This Real Life Story is an extract from Uncle Ralph's, "The Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide to Business Plans". Read the book.
Real Life Story: “Don’t quit your day job, yet”
Many young daydreamers, and older ones that should know better, see entrepreneurship as their escape from a day job that is not meeting their needs.
“Running my own business would be better than this!”
Well, maybe not. The same reasons that you are not succeeding on the job may also be big obstacles to your success in business. And entrepreneurship will test skills and capacities that you have not tested before.
Consider the old IBM sales executive that retired early and …, bought a hot dog franchise. He probably used none of his skills and experience from IBM and then discovered he did not have the patience or aptitude to manage low-budget customers and low-skill employees. Neither a good investment nor a good career decision.
Or consider the frustrated young computer technician who wanted to sell his skills directly to all those home office users that needed his expertise, instead of working so hard for a demanding network services manager and having to run around big corporate offices where nobody appreciated him. We chatted about it and he wanted me to help him write a business plan. He wanted it to get a bank loan so that he could pay himself, until he found some customers and signed some contracts.
Sounds reasonable, right?
Not a chance. No bank would ever finance that plan.
I had to persuade him to stop daydreaming; keep his money and keep his day job. A better plan was to upgrade his technical skills and get some experience in management and sales with his current employer. The he could launch his own business with confidence in the same attractive corporate services market that he already knew. Too many unhappy computer technicians are already under-employed and under-paid in the difficult home office market. He kept his day job and started on a new plan.
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Learn more at: Look before you leap.
(Note: In all these Real life Stories, the names and business details have been changed to protect the actual subjects of each story.)
Your Uncle Ralph, Del Chatterson
Read more at: Learning Entrepreneurship Blogs.
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