toAll Consultants With a Full Time Job

[ragschef]

I'm contemplating going back to work. I've not had an outside job to go to everyday in over 4 years and am revamping my resume as I contemplate. PC is not doing enough for me and I love being a stay at home mom for my daughter and being able to help my mother when needed since she's handicapped, but financially, I think I may need to go back to work. I have dreams of being in the biz and being successful. ( I think of myself as someone like Nancy Jo.) My problem is that I dont want to give up PC, but with the way my schedule is without an outside job, I'm already swamped. How do you all do it with your full time jobs? I'm just concerned that if my finances dont pick up any by the first of the year, that I may have no choice and not sure how it works with a FT job on my end, and a child and a mother to care for. Any help, advice or suggestions are more than welcome. Thanks for your prayers.

Amanda

 

[chefann]

I work FT, apart from PC, which is very part time for me. The key is scheduling. Know when you have time available, and use that time wisely (something I still struggle with). If you know how many shows a month you can do, mark your show days in your calendar and don't let people push you around if they don't want one of those days. If they want a show badly enough, they'll work to your schedule. It also helps to work smarter, not harder. I make up a bunch of host packs at the beginning of the season, so all I have to do is pop in the monthly specials (of course, I didn't do that at the beginning of this season and now I'm paying for it).

 

[wadesgirl]

I agree with Ann. The biggest thing that helps me is power hours, I explained it in another thread. Basically, pick a few hours each week to work your business (what ever you have open). Get everything ready that you'll need before you start the hour (calendar, phone, numbers, etc) and work has hard as you can for that hour. Then the last 10 minutes, take time for paperwork and filing. I try to make phone calls or run to the post office (just down the block) on my lunch or break times.

I take the first two weeks of the month I'm booking and put pink post-it notes over the days I want to fill (after you have scheduled all your personal stuff first - which isn't much for me). This way you can show them the dates you have and see if it works for them.

I don't know how old your daughter is but maybe she can help you in the evenings. My MK lady started her daughters off young helping her and they earned MK dollars (fake money to buy makeup). Now she says that she has "time cards" for them and they help her out and mark down the time and she pays them to help her.

 

[tinat51796]

I work full time ...some weeks 45 - 50 hours, besides my pampered chef business. One thing that I"ve started doing is using my lunch hour to do PC stuff. I make calls and work on things then if I can. I bought a cd with a supply order, it's called "managing the PC and another job". They have a lot of good ideas to offer. Good luck with whatever you decide. I'm trying really hard to get my PC business going well enough that I don't have to keep working full time. I have a one year old son and I really want to be at home with him.

 

[cookinmama]

I work FT and have a toddler and a baby. My husband knows that PC is my hobby and team roping is his, so I take the kids when he team ropes and he takes the kids when I do PC. I am always reminding him when I have the shows about 1-2 weeks before so he can plan on being home.

I will usually only do 1 show a week, if I do more in a week I will not do 2 back to back because it is too hard for me to come home at 9 pm and get everything ready for the show the next night. So I always need to have at least one day in-between shows. The only time I do shows more than once a week is when me and my husband agree that I can do more shows that month because we need the extra $$ for vacation or Christmas. Like in September I did 10 shows. NEVER AGAIN. It was way too much for me to take on with a family and a FT job. The $$ was nice, we paid for Christmas and our yearly Vegas Vacation with it.

 

[bsaxman]

My husband and I both work full time and we do evening and wkend shows when we can get them booked. I spend an hour or so ever 2-3 days following up with customer care calls and filing things. I try to get all my show paperwork filed RIGHT AFTER I CLOSE THE SHOW... I've found this really works well for me. I handle most of the calls and paperwork, and my husband has the better product knowledge, and physical strengh. SO he sells and does the packing up and unpacking. We sortof share the responsibilities in that aspect.

 

[hperschnick]

I work FT, have an 18 mo old and one on the way. I haven't been doing PC long but found out early that I needed to pick when I wanted to do shows. I mark those dates on my calendar and people pick from that - also like someone said, no shows back to back. Just see where you know you can do shows and make it work for you. Also using your lunch or drive home to make calls is realy helpful to me so I don't feel like I'm using family time for that.

 

[Jenelle]

I work FT, a second PT job in retail, and PC on top of that. I try to keep a regular schedule of when I can do PC related things. I have my set evenings that I know I will be working my PT job, so I work around that. It's all a matter of how you manage your time.

 

[Intrepid_Chef]

I work FT. My FT job is my career, PC is a hobby.

I have found that I cannot handle more than two shows in a month unless they are catalog shows. A weekend here, an evening there, it's still money I didn't have before!

And my schedule is slowing down, so I need to set aside more of those "power hours."

 

[redsoxgirl]

I work FT and do PC as a way to save money, pay off debt and hope in a year it's enough to be a stay-at-home-mom when we have a munchkin (starting to try in March).

I work 60 miles (about 1.5 hrs) from home so I try to keep my shows on Th, Fri and Sat but will do one during the week if it's a) on the way home or b) not far from home so I don't get home in the middle of the night.

I also check things out online from work and when I get home.

As for my calendar, I mark off my personal things as I schedule them and then fill in Cluster meetings and such so that I know exactly when I'm open for shows. Being new, I'll pretty much do a show whenever someone asks - LOL

It's still a little overwhelming for me, but I try to keep my eyes on the prize (house, baby, stay home) and that helps a lot.

Good luck with whatever you do!!