BOOMER ENTREPRENEUR: GOOD IDEA?

Our newspaper of record, the Oregonian/oregonlive.com, broke the boomer news.

via 50plusreinvented.com

Baby Boomers too young to retire and too old to hire embrace what they’ve always embraced:

Themselves.

Can’t believe it?

The book ‘I’M OK, YOU’RE OK’ started out with a working title of ‘I’M OK, I’M OK, I’M STILL OK, OK?’

The ME GENERATION reminds us: It’s not YOU, it’s US.

Has anything changed?

The only reason we celebrate the GREATEST GENERATION is because Tom Brokaw, Steven Spielberg, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, and the rest just won’t let them go.

And because the Greatest Generation did GREAT THINGS.

Any generation deserving current sympathy is the Depression Generation, kids born from 1920-1935.

Our history is their living memory. Talk to them. Do it. But you won’t.

They’ve got better things to do, and so do you.

One of those things is making a living when you’re too young to retire and too old to hire.

Call it a space in time. It’s more than a Ten Years After album.

Today’s boomers live in that space and it’s a very uncertain time.

Sometimes it feels like the choices you make today will determine the rest of your life. Even if you don’t make a choice, it’s a choice. What to do?

1. Don’t change boomer.

Continue along the path you’re on now.

With so many meltdowns and up turns, so many schemes and sweet deals gone wrong, you may want to change things up.

Make a list of what you’d like to change. Make another of what you’d like to keep the same. Which one is longer?

2. Investing in boomer.

Whether you change careers or not, investing in your future is always the right step.

One way to begin is take an inventory of the business environment around you.

Do you see chain stores and franchises?

The Oregonian interviewed people buying franchises. They spoke in Monopoly Game terms: But one franchise, then two, then three.

After that what’s next? A hotel? Apartment complex? Industrial park?

Or do you see local businesses doing things no one else can do, businesses that reinvest and refine their products and services to the point of specialization in a particular expertise?

What’s more fulfilling in our later years than developing and delivering something no one else can do as well?

3. The boomer plan.

This is the part that steps away from the nice ‘what if’ talk, and the harder ‘let’s go’ talk.

You’ve heard me talk about Jackie Peterson. If not, hit the hyperlink.

Business, like emergency medicine, comes with a few standard features. In medicine, emergency medicine, you track the ABC’s: airway, breathing, circulation.

In business you track time, cost, and efficiency. Shrink the time, lower the costs, increase efficiency and make a fortune. That’s the dream.

First you do the work.

Jackie breaks it down in Better, Smarter, Richer’s new online course Best Beginnings.

More about Jackie from Martha Hull:

Jackie B. saved my life. I was depressed and rudderless, stuck as an admin in the subbasement of very a conservative company when I first heard Jackie talk at a how-to business event for creatives. The thing that Jackie said that day that most rocked my world was “if you do not pick ONE thing and stick with it, you are destined to be a hobbyist forever.” Three years now into creating my “deep and narrow niche,” I’ve self-published two picture books, run a successful Kickstarter campaign, and grown my fan base exponentially. I’m still having “great ideas” but am looking at them with a sharp eye to make sure they are not “mission creep”. One thing I have learned for sure: listen to Jackie. She’s a visionary about the future of business and knows how to make a solopreneur business work. The more I do of what Jackie says, the more successful I become. “Better, Smarter, Richer” – those are not just words.
– Martha Hull, Creative Czar of Fluffpocalypse, LLC

From Fay Putnam:

Jackie’s Better Smarter Richer class certainly has helped me become Better Smarter and Richer.  As a performing musician I was not trained to have a business sense. Under Jackie’s tutelage I have learned to think more like a business-person.  The best reward for this BETTER way of thinking has been that I have gained the confidence to actually charge what I am worth. The  number of clients I have has not diminished though my fee has almost doubled. I have maintained a steady number and am attracting just the kind of client I most enjoy.
–  Fay Putnam, M.AmSAT of Breath is the Answer

Once you decide to move ahead, do it with the best guidance.