Redundancy Diary - Week 5

After spending last week making job applications and working to get interviews, this week I have been looking at whether I could earn a living out of setting up my own business. This is something I have never thought of before but I had to explore it otherwise I might always regret that I didn’t take advantage of my redundancy to do something different: be my own boss!

I have 3 friends who are self-employed, so the first thing I did was to speak to each of them and find out how they set up their own businesses. They gave me some great advice: make sure I take the time to really understand what it is I am good at, what I enjoy, and what I could potentially make money out of. That was harder than it seemed, and going back to the personal recommendations that I had gathered from my work colleagues just after I was made redundant really helped. Jayne Sharples, a local Personal Coach, has given me some great exercises to do – see www.js-coaching.co.uk for more info and contact.

Once I got an idea for what business I could set up – a sales management consultancy - I got completely carried away with the creative side of it! I came up with a company name, some ideas of graphics and logos, searched for and bought a domain name, and set up a business email package. Buying the domain name was easy (and cheap), but I found selecting a web hosting package a nightmare – they all looked the same in some respects, but I didn’t understand all the acronyms and couldn’t work out the difference between a £3.99 package and a £10 package! I still haven’t managed to solve that one, so any advice would be very welcome!

I then spent a day researching on the internet what other businesses in this area offer, which really helped me to think through what it was that I could offer that was unique and different. In these challenging economic times it seems very risky on the one hand to be setting up my own business, but on the other hand my business is aimed at helping support small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) to maintain and grow their sales in a cost effective way, which is needed more now than ever, so I reckon I could make it work.

I ran my ideas past anyone I could. I was impressed by how much support there is out there for people setting up their own business. I got an appointment really quickly to see a Business Link advisor in Coventry, who asked me lots of questions that helped me to see the gaps in my plans, and he gave me some great advice on the implications of setting up a business, the legal and financial requirements, and what free courses I could attend to fill in those gaps in my knowledge. The Business Link website had lots of free information and guides: www.BusinessLink.gov.uk.

I have tackled my own Business Plan, getting a great template from the web (opting for a 9 page one rather than the 28 page version!), took a business planning guide out from the library and have pulled a rough marketing plan together. I then went to a friend who owns his own medium sized business, and did a practice ‘pitch’ on him; he really helped me to adapt my approach according to the needs of an SME. It was very hard selling myself without the backing of a company behind me. To fill that gap I have applied for membership of my industry’s professional association, so that I can show that I have the necessary skills and experience.

This has been a great week! It hasn’t been hard at all to focus and follow things through, because I feel that this could be something that could support my and my family’s future and I feel in control. I still have lots more to do, but at the very least, I have a back-up plan of a financially viable business to fall back on if I can’t get a job soon.

My increased confidence is definitely bringing me more opportunities: I’ve got 2 more job interviews lined up for next week and am more hopeful that I may be successful.
Next week: What worked and what didn’t work in my job interviews: will I get a job offer?