In which I come out of the closet as a small business owner.

[stevieannie]

Have just updated The In-Debt Net with an article on Finding the right offline business ideas for you. This also includes a couple of small business ideas which friends/family are already doing and making a good living out of. Feel free to use any ideas you find within.

I'm not entirely sure when I stopped defining myself through my job, and started defining it through my various businesses, but the sense of self-esteem to be gained this way is really nice. I would highly recommend any friends looking for an alternative income stream to think about setting up their own small business.

Feeling positive again after the rollercoaster of last week. Positive is good. Visualise those cheques coming in.

Maybe not the credit card "spend me now!" cheques that Tim got last week, though :-)

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you see as the difference between "defining myself through my job" and "defining it through my various businesses". Is it that the businesses are things you choose to do as your own employer rather than a 'job' which is working for someone else? I admit that I'm in an odd situation there, being a contractor whose job is also a hobby...

I don't like the credit card cheques. They can very occasionally be useful if one wants to pay on a credit card to someone who doesn't take credit cards, but that is rare, in most cases they are more of a security risk.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

For me, the difference in defining myself through my job and then through my businesses was all about how I reacted in times of stress. When I was an employee, there was very little I could do to bring in more money, as I was more or less "owned" by the company that employed me. And when I say "owned", I really mean it. EFDSS standard contracts had a clause which said that any creative pursuits you undertook belonged in entirety to EFDSS. I hope they don't say that anymore (Tim took that clause out as one of his first actions as CEO of EFDSS), but it really did restrict how one thought about oneself. Now, however, I see myself as being the only one responsible for the success or failure of any of my undertakings. Whilst it's a bit of bummer when things are bad, it also means that I am free to take whatever actions I need to put things straight. I like that feeling.

I'm no longer "Annie, owned by BigCorporation(tm)", I am now "Annie, owner of TeenyBusiness(tm)". I like the feeling of owning, far more than that of being owned :-)

And I agree about those credit card cheques. They can be useful, but I know of at least one person who was badly defrauded through them :-(

[catalana.livejournal.com]

This was interesting. But I have to quibble with

If you aren’t good at performing in a public space, but have good technical skills, how about teaching?

Teaching well actually requires performance skills. *Tutoring*, though, is something you can do one-on-one (Or one-on-some small number) and would work really well for someone who isn't comfortable with crowds or standing in front of a class every day.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

Extremely good point - very fuzzy writing on my part there. What I was trying to get at was instrumental teaching. I know several people who have tremendous stage fright, despite really great technical skills - they can still make money from their skills, but not in a situation which will frighten them.

You are quite right about teaching being a performance :-)

What's the difference (in your book) between teaching and tutoring, as regards imparting information?

[catalana.livejournal.com]

A lot of it is size-based. If you're teaching one or two people, you can customize your teaching more. If they're having problems with a concept, you can spend more time on it; equally, if they find a concept easy, you can move on to something else. If you're teaching a class of 35, you can't do that. You have to try to aim for the middle-ground. You don't want to wait for absolutely everybody in a class to grasp something, because most of your class will be in tears of boredom. Equally, you can't move on as soon as a few people have it.

Having said that, there are things you can do with a larger group that don't work as well with a smaller group. I do a lot of breaking the class into small groups, giving them a question to discuss for 2-5 minutes, and then having the class as a whole discuss it. This tends to lead to very lively class discussions (because they've had time to formulate their thoughts in the small group first), and there are usually a lot of different viewpoints represented. Unfortunately, although you can have interesting discussions with one or two students, you won't get that diversity of viewpoints and thus won't get as much of a good discussion going. (Or, at the very least, the instructor has to do a lot more work in raising alternate viewpoints.) I think it's good when they can learn from their peers, so this is something I really like doing with my classes.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Nothing to do with this subject, sory, but I've found a potential buyer for your dog-cart, and the email address I have for you is bouncing. What should I be using?

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

awalker at walkerwork dot co dot uk

should get to me just fine :-) Many thanks!