On the plus side, my infamous oxtail stew is crocking away

Need to be available during your business’ peak season?  Customers demanding service for their money?  Need to remain competitive with increasing competition?   

Welcome to business ownership!  We have t-shirts.

I’ve seen a number of crypto bros take their crypto gains and put them into Air BnBs not realizing that it’s not a “set it and forget it” investment.   You either need to provide support and maintenance or hire a management firm to do the work for you, for ca fee.

Your competition is not just the local Air BnBs, it’s also the Marriott where there is someone available 24/7/365 who will help you with the door lock and address your toilet issues by moving you to another room or getting an all-night plumber who’s on-call.  And they’ll find a way to compensate you for the inconvenience.

If your customers are asking you to match the price of your competition you have to ask what your value-add is.  What makes your service worth $100 more?  Why aren’t you expressing that in your ads? And, do your customers see the value in what you’re offering?

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After 20 years of consulting / contracting / free lancing, / working as a one person agency, I'm investigating returning to full-time work. Prior to the pandemic I averaged 50 hours a week in billable hours, since the pandemic, I'm averaging about 20 hours a week because my many of my clients didn't survive the shut downs.  I'm at a point in my life where I don't know if it's worth it to rebuild what I had before I retire in 10 or 15 years.

The big challenges I’m seeing in my job hunt are:

1) Hiring managers who are concerned that I’ll work with them for three months and then leave to grab a contract so they prefer a candidate who has a more traditional background.

2) HR folks are concerned that after working independently for so long, I won't be able to work for a ”boss”. They don't understand that I’ve had many “bosses” in the past 20 years, I just called them “clients”.

3) Many recruiters I’be worked with really don't understand free lancing as far as a job timeline is concerned. I’ve had over 100 clients, some major brands that were long-term engagements, some small companies that needed a week or two of work.  Some engagements are near full-time where others may be a little as a few hours a month.

I list the last 20 years as one position (as I do on my taxes) and mention my major clients in bullet points. Recruiters often request that I list these engagements as separate positions, which makes things convoluted. I can't list all 100 clients and fit my resume on two pages of paper. If I list only my longer-term engagements, there are gaps in the timeline. (Periods where I was doing short term work for small organizations). 

Either way there are overlaps, I'll be spinning up a project while putting another one to bed. I am often providing support a few hours a week to a number of organizations while working on a long-term project alongside it. I know it's not an uncommon story for independent workers but It's just hard to express in a traditional timeline  At the height of my business I had 15 support and maintenance contracts alongside a 30 hour week project, which gave me 40-60 billable hours a week. This morning I had a recruiter accuse of my lying, telling me that it's impossible to have two clients at the same time.