Get a Job by Thinking Like an Entrepreneur

The news is grim. So far over four million jobs have been lost since the start of the recession. People are being ousted from their jobs at rates comparable to the depression era with some predicting a whopping 9.4% unemployment rate for 2009.

With so many people flooding the market, competition is fierce; even for jobs that don’t pay well. Getting a job today will require a new way of thinking of things. It will require you to think like an entrepreneur.

Whether you realize it or not, you are an entrepreneur. Instead of selling candles or financial services, you are selling the knowledge and skills you have developed over the years to a business that needs them. And instead of doing contracted work for multiple clients like the average freelancer, you devote the bulk of your time serving only one client for several years.

While scary at first, this change in mindset is incredibly freeing. Why? Because it opens up avenues of opportunities that you may not have otherwise seen or pursued. Sure you can look for employment at another company in the same industry. But you can also change industries altogether simply by investing in a little education. You can even convert your knowledge and skills into a home based business, something I recommend highly.

Today I’m going to show you how to think like an entrepreneur and secure a job in this crazy economy.
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Outstanding Writer Interview

I’m famous. Not really but a girl can dream right? Corey Freeman over at Outstanding Writer interviewed me and has it posted over at her awesome website.

Corey is one of my Twitter buddies who serves as a constant source of inspiration to me though she doesn’t know it (That’s because I’m horrible and never leave comments on her blog. I know, I know). She owns a company called Minus The Pie and is currently developing three websites; Outstanding Writer, Diligent Design and Freelance Pirate. And she has a forth in the works. Seriously, where does she get the time?

Anyway, stop by and read the interview. Then when you are done, hang around and visit her website. I guarantee you’ll pick up some great tips that will help in your endeavors whatever they may be.

January Business Update

Let’s start the post out with what I did get accomplished in January.

The Plot Café was updated fairly regularly throughout the month thanks, in part, to reprint article directories. I would love to be able to produce original content for the site but there just is not enough time in my day at this moment. I was able to score three interviews with three wonderful fiction writers which you can read here, here and here and I have another two lined up.

I finally overhauled BloggingShed and got an original template on there.

The New BloggingShed

I felt a little bit like a fraud claiming to be a web designer and yet using a blog template designed by someone else. I’m really happy with the way it turned out. This month I’m going to work on getting The Plot Café overhauled (since yes I am using a template for that as well).

I also helped a friend set up her website. So really, I created two templates last month.

A couple of my articles on Ezinearticles were reprinted on other websites so I got a few backlinks for The Plot Cafe.

Now for the bad stuff.
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It Is Done.

Barack Obama is now, officially, the 44th president of the United States. I watched the inauguration and the overwhelming message was one of buckling down and doing all that needs to be done to get us back on the right track. President Obama didn’t mince words. He broke it down for everyone just how knee deep in trouble we are in but he didn’t leave us hanging in hopelessness. He reiterated over and over that we can get through these troublesome times because we are Americans. We’ve been through worse and have survived, we’ll get through this too. As the president says: “It’s time to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and remake America.”
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My Plan to Escape Rat Race Hell in 2009

A few days before New Year’s Eve, I wrote about two goals I wanted to achieve in the new year. One of those goals was to end 2009 working from home and bringing in a steady income of $577 per week (about $30,000 per year). I plan to do this by generating income from two websites that I own.

The first site is called BloggingShed. This site is going to be the one that brings in the majority of my income. BloggingShed is a blogger’s help site where I post tutorials for the various blogging software out there, talk about how to make money from blogging, how to market and promote your blog, discuss design and coding and make snarky comments about stuff I find on the internet.
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Happy 2009!

I’d like to take a moment to wish all of my readers a Happy New Year. All three of you. Don’t fret. I have made it my goal, among other things, to add at least one more reader per month to this blog.

How about you? What goals will you work to achieve this year?

In case you need any help with your goal setting, here is an article that I wrote last year about How to Set Goals and Achieve Them. There is also this one, How to Break Bad Habits, that should be useful as well.

New York Celebrates Good Riddance Day

On December 28th, the residents of New York were encouraged to take part in the second annual Good Riddance Day event in which they were able to throw bad memories of the previous year into an industrial sized shredder.

In an event that organizers hope will become a New Year’s tradition, New Yorkers and tourists were invited to bring bad memories from 2008 to Times Square on Sunday and feed them to an industrial-strength shredder.

“This is the perfect way to move on from a bad year, from a bad experience,” said Kathryn Bonn, of New York City, who shredded a printout of her boyfriend’s e-mail breaking up with her.

This is the second year the Times Square Alliance has sponsored the event which they hope will become an annual tradition. I hope it does too. In fact I hope it become a national event.
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The End of the Year Emo Post

In a few days another year will come to a close and new one will begin, bringing with it a new set of opportunities and challenges. As I look back over the past 33 years of my life, I see a lot of disappointment and failure. Yeah, I’ve had some success here and there but for the most part if someone were to give me a letter grade for my progress in life so far, I would get an E for Epic Failure.

*sigh*
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