 Are you dealing with the rollercoaster highs and lows associated with being a consultant? (aka gig, freelancer, solopreneur, etc.) 
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 The number one reason people opt out of entrepreneurship, which includes starting a business, being a solopreneur or even independent consultant, is fear. The wild west of entrepreneurship can come with a lot of unknowns as ambiguity and uncertainly is often synonymous with starting a business. It can be especially distressing for first time would-be-entrepreneurs to make the leap into small business as a result. The transitionary period from corporate life to entrepreneur, even the thought of this transitionary period, is marked with great concern and fear which keeps people from making the jump. For some it may be security at the current job, others it may be a lack of know-how in starting a business or simply a lack of self confidence in ones’ ability to make it on their own. Regardless of the reason, fear is a factor all potential and current entrepreneurs must overcome. I’ve found the best way to overcome fear is to confront it head on. Fear grips us all, regardless of occupation, experience, background or capabilities. The difference between the people who let fear own them versus those who use it as a tool to achieve comes down to two things: acknowledgement and action. Rather than worry, it’s important we address our fears and understand them. When we take the time to acknowledge our feelings and emotions it allows us to better process why we’re feeling this way, at which point we can begin to build a strategy for using those fears as a motivating force towards success. Taking action against our fears comes in the form of slowing down, identifying your feelings, understanding the situation and then planning accordingly. If time is on your side rest easy knowing that you can plan to be an entrepreneur first before you ever jump in the ring. Create an attack plan, identify potential challenges and solutions on how to deal with them. While you won’t be able to plan for everything taking a proactive approach to dealing with fear and using it as a tool perhaps may be enough for you to finally make the leap into the world of entrepreneurship. Key Take Away: Address your entrepreneurial fears head on, understand them and own it! Action Item: Use your newly addressed fears as a guiding force to plan your entrepreneurial transition into being your own business owner. Build alliances, or peer groups, with other business owners to help with the transition while learning from their experiences along the way. Interested in learning more about entrepreneurship and hearing stories from people who have made the leap into business ownership? Check out this event in Irvine, CA on 10/24/18: https://www.devicealliance.org/event/entrepreneur-event/  How do you know the decisions you make for your career are the right ones to make? On February 20th DeviceAlliance and UCI’s Division of Continuing Education will take aim at the in’s and out’s we face throughout our careers in an event called ‘Medical Device Career Navigation’. While we are all very different as people in our behaviors and our mindsets it’s remarkable how those differences bond us in similarity. Many of us will experience the same decisions throughout our career. Do we take the money or the training? Prestigious titles versus meaningful work? Take a step back to hopefully take two forward. Be my own boss or work for someone else? Stay the path of employee or seek opportunities in management? Or even leaving a career to begin anew. The answers to these questions are never easy yet we are all faced them! In this, a powerful opportunity exists - learning from those who have been there before. On the 20th of February in Irvine, CA the event ‘Medical Device Career Navigation’ will embark on a journey through the entire life cycle of a career from college graduate to retirement, and everything in between. Attendees will hear from experienced professionals who represent three career segments:
EVENT SPEAKERS  As we work our way through each career segment we will hear and learn first hand from professionals who have been there and done it before. We’ll discover the lessons they learned, decisions they made and outcomes they experienced along the way. We’ll learn from their stories and have opportunities to inquire about our own situations to collect feedback and direction. During this event we will also discuss structured processes for decision making, like ACIP. ACIP, or Alternatives, Consequences, Information and Plans, is a process for collecting information and understanding our options BEFORE we make a decision. Utilizing processes like ACIP and others which are similar can help improve your decision making process. Combine that with experienced anecdotes from people who have done it themselves and we have a recipe for improving our chances of making the best decisions for ourselves while reducing regret or heartache along the way. Save the Date: Be sure to join DeviceAlliance and UCI’s Division of Continuing Education on February 20th, 2018 at 5:30PM for an evening of learning and discussion on ‘Medical Device Career Navigation’. Event details and RSVP click HERE.  It’s happening all around you and chances are you haven’t even noticed. Don’t feel bad, you’re not the only one that may have missed it. There’s a lot of attention being drawn to a specific area of our domestic workplace which stands to change much of what we know about working for corporate America in the very near term. Meet the Solopreneur! A Solopreneur, we’ll call them ‘Bob’ for purposes of this article, is someone who owns a business, yet has no formal employees. (W2 employees) Bob represents a fast growing portion of the US economy and he’s got a lot of friends interested to learn more about what Bob does, how he did it and how they can get in on a piece of the action. According to the SBA Bob’s makes up an estimated 70% of all small businesses across the country. Furthermore, Intuit released a study that estimates 40% of ALL businesses in the country will be like Bob by 2020. What does a Bob look like? As mentioned a moment ago it’s someone who is in business and is the sole employee of that business. They’re owner, operator and doer all in one. They come in all shapes and sizes and their most popular amongst Baby Boomer and Millennial generations. In years past our Solopreneur Bob has had more traditional titles like Consultant, Contractor or even Gig Economy. They all represent the same thing which is someone who does work on behalf of others through their own means – and this type of work is growing quickly. If we follow the laws of supply & demand we find that when there is demand for something the market typically reacts, responding with a solution. Why is it then there is such a demand for Bob? The uptick in Bob’s is caused by three major factors: 1. Our workforces’ desire for work life balance and flexibility in their jobs. 2. Company’s desires to reduce overhead costs associated with hiring full-time employees, especially as the cost of having employees continues to rise. 3. Company’s desires to continue to find more efficient means of getting work done. With all these Bob’s running about its only natural to wonder how this might impact the overall workforce as we know it. Here are the top 7 workforce impacts that we could experience as a result of the Bob’s. 1. As more people move towards the Solopreneur career it becomes harder for companies to control their internal culture and keep their employees motivated amongst the constantly changing faces in the office. 2. The old thought process which said “to build a great company we must hire great employees” quickly diminishes as companies are hiring Bob’s who are experts in specialized areas to produce quicker than normal results. Efficiency is the driver of many of our decisions in the business world. 3. Companies become more agile as they use flexible resources allowing to bob and weave with the economic punches. (pun intended) 4. It’s possible our workforce could become fractured as Bob’s risk alienating themselves due to the isolation that comes with being on their own 5. The need for excellent leadership increases dramatically. We’re already at a deficit now with good leaders in our country but with a larger portion of our country working independently it will be crucial for companies to have exceptional leaders which are capable of meeting objectives while successfully motivating both internal and external resources 6. People who choose to go the Bob route and do so successfully may find much more enjoyment in their careers as they are making both a difference in their respective industries as well as an internal drive to truly be independent 7. Being a Bob isn’t always easy. The fact is that in order to be a successful Bob you have to know how to sell and market yourself and your services. If you’ve never done that before allow me to be the first to tell you selling and marketing a service is not easy nor for the faint of heart as rejection is common place in the Bob business. As a result it is likely many would enter into a Bob career to only sputter out in a year or two after they’ve realized it’s more demanding than a normal 8-5. Whether you’re a fan or not of the Solopreneur, Bob phenomenon, the fact stands that it’s a growing need in our workforce. What does the Bob-life mean for you? By the by, I happen to be a Bob myself! About the AuthorTravis Smith is the founder and managing director of Square-1 Engineering, a medical device consulting firm, providing end to end engineering and compliance services. He successfully served the life sciences marketplace in SoCal for over 15 years and has been recognized as a ‘40 Under 40’ honoree by the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce as a top leader in Orange County, CA. Categories
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