If you’re concerned about the security of your current position or even about the stability of your industry, what should you do? What income source would be safer?
Where else might you make the same kind of money you’ve been earning till recently?
What transition would involve the least pain for you and the people who depend on your income?
Those concerns boil down to a simple question: What else might you sell?
Protect Your Income by Selling Something Else
The answer is as simple as the question: Sell what people want to buy.
That may sound glib, but it’s profound. Let me explain.
What if people have stopped buying as much as they used to of the products you’ve been selling? Worse, what if your whole market has been slammed, and virtually all potential employers have simply stopped hiring?
Think of financial services; residential real estate; the auto industry; home-improvement services; most retail; travel, hospitality and restaurants; and many others.
If you’re in a situation like this, then sell something else instead.
Who Could Be Better Qualified Than a Professional Sales Person?
Finding another product is easier said than done. But if you’ve survived in sales for any length of time, you have skills, insights and abilities that most people lack.
Your abilities will always be in demand, and someone will always pay a premium for them.
Even so, it can be hard to learn new products, let alone to change companies. It’s even harder to change markets. Each level of change involves a progressively higher degree of risk.
If you’re in really bad spot and need to make an immediate move, you may have to accept those risks, make the change and get on with it.
New Mindset: Think Like an Entrepreneur
Whether or not you change jobs, you can limit your risks and maybe even earn much more than you do now. You can do that by learning to think more like an entrepreneur and less like a hired sales person.
I urge you to think about starting a business that sells products people are buying.
21 Things You Don’t Have to Do
Do you object already? Please, give me another moment.
I am not trying to sell you something here. I’m suggesting that you open your mind to new possibilities.
To address your likely objections, let me quickly say what I’m not talking about.
To start your own business, you don’t have to:
- Get involved in a pyramid scheme selling soap, cosmetics, cookware, Tupperware, sex toys, insurance or some other product you’d rather not sell.
- Badger your friends and family to buy things from you.
- Put your savings at risk.
- Do cold calling.
- Recruit other sales people to work for you.
- Borrow money to finance your business.
- Leave the security of a stable job.
- Invest in samples, inventories, office equipment, suppliers, or the like.
- Commit to paying franchise fees, leases, rents, etc.
- Travel any more than you want to.
- Hire anyone to work on your payroll.
- Face the headaches of managing people who work for you.
- Work with people you don’t like.
- Tie yourself down to a shop or an office location.
- Work when you don’t want to.
- Work on a schedule someone else sets for you.
- Work in a specific city, state or region.
- Compete against a current or former employer.
- Get tied up in activities you’re not good at and don’t enjoy.
- Spend money on clothes or looking good for work.
- Spend time and money commuting to and from work.
Does this sound too good to be true?
It’s not. And wait, there’s more.
8 Unbeatable Benefits
Starting the right kind of business also has these huge benefits:
- There is no limit to how much you can earn.
- You can build your business as fast or as slowly as you like.
- You can work anywhere in the world where you can establish a reliable internet connection.
- Your time is completely flexible.
- The work is interesting and mentally engaging.
- You can be successful regardless of your age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity — provided your mind is sharp and you’re willing to learn.
- Many of your costs are tax deductible.
- What you learn in the process will probably make you better at your full-time job and more employable in others.
More on this next time.
Stay fresh.
– Scott Silverback