What is it about our species that we must always be moving forwards in whatever endeavors we embark upon?
I had a very good position with a large multi-national technology company. I had started out at the bottom rung and with diligence and long hours I progressed very rapidly.
The job was always interesting and challenging, which meant I was never bored.
As I later discovered, that this was the greatest motivator. If your responsibilities are always changing and growing, you have no time to become frustrated or bored with life.
As time went by I was given the opportunity to travel to far-flung branches to teach the branch staff and to lecture to customers and potential customers about the subject of the time, as the designated “expert”. This inferred trust in me as an employee and gave me the confidence to start making my own
decisions on behalf of the company.
Everything was fine until I arrived at my seventh year with the company. We had through the latter years achieved many pioneering services to the Banking Industry and were building a reputation for excellent installations. But like everyone in those days, we thought that we were all things to all men and begun to get involved in other industries which were not part of our core business. I guess the markets were so small in the early days, that one or two markets were not sustainable for a rapidly growing marketer as we were.
Anyhow, I was designated to head up an industrial scientific inventory package from our Head office, to market a canned package solution in a market where the norm was bespoke, tailored systems. This again was a pioneering effort. The management had no qualms about this as the previous campaigns had been so successful.
This time around, however, it was a spectacular failure. Despite doing free trials by taking one or two products out of a prospect’s line and capturing all the data to demonstrate real live reporting we got no sales. Zero! Nada!
Somehow this rubbed off on me personally and suddenly I was no longer the flavor of the month. My career took a dive and I was told to go into Sales as a Junior rep for a small range of products. This was not acceptable and for the first time in my career with the company, I lacked motivation.
During my time in the Inventory Control package venture, I had occasions to address many audiences in the Inventory Control arena, especially other consultants at Inventory Control Society monthly meetings. At one such event, I must have impressed one consultant. He approached me to have lunch.
At the lunch, he proposed that I buy into his consultancy as an equal partner and join him full time. This, of course, was very flattering and a boost to my ego. The thought of having my own business with the freedom of making one’s own decisions was very appealing.
In retrospect, I wonder at the naivety of my actions, which today appear startling, as I jumped in without due diligence or investigation of any sort.
He only had one consultancy job at the time, and soon after I started we landed a job to re-organize the offices of a large publisher, to an open plan, and prevent the expense of adding more floors to the building. (Not exactly Inventory Control.)
No sooner had we signed the deal when my partner informed me that he was going to relocate his family about 2000 miles away for the duration of his tenure to complete a PhD. degree. I was therefore expected me to run the business on my own until he returned. This meant that I was expected to consult on the two jobs, and sell our services for future jobs! As by this time I was fully committed, there was no way to back out.
That evening I ended up at a pub frequented by my old colleagues, most of whom said write it off and re-join the firm. The next day I received a call from one of them who was not at the pub the previous night. He said he had heard from a mutual friend, that I was not happy. He then made a proposition which changed my direction and life for the next five years.
We leave that story for another time. The point of this story is that to go into business for yourself requires much research and due diligence. Make sure you know what you are getting into.
One way I know is a company which is offering a 7 day trial on a business education course if you have 45 minutes a day to go through their material, meet, on Skype, with one of their coach/consultants, as though you had signed up for the full course. This trial will only cost you $7.
Then, for a further $40 you can complete the 21-step course. At the end of it, you will be fully aware of all that is necessary to start your own on-line full or part time business, utilizing “Big Ticket” affiliate marketing. What have you got to lose?
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