world in October of 2011.
That number has really increased tremendously since that report came out.
It is also possible that they are more blogs out there that are not currently active at the moment.
So the number of blogs could possibly be close to 400 million.
However, they are about 300,000 podcasts.
And with the amount of people who uses smartphones which is over a billion, that is a huge opportunity for small business owners to reach a global audience.
And iTunes reported in 2013 that they had over 1 billion subscriptions of podcast from their website.
Another thing to consider about podcasting is that Apple created the Carplay system in 2014 that allows anyone to connect their iPhone to their car’s dashboard.
The Carplay system is set to be in 50% of cars hopefully by the end of this year.
So with less competition and huge access to potential listeners, small businesses can start a podcast and build a loyal audience in addition to having a blog.
They also do not have to worry about being their true selves when they are sharing their message out to the world unlike the corporations.
So if you are a small business and are looking to take your business to the next level, consider starting a podcast and also a blog because it will allow you to grow your audience the right way and you will not have to worry too much about using a marketing budget to share your message.
That is something that larger companies will probably not be able to do because they will have to get approved from a hierarchy of executives before they can share their message.
What Does Five Years Of Work Experience Means?
By Cheval John
Photo Courtesy of Stuart Miles
You have probably seen this in job descriptions when you are looking for work.
The description that the employer post says they are looking for a person who have five years or more of work experience.
And the most frustrating part of this is most of the descriptions are probably for entry-level positions.
You might be thinking, “What Does Five Or More Years of Work Experience Really Means?”
It is “understandable” that employers are very choosy on who they hire.
They are the ones who are spending the money and want to be careful on who the right person for the position will be.
They are also burdened with the coverage of their employees.
And in this day and age, they don’t want to go through months and months of training the new employee on how their systems work which comes with a cost.
So if they can find a person who meets their requirements, it will save them a whole lot of money.
Though it is good news in the short term, it is bad in the long term.
What they don’t realize is that they are hindering their progress of hiring the right person because they are looking for that so-called, “Rock Star.”
They feel that the so-called “Rock Star” will solve their problems and over deliver.
At the same time, they believe that they will not have to pay them the salary they deserve.
When companies have that type of thinking of looking for the “rock star,” they are missing the very people who are very talented in plain sight.
And when they miss the talent, it is actually costing them more money than if they had hired the employee.
They are also causing low moral in their company because they have put pressure on the current employees to deliver great work with less resources.
And then they wonder why they can’t find the right people to fill their company’s position.
And if you are the person who are trying to find your dream job and are hindered when you see the required “five years of experience,” here are a couple of suggestions:
1. Get a Part-Time Job. The reason is because it will allow you to have consistent cash flow while you are waiting to achieve your ideal workplace
2. Start A Side Business. If you trying to get work that fit your skills like writing, public relations, etc., then starting a company or even “freelancing” your service will give you a head start in gaining your dream work. You might eventually love your “freelancing” business to the point that you might forget about seeking employment.
3. Have a Strong Social Media Presence: Everybody is an influencer. If you can showcase how efficient you are on social media, then you have a great chance of wowing your potential employer.
And the chances of building trust with CEOs, Human Resource professionals, etc. on group chats on social media, will put you ahead of everyone else who are only putting out resumes and hoping for someone to see it among equally great resumes.
4. Start A Podcast: Podcasting is the lowest of competitions out there. You could possibly interview the owner of a company and ask them about how they decided to create their business and get your foot in the door. In addition to this article I wrote for Millennial CEO, here is another reason why you should podcast. Yesterday, Spotify, which has 70 million listeners, announced that they are adding video and podcasting to their music streaming service. That is a huge opportunity for podcasters to gain more listeners in addition to iTunes and Stitcher. If that does not convince you, then I don’t know what will.
When you make a concerted effort to create your own opportunities, you might end up attracting the right employer who will see your talent.
That in turn will allow you to show them what they were missing when they were searching for that “rock star” employee.
Hopefully, they will finally see that the “five years of work experience” in their job description is not really relevant anymore.
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