Turning Jobseekers Into Entrepreneurs – Replace That Resume With A Business Card!

That's your resume' now?

I own a small business. As the recession of 2007-present (yes, the present) began to cause volatility within my industry (Recruiting/HR), I was pushed to take my own business (which I sometimes viewed as a passing supplement to my day job) to the next level.

What was the next level? The next level for me was financing, locating a small office, bringing on staff, seeking out more opportunity, capitalizing on this opportunity, and gravitating towards the people who could be an asset to what I was trying to accomplish.

When you are in the realm of business services/business consulting, there is a level of comfort and complacency that sets in that says: “Sure, I want to be bigger and have more clients, but I don’t want to add too much to my schedule as I am concerned it will intrude on the family’s schedule.”

In 2008, I made the leap to break away from the conventional W-4 structure and took on the role of adviser / consultant / independent agent / contractor. Let me share with you what I had to overcome…and why it took so long.

How We Are Raised/Conditioned To View Employment

Growing up, the consensus was that if you worked hard in school and landed a reputable college, you were naturally going to become a valuable resource in the business world. I still think this is true for certain sectors of the economy, but many have found this theory to be flawed or misleading.

You were going to be recruited into a large company, have a fat salary, great benefits, have the storybook wedding, raise a bunch of kids, and find your dream house. The economic climate in this country has changed significantly since you or I were in school. Those that were fortunate to nave been educated in thriving areas of the current economy have excelled, while others have struggled with the reality that their chosen industry has been outsourced or rapidly eliminated. There is enormous shift in this country to retrain older, working people into new trends in the business world. It’s very common to see individuals pursuing a new degree in their 40′s and 50′s — completely starting over.

Post-tech bubble, and after the meltdown of such enormous companies like Enron, Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, and WorldCom there is a general mistrust of large corporations that hide their financial condition from investors…and maybe more importantly, their employees. In addition, many small businesses who struggled with accessibility to credit and simply making their payroll also made turning to small business not quite the alternative it was perceived to have been in the past few years.

Admin / Accounting / Human Resources / Entry-Level Financial Services

As a Recruiter, who sources/places sales professionals for various clients, many of the resumes I review ares from people who have worked in admin, accounting, customer service, human resources, and entry-level financial services. I will admit, it gets frustrating. Why? Because you have to overcome the psychological barriers and self-induced limits of the unemployed to “take the plunge” into  “commission-based” sales opportunities.

Even managers are at risk. Over the past 10 years, businesses realized if they redistributed the boss’s responsibilities among the rest of the team, that would lessen their payroll responsibilities by cutting out that big, over-sized salary off the books.

But that wasn’t enough. With health insurance costs nearly doubling each year for the last 10 years, businesses took “cost-cutting” to the next level by using temporary workers or contracting / outsourcing a lot of office functions.

Why? It’s simple. Because admin, accounting, human resources, and entry-level financial services people are generally viewed as a financial liability.

In other words: You do not make money for the organization!

A Loser With A Resume

In some parts of the country, where there may be a strong demand for admin, accounting , human resources, and entry-level financial services positions, that may tend to pay more. But, in my region (Philadelphia, PA., Wilmington, DE., Cherry Hill, NJ.), that’s rarely the case.

The downturn in the job market has flushed thousands of support services people into the ranks of unemployment. Their goal appears to be to “wait it out”. 10% unemployment is here to stay in this country for quite a few more years, in my opinion.  The government can manipulate the unemployment figures from month-to-month all it wants, but that does not equate to real job growth and development. Does it?

As a passive/active job-seeker, how do you overcome the apprehension for businesses to start hiring again? — You do it by standing out above the rest. More education and more specialized training helps but also has the potential to give the perception you are overqualified and may having salary demands are beyond what the company has budgeted.

During an interview:

“You’d better be able to communicate to a prospective employer either how much business you brought to them, internal processes that you perfected to save time and labor, problems that you personally resolved, or how you were able to do more…with less.”

The Equation: Sales/Revenue Generation and/or Cost Cutting = Value. Value in terms of dollars. An organization would prefer to pay you based on this type of measurable performance.

Unfortunately in the role of admin, accounting, human resources, or entry-level financial services, the opportunities to drive this type of value are fairly non-existent.

Open Doors With A Business Card

When you are passing out resumes, there is an element called “adverse selection” that becomes very evident — meaning that some of the risks that led to your dismissal from your last company now have the potential to be transferred to the new employer; regardless of whether you were downsized or the business closed. Ultimately, you incur some of the responsibility of the failure of the business, if indirectly.

A certain level of suspicion exists as to what led to your current circumstances and you lose a lot of credibility.

Enter…the business card?

Suddenly, the clouds break and sun shines through! Your level of credibility has risen to epic proportions. You provide a necessary service and can leverage your resources to either help your client generate revenue, streamline a process, cut costs…and best of all you can do so without requiring a fat salary, benefits, training, and an office with a nice view! In addition, you take on the responsibility of paying your employees as well as taking on legal liability and insurance requirements.

In Closing

This is the real direction of business right now. It is the entrepreneur who has the vision to assess the needs of his local business area and channel his small business resources toward fulfilling them. It also means I can show you measurable results without any concerns of me abusing company time.

The Matrix (1999) Trinity, Neo, Morpheus

You are that person. It’s just a matter of reprogramming your beliefs on how you earn a living. You’re simply refining what you already do and making that service available for many different businesses. Sure, you may have to pick up a certification or professional license here and there, but you do what it takes to meet the company’s requirements. And if you can’t do it, you’ll contract someone to be that person for you.

Remember the premise for the movie, the Matrix? Not one member of Morpheus’ team, including Trinity, truly believed Neo was “The One,” yet Morpheus never had a doubt. Fortunately, for Morpheus, we was right. Be like Morpheus.

It simply takes ambition. There are many people running a staff out of the basement of their own homes with very low overhead. I was that person for many years.

The basement was simply a beginning. Success is about timing. And once one element of your business generates revenue, you have the financial capacity to capitalize on the next opportunity.  I have written almost 10 business plans for different areas of my business over the years. And I believe in leveraging assets.

As a blogger, trying to take their blog to the next level, take your personal business to the next level first. You’ll build a lot more credibility that way.