Career Makeover Wednesdays: Daycare Duty to Writer Extraordinaire

Last time we heard about Gina and Ellen's first meeting. Here Gina shares what life is like in the world of making your own hours and getting away from what a daycare center is all about: structure. Gina also reveals how things went with her "action items" and shares the challenges of creating her "pitch" and how she is feeling about her makeover!

By Guest Blogger Gina Blitstein

After all those years developing work habits and skills that suited my role as a daycare provider, I am tremendously excited yet feeling ill-equipped to take on a new career direction. There are going to be a lot of significant changes...Things like how I spend and schedule my working hours have completely changed.

For over twenty years I worked from 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Monday through Friday. Even though I was self-employed, I didn't have a lot of freedom in the way I spent my time. I was always at home for the drop-offs and pickups that happened throughout the day. For the sake of the children's sense of security, many routines were established: Meal times were set, play time, activity time, nap time, clean up time...days were predictably scheduled. Now, I can work when I want - any time of the day, any day I choose.

While I do try to maintain a fairly "normal" Monday through Friday schedule and normal business hours, the beauty is that I don't have to. I can work late into the night if the mood strikes without worrying about the early morning that awaits. I can run errands during the week without needing to close early or save it all for the weekend. I can get sick and simply do my work when I feel better. This is all new to me.

Adjusting to this is more difficult: For the first time in my working life I have to go out in the world to find clients. My daycare clients came to me by word-of-mouth. Now I must gain the skills to market myself as a writer. The writing comes naturally - the self-promotion does not.

I told Ellen how unprepared I felt for the marketing aspect of my new writing career. The few writing clients I already had came to me through word-of-mouth over the Internet but I knew this was not the normal way that writers and clients get together. Too bad, I thought, because I sort of enjoy the "safety" of connecting with people in business online - it wasn't as uncomfortable for me as face-to-face interactions.

I am not a particularly extroverted person, so that behavior is not intrinsic to my personality. While I have come A LONG WAY from the introverted child I was, I am not known as the chatty type in most situations. Let's suffice it to say that I can hold my own in a conversation if I feel people are interested in what I have to say.

Ellen made some suggestions to help me make strides into the marketing arena. She suggested some possible places I could find potential clients, then she helped me prepare myself for the task by assigning me some homework.

The first assignment seemed like it should be simple - to write my "elevator pitch" - in other words, describe my business clearly but in as few words as I could express during the course of an elevator ride. By preparing this mini speech in advance, I would feel more confident when talking to people about my new career. I would use my elevator pitch to give people a more fully-formed idea of what I do, rather than merely saying I'm, "a writer." But I am a writer, after all, so I'll just put it into words...easy, I thought! It turns out that it was not so easy!

Oh, I wrote some catchy and descriptive things that sounded great - on paper. When it came to saying them out loud they were absolutely l-a-m-e! Needless to say, my elevator pitch is still a work in progress. It is still clumsy sounding when spoken, so I'm continuing my search for that magical combination of descriptive and sincere along with the more elusive, "rolls off the tongue effortlessly."

Second up was the opportunity to attend a businesswomen's networking event. Ellen gave me the assignment of simply meeting three people and talking with them about my business. I did succeed at this assignment! After only a few minutes of feeling like that shy kid of yesteryear, I pulled myself together and started up conversations with several of the ladies.

What made me feel confident with one of the ladies was that she was embarking on a career reinvention of her own, so we had lots of notes to compare. With the two other the ladies, I focused on the topic of how I could help them to express their message in their advertising and on their web sites. The event was a success for me because, although I haven't realized any business from it, it served as a fantastic learning experience. I would go to another of these events in a heartbeat without feeling uncomfortable at all.

The third assignment has not been completed yet - and here's why...I got busy! Ellen encouraged me to make an appointment to meet with a retired local Realtor in order to "pick his brain" about business contacts I could make in the community. After all, we surmised, all my business can't come from the Internet! Well, so far that is proving to be not entirely true.

One of my existing clients from the Internet hired me for a HUGE writing project that has kept me consistently busy for weeks! That is why I simply haven't had the time to do any marketing...I've been too busy working! I guess there are worse problems than that... eventually i will make that appointment with the Realtor - and those connections will help my business grow.

Ellen's guidance through the rough spots has been indispensable. Without her encouragement to consider how to express myself to others and then to go out and actually talk about my business, I would still be hiding behind my keyboard. I am truly amazed at how my business is progressing - and even more amazed at how I'm progressing into a person with a completely new way working - and living.