Jane Downes is featured in The Irish Examiner
"Feel the fear and do it anyway" - Irish Examiner, Friday 3rd June, 2011

We thought the boom was stressful. Everyone stuck in traffic jams or in the workplace. But if you’ve lost your job, or are doing the work of three people because you were one of the lucky ones not made redundant, you now know that real sense of powerlessness that can drag you down.

But all is not lost — from despair and frustration can come true creativity if you are willing to take a step back from your current situation — whether you are unemployed at home or feeling trapped in a pressurised workplace.

When you are stuck it’s a good time to challenge what employment means to you — whether you want to travel to a workplace, or do it all with a laptop at your fingertips at home.

Packing in your job to set up your own business might have been brave in the good times, but today? With unemployment and interest rates spiralling upwards and the IMF in charge? According to Visonnet.ie, there were 1,000 new businesses registered in a single week in May. Recession is fanning the entrepreneurial spirit.

But whether you are marching into the office and tell the boss you’re quitting, or unemployed, hoping to implement new ideas, think carefully.

“If you are working you can’t just jump ship,” says Jane Downes of Clearview Coaching. “You can’t be silly about it. You’ve got to look at the risk and measure it out. You’ve got to do a huge amount of planning before you get out into your own business.”

If you’re serious about starting up your own business give yourself six months to plan: researching the idea, getting the business plan together, building the website, she says. As you approach D-Day, see if you can get your employer to shorten your week and make the transition smoother. “

I think a lot of people have been hypnotised into thinking that putting up with all of this and drifting into a joyless pattern of having to commute and work for somebody else is the only admission fee for success,” says Downes. “But really I’ve seen people make it with a strong idea and strong planning.”

Technology has been a huge enabler of small business, but the volume of web-based businesses means you’ve got to work hard to make your offering stand out. “You’ve got to be the best at what you’re going to be, you cannot half do it, you’ve got to have a super product or service, and a super business plan.”

When Trish Mahon, 52, lost her job as purchasing manager in a high-end furniture business, her first thought was to get back in the game. If she was going to quit the rat race by 65, she needed to keep her pension healthy. But when she went to career coach, Jane Downes, to assess her prospects, everything was turned upside down. “Why not forget about getting out at 65 and work until you’re 80?” said Downes. “Is there anything you’re passionate about?”

The conversation led eventually to a new way of life for Trish, who now runs her own dog-training business, Aboutyourdog.ie. “I haven’t looked back since,” says the Dublin woman. “It’s such a rewarding life. “I always loved animals, and when I was younger I spent six years in Canada doing veterinary nursing. But it’s a job that pays peanuts in Ireland, so when we came back I needed to find something else.

“I kind of fell into purchasing, and ended up purchasing manager for a high-end furniture manufacturer. This was during the good times and it was high stress, because I also dealt with customer complaints, I managed the office and dealt with all the incoming phone-calls. I remember, one year, going on holidays and having to come in on a Saturday morning before I went,” Trish says.

“After my daughters graduated from college, that was a financial burden gone, so I started thinking about shifting gear. I went to my local vet and did a couple of days’ work experience, and ended up taking home a rescue dog, Ruby. I trained her myself using the dog-listening method, which is essentially a compassionate way of training your dog. That went so well, that I decided there might be a market for this kind of work here, so I went to Britain to train.

“I was featured on the Ian Dempsey breakfast show soon afterwards and the response was phenomenal. My routine used to be work and the gym, and I was equally obsessive about both. Now life is just at a different pace. One of my friends is always telling me that I’m a different person from being with animals. I’m much more chilled, I don’t sweat the big stuff anymore,” she says.

When Helena Casey, 38, was pregnant with her second child, she was made redundant. She decided to stay at home and concentrate on the children. Two years later, she wanted to get back into the workforce, but things had changed. “There weren’t as many jobs and salaries were a lot lower. I didn’t want to put the children into a crèche full-time, but part-time work was non-existent.

“With the help of a career coach, we brainstormed loads and loads of home-working possibilities until I came across the precious-prints idea. It’s all about creating bespoke pieces of jewellery, which capture your child’s handprint or footprint. I did a lot of research and it turned out that the set-up costs weren’t huge. If it didn’t work, it was bye bye to my savings, but there wasn’t going to be a huge bank loan to repay,” says Helena who lives in Dublin.

“It was a slow starter, but just before Christmas I did an interview on TV3 about getting Ireland back to work, and that brought in loads of business,” she says.

Recently, Helena diversified into making communion and confirmation bracelets. The response has been encouraging. “They’re going really well and now I’m getting a good bit of repeat business,” she says. “I work mostly in the evenings, but come next year, my daughter Georgia will be starting school, so that means I can ramp the business up and take more on. I have financial independence, but I can look after the kids at home too.”

There comes a point, says Ashleigh Tobin, 45, when the money just doesn’t compensate you anymore. When she was in the throes of contemplating quitting her job as a national sales and operations manager for a large pharmaceutical company, in order to be able to do the school runs, a friend asked her if it would make any difference if the company offered her an extra €50,000 a year.

“I said if they were to offer me €100,000 a year, it wouldn’t make a difference. I realised it was time to go,” she says.

Once she made the decision to pack it in and start her own business, her stress evaporated. “That awful moment when you’re both supposed to be in different parts of the country, and your child is sick. That was taken away. Suddenly I was in charge of my own diary and the release that brings is incredible,” asys Ashleigh who lives in Co Wicklow.

“Because I qualified as a nurse and I had a qualification in complementary medicine, I had back-up plans. That was seven years ago. As it turned out, I did have to go back to nursing for a while. My business has two components to it — a natural health clinic and a mentoring business.” (See: www.alternativehealthsolutions.ie and www.timeforbusywomen.com).

Whether you have been made redundant — and have no choice, or you opt to walk away from your job, there are benefits as well as losses depending on your perspective.

For instance, when Ashleigh packed in her job, a lot changed.

“We don’t go on holidays every year. I used to drive a very flash car. I now have an 11-year-old car that’s not quite held together with elastic bands, but not far from it. We don’t go out so much. A DVD and a nice meal at home is often our treat,” she says.

But the childcare costs are gone, and so is the frantic pace of life that used to infect even the weekends.

“Things like spending the day in the garden or going for a walk on the beach or just hanging out and baking banana bread is perfectly fine, as opposed to ‘gosh, it’s mid-term, I have only two days off, let’s do 40 things as fast as we can’.

“There were times when we were broke, where it was scary. But not for one instant have I regretted it. We’re nowhere near as financially comfortable as we were when I was in my old life, but we are so much richer.”

If the entrepreneurial life is not for you, don’t despair. There are options. “If you’re miserable in your job and it’s taking you over,” says Jane Downes, “see if there’s some sort of course you could do to prepare a path into something else that’s nearer where you live or is more in line with who you are. There’s no worse feeling than that you’ve no option. You’re so stuck and paralysed, but once you stop and take action and get a bit inspired, opportunities can arise for you.”

Ashleigh’s standard of living fell, but her quality of life has soared. “It’s just about knowing that there’s not as much cash there, but there are more riches,” she says.

PLAN AHEAD: Coach Jane Downes advises you do a huge amount of planning before you start your own business.