A New Job
As I reflect on Thanksgiving , I have much to be thankful for. One thing is my new job. Whether you call it destiny, chance, the law-of-attraction, or providence, all things seemed to have worked together for the good.
- Told that small business is the best use of MBA
- Moved from TX to start EJones business
- A change of heart/mind
- A realization
- The search begins
- A fuel pump creates a story
- The cat is out of the bag
- The foretold small business opportunity is found!
My business as a Financial Advisor has come to an end; Aug07-Nov08. For years, prior to my move, I believed I would enjoy this business and even thought it a calling; an opportunity to do good for many individuals and families while earning a good living for my own family. This belief drove me to accept the risks and resign from a good job at Lockheed Martin in TX to build my business in the home of my youth, Mt Juliet, TN. (I still believe many people out there need solid financial advice – and that EJones is the best of what’s available to the general public.)
The change of heart and mind began slowly this summer. All my life I have been ushered forward by a restlessness and curiosity that grips me once I have achieved some level of competence in a task. I’m not talking perfection here – more like ‘been there, done that, what’s next.’ A former boss of mine, who shared this mindset, described it as ‘turning a crank’ – we will tackle anything once, one or two turns of the crank, but will happily hand it to another person to repeat the task over-and-over to polish, improve and perfect.
The primary task in building a business as a retail financial advisor is that of locating clients; door-to-door introductions, Chamber of Commerce, Seminars, Public Events, etc…. I knew this fact at the beginning and yet did not realize how quickly the simple, basic, repetition necessary to locate clients would start to look *A LOT* like a crank to me – a very simple, necessarily mindless, one that was being turned 15-20 times a day to find a few clients a week.
And still, the idea of helping people while “earning a good living” was there – so I persisted. But my pause made me take a closer look at the real expected income; now understanding exactly how it was earned. I found that the targets I originally used in my move, and expected, were inflated. That’s not to say the income was impossible – some by diligent work, luck, timing, or a combination did well - just that a realistic look at the area averages made it obvious I could do better on my original career path. Someone recruiting to this type of position will describe to you what is possible – but trust these numbers as probable.
Upon completing my MBA, when asked, several of my ‘mentors’ suggested that the best application of a newly minted MBA is to find a small company that is both stable and profitable and at a point of recognizing the benefits of employing someone with the typical persistence, skills, and flexibility of an MBA from a top school. Positions of this sort are not easily located and very often come in form of a referral from someone who is already working at the company.
In October I began a job search. This was a complicated operation because of two cascading points: 1) I could not utilize many people from my professional/social network because I had to operate my current business as normally as possible and then 2) I felt, as soon as I knew a change was imminent, that I could not, in good faith, solicit new business; thus my income was practically eliminated and my time to remain in business, limited.
Areas in the search included: Nashville, Huntsville and Chattanooga. On a trip to check out Huntsville, AL, Courtney and I were stranded for several days when her car’s fuel pump failed. Fortunately the Volvo dealership in Huntsville is in a good area of town with a hotel next door, a good barbecue place across the street, and a rental car office on site.
This made for such a good story that we shared it with some friends of ours. The secret was kept by not giving express reasons for why we were in Huntsville. However, at one dinner my wife began describing the areas of Huntsville with such detail (including names of subdivisions, home prices, shopping, etc) that our friends wrinkled their foreheads and asked if we were looking to move there. The cat was out of the bag – and so we shared the details with our friends. This is when my friend’s face lit up and he asked that I send my resume to him for review by the owners of the small company for which he works.
After an extensive interview process I was offered a position with the company. After careful personal consideration and discussions with my mentors and wife about the handful of opportunities I was pursuing in parallel, I accepted a position as Program Manager with the small engineering firm in Franklin, TN. I, and my interviewers, believe that, with my professional experience, MBA, and engineering degrees, I will be able to greatly contribute to the ongoing success and growth of the company.
So the next time something you really believe in doesn’t work out, and your fuel pump leaves you stranded, and your wife tells a secret – GET READY!! – Something amazing might soon happen.
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