Building a Purposeful Business to Help You Build a Purposeful Career

Today’s post is part 2 of a series about the purpose behind HigherEdCareerCoach.Com and the different ways the site and my business are evolving to meet the needs of higher ed job seekers. Consider it a rough draft “blog manifesto” or sorts.

What you need to know about me:

• I believe that my purpose in life is to help others along their life and career journeys.
• I’ve helped many, many people get jobs and get into grad school, and to figure out where they are going in their lives and careers.
• I am mostly interested in helping educators, artists, musicians, and other creators, who keep pushing people, discussions and our culture along.
• I believe that knowing your purpose is not enough. You have to find the right way to express it. And for some of my clients, the answer is to not work in higher ed, go to grad school, be an artist or a musician, but something else. If I can help point them away from a wrong turn and be okay with the alternate route, I’ll be happy with that, as well.
• I got to a point a couple of years ago where I knew that I enjoyed doing this coaching thing more than the job I was doing, and that it was time to move on. There were other personal motivations, too, including decreasing my stress, spending more time with my partner and kids, and living closer to our aging parents and the rest of my extended family. I want to help people who may be similarly stuck know that it’s okay to change your plans and do something different.
• Residence Life is a high burnout field, and I got to a burnout point with it. Then I got over the burnout, and was happy. And people were happy with me. And I felt like I had done what I came to Penn State to do. And I wanted to leave on good terms, because I love that place, and the people there, just like I love my family (dysfunctions and idiosyncracies notwithstanding.)
• Once I set a few things in motion, before I knew what had happened, all the sudden, it was time. So I took a leap of faith. And I am happier in my life and career, and get to focus more on what I am meant to do on this Earth, and how I am going to do it. I’m read to help people explore their moments of career serendipity, so that when things come together, they can be ready to take their own leaps.

Which brings me to the whole business thing. Like I said, I have money. It’s not about money. But on principle, I can only justify following my dreams if I maintain the quality of lifestyle my family has, and have a stable enough income to retire one day. I have room to wiggle now, and to figure it out, but I really don’t want to spend my retirement (if there ever is one) living on the street.

So here are the critical points you need to know about me, my sites, and my business.

• I’m not motivated by money in the strictest sense, but I do want to have a sustainable business that delivers value and creates regular income, because (like most people), I value stability and want to give that to my family. They deserve it for putting up with me!
• The articles and advice you get on the blogs will continue to be free as long as I can manage to keep putting good content out there and justify the costs of hosting the sites. In some cases, I pay my writers, because this is a business, and their writing keeps your eyeballs on the page and gives my business exposure while actually providing you some value, through different perspectives and ideas. In other cases, I trade posts with other education bloggers and coaches, or accept submissions based on a particular topic (for example: Monday Morning Quarterback columns.)
• Other services will cost you money. (Resume reviews, coaching sessions, webinars, publications, and eventually one or more members-only sites and coaching programs.)
• I’m not outrageously priced, but I am not cheap, either. I do have “friends and family” discounts, package rates, and a variety of products and services, either currently available or in development, and I’m developing more short-term and one-time opportunities to meet the demand for low-cost services.
• I will continue to have some sorts of advertising on my site and more often than not, this advertising will be for affiliate programs I am a part of, for products that I use, have used, want badly (like an iPad) or just think are good. If you buy something from a link or an ad on my sites, chances are, I will earn some money from the transaction.
• I’m going to stop hinting and start selling, because I want to stay busy with the coaching, help people and support my family. In other words, it’s time to really move from being an aspiring businessman to an actual one.
  
• I’m going to enlist your help. Why? Because I believe the assistance of my readers, professional community, and other people and websites I admire can help me improve the sites and give you more of what you want and less of what you don’t, because I don’t want to annoy you and I do want you to keep coming back.

Here are some upcoming things you will see on the sites, as a result of the “course corrections” to get my sites and my business moving forward:

• I will be placing more prominent links and buttons on the sidebar to encourage people to consider working with me as a coach. No more hinting. If you are a job seeker in higher ed, I want your business. But if you only come to read, that’s cool too. But if and when you are ready, I want to be at the top of your mind. If you know me and trust me already, then that’s a good start, and I’ll take it.
• You’ll continue to see e-mail list sign-up forms in the sidebar and I do use pop-up forms as well. I’ll try to give you incentives to join the list. For the e-mail list, I am linking them to some auto-responders that will deliver free e-mail mini-courses over a set period, as well as regular newsletters, and the opportunity to get “blog broadcast” summary newsletters. New subscribers who sign up at Higher Ed Career Coach are currently getting a mini-course on “Planning Your Career in Higher Education” in exchange for signing up. This autoresponder mini-course has weekly topics and exercises to help you flesh out some of the steps as you plan your career journey. It isn’t really a “self-coaching” program, but it should help you get started. This mini-course will be available for the next month or so, but will be taken down and replaced by another topic-related mini-course, probably in early October.  Afterwards, it will be offered (probably with some modifications and feedback) as a paid product.
• This month, I will begin offering some low-cost webinars on career topics and you will see registration widgets on the site, as well as articles about upcoming opportunities. Some of these will have set per-seat prices, and others will be offered as “Tip Jar Webinars.” This means that you pay according to the value you receive. There will be a suggested donation but if you think the seminar was useless you won’t pay anything. If you get something out of it, you’ll be encouraged to support the development of the series by “tipping” based on the length and format, number of presenters and value of the information. (Probably between $5-$20 would be an appropriate tip for most seminars)
• In the next few months, you will see offerings for e-books and for a book I am contributing a chapter to, called “101 Great Ways to Enhance Your Career.” The book is a cooperative book project from SelfGrowth.Com and that means I bought into the project to get published alongside 100 other career authors and to have books to use for giveaways and promotions, as well as selling them. There is a screening process, so hopefully my article won’t get rejected, now that I am telling you about it. So let me make it clear. I do realize this is a glorified ad in some ways.
• I’m going to revise my affiliate advertising strategy, and the first step will be to get feedback from you about what you would prefer to see, and what you might buy. I will only continue to participate in affiliate programs for products I use, would use, want or believe in. And if you have a bad experience with one of these programs or think I should stop my affiliation with a group or company, I want to know that, because I only want to advertise products and services that readers would actually use.

Thanks for reading. I’d love your feedback about what I can do to improve the sites, focus my business strategy, and better meet the needs of higher ed job seekers. I’ll be starting later this week with a brief survey about the site features and advertising/affiliate programs.