How To Stay Employed Forever: Mastering Job Security
Part-time and gig jobs are becoming more common. An employer can replace you as an employee at any time. How can you prevent yourself from becoming unemployed? Here is how to stay employed forever!
The job market is becoming more competitive. A new term for people who cannot find work is ‘unemployables.’ Here is how you can stay employed forever and master job security.
Don’t Go To College
Society tells everyone to go to college. What is the problem now with college degrees? Too many people have degrees. The consequence is degree inflation.
Degree inflation is only one of the problems with college. The next problem is going into debt for a college degree. The worst thing you can do is go into debt for anything.
Debt prevents your ability to save and invest more money. Debt prevents you from having the ability to invest in yourself. Debt prevents you from being able to take calculated risks that can help your long-term financial future.
College is not an investment. Universities sell a college education to potential students, saying that a college degree is an investment but another way to spend money.
I spent nearly a decade in the higher education system. I have never used anything I studied professionally in any of my classes. Besides the courses I took on classical literature and philosophy, the required reading for academic books and computer programs was outdated. I could have read the books on philosophy and classical literature myself without attending expensive college classes.
Caveat
If what you think you want to do requires a college degree before getting an advanced specialized degree, attend a community college or technical school first. You can get all your core classes done. You can then transfer to a four-year college. After graduation, you can then apply to medical or law school.
Attending a community or technical school will save you money. You will get the required material out of the way. You can work while attending college to cover the costs of your courses while working to save money.
Learn A Trade
Learn a trade. There is currently a high demand for the trades. There are a wide range of trades you can specialize in. The skilled trades include:
Carpentry
Plumbing
HVAC
Electrician
Farmer or rancher
Farrier
Butcher
Bartender
Mechanic
Dental hygienist
Self-Education
Self-education is a vital skill of many self-made millionaires. They make a point to read daily, subscribe to relevant sources for their niche, and dive deeper into their specialty.
What is the significant difference between self-education and a college degree? Self-education focuses on practicality. Universities emphasize quizzes and tests. Sealf-learning is a vital form of self-development you can do yourself. College is a societal institution that people continue to lose confidence in. Self-education can help you achieve your career and other goals. College gives you a fancy piece of paper for a degree you may never use as your reward for going into debt.
You can study for certifications. You can take online digital courses to further your education.
A certification can help you in your career. It shows employers that you are certified by a reputable party and have expertise in an area. Certifications often cost less than a college class.
You can purchase a digital course to learn about a topic or skill. The person who creates a digital course has experience with the topic or skill. The great thing about digital courses is you often have access to the digital course forever. Depending on who you take a digital course from, you may also receive a certification upon completion.
Network
People move up in companies and fields by knowing the right people. Life is all about connections.
Do the right people like you? Have you done something to make their life easier? Did you go to the right school? If so, they will be more likely to help you.
The better connected you are, the easier it will be to get ahead. This is just the cold reality. Make a point to network, follow, and get to know the right people for what you want to do.
Get to know your manager if you work for a larger company. If they like you, you may increase your odds of moving up in the company. If you want to move to another location, they may know a manager at the company’s other location to make it easier for you to move. This option will only work if you work for a traditional company, which is becoming rarer.
Companies often prefer to hire internally or through employee referrals. An employer or manager who has built a professional relationship with the employee is likelier to hire someone from an employee referral than someone randomly applying online.
Internal recruitment simplifies the hiring process and saves the company time and money. from having to place a job advertisement and market to hire for the position.
Gain Work Experience
Work as soon as you can. The sooner you start to make money, the more money you can save to have compound interest work in your favor. The earlier you begin work. The sooner you can have an income.
Once you have enough money saved, you can invest in the stock market. You could even start your own business.
You can find an employer who offers a matching 401(k). You can match the investment amount for your employer's 401(k) for as long as you are with the company. You are building up your net worth and preparing for retirement. Stay with the employer until you can find something better.
You can work random jobs to determine what you enjoy. You will be making money while you work to know yourself. You can continue to upskill in the meantime.
Non-traditional jobs continue to replace traditional employment. These jobs are freelancing, contract, and self-employed jobs. These types of jobs continue to become more common.
You can build a business around non-traditional work.
Start Your Own Business
Being a business owner is the secret to staying employed forever. There are three main types of businesses. You have multiple options for generating revenue and making a profit for a company.
Physical Business
A traditional business is brick-and-mortar. It is a physical business that has an actual location. It is fixed in one location unless it becomes successful enough to expand.
The main drawback of a physical business is that you have to pay rent. Depending on where you live, the business may be at higher risk of being broken into and robbed.
Hybrid Business
A hybrid business can be done in two main ways. The first option is a physical business that utilizes e-commerce on its website and across social media.
The second way is to create a business address through a registered agent. A registered agent will fill out all of the required paperwork in the state where you live to form your business. You will then have to pay a monthly fee. You can then add on additional services such as a business phone number and other services.
The registered agent will give your business an address. It is normally just a mailbox. The majority of your business will then be online.
Online Business
An online business is any business that sells products online through a website, Amazon, and other sites or uses an e-commerce platform.
Social media can be used as an extention of an e-commerce website. You can grow a following on social media. You can market your business’ products and services to your audience. You can generate sales from your biggest and most loyal followers.
Types Of Online Business You Can Start
You have a range of options to choose from with an online business. Here are some potential products and services for starting an online business:
Self-publish books online through Amazon and other online retailers.
You can sell physical products online to customers through e-commerce stores such as Amazon and Etsy.
You can sell digital PDFs for customers to download.
You can sell digital courses.
You can generate revenue from advertising on a website and social media platforms such as YouTube.
You can build a freelancing agency.
Now, I will explore a couple of these in more detail below to give you an idea of how they work.
An Online Freelancing Business Agency
If you freelance and have a marketable skill. You could do something similar. You could build a freelancing business around the following area for some ideas:
Website development
Content writing
Copywriting
Business branding
Digital marketing
I know someone who runs multiple Upwork businesses. He started out with one business. The first business became a success over a few years. He later expanded to starting two other businesses in the same niche on Upwork.
He started by himself in an area where he was highly skilled. Once he began to make enough money from the business, he hired other people to do the work for him.
Self-Publishing Business
You can create a business by self-publishing books. You can self-publish books on Amazon. You can sell a book across a range of platforms now to reach a global audience. Depending on your book topic and niche, it may be best to stay on AMazon which has primarily an audience in the United States. If you decide to exapdn outside of Amazon, you can look into other online e-commerce platforms to publish your book to have an audience in other continents.
You can also sell your book(s) directly through your own website. However, if your book is being sold on Amazon. Amazon has a policy that it will match the less expensive price on another e-commerce platform. You will want to make sure that the book is priced the same across all digital publishing e-commerce platforms.
You can also write a short book in PDF format as a lead magnet to grow your email list on your website and elsewhere.
Digital PDFs Business
You could sell digital PDFs. You can sell these on your website and e-commerce platforms such as Etsy.
Third-Party Platforms
For this type of business, you write information that there is a demand for in the marektplace.
You write the cotent for the PDF. You edit the PDF. You then upload it onto the platform.
I found a business on Etsy that sells digital PDFs. The Etsy shop’s price for most of their PDFs ranged from $5 to $20 each. I calculated the Etsy shop’s public sales number with the lower end priced PDFs. According to may calculation, the business was making six figures or more.
I am unable to see the company’s spreadsheet, but on the surface it appears to be a profitable business.
Your Own Website
You can sell these PDFs, or other PDFs, on your website. You will need to have a tool like Shopify or another e-commerce platform that allows you to sell PDFs. You can then list the PDFs under your website’s “products”, “digital products”, or category of your choosing.
You can also link to your digital products as a call to action in relevant articles. If a loyal website visitor or customer trusts your content and brand enough, they will purchase your digital product.
Importance Of Including Keywords
Including the right keyword under your PDF can help customers find your product when using a search engin. This can lead to organic traffic to your website and sells of your products. Keywords play a critical role in a marketing sales funnel for an online business that primarily uses a website to generate leads and sales.
A free PDF is anothe popular lead magnet to gain subscribers for an online business. A PDF takes less time to make compared to writing a book.
Solopreneurship Versus Entrepreneurship
Your goal should be to escape from being a self-employed solopreneur to a full-fledged entrepreneur. Too many people end up being self-employed rather than successful business owners.
A solopreneur manages everything themselves. They are afraid to hire out work to others, even if their business is generte revenue. This is a mistake.
An entrepeneur starts out as an solopreneur, but learns to outsource tasks they are unable to do as soon as possible. By outsourcing to people with the skillset you need, you increase your business’ productivity and your valuable time.
As an entreneur, you want to actively dedicate your time, attention, energy, and financial resources to automating your business. Once you are able to automate the business by hiring people to manage tasks, you can consider starting or going into business with someone.
However, if you want to start an online business, freelancing can be a gateway to building a full-fledged career or an additional revenue stream for your business. You can establish an online business and use freelance platforms to generate income, paving the way for a successful career in freelancing.
Creating Multiple Businesses
Your priority should be to get your first business going off the ground first. Once it is a success, you can start another business. It could be in the same or similar niche as your first business.
Or, if you meet someone who comes from a different background than you, you have the opportunity to co-found a business together. You can each focus on your specialties to make the business profitable sooner together.
You are making the decision to reinvest the money from your first business to start another business. You may be thinking, why would you want multiple businesses?
The same principle of diversifying your portfolio applies to businesses. Businesses target different types of customers. A target customer for a business fits a profile:
Demographics
Interests
Income
The problem they need solved
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Summary
With the decline in full-time jobs and the rise of the gig economy and part-time jobs, your best option is to go into business for yourself. You will encounter struggles that every new owner must learn to deal with. However, if you do a good job and keep your clients and customers happy you are likely not going out of business. You can then become more sophisticated and find ways to legally avoid paying taxes to keep more of your money.
Your salary can only increase so much as an employee. A business provides you the opportunity to continue to grow, which results in you increasing your income.