Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life (or a distinct portion of life)". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work (and sometimes also formal education). Why many people think entrepreneurship isn't a career is beyond me. My theory is Entrepreneurship as a career usually starts around the age of 10. It starts when you sell your first bicycle or skateboard or something as simple as trading playing cards. From this moment on your work experience has started and puts you on a track towards your long and exciting career. There are a ton of similarities between a "normal" career path and that of an entrepreneur. The problem is entrepreneurs don't see them, causing them to get frustrated quit and start a "normal" life. If they had just known that having their 2 year in the making business or idea fail was just a fast track path to their goal. Entrepreneurship has never been so easily accessible as it is today. With the internet booming and constantly changing these are exciting times and those who take advantage of it will prevail. So let's make an example of the "Normal Career Plan" NCP and that of the entrepreneur. "NCP" 1. Go to school, get good grades. 2. Maybe after school have a job, but nothing to serious because your parents wouldn't want it to interfere with your studies. 3. Apply for expensive school's so you can study what you think you want to do incredibly knowing only 4 years after hitting puberty. 4. Go to school party, learn your "passion" get out and get your dream job. 5. Realize it took 2 years to get a job and it's not even closely related to what you studied or a lower level job making you "over qualified". 6. Having this job for 10 years working your way up building your "resume" AKA credited knowledge that people determine solely on references, AKA network. 7. Get fired or quit to have your mid life crisis, where shortly after you start a new life, another job. Now the way things are today these steps may move much much faster. I honestly believe that people will hold jobs for a maximum of 5-10 years before switching. Entrepreneur 1. Go to school day dream get good enough grades to get through and possibly do very well in a few subjects that are of interest to you. 2. While going to school have a job or small business where most of your focus is. 3. Leave high school and think why would i want to go to college when I'm already making money? 4. Realize that college is a great business as people are applying. 5. Think your going to start a business and be a millionaire straight out. 6. Realize it's much more difficult than you assumed and take 2 years of trying different ideas for one to gain traction. 7. Think you have it all figured out to find yourself 1-3 years later 'getting fired" or failing. 8. Step and repeat. Now entrepreneurship and the "normal" career path both have similar qualities in that both have huge misconceptions and both are very difficult. When the entrepreneur fails the NCP gets fired. They must learn from this and try to find another job. When one idea sticks for the entrepreneur the NCP gets a raise. When the entrepreneur gets a write up in the newspaper the NCP gets a promotion. So on and so on. The point of this is don't look at you career as an entrepreneur as a chance to break out of your 9-5 and make a million dollars on your own watch. It's not that rebellious. Delayed gratification will pay off as much as it would for the the NCP employee. Stop looking at each business as the be all end all because you may just be working at the deli stage of an NCP. When your idea gains traction DO NOT think it's over because you may have just got a job as an NCP. Do you see where i'm going with this? There should never be a time in an entrepreneurs life when he says "i guess i'm going to have to get a JOB like everyone else". Wrong you just have to move forward and look for a new idea like an NCP would look for a new job. Entrepreneurship is NOT a hobby and should be taught to students in high school as an option to the NCP. So the next time you make it or break it as an Entrepreneur just remember it's just a chapter in the book of your long career. Slow down learn from your mistakes and you will move forward. Most importantly if your do not START any projects you will be EXACTLY like an NCP that doesn't look for a new job. So get that "deli job" and get the ball moving.  How I implemented text messaging into Comeclean.it , and how at first was a convenience that turned into the core of the business. Comeclean.it was a laundry delivery business I had started November 2010 in Brooklyn. When I had started I was on a shoe string budget and was acting as a independent contractor for a local laundromat. Having no real laundry or delivery experience I knew I had to base the business on what I knew. People. I knew I needed to build the brand around customer service after having previously seen the Yelp reviews from my competitors. Most of them had bad reviews for lack of communication and hidden fee's. So how could I communicate with these people in an effective way that will really open their arms to my brand. So I thought how can I make this as painless as possible for people and how do they communicate normally with friends not business' ?....Text messaging! Now, I'm not talking about mass texting your client base like some text happy club promoter shoving the message down their throat. No, more of a casual customer service tool to gain feedback and spread the word like wild fire. When I first started implementing txt I have to admit my expectations weren't to spread the word but more to care for and engage in real conversation with my customer's. My client base was still small at this point and I thought anything could help separate me from the competition. After about two weeks of texting pick up confirmations ect. I received my first Yelp review, and it stated : " Last Night, 6pm, having cocktails in the village with friends. Friends: Faye who are you texting?? Faye: Oh, just Gary- my laundry guy. Totally normal. Yes, Gary, my laundry guy, was texting me to let me know my dry cleaning was ready and we were discussing when I'd be home to receive it." That was it! Texting gave her trust in me by genuinely engaging her in a manner that only friends and family would do before. I am now her friend, not Facebook friend or Linkedin friend, but a friend she could casually ask questions to with prompt response. After further analyzing it I realized how this could also spread the word faster then any cut throat ad could ever. Now the 5 people that she was sitting around having cocktails with were also instantly interested in what she was doing with her phone and what the heck she could possibly be talking about with her laundry delivery man. Now knowing this I targeted my text messages for confirmation and such for a time I thought my customers were more likely to be around their friends and family. From 5-7 pm most of my text messaging was done . Asking my new customers how they heard about me I realized my conversion rate for every 5 conversation's I would get a new customer. Simply amazing. As time went on my client base got much much larger. Now it was time for the naive customer service fanatic to scale his doings in a structured and similar manner, keeping up what he started. It wasn't easy i'll tell you that, averaging 2600 business related text messages a month was no small task and for sure was 90% of my work. End conclusion really caring is scalable and now in all of my future endeavors an absolute necessity. I parted ways with Comeclean.it in the end of september this year. For anyone looking for an edge in a competitive market in an extremely competitive time. Don't rule out Text messaging or any other means of building real relationship's with your customer base on a genuine level, because thats all it was genuine. |  GARY MISNERLIFE ENTHUSIAST ArchivesJuly 2012 SUBJECTSAll PHOTO'S OF GARY |
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