Mike MacLeod

Idea For My Unemployed Friends

// March 23rd, 2009 // Journal

Ok, this idea isn’t just for those of you that are unemployed.  It could be for those of you that are sick of where you are right now in your career.

Most of you are looking for your next position in another huge company.  I know because many of you have asked me for help finding you that position.  I’m glad you did ask too because nothing is better than helping a friend, especially when they are feeling pretty low. I’m keeping my eyes and ears open for all of you.

But why not take this time in your life to try something scary? What have you got to lose?

Go out on your own. Or call a few colleagues that are in the same boat as you and start your own partnership.

You don’t know anything other than your specialty? Perfect.  Work at specializing the hell out of that specialty and outsource the rest. Everything can be outsourced today – data collection, tabs, coding, translations, even report writing, if that’s not your thing.

So maybe you need one (yes, just one) person to oversee the outsourcing while you’re impressing the hell out of your clients.

Now just think of your part.  What can you do differently from what you were doing before?

You can think beyond the next 90 days because you don’t need to worry about the stock price.

You can follow your own processes that fit you and your clients and not the ones that have been homogenized for 1,000 other employees and hundreds of other clients.

You can do way more for a lot less because your overhead is close to zero.

You can focus on a small niche and be very successful – you don’t need to get 60% of Microsoft’s business.  0.6% will probably make you very happy.

If you really want to work for a huge company, that’s not bad and I’ll still help you as much as I can.  I still work for a big company and I’m happy.

But think things through.  What have you got to lose?