Career Makeover Wednesdays: Daycare Duty to Writer Extraordinaire

By Guest Blogger Gina Blitstein

Here I am - living my new career. I am faced with lots of new challenges that I am tackling on a daily basis and others that I know are waiting to be tackled in the near future. It's proving to be quite the learning experience.

I am loving being a writer and arranging my time to suit my projects and inspiration level rather than around the schedule of others as was necessary in my "old" career as a daycare provider. Honestly, however, I have some days when I feel tremendously productive and others when I feel like I haven't accomplished nearly enough. Perhaps somedays I over-schedule myself or simply try to bite off too much. Ultimately I think it will prove to be a matter of trial and error.

I feel as if I am in the most creative and productive time of my life. I think the freedom has a lot to do with it. Yet within all this freedom, I know that I need to keep moving forward, keeping my "pipeline" full of new projects. After all, without projects, I would have no career at all. So the most pressing of my challenges is to find the time - and wherewithal - to do the necessary networking in order to drum up some future business. My current projects will soon be completed - and then what?

As the first step in my networking education, Ellen has tasked me with developing my "pitch." Of course it made perfect sense to have a way to easily express what I do for a living. How else am I going to gain new clients? But no matter how many times I tried, what I came up with sounded artificial and forced. Maybe clever, but never natural sounding. So I put my pitch on a back burner, hoping with time the right words would come to me. And they did - but in an unexpected way!

I made an appointment at a new eye doctor. It occurred to me that in the course of my visit, the subject of my employment may arise - and there it was! That was exactly the scenario I needed to imagine in order for my brain to put the words together without sounding like I was trying to sell my services. Now I get it - my pitch is simply the words I will use to tell people what I do - not sell them on my services! At last, the pressure was off and I could imagine myself, very naturally, telling the eye doctor that, "I Create written content for the web." That was it - from there I can expound and refine it but I have the foundation. I just love a good "a-ha moment!"

So here's my pitch, for the first time ever in print: "I Create written content for the web. I've discovered that even those people who are fantastic at what they do often have difficulty putting it into words. That's where I come in - to put words to your passion and express it on your website, newsletter and in social media."

So I can check "pitch" off my to-do list - whew!

Next up on my assignments from Ellen was to identify the strategies I was using to obtain the business I've won from the Internet. I would have to say that I've gotten that business from my website and from maintaining a reputable and consistent presence among small business owners in online communities and chats. I think it's very much the same as face-to-face networking in that I make myself known to those who may be in need of my services. In many cases, I believe that the Internet provides a more targeted audience for my message because the people can actually search for my particular skill set, rather than a more hit-and-miss approach at a luncheon, for example. Of course I'm not discounting the importance of face-to-face networking - only that I haven't found any that feel as natural to me as what I've been able to accomplish via the Internet. I will continue to look for those opportunities among local businesspeople.

So I'm continuing my career reinvention - one step at a time. I learn something new about myself on a regular basis. That's sure to keep things interesting!

Career Makeover Wednesdays: Daycare Duty to Writer Extraordinaire

While Gina catches up on her workload - and her action items! - after handling a recent family emergency, I thought I would give some general pointers on goal setting.

Set SMART goals. Most of us know this acronym. Goals must be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Timely

If we don't set goals we can achieve in a reasonable time frame and enjoy not only the feeling of success that comes with meeting a goal but also the process of getting there, we are doomed to fail. Starting a business? Looking for a job? Longing to change careers? All three require careful thought and planning. Without a compass, we can't start our journey let alone reach our destination.

The surest way to meeting your established goal is...consistency. Let's take weight loss. If you've ever been on a diet, you know you have good days and bad days. Consistently following a reduced calorie menu, tracking your weight loss, and making adjustments when you reach plateaus are all part of the process in reaching your goal. It's the same thing with any goal you set for yourself: consistency is key. So in Gina's case, getting back into the swing of things after her family emergency and sharing the realizations that came from her time away from work are important ingredients to her continued success.

Revisit your goals and make adjustments. While starting out with SMART goals is a must, you also have to be flexible - and kind to yourself - along the way. Sometimes opportunities come our way that we didn't expect, or, life interrupts our plans. Perhaps you want to try out something new with your business that you hadn't thought of initially, or, an unexpected job opportunity comes knocking on your door that you hadn't considered. Making adjustments and course corrections when required are important.

While we wait to hear from Gina next week about her success with completing her action items along with the the dual challenge of catching up on client work, take some time to visit YOUR goals. Do you have clear goals? Do you have trouble sticking to your goals? What is holding you back from reaching your goals?

If you need help with goal setting, or, you would like more information on our training programs around goal setting, contact us at trueprofessions@gmail.com. We'd love to help!

Career Makeover Wednesdays: Daycare Duty to Writer Extraordinaire

After handling a family emergency, Gina talks about how life forced her to put work on hold. Here she shares an unexpected learning experience - but a valuable one - as she continues to build her new business as a professional writer.

By Guest Blogger Gina Blitstein

I have been busy, busy, busy writing for my first significant client who found me via the Internet. This is a HUGE project comprised of six 5000-word articles and four 2500-word articles. It really has been a challenge to have one all-encompassing project while continuing to keep up with my other writing assignments that are due on a weekly basis. I am learning a lot about my working style - that when confronted with a large project, I prefer to attend to the smaller responsibilities first so that I can delve into the big project without the gnawing distractions of the other jobs on my mind. This strategy worked remarkably well for me until there was a family emergency...

When I was a daycare provider, I always dreaded the thought of needing to take time off for such things as a personal emergency. Of course my clients would have understood me taking time off but I could never justify charging my them if I wasn't able to watch their children. As a result, when I didn't work, I didn't get paid. As a freelance writer, I assumed that I would have more control over my time. The same "no work, no pay" would apply, of course, but I thought I would have more flexibility in my schedule so that if I should need time off, it wouldn't prove such an all-or-nothing scenario. I assumed that even though I would not be home, that I could still keep up with my work. After all, have computer, can write, right?

Not true, I discovered. When I heard of the family emergency, I needed to make plans to go out of state for an undetermined amount of time. Of course I thought I could take my work with me and keep up with the writing there. It was empowering to think that I could work from a remote location and not feel tied to my home when I was needed elsewhere. What I hadn't taken into account was that while by body and computer were there, my head and heart were with my family. It soon became evident that little if any work was going to get done until I combined those two organs again.

So I have discovered that just because I can physically get away from home if I need to does not guarantee that I can work. Even though I can take time off without jeopardizing my career, the emotional factor trumps my location. Thankfully all my clients were so very accommodating when I asked for their patience as I dealt with the situation. I was so worried that some would deem me unprofessional but I received unanimous understanding and an attitude of "family first" from each and every one. I am extremely blessed to work with such caring people!

Now that I am back to "normal" working conditions here at home, I am finishing up those projects that were put on hold for several weeks. I especially want to get those huge articles completed and submitted as soon as possible. I want to keep that relationship solid because, first, they have been pleased with my previous work and secondly, they put a lot of trust in me when they hired me for this larger project. They are my ideal client and I would love to work with them again and have them refer me to others.

On top of this and my other existing clients, I have a very full to-do list of things to focus on when I have time. Those things include honing my pitch so I can clearly and concisely describe what I do for a living now. There are also aspects of networking I would like to explore but for now it is all about catching up. I would like to discuss with Ellen how to work on getting business when you are already busy doing your business...That is an aspect of time management I can't get a handle on.

Career Makeover Wednesdays: Daycare Duty to Writer Extraordinaire

Well…...Gina is on a roll! Who knew she would be busy so quickly with an influx of writing projects? Even she is surprised - way to go Gina!

While Gina is certainly thrilled with the fact that she is getting more and more projects, she continues to work on aspects of her makeover that we have identified as challenges. One of her challenges is self-marketing, which includes fine-tuning her ability to describe to potential clients what she offers, as well as continuing to network to win new business and realize her goal of making a living at writing.

In our next coaching session, Gina talked about how much of her work was coming from existing clients and from the Internet, which is going to “keep her busy for weeks”. While we had previously discussed face-to-face networking strategies to secure new business on a local level, Gina’s excitement on the amount of work she was getting through the Internet was palpable.

I challenged Gina to do to two things:

1. Identify how she was getting this steady stream of clients (i.e. what strategies was she applying) and what was it about the medium of the Internet that made it easier for her to get clients, aside from the statements she shared in her last post when she described herself as being more comfortable interacting with others via this method (i.e. being more of an "introvert").
   


2. Continue with face-to-face strategies (i.e. meeting with the local Realtor) to ensure she was addressing her desire to get clients on the local level. This included following-up with the women she met at the event she attended and schedule a lunch or coffee to talk about each other’s businesses and/or to pitch one of the interested parties on her services.
   
   Now on to the dreaded pitch. Why is creating a “pitch” important? Being able to describe yourself and what you want is critical.
   
   I’ll never forget when I was job hunting 10 years ago and my sister connected me with a friend of hers at Discovery. When we talked on the phone the first question he had was “what do you want to do”? Uhhhh….I couldn’t put it together! While I was looking for an opportunity that combined HR with my consulting skills, I could not articulate what I wanted into words…and I lost the opportunity to have someone inside a great company identify opportunities for me and pass my resume along.
   
   It’s the same thing in business: if you don’t know what you want when you are talking to someone, or, you don’t know how to describe your business in such a way that people want to continue listening or want to hire you, then you are wasting your time and more importantly – OTHER people’s time.

Here are a few pointers I shared with Gina in creating a pitch:

1. Make it memorable. While the point of an elevator speech is to be concise, it has to achieve the goals of letting people know what you do, how they can benefit, and why you are unique. Still stuck? Write down all of the above and extract from your brainstorm the nuggets that you can use for your pitch. It is also helpful to write down examples of work you have already performed for clients and the benefits they have received by hiring you.
   


2. Feel good about it. If you are passionate about what you are telling others about yourself and your business, it's a sure bet that others will get hooked on your energy.
   


3. Practice! Try it out on your friends, family, whoever feels most comfortable. At first it can be awkward, but others can help you gain greater ease so you can deliver it when it counts.
   

Lastly, Gina and I focused on the adjustments that she was experiencing in getting used to her new life in the 24/7 lane as a professional writer. She mentioned the transition not only of not watching children all day, but using and managing her time much differently. Now that Gina is super busy, it will be interesting to hear how she is managing her time and getting her work done, and how she is feeling about how she is spending her time.

In fact, it raises an interesting point: the challenges of transitioning into something new. We have all experienced it: we start a new job, we are out of work for a period of time and our job becomes looking for a job and filling our day with those actitivites, or, in Gina’s case, starting a new business. I asked her to observe how she feels about how she fills her days and how satisfied she is with how she spends her time and the end result.

If you have strategies for Gina on how you adjusted to a new situation and made it successful, we’d love to hear from you! Email us at trueprofessions@gmail.com.

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.

"I'm...Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee"

If you are a Mom you have probably heard this song. Until I became a Mom, I did not know this catchy little darkish tune that children seem to love. I stumbled on it when playing a new CD from a friend and low and behold, my son could not get enough. He made me play it...and play it...and play it..."Mama, BEEEEEEE!"

While the dancing that accompanied replay after replay was the best ever, I found that I could not get this song out of my head. Once it even intruded upon my thoughts when I was trying to get to sleep...isn't repetition a powerful thing?

A lot of Moms I have met over the years tell themselves all kinds of things. In fact, they repeat them:

• "My brain has turned to mush all these years as a stay-at-home Mom interacting with babies and toddlers all day"
• "I've just been a stay-at-home Mom for 3 years and my husband has been the one with the career"
• "I don't have anything to show for the past 5 years I have stayed at home and I have no idea how to find a job or even if I am qualified for one"
• "I haven't kept up with my skills or developed any new ones"

These are just a sample of the dozens of disqualifying statements I have heard come from the mouths of Moms who have contacted me for help with re-entering the workforce. Most think they have nothing to show for "off-ramping" and are at a loss when it comes to their resumes and how to strategically job search.

Many women who have made the biggest commitment - to stay at home with their children - think that having a career just, well, stops. And that going back to old jobs or finding new careers in a changing workplace will be daunting at best but perhaps near impossible with lots and lots and lots of compromises.

If you have that tune or something close to it stuck in your head, it's time for a new one. Repeating negative thoughts about your chances at a successful career post-children will seriously limit you, to say the least. How we think and more importantly, what we say to ourselves, is critical during the transition of re-entering the workforce.

Bottom line: pay attention to your thoughts. In fact, write down what is going on in your brain as you ponder or act upon reigniting your career. While it might be a more difficult exercise than repeating lyrics about a bumblebee being squashed and revived and mommy being so proud, you might find that the tune in your head is just that repetitive - and just as disturbing as this little song :)

For help with your transition back to work, contact Ellen at trueprofessions@gmail.com for a free consultation.

Career Makeover Wednesdays: Daycare Duty to Writer Extraordinaire

Welcome back to the first of our career makeover series! Now that you’ve learned a little bit about Gina, let’s talk about how her makeover is coming so far. A lot has happened since Gina’s first post!

By Ellen Dunagan

One of the things that struck me as I questioned Gina during our first meeting was how thrilled she was about changing careers. While the opportunity to pursue a career as a writer had come her way after being forced to shutter the day care center she had built and managed for 20 years, she couldn’t have sounded more delighted with her situation.

I immediately recalled the numerous times I had conducted exit interviews with employees and thought: some of these individuals will discover that being let go from this employer is the best thing that could happen to them. We have all heard the stories of people who have been laid off or fired, only to go on to find better jobs and more fulfilling career paths. While these individuals feel the devastation of being let go initially, many later say they felt a sense of relief that their employer or the economy made the decision for them, thus freeing them to find greater career fulfillment.

This was certainly true of Gina. I didn’t hear disappointment, a sense of loss or foreboding, or even a trace of bitterness as she described the loss of her successful day care business. Instead, I heard sheer excitement in her voice as she described her new career aspiration: becoming a professional writer.

Right away we focused on goal-setting, and I had Gina identify 3 goals that would define a successful career as a writer. While she wrote: “Wow...not an easy assignment for some reason” she came up with 3 goals below:

1. Make a living at writing
2. Become comfortable marketing myself & my business
3. Realize my career makeover as a personal reinvention, complete with new skills and goals

She added: “Honestly, if I can accomplish one of those things I will be proud me!”

So we started with goal number one: Make a living at writing. So far, Gina already had several clients: she was a regular guest blogger for several blogs whose topics ranged from women in the workplace to technology. She was busy using social media on behalf of several clients to get information and news out to followers and she was also conducting research and writing web content.

We focused first off on where and how she was getting her clients. Gina is one of those savvy internet users (probably due in part to her husband who has his own IT business) so using technology and the World Wide Web is where she felt comfortable getting new business. However, Gina talked about wanting to get business on a local level in her town and surrounding area. One of my suggestions to her was getting old-school about it and getting face-to-face with people in her community who she could get to know and market her services to.

During our discussion, Gina mentioned two things that stood out to me: a women’s networking event that was on her calendar and a real estate agent who was well known in the community, had just retired, AND who had sold several houses to members of her extended family. Hello networking opportunities!

As we closed our discussion, I challenged Gina to go out on a limb and change her online behaviors to face-to-face encounters. Together we came up with some action items to help her practice talking about her business and test new and different behaviors that would lead her to securing business and also help her start working toward goal # 2: “Become comfortable marketing myself & my business.” So, action items to be completed by our next session included:

1. Come up with a pitch. Describe your business and what you do in the length of time it takes you to ride an elevator. In other words, make it short, but make it powerful. She’s a writer after all, so I thought this would be a great exercise for her but also might come more easily to her.

2. Meet at least 3 new people at the professional networking event coming up. Since Gina did not have a lot of networking experience, I did not task her with the challenge of pitching her business, but rather asked her to meet three new people and get their business cards.

3. Set up an appointment with the real estate agent who retired. Why? It might seem awkward to some while a no brainer to others. Simply put: people are wonderful resources who will help you get from point A to point B faster than you can do it yourself. Gina’s real estate agent is a pro who was in business for decades (sans the internet!) and who knows the locals, from businesses to business owners, like the back of his hand. One meeting with someone like him can yield a world of wealth, from contacts who might need Gina’s services to helpful business advice from someone who enjoyed great success.

After our meeting, Gina left armed with lots of homework, but lots of new ideas and things to think about. Check back next Wednesday to hear how Gina fared at her networking event…and with completing her action items!!