I have made a decision. One that has been lingering around for quite some time. I made a decision to put some finality to my current job. I have an end date in mind. Well, I know when I am giving my notice. I will be turning in my notice on June 15th. I want to make sure I get my next commission check so that I have enough funds to sustain me for a while.
I'm really good at what I do. I enjoy it most of the time. It's not an easy business, the business of placing consultants on technical contract software implementations. There are all kind of issues that come up and I have to deal with those on a daily basis. I have been doing this for almost 10 years now.
This past January, I was also given the responsibility of hiring internally for my company for sales and recruiting. I was also given a fancy new title. I went from Senior Recruiting Specialist to Manager of Talent acquisition. Unfortunately, I was not given additional compensation for this and I ended up losing money by spending my time recruiting internally when I could have been filling external positions that pay me high commissions. Having said that, I really have enjoyed the switch and have been able to use my creativity more while hiring internally.
For instance, I went on a trip with two of the guys who I work with to Eau Claire - University of Wisconsin to give presentations to the business classes. This was such a great experience. We met with some of the students individually and invited them to come to Philadelphia for a second interview.
Phil and I went to the airport last night to pick up the students who arrived just after 11pm. They just graduated last week. I took two in my car and he took two as well. We didn't drop them off at the hotel until 12:30am! There was supposed to be 5 students but one bailed out last minute. I was kind of shocked. We had bought her ticket and everything. She just sent an email saying that there were "special circumstances" and that's why she couldn't come for the interview. I did email her back and said that I thought a phone call with some type of explanation was what I would have expected at the very least. Anyway, I found out later from one of the other students that she had taken the other offer. The one from Target.
I woke up this morning and I was thinking of what we could do as far as a competition. I then came up with a brilliant idea! We would split them into two teams and they would both have to come up with a corporation and this corporation would be a smoothie company. We were the Venture Capitalist firm that would be evaluating their business plan and product. I went to the grocery store and picked up some frozen fruit, some fresh fruit, milk, juice, and yogurt. I walked in with two big bags and a blender. Everyone was looking at me like I was nuts. I was glad that when I explained the idea it went over well. We saved this part for the last hour and a half. That is how long they had to prepare and deliver their presentation to us and I must say they did a phenomenal job.
The first group came up with the name "Get Juiced" for their corporation. They were offering a caffeinated smoothie as an alternative to coffee, but the smoothie would have some nutritional value as well. They had a vision statement, defined roles, a marketing plan, and they made some very tasty smoothies as well!
The second group came up with "Tutti Fruity Smoothie" for their corporation. Their demographic was 3 - 12 year olds. They came up with a plan of buying two trucks to start to replace the ice cream man. They had defined price points. They new how much capital they needed to raise and how they were going to pay it back and made a very low ball offer of a percentage they would offer us to loan them the money. All in all it was a great idea, but their numbers were off. They also mentioned airing commercials, which didn't make too much sense since they were only going to have two trucks. Anyway, I was very proud of all of them. In such a short time they were able to come up with clear cut plans, ideas, and they showed that they could execute on them.
So, you're probably wondering why today? Why did I decide my end date today?
Perhaps, I have found my replacements. Perhaps It has made the obvious even more obvious to me, that I need to have my own business. I need to do my own thing. Whether it's a cosmetics boutique or something else. Whatever it is, I need to get started and as Nike so simply put it, "Just do it!"
