@Allen
I agree with you on your assesment of the issue of how hard it is to run a small business and be self employed .......but i would also ask that you suggest to those that are unemployed just what they should do when there is no job to apply for or they are applying for jobs and 1000 others are for the same job and it goes on and on. Lets remember they do not have to be thinking in terms of woodworking only.
The American dream started out of guts hard work and a back to the wall. Hope, religious faith and belief and willingness to work have been the corner stone of success whether it be school work or even bring up kids. Heck i found kids harder than business.
As to loosing out on kids and hours of work, well i had all that when i was working for a corporation. I spent weekends at work, flew all over the world and was away from home in a place i could not get back from when my newly wed wife needed me. I lost out on many concerts etc and had to give up planned holidays on no notice. I dont believe this is just the life of a self employed guy. A self employed guy still has a say and chance to decide to do differently.
I dont advocate guys just piling in their cash and starting out in their own business with out doing loads of research and doing the whole excercise on paper to clear the head first, but i dont think merely hoping that some politico or some miracle is going to happen and jobs are suddenly going to appear after the crisis of the past few years.
This is not something that has just happened. Its been building for many many years. Just look at Europe.
Governments around the world have been borrowing money all on the basis of growth continuing. As the years have gone buy the America i was taught about long before i ever got to see it, had a track record of saving as a nation. The America i met and has been turned into a consumer like no other and the system has ensured that the funds were there to spend. Now that cash is no longer there like it was and our generation has woken up to the issue of buy now pay later.
But the debt has to be retired before things will get dramatically better in my view. The pure consumption model is unsustainable.
The other thing we must clear up here is there are different levels of self employment.
A starting point in my view is simply getting to do something that puts food on the table such that when unemployment benefits run out one is not homeless.
If while that succeeds jobs come up well then the choice exists as to whether one continues or takes a job again.
Then there is the concept of creating a business small as it may be with a specfic product or product range. Something like this will need capital to fund it and may well mean dipping into savings or taking on debt. This is a whole new ballgame.
I do think one element that is not spoken of sufficiently is the idea of collaboration and outsourcing. These words would mean different things to different people so i will explain what i mean.
I dont mean a formal partnership when i talk of collaboration. I mean getting together with someone that may be local to you where they are producing x part and you could produce y or you could offer something to their clients or their product that enhances their product or visa versa.
We forget again that many times when very succesful businesses have begun they have started witha group of guys in a garage collaborating. But we get to 50 ish and now are all too independent and full of ourselves and now want to padle a tough canoe single handed. Not too smart in my view.
I put outsourcing in the same category. My suggestion to guys is to take a look around your area and find others that would or could be interested in making a part for you of your product.
Carol has said in her very wise advise to be efficient. This is where you can make a difference.
The old story goes that the entrepreneur hires a lawyer because he is not a lawyer but needs to use the law and have contracts written, he hires an accountant for the same reason. The list could go on. But for some crazy reason make the item something technical which he feels he has the skill for and he thinks he can do it better. Sure he can. But while he has his eye off the ball doing the doing something else does not get done.
When i hear Chuck mentioning he works with designers, i think now there is a guy with his head screwed on right. He can do his knitting and the designer theirs. This is collaboration. This is partnering. These are not one day wonder relationships but they can work to bring a constant supply of work.
Whats crazy is that anyone that is unemployed has probably been in a company where they had to work in a team to get things done. There were other employees working there. Some took orders some did accounts and some ran the store etc.
Why suddenly does that person think they suddenly become invinsible and need to do it all.
Frank Fusco is absolutely correct when he says "People are funny critters" .
I would like to find all the people that knew that Lehman Brothers were going to fail. No one in their right mind thought this was even possible never mind that it has happened.
Who ever thought we would see a nation like Greece nearly go bankcrupt well technically i suppose its not nearly they practically are.
Now in that same vane do you think pensions are absolutely safe and can never falter.
People forget the hit that 99% of the people took to their various savings plans when the stock market took a hit in 2008.
Yet we have people taking retirement and thinking they going to make the longer living that we have today on a concept that is reliant on yesterdays financial thinking.
I am sorry but i think Self Employment is a way to go for many people and couples. I believe this because i think it has greater longevity than the concept of a job.
What many people have not examined in this equation is that many of the small businesses that are employing people today that are independently owned are bombs waiting to go off.
There are many small businesses where the owner now approaching retirement is discovering that their business is not worth very much and that after a lifetime of running it. Given demographics many of these owners are set to retire. They aint too well off when the reconcilliation of debt takes place and there is not the money in the market place to buy up the total value of the businesses that need to change hands in the coming years.
There are going to be many that just simply close their doors and more will be out of work.
Many of these businesses lack something of value for someone else to buy. IN many cases the competitor does not need to buy given that the competitor knows the situation and just has to wait it out. In other cases there is not the earnings to make a sale viable. Most of the actual assets have little to no value and often the business model is very much hinged to particular relationships which are all going at the same time. Succession planning was never on the list for most of these businesses.
But i do agree with the comment that its not for everyone. Just like I thought when i was doing Military service and experienced young men taking their lives because they could not stand it, i realised then that it was not for everyone.
I just do not know what the alternatives are.
The discussion about how much one earns per hour is to me also sensless consider this story below.
This only has bearing if you have alternatives.
A friend of mine in Germany several years ago ( this was not in the 1800's btw
) started a business one would think could never thrive and survive in Germany at their cost structure. They were doing something rather elementry and you would think it would be done in some Asian country.
They were assembling a very basic 3 to 4 part component for the Personal Computer Industry. What they did was to build a huge warehouse and order the various bits from the component suppliers all around the world.
Then when orders came in they would make up kits, put the word out and the farmers wives in the local area would come around in the afternoon and load up on the components. (Just for the record these were not Amish or the likes before someone starts down that path, not that i think anything is wrong with them or their ways.) In the morning they would drop the assembled units off at the warehouse already packed for shipping and the shipment would be checked and go out to the customer. Farmers wives and family got paid piece work rates. It was a win win all round. It kept money in their local economy and helped the farmers especially through winter.
Pretty creative cottage industry if you ask me. The company today is worth hundreds of millions now employs abou 25 full time in a small back room in the warehouse and owns a factory in Hungary and one in Taiwan. I dont know if they still do the cottage industry thing but this proves you can do things if you are creative and collaborate.
Times like we are living in and through, require in my view leadership. I always say its easy to do something when the economy is in full swing and everyone is growing. People are less frugal then and more generous. It takes creative effort and leadership to make it in tough times but one can if one wants to.
