Can you handle the risk factor?

Tags

business, career change, freedom, new start, second job, self-employment

It’s a risk trying anything new.

Starting anything new involves risk.
A new relationship.
A new job.
A new course of study.
A new brand of coffee (come on, we’ve all been disappointed when we switch from our favourite coffee and try something new.)

Taking the leap, accepting the risk inherent in setting up your own business for the first time can be exhilarating and incredibly stressful, once the novelty has worn off.
The risk factor exists in all businesses, in all industries.

It doesn’t matter if you provide products or services, there is a risk involved if you are in business and if anyone tells you something is ‘risk’ free, run a mile. Nothing is.

What to consider is how you minimise the risk involved.

For example, setting up a service based business on the side of your full-time job: i.e. nail technician or Mary Kay Independent Consultant.
Or only renting a premises on a short lease for your business, rather than committing to buying a place.

The risk is minimised, managed.
That’s why, in my own career, I found Mary Kay to be the perfect stepping stone to self-employment: the risk is minimal.

There is training.
There is support.
You set the goal posts on your earnings, your rewards and in turn the hours that you work.

It is the perfect business to start alongside your existing job.
Thus, the risk factor is drastically minimised.(And it is SO much fun.)
How do you plan on reducing the risk factor as you set up your own business?

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Do you have the confidence to sell?

Tags

business, career change, join us, Mary Kay, professionalism, self-employment

I am always talking about how having your own business is a way to freedom and success.
How your efforts always benefit you.
If you’ve been considering going into business, you might be worrying yourself about how to sell with confidence.

You don’t want to be pushy, but friendly warm and above all confident.

Often in my industry, direct marketing (in any sphere) many people will complain that their friend’s new direct marketing business is ruining their friendship, that their friend is now regularly selling to them.

This always smacks of a total lack of confidence to me.

Your friends are a safe market to sell to, you already know them and feel comfortable talking to them. If you only plan on selling to your friends, your business will fail.
It doesn’t matter if you are in direct marketing, a graphic designer or a personal trainer you will not make enough money selling to your friends.

If selling makes you nervous, if talking to strangers makes you start to sweat I strongly recommend you volunteer in the shop for your favourite charity so that you get comfortable talking to strangers: as your success hinges upon that skill.

Tips on selling:
1. Listen. Give the client what they want.
2. Use your friends as ‘word of mouth’.
3. Go to events where people are looking for your services: not events about your industry alone.
4. Ask questions so you can serve them better.
5. Be friendly.
6. Approach new people. For example, in my career with Mary Kay I took part in the 100 faces, 100 days Challenge and it changed my business forever.

Confidence is what separates your dream from reality, and it can be learned.
Are you tempted to start your own Mary Kay business? Contact me here for more advice!

Retired? Bored

Tags

business, career change, freedom, Mary Kay, new start, self-employment

Retirement can be such an exciting time.
Finally, you have the time and the freedom to do exactly what you want.
Spend the quality time you want with your family, your children and your grandchildren.
Go on a long, long holiday to Cornwall for the entire summer (or anywhere else you fancy!)
At last your time is all yours to do with what you want.
What if you miss working though? Maybe not the long hours, or the tedious paperwork or your boss but do you miss the camaraderie of your colleagues? That feeling you have when you leave work, and you know you’ve made a difference, however small, you achieved something.

It’s normal to miss that, or to feel slightly lost without your career.
Who says you need to end your career, only because you’re retired?
Retirees have an abundance of skills needed on the job market today,

But personally why should you work for someone else when you have the experience and capabilities to set up your own business? I like to think of retirement as a chance to stop working for someone else and start working for you. If your only reason is financial, you will make more money working for yourself rather than anyone else, and you can maintain all the perks of retirement like freedom and flexibility with your own business.

http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2013/aug/02/starting-a-business-after-retirement

If you aren’t ready to go it alone entirely, a Mary Kay business might the right option for you as full training and support is given (and with incredibly low start up cost of £100 for the full size kit there isn’t an easier way to set up your own business.)
Other resources to check out are:
Business Gateway
And Mature Entreprises

Turn redundancy into a chance to change your career

Tags

business, career change, company, freedom, join us, new start, professionalism, work life balance

It can be like this. (image source unknown)

Redundancy

It’s all too common experience during this recession. Redundancy.

Being made redundant can be overwhelming, the worries about money, finding another job before your redundancy pay runs out can take its toll on you emotionally, spiritually and even physically in terms of stress and anxiety.

Unsurprisingly, given how competitive the job market still is even as the country drags its way out of recession, many who have been made redundant choose to take a chance and jump into self-employment and set up a business.

Redundancy can be a chance to change careers, to do something entirely different without any of the hassles of deciding to leave your day job.

The question is, with so many businesses that fail in the first year (and failure never kills anyone) how do you make a low-risk start into setting up your own business: one that doesn’t involve spending ALL your redundancy pay?

Well, there are the classic options such as:

Volunteering in the field you’d like to work: taking a chance to see if it will be the right fit for you.

Create a portfolio: if you want to set yourself up as a service provider, do ten projects for free and track the results your work brings, following up thereafter.

You can pursue a new field of study

Or, you can choose a Mary Kay career, where you can start off your own business from as little as £29 (for the sample size case) or commit completely with the £100 kit (with £200 worth of full-size products). Full training and support is provided as you grow into your role as Independent Beauty Consultant.

Have you been made redundant and are deciding on a total career change? What do you want to do? If your own Mary Kay business sounds like it might be a good fit for you check out my posts here:

 

https://ericawallaceuk.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/crusade-for-beauty-a-stand-against-mary-kay-critics/

https://ericawallaceuk.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/calling-all-mature-students-studying-and-working/

https://ericawallaceuk.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/how-i-got-started-with-mary-kay/

What are you saving for?

Tags

ambition, back to work, career change, freedom, second job, self-employment

Truth.

Dreams
The good things in life never come free or easy, so people say.
So many of us struggle to scrimp and save to fund our dreams.
A brand new car. A pair of ridiculously expensive shoes that make you feel like you’re in a Fellini film. A one of a kind holiday to somewhere you’ve ALWAYS wanted to go – those dreams, hopes and desires that get pushed back year, after year, after year because real life gets in the way.

Real life with it’s tedious demands destroy dreams: got to fix a broken boiler, there £1000 gone from your dream fund (that took you seven years to save) to keep you and your family warm. Which is fine you think, I’ll start again, but real life keeps on happening and digging into your dream fund.

So many of us think that this is just how it is, that your dreams aren’t that necessary.

You’ll scrimp and save off your usual salary and maybe you manage the super expensive shoes, but the new car and that dream holiday never appear.

What if this isn’t how it’s supposed to be?

What if you could change something, one small thing to achieve EVERYTHING you want.

You need to look beyond your usual job to achieve your dreams.
You need to have direct control over how much you earn. Where your hard work and ingenuity are pay off, where you don’t need to bow and scrape to get a promotion, where you can earn extra income.

Setting up your own small flexible business lets you achieve your dreams.
You can set it up on the side of your main job in anything that helps others that people will pay for.

Setting up my own business with Mary Kay changed my life in every way imaginable- and more people should experience the joy of watching their dreams come true.
If you want to make your dreams a reality and want to know more about how ridiculously easy it to set up a thriving business with Mary Kay contact me here.

What are you going to do once you STOP being a housewife?

Tags

back to work, career change, housewife, new start

Truer words never spoken

What happens after you’ve taken say a five-year break from your original career to raise your children, and you want to try something COMPLETELY different?

So many women wrongly feel that their professional skills have atrophied since they chose to stay at home looking after their children. That at best you’ll be stuck doing what they did before, perhaps at a slightly less senior position, because now you must have the option of flexibility.
That could not be further from the truth.
You’ve SO many options.
There’s the Open University- so flexible with such a vast range of courses; perhaps this is the perfect way to retrain around your responsibilities? http://www.open.ac.uk/

There is always the option of volunteering in your preferred area to gain insight or understanding of what it would actually be like to work in a new field, just by dipping your toe in so that you have little risk and commitment . Check out http://www.volunteerscotland.net/

Setting up a Mary Kay business is an excellent way of learning new skills. There are so much training and support for you! Plus the sheer fun that comes with meeting new people and teaching women how to look after their skin and earn great money into the bargain. A Mary Kay business is a fantastic low-risk way to start your journey into self-employment.

What are you considering for your career post-house wife?

Are you ready for a career change? Are you curious about starting a Mary Kay business?

Get in touch with me, I can help advise you if a Mary Kay business is right for you.