The Perfect Career - Part II

Here we go…

As stated in Part I of “The Perfect Career”, I listed two of the five most common types of careers known around the world:

1.  Blue collar work

2.  White collar work

both of which failed to meet all the criteria, or components, in the list that matches the "Perfect Career" …moving on to number three.

3.  Sales – for people who like to work on their own.

They don’t like the idea of being a part of the corporate structure, and they like to work independently.  So they say “I’m going to go and be a real estate agent or sell something so I can own my own life without someone telling me what to do”.   Although many sales jobs have a required quota to keep the position.

It’s challenging.

The typical sales person is driven by the economy.  Huge.  Here’s a common scenario that happens a lot to these folks….

They get on board and make a couple sales, then a few more.  Their income goes up and up and up.  They feel like they can sell everything they touch and after about three to four months, they start creating a life that fits that income.  A new house, car, private schools, a completely new lifestyle…. Their income accelerates and so do their expenses along with it.  So, after all that, they have about the same amount of money at the end of the month making $300,000 a year as they did making $30,000 a year. 

Then a change occurs.  The entire economic landscape of the U.S. (2008), their compensation changes, the company changes, their product changes, the territory changes, the industry, the commission structure… something.  It always happens.  And now, those 40 hours a week have to move up to 50, 60, even 70, or more.  They become a prisoner to making that 200 or 300K.  They are practically breathing through a collapsed financial straw.
If you’ve been in sales, you understand because it is what drove you to sales in the first place that ties you to fulfill your obligations that have grown along with your income.

Sales can be financially rewarding, but if you look at our list to what creates the perfect career below, you see it cannot deliver on every aspect in that list.

4.  Traditional Small Business – Business owners who invest money to be free from the conglomerate of the rest of society.
 
They like to be in charge.  They like feeling in control of their situation and their finances.  Some discover when they have to return to an hourly job, that they don’t really like being told what to do by others.

Let’s touch on the cost of business ownership.  How much does it cost to start a business these days?  $100K, $200K, $1 million, $2 million… even if you get away with $20K, as I did, in the end you become married to that business to make sure you don’t lose your investment.  Right?

The first year you’re just trying to show a profit.  The next two to four; getting back your investment.  Year five and six making a living and sometimes just trying to keep your head above water and keep up with increased taxes.

Do you know how many people get started in business ownership and hope to just get their original investment back?  That’s it.  Then their ready to reconsider.  More than you realize.  Here’s what they do… they risk it all.  Admirable to me.  They take a leap to make it happen.  But they’ve started out thousands, or hundreds of thousands, in debt then they start signing the contracts for copiers, phone lines, insurance, payroll, etc…
Then they realize they have to become a mediator, accountant; the cleaner, employee manager (babysitter)… and often things aren’t actually up to their standards because when people work for you, they rarely do it as if it was their own. 

Sadly, people start a business because they think they’ll get to do what they love and are passionate about doing.  After things really get underway, they don’t get to do what they love.  There’s no time. 

Secondly, a lot of the time, business owners train people up who want to gain all the knowledge they can from you, then they decide to leave and start their own business.  It happens a lot.  Your employees become your competition.   You can ask many a people and they’ll say, “I’m just working here to get some experience, then I’m gonna start my own shop.”

Admittedly, most of the self-made millionaires in the world are business owners.  They found a way and what it takes to get over the mountain and build leverage.  It takes a lot of time, heartache and pain in the process.

Can it deliver on all the components of our perfect career list?  No.

5.  Investors – invest in another business growth, fuels, land, real estate, etc…

First off, the most necessary component is money.  Just because someone has money, doesn’t mean they are successful at investing though.  And neither does money plus wisdom.  By nature, the outcome in investing is out of your control.  Investments have a way of going away and they are never permanent or guaranteed.  There are take-overs, crunches, set-backs, depreciation, and loss of cash flow. 

I have a friend who lost 8 million in just a couple weeks, investing.  Gone.  He figured he’d just keep using a little more and it’d come back, but as any investment, it was very risky and completely out of your control.   Very few make it in investments.

Investors need money, intelligence AND protection.  Then, you can get wealthy.  Truth be told, most investors are investing someone else’s money and giving the lender a cut.  That is how they get wealthy.  Because they know what they are doing. 

The breakdown on the economy is obvious~

We are living in a new economy.  One thing’s is for sure, evolution happens.  It’s happened since the beginning of trade.  All this talk about the ‘economy coming back’ is not going to happen.   It’s obvious, right?  We’ve been hearing it for about ten years now.  We’ve evolved and evolved to a technological based world.  The millions and millions of jobs are not going to be replaced by physical and on call jobs like the industrial revolution.  Those days are gone.  So unless you want to get used to working for near minimum wage and always having a cap on your income while answering to someone else, you have to be willing to face this facts.

Since we now live in a performance based economy, the ‘white collar work’ that has been sought after so desperately in the last hundred years is dwindling by the day.  There have been significan pay cuts and here’s why.

Now, a person that makes a hundred grand a year and has devoted twenty or thirty years to a company for the pension and retirement is going to be told to bargain because of the hard times the world is facing.  Looking at the door, there’s a line of people who are willing to make half of what they make.  Eventually, they will have to take a pay cut or face unemployment.  So, what’s the choice?  Put your resume together and then start all over again?  Not what most want to do.

Secondly, they may have to decide on a major pay cut and with some hard work again, they’ll be told they can move back up to what they were making… based on performance.  “If you perform and get the job done, then you get to make what you did after twenty years.” 

They will keep raising the bar higher and higher.  Companies are doing it because they make the rules, and looking at the unemployment lines, there are plenty of hungry wolves ready to take your place. 

So!  If you’re going to have to work in a performance based economy and get paid what you’re worth…

Why not be independent, not on a company or someone dictating your pay, but independent in creating your own pay, your own ceiling… with NO ceiling on your income, where you decide your hours and how much you make?

Why stay trapped in someone else’s control where they can pull the rug out from under you anytime, simply by saying… we can’t afford you anymore.

It makes me sad to see people who are in a job, watching the people around them being let go and hoping and praying they aren’t next.  They are tied to it like a life-line, like an umbilical cord and all of ‘life as they know it’ will be lost if it’s cut off.

Where is the security?  There is none.  Eventually it can happen.

At the same time, I’m equally saddened by how many people don’t have a fallback plan in place. 

What about you?
Do you have a fall back plan?  If your boss were to come to you any day and say, “Sorry, we gotta let ya go.”  You could confidently say, “No problem, I’m prepared.  I’ve had a fall back plan in place.”   Where you could have enough saved to survive a year or better without touching your savings.

Or…

What if you could be making $1000, $3000 and $7700 in your spare time…. Or, in your sleep?  Have you explored options to create alternative income in this new economy?

If not, I invite you to do so.

Whatever happens, my hope for you is to have a stable financial plan and a rewarding career that you feel good about owing your life to.

Interested in Exploring Freedom?  Take a look here ~>> and meet the Freedom Team