YOUR WORST DECISION WILL BE THE ONE YOU NEVER MADE.  –Richard Rybolt

It’s uncommon today for anyone to stay in a position or with a company for more than a few years.  I’m not sure the exact moment that things shifted, but it happened.

We went from a nation of employer loyalty to employees and vice versa to a nation where people are commodities.  Employees can’t afford to be loyal to employers because that loyalty is seldom rewarded.

I certainly didn’t know this would be my reality when I left undergrad.  I had a father with two pensions by then, and we had never known instability or insecurity.

So the issue for people today is to recognize the signs that are absolutely, positively reality.  Those signs should inform you as a home business owner how to help people God brings into your path.

Why?

Take the example of my friend Jason.  He was laid off by a big firm despite stellar performance and dedication.  With 7 children under the age of 18, this is a big deal, especially when I bet he thought his performance guaranteed him job security.

You as a home business owner have what Jason and so many others need…an opportunity that no one can take away from them and which comes with unlimited income potential.

But how can you help people to recognize the signs that their JOB deal is a dead one?

I’m going to lay out some important things here, but get back to me so I can help you refine this for your business.  You can get in touch with me Monday through Friday.

The Seven Signs

1.  Corporate Trends

You only have to at look companies like Wal-mart.  They went through a round a few years ago of either firing or laying off large numbers of people who had worked with them for many years.  From the anecdotes I collected, those people seemed to be loyal employees with great records.  While I’m not singling out Wal-mart here, it is a microcosm of what is going on all over.
But big companies executing on these decisions and engaging in this behavior have ripple effects.
Sometimes the elimination of people is buried in a “reorganization.”  The people eliminated might even be the highest salaried people in any location.  I saw that for myself in my years in banking.
And the truth is that the scenario that keeps playing out is not going to improve.  People tell themselves it will, but they deceive themselves.

2.  Unemployment

Do you believe the statistics posted by the government?
I don’t.
I’m not going to waste time and energy detailing what we all know to be true….job creation is an illusion today.  Even in Texas where I live, the jobs were created primarily in the oil and gas industry, and those jobs are anything but secure.  We don’t  have any kind of big boom in hiring otherwise.  But Texas managed to fair better than a lot of states, so that should tell you something as well.
It should tell you that it matters where you live.
No matter where you live, the need for a home business exists in enormous numbers; however, in some states the need is unbelievable.  You must know your market.  You must know the suffering going on around you in order to meet the needs of people.   Take stock of your state and your city or town.  Then figure out how to reach the people who need you the most.
If marketing to reach people is new to you, it isn’t to me.  Don’t hesitate to contact me.

3.  Debt

Personal debt.  Corporate debt.  Government debt.
If we had to pay what we owed now in any one of those areas, there is not enough real money in this country to cover it.
Did you know that?
Most people (I’d guess probably at least 8 out of 10) have debt of some kind.  Maybe even most of those have LOTS of debt, including credit card debt because they LIVE BEYOND THEIR MEANS.
Chances are that they are scared and angry and out of answers.  Sadly, this explains so much about what we experience in our society today in terms of courtesy.
And do you realize that this fact alone is a key driver in why you, as a home business owner, have more tools to help people financially than any other opportunity out there?
It matters if you have a solid company to work alongside in the home business industry, so don’t take a partial solution to someone searching for financial and personal answers.  Shame on you if you don’t do due diligence on your own company companion.
If you don’t know how to figure out if you are in a solid company, contact me.  You can do that HERE.

4.  Qualifications are Meaningless

When people like my friend Jason go out in the marketplace to secure another traditional job, they find out some hard lessons.
They aren’t special.
People with experience, education, training, and even a pedigree are a dime a dozen today.  Only a select sector or two (like military defense stuff that requires super secret spy level security) are an exception to that rule.
Being a minority might help, but even that has mutated today.
What these people don’t know is that their qualifications and their experience matter most in the home business arena.  They can translate all of what they’ve experienced into helping others find what they want and need…and in the process build a huge business that will pay them the rest of their lives (and even pay their children and grandchildren if they’ve got the right company).
Who they are matters in a home business.  Life starts to make sense again.

5.  Loss of Corporate Culture

The gold standard of a good job always used to be that it was a local company full of local people who probably all lived in neighborhoods near the office.
Employers had a lot invested in the people because they had ties to each other.  There was a since of shared destinies.
This gold standard got wiped out when companies began moving overseas and “made in China” became the norm.  Even banks couldn’t stop merging with each other.  The result was that cultures just simply died.  They didn’t even really mesh to become better cultures.  Blood was in the streets for many of the mergers, and even those who managed to hold onto their jobs carried baggage of resentment and fear.

Culture is environment, and environment takes direction from culture. — Lynne M. Thomas, JD

6.  Elimination of Benefits

You’re already sensing a trend here, but the truth is that benefits have become laughable if you believe in laughing so you don’t cry.  But people still head out there searching for jobs with benefits!
They’ll take a job with no security, no unlimited income potential, and no quality of life just because it promises the modern version of benefits.
These are people who have no idea how to build wealth or security for their families because they’re still tied to old ideas and old understandings.
Look at cities like Chicago.  That city…and heck the whole state of Illinois…has been in financial trouble since I was in undergrad (if not before).  People working in city jobs in Chicago had government-sponsored benefits that they thought made them safe.  How safe do you think they feel today with bankrupt city and state government and underfunded pension plans?
How many people retired from companies and were promised paid medical insurance for life?  I know many people who did but who woke up a couple of years ago to find out that the employer had changed its mind.  The deal was gone.  And there was nothing they could do about it.  No, I’m not kidding.  These are people I know personally, and its a large number of people.
Why did it happen?
It was all about money.  That’s the bottom line when you wake up to realize that the traditional JOB world is a dead deal.
And just in case you’re curious, a 401K plan is not a pension plan.  An IRA is not an pension plan.  These vehicles are self-funded retirements, and you better hope you don’t outlive your money.
Don’t believe me?  Talk to some retirees.  I’ve been doing it for years.

7.  Break Down of the Family

This one is probably a surprise to you.
But it really is properly the 7th Sign.
You see, all of the foregoing have contributed to a total decline in the family.  So many parents are working all hours because it’s expected of them.  So many parents are working multiple jobs because they have to.
These statements become MORE true every year…not less.
The JOB world that my father knew was not like this.  Men (and women) worked hard but had a stable family life at home.  Or at least if they didn’t have a stable family life at home, the job wasn’t usually the culprit.
Now men go into the workplace and have to become warriors to protect their place in the grand scheme of things.  There’s always been some of that in men in general because that their basic programming, but now it’s kill or be killed.  Men are dying slow deaths and bringing home challenges to their families.
Women who buy into the lie that their identities depend upon the recognition and stature they think they have at work attempt to juggle work and family.  I know this is an unpopular statement, but unless a mother has to work to feed her family, her time out of the home is destructive to her children (and husband if she has one).  If she has to work to keep a roof over their heads, she has to slice and dice herself to put pieces of herself where she needs to be at any given moment.  Women lose themselves this way.
Both men and women spend sometimes as much as 2 hours driving or riding each way to work.  That creates an unhealthy physical result for the person, and it costs an extraordinary amount of money to just get to the job every day.

So How Does This Help You?

As a home business owner, your job is to help people get what they need and want.
If you don’t understand the basic realities going on in most people’s lives professionally, you don’t know what questions to ask.  And you won’t know if you have the solution.
For example, people have built big home businesses utilizing their commute time so they can transition out of their dead JOB.  They won’t know this is possible for them if YOU don’t know it’s possible.
Not every person is going to be a fit for your deal.  But the truth is, they are a fit for somebody’s deal.  If you do your job, they will see someone who cares about THEM in a way that no one in the traditional JOB world does anymore.  And you’ll do them the biggest favor ever by opening their eyes to the lies under which they’re laboring.
Whether THEY have the courage to make the decision to change their lives is not your responsibility.
So here’s what I recommend.
I recommend that you take the 7 Signs and distill them down into questions that you can ask people.  For example….

How much time do you spend in your car every day getting to and from work?
Are you happier this year than you were last year in your job?
What worries you most when you try to go to sleep at night?
How much time do you spend with your kids each week?
What would you change about your life right now if you could change one thing?
Are you happy with what you are able to be for your family?

Once you’ve got an arsenal of questions, you are armed to help people fight their way back to dignity, purpose, and self-worth.
Because it really is the worst decision of their lives to fail to make a decision.
Doing the same thing over and over (i.e. going from job to job) and expecting different results is a kind of social insanity.  Helping them to open their eyes gives them permission to make decisions to walk away from the lies and find what they ultimately want in life…whatever that is for them…whether it’s your deal or not.
I hope that this was helpful!  Let me know what questions you have and how I can help you grow your business.
God bless, and don’t forget to go light your lamp.