Turning a Hobby into a Second Career

June 30, 2011 by 4 Comments
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So, your now at the age when you are beginning to consider what your retirement years are going to look like. You have come to the conclusion that that retirement account along with Social Security just might not be enough. You want to stay active and believe that you have something special to offer both to your community as well as to a business that fits into your life.

Where do you start? What could you do? Is there something you could study, plan, and even begin on a part-time basis that could be that awesome second career after you leave your current job, profession, or business?

One place to start looking is at those things you do now at a hobby level. Things you love to do, get excited about, and that could be expanded into something fun and profitable.

You may be a gardener who could turn your love of gardening into a “farmers market” styled business. You may create jewelry or create wooden masterpieces that could be sold online or at craft fairs. You might love golf and could parlay that love into a custom fitting and repair business.

The possibilities are endless, but before you launch you need to ask yourself five very specific questions:

1. Is this something that I will enjoy doing/will be able to do for the rest of my productive years?
2. Is this something that I am willing to research and prepare for as I am ending my primary career?
3. How much am I willing to spend in time, energy, and resources to get this new venture off the ground?
4. How quickly do I have to make a profit once I begin?
5. How does a business like this fit into my retirement plans?

Turning a hobby into a business can take one of two tacks. It can either be an incredibly fulfilling second career or it can damage/destroy your love for a hobby. I have many retire friends who have considered carefully the value their hobby had in the community and in doing so created very successful second careers. I believe you can too!  If you take your time and understand how success is created and maintained.

What do you think about making you hobby your second career? Can you share a success story with us about you or someone you know who did this? What are some hobbies that seem to be best suited for a second career?

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Is it Time to Start Blogging?

June 29, 2011 by 4 Comments
Internets = srs.biz. Parody motivator.

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Most of the time when I ask a business owner the question, “Is it time to start blogging?” I can pretty much predict the answer. “I don’t have time to blog, I don’t know have anything to blog about, and nobody is going to read it anyway. Now, I don’t know that any of these answers is true, but they are definitely the first response of most business owners. However, if we stay with the conversation it isn’t long before most of these business owners at least come to understand that a blog could become a part of their marketing strategy if they wanted it to be.

So how do you know if it is time to start blogging? I want to share three tests to determine the viability of a blog for your business:

1. Do you have something valuable to say? Blogging works, and gains followers when the blogger has something to say. Business blogs need to provide insight, answers, and instruction in the area of that business. They also need to do these things in an entertaining way that causes people to return often.

2. Are you willing to spend time in the development of your blog posts? Just like any form of marketing, advertising, and public relations, blogs need time and attention. Lots and lots of businesses start blogs because they are the “cool” thing to do and then find out that to make them work takes time and effort. One post deadline missed leads to another and before long the blog sits unattended. The readers it had gained are quickly off to someone else. In the end blogging is blamed and abandoned for good.

3. Are you willing to listen to learn how blogging can bring you both new and repeat business. Blogging is the beginning of a well thought out online strategy that is ever evolving in the fast paced world of the internet. Your blogging efforts need to evolve with these changes and you need to stay educated on these changes. Those who do can grow a large leadership and will find their blog to be both a pleasant diversion from the day to day as well as a power marketing and business identity tool.

If you think that it is time for you/your company to start blogging, do three things: (1) start by learning, (2) find someone who can help you through the process, and (3) create a plan first!

What do you think? What other thoughts should a potential blogger consider? How has your blog benefited your business?

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Know Yourself – Show Yourself!

June 28, 2011 by 14 Comments
business,accounts,accountant,office,boss,manag...

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I have the pleasure of meeting with a group of incredible people on Tuesday mornings every week. We are a pretty eclectic bunch from business owners to independent contractors to the marketing coordinator for a local firm. Our conversations revolve around the creative/innovative ideas that cause us to wonder.

Today we were talking and as things so happened my business came up. I was sharing with the group that my business has evolved since its inception about nine months ago from a “blogging and social media” company to one in which I work to help companies identify themselves and who they want to be as a company and then help them build (I used the word brand) themselves according to who they have identified themselves to be.

The word “branding” stuck out in a negative way with the group, because it represented to them something contrary to what they know my business to be. That led to the group assessing my new tagline “Teaching the art of business and the business of success!” (I thought it was pretty cool!) However the group pointed out (correctly I might add) that the new tag line had broadened the perceived scope of my business rather than narrowing it as I had intended.

About an hour later I got an email from Maxine. She said that she had been thinking about the conversation and had come up with the phrase, “Know yourself, show yourself!” I read it and the lights came on. I was so struck by the possibilities (because this is really the core of what I do) that I drove by her office to tell her so.

I am telling you this story because most of us who are in the Boomer generation are looking at second careers and really want this one to be about who we are, what makes us happy, and how we can impact the world around us. For us to meet these very general goals and to live the second half of our lives in powerful ways, we need to follow Maxine’s advice (and now my new, new tagline): “Know yourself, show yourself.”

If, in the development of a second career we can’t enjoy every day, then we might as well stay where we are doing what we have been doing. But if we are going to build a second career, we need to build it around who we are at our core. Once we have made those decisions, we need to develop our on and offline marketing strategies to show us in the light of our core being.

Thanks again to my Local Ten group for helping me see things clearly and for Maxine in particular for stating my essence as seen through her eyes! You are all awesome and I am privileged to be able to share creative and innovative thoughts with you!

In what ways does your “second career business” show off who you are? What have you done to come to know yourself? How are you molding what you know into what people see?

PS – The cartoon doesn’t really have anything to do with this article, unless of course my second career becomes a great success. Then it will be filled with meaning! (Love you Gramma!)
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How to Start a Second Career

June 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This is the third article in a series of articles entitled: Business on Your Terms. I hope that you will take time to read all the posts in this series and will add your thoughts to the conversation.

I have always been the kind of person who has never seen a bad business deal. Well at least that was my perception …. until, of course, I was in the middle of things with tremendous  amounts of time and money invested and few dollars clearing my bottom line. The real problem wasn’t the “deal” it was the fact that I chose to jump in without the proper consideration/planning.

So, as I now counsel people about how to start a second career, I really want them to consider and plan in three very important ways: what, how, and why.

What? When boomers start to consider a second career, usually one of two things happen. Either they look at businesses that, in terms of time at least, are nothing more than buying or building a job. If that’s not the case, they want to make tens of thousands of dollars with no work, no effort, and on a couple hours per week! Neither of these ideas make a perfect second career. Being honest about what you want from a second career will set you on your way.

How? Once you have decided what you want, how to get there is the next part of the plan. Do you want to sell something produced by someone else or sell something that you produce yourself. How much can you charge and how can you market your new business to bring in new clients/customers.

Once you understand what and how, you need to consider why? Why do you want to do what you have chosen? What does your second career do to make your life better? When you get up in the morning does your second career fit into the perfect retirement life-style.

This whole idea about how to start a second career needs to be well thought out. Each of us will have different answers to the what, how, and why thus creating an myriad of great businesses that “turn the crank” of the owner while providing unmeasurable customer service.

What you are you thinking about as you consider your second career? How much planning do you think is necessary? When do you quit planning and “pull the trigger?”

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Never Compromise Your Essence

June 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This is the final article of my five part series: Five Steps to Business Success. Building a business that is successful requires lots of things, but the thing that outweighs them all is: Never Compromise Your Essence!

This idea of your essence is one that is not often considered by people starting a business or business people who are looking to expand an existing business. However, in my opinion, it is the single most valuable consideration. Let me explain:

One’s essence is the person that they are at their very core. It is what makes them tick, what gets them up in the morning, the thing that keeps them up at night or provides them the sleep of a baby. It is who they are and the truth that they cannot get away from. To build a business while ignoring your essence is like proclaiming as truth something that you know is a lie.

This said, business owners/entrepreneurs set out nearly everyday to build or create businesses without even considering how these businesses will co-exist with their essence. Will their sense of honor allow for “little white lies?” Will their quiet nature keep them from “asking for the sale?” Will their outgoing and bombastic character drive customers away? You see, who you are at the core does effect your business and to deny or cover your essence will make your business a hurtful thing to your life.

My suggestion: Never compromise your essence!

Take time to examine yourself, find your essence, and then build your business around who you are at your core. Make your values the companies values. Make what is important to you important to the company. Let your personality become the personality of the company. Instead of molding your life around your business, mold your business around your life.

I don’t think that there is anything more important to a business owner/start-up entrepreneur than to discover their essence and to never compromise your essence to anything or anyone. Be you and build your business to reflect you!

Lesson five:  Never compromise your essence!

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Business Options for Boomers

June 23, 2011 by 18 Comments
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This is the second article in a series of articles entitled: Business on Your Terms. I hope that you will take time to read all the posts in this series and will add your thoughts to the conversation.

As I have shifted my business attention back to my generation in recent weeks, I have again realized how important that shift has been (particularly to me personally). As I have begun to really study the issues related to unemployment and the US economy it is sad to see that the group who have been out of work the longest and who are finding it most difficult to be re-hired are boomers.

Today I want to suggest some business options for boomers. What can we do? How can I take what I know and turn it into a successful business?

For most boomers traditional business options are either cost prohibitive or require way more time than we are ready to dump into a second career. So for us, home office or “coffee shop” office businesses work well. (I am writing this post from one of my convenient “coffee shop locations.”)

Boomers are developing consulting businesses, some are creating hobby based businesses, some are using their teaching skills to become professional speakers, many are considering direct sales/network marketing businesses, and still others are opening Mom and Pop stores.

I have a friend who worked in the grocery industry for over thirty years. When it was time for him to retire and consider a second career, he looked to his love for golf as a source for his new business. He moved from his Washington home to Palm Springs and began to build/repair golf clubs for the seniors that lived in Palm Springs. Running his business from his home (surrounded by retirees who played lots of golf) was the perfect business for him. He loved what he did and his customers loved being able to get things done right next door.

Another boomer is transitioning out of an engineering position into a consulting business for small engineering firms/companies building commercial buildings. It is simpler and more cost effective for these firms to hire him as a consultant than to pay for a full time employee with his skills.

What I am trying to get at is that for the boomer who has a life time of developed skills, the opportunities are really endless. All anyone needs to do is to take the right amount of time to plan, to determine what you want to do/see done, and to make sure that you know how to implement your business plan from the outset.

What do you think? What kinds of “boomer” businesses have you seen started successfully? What advice to you have for someone looking at a second career?

 

 

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Genuine Relationships Equal Success

June 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment
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This is part four of my five part series: Five Steps to Business Success. Today we are going to look at how building genuine relationships equal success.

I had the privilege yesterday to meet with a local group of business people. Some own their own businesses, some work for large companies and non-profits, and some work for local companies. But, what they all had in common was that they were there looking to build business relationships.

It is easy in our high tech world to get caught up in the hype that you can build a long-term, successful business via the internet and never have any contact with clients or customers. The truth is, at least for the vast majority of us, we want to know who we are doing business with. We want at least a business oriented relationship. We want to trust the people we work with and we want to know that they will be loyal to us/our needs.

This kind of trust and loyalty requires genuine relationships. Relationships born of a two-way trust, loyalty, and dare I say even friendship! Now, I know that when I go to the grocery store, any cashier will do, but I also know that when a cashier has a unique and friendly personality, I do search them out. Their making my experience better does bring my into a more loyal position with that particular grocery store. (I have even changed stores when my favorite employee was transferred!)

Among small businesses and entrepreneurs, this building of genuine relationships equal success in even more powerful ways:

1. These kinds of relationships build loyalty and trust. (Key ingredients to long-term success.)
2. These kinds of relationships make referrals easy to give.
3. These kinds of relationships create reciprocal business exchanges.

So, as I spent time at the networking event last night, I met at least a dozen new people, passed around about that many business cards, and talked and listened for about two hours. Now what comes of these encounters is up to me. If genuine relationships come from this event it will be because I move from introduction to knowledge, and from knowledge to relationship, and from relationship to business.

Don’t underestimate the value of genuine relationships.

Genuine relationships equal success!

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Business on Your Terms

June 20, 2011 by 7 Comments
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This is the first in a series of articles entitled: Business on Your Terms. I hope that you will enjoy what you read and will add your thoughts to the conversation.

Boomers around the world have so much to offer and after a life filled with doing what needed to be done it is time, that if you choose to launch a second career, you do business on your terms. In this series I hope to define exactly what this means and how boomers can find both the business and the terms that best suit the way they want to live and give in the second half of a very successful life and business. No matter where you came from to get to this point, nor where you want to head in the days ahead, you need to set the bar and then go for it!

I want to warn you at the outset that there will be those around you who will seek to set the pace for you, to tell you what you should and should not do, and even set out to steal your dream for this second career. It always seems that “know-it-alls” and “dream stealers” find their way into our lives just about the time we are going to do something great. I’m not saying that you should move without counsel, but I am saying that if the world had always listened to the detractors, we would still be hunting and gathering to survive.

We boomers have the knowledge and skill-set to do anything we set our minds to. As you approach retirement, or as you live in its early years, is there something you always wanted to do? Is there something that you always knew deep down inside that you could make successful? Have you always thought that if you just had a chance you could do something special? Well, now might just be the time. Be careful, be thoughtful, be prepared, but in the end build a business on your terms!

What have you done in this area? What have you chosen to do? What battles have you had to fight? Let us know and let’s get a conversation started that will help us make the best choices for the launching of our second careers!

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Making Use of the Social Network

June 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment
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This is part three of my five part series: Five Steps to Business Success. Today we are going to delve into the world of the social web and the benefits that online social networking brings to your business. Part three: Making use of the social network!
Most business owners these days know about social networking and the social web. Many have even tried to incorporate some aspects of these online networks into their businesses. Some blog, some have LinkedIn profiles, some have Facebook fanpages, still others make some use of Twitter and even YouTube. Yet, the vast majority of business owners who are making use of the social web cannot point to how do so makes their businesses stronger or more successful. After a while the intensity of their efforts in these areas diminishes and the taste in their mouths becomes bitter to anything online/social media based.

The problem that seems most prevalent among businesses discouraged by their foray into the social network is that, because it is free and easy to get started, most business owners do so without creating a strategy or ways to measure the success of their efforts. Then to make the situation even more difficult, there are tens of thousands of people claiming to be “gurus” who provide advice in such generalities that know business can begin to know what is best for them.

Let me give you five suggestions that might help you in making use of the social network:

1. Find someone who can help you understand the whole social network landscape. Trial and error works, but it usually is very frustrating and can be detrimental to your bottom line desires.
2. Do not attempt to be an expert in all areas of the social network all at once. Your best bet is to learn each of the primary business components one or two at a time. (The primary business components are: a Blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.)
3. Create a social networking strategy and stick to it, making adjustments only when they will better serve you, your clients, and your business goals.
4. Be consistent in your online presence. Don’t start and then stop. I have done this and if there comes a time to “re-start” you will find yourself further behind the proverbial eight ball than if you hadn’t started in the first place.
5. Live your essence online. What I mean by this is that you need to be the same person online as you are offline. The social web gives you a lot of opportunity to create an online persona that is really not who you are. Don’t get caught up in this. Just be yourself and live your essence online. People will become loyal to you when they know the you online is the you everywhere else.

When you get comfortable with the social network, you will see how easily it can work for you to make you business much more successful than it would/could be without it!

How do you use the social network? What have you learned that you could share with newbies? How has your business become more successful because of your place on the social web?

 

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Questions to Ask Before Launching a Second Career

June 17, 2011 by 2 Comments
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A sad statistic I have heard repeated for some time now is that in the United States more than 80% of working adults don’t like their jobs/careers. That is a staggering number to me, yet if you understand the educational system that has been in place for nearly 100 years, it isn’t as surprising as it seems. (That’s a topic for another time.)

With this statistic being what it is, those of us who are thinking about or embarking on a second career ought to take some time and ask some questions first! I have talked with may soon-to-be retirees who want to have a second career, but aren’t sure where to start. Others think that they have an idea about what they want to do, but don’t have any ideas about how to begin.

Here are some questions to ask before launching a second career:

1. What gets you up in the morning? I personally think that this question is the most important of any that could be asked. This question speaks to the “essence” of you. Who you are at the core and how that person wants to express themselves in business. I don’t know anyone who wants to start a second career that doesn’t excite them every single day.

I know a “car guy” who can’t wait to get to his used car lot everyday. I know a 72 year old man who started his “dream business” just over 2 years ago. I know school teachers who have retired to become productive and excited Realtors and Home business entrepreneurs. These are people excited about life and passionate about what they do. Their second careers are an expression of their essence.

2. How hard do you want to work? Buying a franchise requires a lot more time and effort than a small home-based consulting firm. Only you can decide what hours you are willing to spend at work, but its something you should have thought through before you take the leap.

3. Where do you want to work? Are you going to set up a brick and mortar business? Are you going to work from a home office? Do you want to be able to work from “cyber-space?” All of these options have pros and cons, so you need to decide what best fits your retirement plans.

4. What value do you have to offer? If you don’t really understand the value that you can bring to your potential clients/customers it will be difficult to make any business grow.

5. What new things are you willing to learn? In any new business venture there are things that you must learn to be successful. Are you willing to learn new things, do things that are uncomfortable, or change direction in your new career? Remember you are not doing what you did before and everything new has new challenges and new rules!

Now, I know that these are relatively simple questions, but as I have worked with boomers, I am surprised how many haven’t thought to ask them. Don’t get caught with no well thought out answers to these questions. A successful launching of your second career lies in the balance.

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