Job holders can get a head start by starting their side businesses
Here’s the good news for jobholders.
You can future-proof yourself and increase your job security by starting a side business.
Contrary to popular belief, job security is not dead if you want to future-proof yourself.
In a 2014 research entitled Multiple Job Holding, Skill Diversification, and Mobility, the researchers found that individuals can use multiple jobs holding as a conduit for obtaining new skills and expertise.
These additional jobs can be stepping-stones to new or better careers. Even self-employment, if they choose to do so. These jobs give economic security and upward mobility.
What’s important to note is that having side businesses apart from just having regular 9-to-5 employment will give workers new or additional skills, knowledge, and expertise that will be immensely useful in the future.
The acquired skills, knowledge, and expertise through having side businesses can give us diversity and security of income, increased job security, and a strong foundation upon which we can go for that dream job or do the things that we love.
These side businesses are springboard jobs that could open up new doors and opportunities.
When you have a 9-to-5 job, starting a side hustle is much easier from a financial perspective.
There’s no intense pressure and stress to financially succeed to put food on the table and pay bills.
Having a regular salary or wage will give you a temporary buffer until the next crises occur. Things like retrenchments and organisational re-structures are becoming more common as businesses cut payroll cost and headcount to financially survive in many competitive environments.
However, complacency may set in. You may drift aimlessly.
If you are really serious about developing a passion for making money and make a difference in other peoples lives, then launching a side business while having a regular job may be one great way to move the needle in the direction of developing your passions and at the same time acquiring new skills and experience for economic security and upward mobility.
Students, you can start developing your passion early
If you are a student working towards getting that first job upon graduation, then having a side business while you are still in the ‘university can certainly give you a positive competitive edge over those students who don’t do anything apart from just studying.
Having a side business or even just a part-time job at McDonald’s shows initiative, perseverance, and commitment.
In addition to acquiring technical and business skills when you do have an online business, you are demonstrating positive behaviours and attitudes and business acumen that interviewers are looking for.
Getting that competitive edge over others for that first real-world job after graduation is so important when we consider the research by the Strada Institute for the Future of Work and Burning Glass Technologies.
The researchers found that with the exception of some STEM disciplines like engineering, computer science, and a few others if graduates started off working in jobs for which they were overqualified to perform, these graduates will have a higher likelihood of remaining in those underemployed positions for five years or more.
More than 40% of college graduates took positions out of school that don’t require a degree. These graduates are five times more likely to be still in such positions five years later.
Ten years later, three-quarters of graduates who took jobs that didn’t demand a degree will still be in the same spot. These graduates will be earning around $10,000 a year less than their counterparts who started in jobs that required college degrees.
What’s interesting is that more than 1 in 5 college graduates still aren’t working in degree-demanding jobs a decade after leaving school.
It’s no wonder that many students are saddled with huge college loan debts for the rest of their lives because they cannot earn enough to pay them off.
Job seekers, there’s a solution to your worry
If you are looking for a job, starting something small while still trying to find another job during this transition period will definitely help you keep up with what’s happening, maintaining your connections, acquiring new skills and knowledge, or just maintaining what you already know professionally.
Staying at home doing nothing productive will not help you secure your next job.
One of my friends drives for Uber just to maintain his cash flow after he was retrenched from a full-time job.
In comparison, another friend of mine just goes daily to McDonald’s when his children are at school, searching job sites and applying for jobs online throughout the day, hoping and praying to land that elusive job.
If you are a recruiter, which of the two would you consider favourably?
Just showing initiative does go a long way!
Find a business idea and making it work for you
You may be thinking: How does one start a side hustle when you don’t know what you’re passionate about?
When you have decided to embark on a journey of entrepreneurship or freelancing, you need to find a business idea that sells.
Here’s a seven-step process to explore some suitable business ideas, selecting that one idea that potentially sells, and making that idea work for you. In the process, develop your passion for helping people with your business idea.
- Step 1 – You brainstorm and select your proposed business idea from a comprehensive list that I have compiled on this website. Get your creative juices flowing.
- Step 2 – Develop an overall strategy for making money. This step requires you to determine your money-making criteria and meeting those criteria. You will need to update your strategy as you gather more information. Remember that people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.
- Step 3 – Acquire or develop a product (e.g., e-Books, tools, coaching services, training, etc) that will help solve your target customers’ problem. The aim is to sell a relevant product to your customers and make money. Test out your proposed product by converting it into a minimum viable product.
- Step 4 – Identify the best platforms and established marketplaces (e.g., eBay, Facebook, blogs, etc.) where the majority of your target customers hang out so that you can sell them your proposed product.
- Step 5 – Validate your minimum viable product with your customers using these established marketplaces.
- Step 6 – Work hard to market and drive Internet traffic to your chosen platforms so that you can convert your visitors into leads and thereafter transforming them into paying customers.
- Step 7 – Depending on your testing results, you could scale-up selling this product on your own website, find another new product to sell, or ditch the product altogether.
Don’t follow the advice of many gurus. That is, to have a website first prior to vigorously validating your money-making idea and minimum viable product.
Always get your money-making idea validated first by your customers before spending any more time, effort, and money.
This will increase the likelihood of your long-term financial success using this risk-free strategy. It will reduce or minimise your financial exposure while preserving your investments in low-risk activities.
Always have a strategy
Whatever pathway you select to start your business, you should always think about drawing up your own strategy to make money including plans to execute the strategy.
I am always reminded of a passage in Alice in Wonderland (chapter 6). It nicely captures the reasons why having a sound strategy is so important.
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where –” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“– so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
I have learned that developing my strategy as early as possible will focus my efforts to do the things that matter most and to earn an income in the future.
I am always reminded of this quote by a successful online entrepreneur.
“I initially failed in my quest to create a sustainable second income, simply because I didn’t have a clear strategy in mind. I didn’t follow a clear system. I did everything that everyone else seemed to be doing but I didn’t really know what my main goal was. Thankfully, now I do. Even better, I now know how to focus on my chief objective and more practically secure my present and future financial prosperity.”
Your strategy selection will depend on many factors like:
- Your desire to succeed including time and commitment that you are willing to put in.
- Your personality and interest.
- The audience that you are writing for and selling to.
- Amount of money or savings you have to finance your strategy.
Having a sound strategy to start a business and make money will be the key to developing your passion to help people at the same time.
To your success.