If you’re a social worker working for a hospital or a mental
health center, your colleagues are other social workers and perhaps
other mental health workers. However, if you are on your
own, whether a social worker, musician, electrician, or writer, you
have another group of colleagues who have nothing to do with
your chosen profession. Many of the concerns and problems you
have in your own business are similar to those of other small business
owners and private practitioners. If you’re a teacher, you
may well want to discuss teaching methodologies with another
teacher rather than with a musician or a Web developer. But if
you’re a teacher trying to develop a tutoring business, you’ll find
more understanding and constructive suggestions from other
small business owners when it comes to marketing decisions, business
planning, and financial issues. Not only will other business
owners have more knowledge of these types of issues but their
motivation and their perspective may be more congruent with
your own simply because, like you, they have chosen the entrepreneurial
path. Although the teacher you taught side by side with
for ten years may think you’re nuts to leave a secure job with a
steady paycheck and great benefits, the self -employed social
worker and even the self-employed computer repair guy will have
no trouble at all understanding your decision to graduate to selfemployment.
Medical librarians are trained to do the same type of research
that I do in my medical search business. When I was in training,
learning to do this work, nearly all my classmates (and the instructors)
were medical librarians. All of them worked either for a hospital
library or for a large drug company. None were on their own
and none aspired to be self-employed. Even though they make up
the only professional group that is knowledgeable in the technical
aspects of searching for medical information, I share few of
the same concerns as these colleagues. I have a great deal more
in common with other business owners and self-employed persons,
who understand the trials and tribulations of building a service
business.
Email:
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