BEWARE THE AMBUSH! A DREAM DENIED?

So, you’ve had a great conversation about a career opportunity which captures your interest and perhaps, at last, found the vehicle for your brightest business future.

Look out for what is inevitably coming your way; your interest in learning more and your excitement about freeing yourself from the employee ranks is about to be strongly challenged – you’re about to be AMBUSHED!!! Here are three common occurrences and how to handle them.

1. THE SPOUSAL/PARTNER AMBUSH A familiar event. Even though you’ve discussed a career change and been told it’s “your call, whatever you decide is fine”, beware. As you describe to your partner the conversation you’ve just had with a recruiter about going into business for yourself, the fear wells up in the listener. Suddenly, objections and concerns begin to flow – like lava! Soon, the talk centers around the audacity of you “spending” the family savings on a lark, the fact that you’ve never been in business for yourself and you can’t possibly make money doing “that”! What was so exciting, so promising, becomes impossible. If you’ve been seen as a wage-earning employee, the shift to becoming self employed can appear wrought with risks, and cause serious fear in those whose lifestyle is influenced by your employer-paid compensation. Any serious career move is a family decision. If your search takes you toward going into business for yourself, explore, with each other, the concept first – not the specific business model. The most common fear is around the money to get started. Any entrepreneurial endeavor requires capital investment – it is not an expense; as well as emotional and intellectual resource allocation. Before discussing a particular type of business, have some honest discussion with your partner about your desire to consider investing in yourself, the benefits and challenges of business ownership and working toward real wealth. When there is agreement to at least consider it, both parties should know as much about any opportunity as the other. Ideally, there is joint participation at every step of the decision process. Invite your partner into the process, they’ll be a help once you’ve agreed that going into business for yourselves is just an option at this point.
2. THE FRIEND/NEIGHBOR AMBUSH: Most of your friends are employees – not business owners. They will typically offer the least-risky advice because it is safer for them to do so. You do not know enough yet to “sell” the idea to your friends and they, more than likely, know NOTHING of the idea you’re exploring. Refrain, but if you must have a conversation with them focus on business ownership as a concept – not on a particular business model. Remember, they do not want to lose you as a friend by suggesting that it might be smart to give up the perceived security of employment. They’ve never done so; does it really compute that they’d advise you to? They are simply uninformed and will avoid giving you any advice which they think threatening to their own self image and your future.
3. THE SELF-AMBUSH… Don’t confuse casual inquiry with real research. For example, a person considering a retail business tries to find out how many similar businesses are listed in the Yellow Pages. That is interesting – but tells him/her nothing about the true size of the market or the niche the retail business targets. This type of “looking around” is not research. Follow the process outlined by your recruiter. It must require you to achieve in-depth knowledge about the business model, the entity you are considering associating with, the training and mentoring structure and the local market. You should be encouraged to gain independent knowledge. If these characteristics are not mandatory elements of the learning process, renew your search immediately in another direction. If they are, why would you stop now? What have you to lose? Don’t deny yourself the dream; we all do that too often… Hang On To Your Dreams And Make Them Reality – Don’t Be Ambushed!