Some of the best advice I ever received when working a corporate job:
Don’t spin your wheels trying to be good at everything; hire people who excel at what you struggle with.
Last year, I quit my office job. By the end of my tenure there, I wasn’t even doing what I’d been hired to do anymore. I was never provided a career path or plan, no matter how many times I sought out meetings with managers to create one. Our department had been cut and misplaced and cut again, so many times that most of us were doing the work of what had been two or three separate roles when we were originally hired. Everyone was a cog in this corporate machine, doing the work of three cogs, but without the maintenance required to keep those parts functioning. Finally, I left.
That story isn’t unique. Many people over the course of the last few years have experienced similar situations or worse. The real story is the one being written right now by people like me and answers the question: What happens next?
This story is much more interesting. It’s one that involves a wide variety of options. The circumstances that made many people leave their workplace may be similar, but their choices after leaving depend heavily on the unique needs, abilities, and dreams of each individual. Some have families to support, some have health issues, some have debts, some are free and clear of these and other responsibilities.
As a result, the labor force entering the market right now is much more diverse than most job providers give them credit for. Some will (justifiably) succumb to the pressure of providing for their family or personal needs and go back to the jobs they had, unable to negotiate a raise or promotion, and forced to live the same life they’d hoped to escape. Others will job hop to another, likely similar position within another company, probably vacated by another job hopper for the very same reasons we all had for leaving. Still others will be lucky enough to find a position with a higher salary or hourly rate, possibly better conditions, or an improvement in title over their last position.
And then there are the rest of us: individuals lucky enough to be given the chance to make something of ourselves, by ourselves. I say luck because really, that’s what it is. We are lucky to have the money or financial support to spend time building something from scratch without starving to death. We are lucky to lack the level of need that would prevent us from trying something new and risking failure. We are lucky to be healthy enough to work far more than most corporate jobs would require to get our name, brand, and services out there and build trust with clients. We are lucky to be in a nation that has a system in place for people to start businesses out of nothing. We are lucky to have opportunities to use our skills and meet demands for profit. We are very lucky.
Even among this subsect of work-seekers, the stories being written are diverse. Some will create startups for every good (and bad) idea out there. Some will work for themselves or create a new position within a company whose roles are not yet fully defined. Some will go back to school, provide childcare, maintain a parttime job, or pick up individual gigs. Many will fail abysmally. Many will succeed spectacularly. Most will be somewhere in the middle. All of us—some for the first time, and some for the zillionth time — are making space for ourselves.
The point is that the options are limitless for those lucky few.
With so many possibilities, we return to the original advice shared:
Don’t spin your wheels trying to be good at everything; hire people who excel at what you struggle with.
When starting a business, you may feel like you have to do everything from finance to marketing to production. For many, that will be the case simply due to a shortage of resources (namely money), and that’s totally understandable. I currently have to do the same. However, consider this: successful companies become successful when they have the best people for each job doing their jobs well. Almost never do we hear of companies successfully running a business with one team, much less one person, managing finances, marketing, shipping, product design, planning, production, and everything else. In the same way that “it takes a village to raise a baby,” successful companies hire people with specialized skillsets to work together to create a successful business strategy.
When striking out on our own, there are two main things we can take from this advice: 1. We do not need to be good at every aspect of our business, and requiring ourselves to try will waste time and energy for a probably mediocre result. 2. There will be a demand for your skills if you look hard enough and are willing to work with those whose skills you need.
While this isn’t a rally call to encourage people to work for free (don’t fall for social media models offering to show your product unless you’re absolutely sure they don’t just want free stuff — too many horror stories), do be open to things like work trades and volunteer work in exchange for portfolio pieces or exposure. Yes, you will sometimes end up on the losing side of a deal, but remember that many of us are coming from a similar situation, leaving a corporate world that failed us. Most of us in these beginning stages of business building are facing similar difficulties and are willing to put in extra work in order to build our customer base or promote our services.
If you are struggling to maintain all aspects of your business in order to be successful, consider contracting portions of the work out. Take a look at the most successful businesses and the different departments they delegate to, and determine how those departments would apply to your work. Analyze which things you do well, what you can do for now, and what you need help with, then fill in those weak spots using social media, public resources — heck, hire tech-savvy, art club, or math club high school students in exchange for some pocket change and a great letter of recommendation.
Not everything needs to be done by yourself, through expensive apps, or by a more experienced company. Search for the helpers, take advantage of the great skills younger generations seem to have built in purely through exposure to tech, offer trades or percentages of profits over a window of time rather than a direct payment. There are so many beneficial options for integrating yourself and your business into the collective world of freelancers, business starters, and work and experience seekers.
Consider us your community, and every one of us has the potential to help you raise the work that is your baby. We are a large community to draw from, growing all the time as people leave big business and join our ranks.
As a writer, editor, and designer, I’ve helped guide writers, built websites for small businesses, proofread and fine tuned ad campaigns, landing pages, business descriptions, and back cover blurbs for novels in exchange for things that may or may not pay off. I’ve worked for the chance to use those works as examples in my portfolio, in exchange for social advertising within groups and communities, in payment for education so I can later do my own taxes, and more. I’ve been more than happy to put in extra work at the end of every day to help others who are in the same position I am, and I am so very grateful for everyone who’s done the same for me. Perhaps it is not financially profitable or sustainable, but I know that when I am successful, I will remember who helped me and work with them more to help their success, and I truly believe that most people in this community will do the same.
It’s an outdated idea that people are defined by the companies they devote years of their life to. That plan hasn’t worked out for most people in these last few years. We are not the companies we work for, but we definitely are the work we make for ourselves. With that in mind, I hope to keep growing my community and working for and with others who can do what I cannot do, and I will define my success not in the way that our previous employers did, but by living well and helping as many people in this community to realize their dreams.
Our community is as strong and as supportive as we make it, and we all have something to bring to the table. As we make space for ourselves in the job market, we cannot forget to make space for others at our table.
