Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You start your own small business.
You enroll in a small business course at a community college and study
hard. In your spare time, you keep busy researching the business opportunities
and scouting out potential clients. Once you figure out the ins and outs
of business life, you set up shop from home and are ready for action.
You find that it is a lot more work than you thought it would be trying
to pull in business. Since you have just started up, people do not know whether
you are reliable or not. You do not have any references or many examples
of your work to show because you have not been certified as a transcriptionist
for very long.
"You must be a good advocate of your skills and be able to communicate
well the value of your skills to prospective employers," says Susan Graham,
a braille transcriber.
You are able to pull in a few contracts and work very hard to get all the
work done on schedule. The pressure to do a perfect job on these contracts
is incredible. You know that the reference from these contracts could make
or break your business.
You find that you are working 10, sometimes 14 hours in a day to get the
contracts done on time, and then you go for a week with no contract to work
on at all.
The uncertainty and constant need to hunt for more contracts is weighing
on your nerves. Your first couple of contracts were barely enough to cover
the cost of the business course you took at college. You feel
quite discouraged, but you hang in there, hoping that business will pick up
with time and experience.