Career Advice in a Slow Economy: Invent Your Job

Career — By Harold Kelley on July 28, 2009 at 2:00 am

Using Personal Semiotics to Create Plan B.

A former colleague contacted me yesterday. She was struggling to find a job but had not had an interview in two months.

This person is one of the best project managers I’ve seen in 25+ years. She built a Web site to promote herself and has networked with probably everyone she knows at least three times. Few people work as hard to find a job. But this economy is not like any we’ve seen since the Carter administration.

I asked her what she would do if she won the lottery tomorrow. She lit up, “That’s easy. I’d open a floral shop.” It gave me an idea, which is the subject of this post. Why not invent her next job – doing something related to what she loved to do?

My suggestion: “What about starting a floral design or gardening business?” She could plant and manage gardens for people who could afford it – offering styles of different countries or time periods such as colonial America, Britain or Japan. There are many people who’d love to surround their property with floral beauty, they just lack the time or knowledge to do it. And this wouldn’t take 5-years-of-education and a degree in landscape architecture; you could find what you need on the Internet, distribute flyers in mailboxes and be in business in a week.

My colleague started exploring the idea and – not surprisingly – developed a short list of obstacles (which is human nature in contemplating new and scary things). A few seemed valid, but there was nothing she couldn’t overcome. Her investigation is still ongoing.

If you’re among those who’ve emailed 200 resumes in return for one phone interview if you’re lucky, inventing your next job by creating a business or service may be a prudent “Plan B” option in this economy. Personal Semiotics offers vital assistance. It incorporates personal success criteria that you define. It visually presents your options in a way that clarifies tough decisions. And it helps you overcome your fears and develop a successful plan of attack.

How to Start

I used Personal Semiotics to evaluate my own career options. Among other things, it led to this Web site and my first book, Personal Semiotics – Discover the Secret Success Codes to Your Ideal Life Path. Here, in brief, is the process to follow which is offered in greater detail in the book and under The Process category of this Web site.

1) List the criteria that are important to you in evaluating a side business or potential career change. For example, you might pick immediate income potential, work that excites me, work that matches my skill set, and low start-up costs as your success measurements.

2) Label at least two Paradox Maps with these success measures; then focus on what you love and what you’re good at. Plot all your possible business or service options – no matter how kooky — within the appropriate quadrants of your Paradox Maps.

Career -Plan B

3) Indicate if any options are progressing in a certain direction already. Perhaps because it’s late in the growing season, a gardening startup is not the best option now. On the positive side, maybe because so many companies downsized beyond what may have been necessary, a “short-term virtual employee” service in your specialty may be well-timed.

4) Declare where you want to be in terms of your desired quadrant, and validate that the options in that quadrant are a good fit for you.

5) Write down all the obstacles to starting this business or service. Then write the opposite to each obstacle by letting your mind create the work-around or solution.

6) Visualize what it will be like to be successful in your chosen Plan B path. Imagine all the sights, sounds, smells and experiences of that success.

7) Describe your ideal Plan B state. Identify the symbols of that success. Perhaps it’s seeing your debts paid off early, experiencing the greeting at your favorite restaurant, getting a massage without worrying about the cost or the tightness of the leather in a new car. Maybe it’s the sound of a new customer calling your mobile phone, your fax receiving a new order or your significant other praising you for being so smart.

8) What are the actions you can take to move in the direction of your ideal Plan B job? It could be doing Internet research each day, building a simple Web site to promote your service, creating business cards, developing a PowerPoint to explain your service, or picking out target keywords on Google. And what would happen if you took just one small step per day toward that goal? How much closer would you be in 30 days?

Your Starring Role – One Scene at a Time

When I wrote my book, I didn’t worry about how I was going to come up with 272 pages. I started with an outline – the Table of Contents. Then I wrote one short chapter. Every few days, I wrote another. Three months and three edits later, I had a book.

I built a Web site. A couple of months later I rebuilt it to what you’re seeing now. I created dozens of small test ads to run on Facebook and Google. And for less than $100, I learned which headlines and messages resonated best.

What was the result of all this? Hopefully I’ll sell some books and help many people as an author. But I’m a strategist and marketer too. It adds to my credibility and confidence to know that the best practices in terms of search marketing, eCommerce and social networking that brands require are not things I’m trying to remember from months ago but strategies I’m using today. And it only costs me some TV-time.

My hope is that you’ll do even better. Perhaps one day, you’ll see your Plan B efforts as the pivotal turning point in your life that led to financial independence. So I offer you my favorite movie-line of all time from the closing scene of Spiderman 2. Kirsten Dunst looked into Tobey Maguire’s eyes (and heart) and said, “Go get ‘em Tiger.”