All change starts with an idea and a glimmer of a passion…

Finding a Future in Doggie Day Care

A Telecommunications Executive Follows Her Bliss to Become a Successful Franchiser

By Elizabeth Garone

When Amy Nichols says that her career has gone to the dogs, it’s a good thing. Ms. Nichols, a former telecommunications sales executive, is the founder of Dogtopia, a national chain of upscale day-care centers for dogs.

Ms. Nichols approached seven banks before she secured a loan for Dogtopia

Ms. Nichols always knew that she wanted to work with animals. “I didn’t want to sell animals. I wanted to be caring for them,” she says. But, after college, she thought she should get a “real job.” Following in her father’s footsteps, she chose telecommunications. In the late 1990s, she built a career working for a number of the big players: Bell Atlantic (which later became Verizon), Cable & Wireless USA and XO Communications. She moved up the ladder, starting in sales support where her job was to find outside contractors to install the purchased phone systems.

“I noticed that all those cool kids at work who drove the nice cars, they were in sales,” she says. So she negotiated her way into a sales position.

In sales, Ms. Nichols excelled. For a time her success—and the financial rewards that came with it—sustained her. But she says after a while, the thrill of the chase left her “feeling empty,” and she was ready for something else. She decided her next act would take her back to her first love—something involving pets, something that she could develop herself, and something that would allow her to bring Griffin, her Boston terrier, to work.

“She has always had an entrepreneurial spirit about her,” says Ms. Nichols’s husband, Mike Schlegel, who met her when they were both working in the telecommunications field. Today, Mr. Schlegel is the vice president of franchise development for Dogtopia. He says that one of the first things Ms. Nichols asked him when they met was where he saw himself in five to 10 years. He didn’t have a good answer. But, he recalls that Ms. Nichols quickly “professed that she wanted to run her own business.”

Getting there was no walk in the park for Ms. Nichols, who met with 12 landlords during the second half of 2001 before finding one who was willing to give her a lease. While she had an excellent work record and a 30-page business plan, she didn’t have experience running her own business. Plus, she was a young, single woman. And the dog concept, virtually unheard of at the time, wasn’t translating with property managers.

Ms. Nichols’s luck turned when Net2000, one of the telecom companies that had tried to recruit her, went belly up in late 2001. She quickly secured a lease for the 8,775-square-foot building. “Their failure led [the landlord] to look outside that industry for the next tenant,” she says.

But it wasn’t just landlords who were skeptical of the dog-day-care concept. Ms. Nichols approached seven banks before securing a loan. Like the landlords, they all wanted to see a successful owner track record. It was a small women-owned bank, Southern Financial Bank, that finally gave her a $75,000 Small Business Administration-backed loan. She had also been saving her money for several years and she sold her house, which netted about $80,000. Everything went into the business, with a few thousand dollars going into marketing, says Ms. Nichols.

Ms. Nichols opened her first center, Happy Tails Dog Spa, in June of 2002 in Tysons Corner, Va., offering day care and boarding. She remembers looking up and seeing her dog-spa signage surrounded by those of telecommunication giants. “That felt really good,” she says.

In its first six months, Happy Tails grossed $250,000. By seven months, the company, with its then eight employees, was profitable. In 2003, revenue was above $1 million helping to finance the growth of the business, especially franchises. “I didn’t spend a lot on advertising. I lived for the business,” says Ms. Nichols. “Everywhere I went, I had my [company] shirt on, and I talked about the business.”

Her telecommunications background contributed to her success as a business owner, says Ms. Nichols. For one, she knew enough to buy 200 URLs while still in telecommunications. One was www.dogdaycare.com. She has been using it ever since for Dogtopia, which became the official name of the company on Jan. 1, 2006, after she failed to secure a federal trademark for the name Happy Tails.

Today, Ms. Nichols owns three Dogtopia stores including the original one in Tysons Corner, another one in White Flint, Md., and one in Cary, N.C. There are 18 franchise stores in 10 states as well as a dozen other locations in various stages of development. Franchisees pay a $40,000 up-front fee and then 7% of gross revenues. Ms. Nichols expects total revenues for Dogtopia to reach $7 million for 2009. She has a goal of 200 stores by 2015. First up is the first mini Dogtopia, which she plans to open within an existing dog business in Washington, D.C., in the spring. “I’m very excited about this,” she says. “We haven’t been able to get into D.C. until now.”

Source: WSJ.com – Finding a Future in Doggie Day Care

As you know – I think – I love to be inspired. Reading works by genuine people often fulfills that need of mine. David Whyte, poet, writer, and academic has written a book which I’ve found to be so satisfying. I wanted to share this particular passage with you, but encourage you to find and read this book.

I found The Three Marriages, Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship while on vacation and was mulling over that conversation I have so often with my peers and clients — how we ‘do’, ‘find’ or ‘create’ balance. Sometimes I think we just need to throw that idea out completely if we’re living fully in all areas of our lives — and at other times I see that there is just an ebb and flow of energy that helps us to be better at holding everything at one time than at another. Clearly, living at full tilt in all areas of our lives isn’t sustainable, so ‘balance’ is a constant repositioning of our priorities and perspectives — like it or not.  Don’t get me wrong, I do think we can find more, than less, satisfaction in all areas of our lives if we take time and care to know what we need and want in all of those important aspects of our lives.  Sometimes we really need to take seriously our need for change that will make all the difference we’re looking for.  Stop brushing away the thoughts and wishes and commit to ourselves that we are, actually, worth it and that the change we seek needs to be sought.

The ‘problem’ I’ve come up with of late is of really loving my work and also being present for all of the other people and responsibilities in my life. That’s where this particular passage resonates for me; I hope this stirs some recognition for you, or inspires you to continue to find this kind of love. Enjoy.

” Being smitten by a path, a direction, an intuited possibility, no matter the territory it crosses, we can feel in youth or at any threshold, as if life has found us at last. Beginning a courtship with a work, like beginning a courtship with a love, demands a fierce attention to understand what it is we belong to in the world. But to start the difficult path to what we want, we also have to be serious about what we want.
Following this path through increasing levels of seriousness, we reach a certain threshold where our freedom to choose seems to disappear and is replaced by an understanding that we were made for the world in a very particular way and this way of being is at bottom nonnegotiable. Like the mountain or the sky, it just is. It is as if we choose and choose until there is actually no choice at all.”

Daisy Swan & Associates – December 2009 Newsletter

change [cheynj]: a transformation or modification; alteration; the passing from one place, state, form, or phase to another.

In the past three years, I have had the good fortune of reconnecting with some very old friends – classmates and colleagues. They aren’t really very old people, but our friendship is.

How many old friends and acquaintances have you connected with through Facebook and LinkedIn, in the past three years?

While these technologies feel somewhat overwhelming to me at times, I must say I’m really grateful to have some of my old pals closer than they were a mere three years ago, when I didn’t use these sites as much as I do now. In fact, it’s bringing me great satisfaction to reflect on how these friendships have been re-kindled over the past several years. Who would’ve thought?

[Daisy and her son, three years ago…]

I’m using this three-year mark because I now have a thirteen-year old son, and the changes in my son and our relationship couldn’t be greater, it seems. Three years, I’m realizing, often makes a huge difference at many points in life. Think about it. Think about how much your life changed between the ages of 21-24, 29-32, 45-48, 47-50, 54-57, and so on.

[Daisy and her son, three weeks ago…]

How did you manage the changes that took place? Did you roll with them? Agonize over them? Did you go through more than one job-hunt? Layoff? Did you feel more successful at one point, than at another? Did you fall in and out of love? Become a parent? Lose a loved one? Did you successfully complete an undergraduate or graduate degree? Of course, you did. Life happens. Change happens. Like it or not.

When I was in my twenties I loved to consult “The I Ching or Book of Changes”. It always gave me a different perspective to consider when dealing with challenges. I also enjoy Tarot cards, sometimes. And I also consult with my own intuition, and hard statistics, and friends. And I have some wonderful teachers and mentors who’ve helped me to learn and to find new ways of dealing with change. And I, in turn, support clients who want to makes changes in their lives, like switching from an office environment to working from home – or vice versa. Or clients who want more “life” in their lives; or who want more money in their lives.

What do you want for 2010?

Whether you make a list of New Year’s resolutions, or create a compelling vision for your year, take some time to envision what you want and where you want to be by this time, next year. The clearer your vision, the more likely you are to achieve your goal. Of course, we often stop ourselves from envisioning what we want by saying “No way that’s going to happen…”, or other negative things. But if we stay within the realm of possibility, write down what we want, remind ourselves of what we want, keep our awareness and motivation up, and actively move in the direction of our desire, we really can see our vision come to life.

Life happens to all of us. The change of life is all around us…even in the lives of those who we look at and say, “They have everything under control” or “Their lives look so stable.” Don’t be fooled. Change gets them, too.

To help you to deal with your changes, we’re making some of our own, here: We’ve got a couple of new programs coming up in the first part of the year; a new “Job Search and Likeminding Group“, and a special networking event (details TBA).

And in 2010 we’ll be bringing you some new technologies, new classes, and even a book! So stay tuned, and join us at our new programs, where you can meet others who are also making changes as they move towards their vision.

In the interim, here are a few resources that I’d like to share with you – you can also find a wealth of resources on my site, from suggested reads, links to helpful sites, a Q&A with me, newsletter archives, and more:

Dice.com – A great career and job search site for Technology professionals.

EDJOIN.org – A good resource for education jobs and careers.

Creative Hotlist – Job Searches, Portfolios and Recruiting for Graphic and Web Designers, Writers, Photographers and Illustrators.

“When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present“, by Gail Collins – This is a must-read to understand how we’ve evolved into the society that we are, where we now have choices that we often don’t see as choices, for both men and women.

And for those of you who are in the process of updating your résumé, you can sign up to receive a FREE résumé template from Daisy Swan & Associates; the signup box is located right on our home page. And please feel free to tell your friends and colleagues about our FREE résumé template.

Let’s make 2010 great. We’ve had enough of this downturn, right? Turn your frown upside down and let’s get on with things – in a new way.

See you in January!

Daisy

Where have you set your bar when it comes to expectations? If you haven’t thought about this for a while then the end of the year is a good time to do it.  2009 has been a tough year of reflection, it seems to me, for a lot of people who had to check their expectations, and then check them again.  Life has decidedly not been cooperating with the way many of us thought it was supposed to go. I regularly reflect on my values and goals, set new intentions and develop new ‘visions’ of what I’m aiming for.  This is what I do for myself and with my clients.  Expectations are tricky though.  If they’re too high we can get frustrated and angry when reaching what we expect to reach continues to be out of reach.  Set them too low and our body can slump while we lean downwards in a rather resigned way.  Our energy droops.  The leaders and teachers I’ve studied with encourage the long, high reach and the more doable reach.  We need both.  When I work with clients we’re working towards having life and work work now but we’re also setting them up for the position and life they’ll be in after the place they’re going for now.  This two pronged approach to expectations always works for me.  Keeps me satisfied yet growing and looking forward.  What’s your approach?  Where’s your bar?

Last night I received this email. You’ll see my response below. I’d welcome comments.

I suppose that what I’m about to ask you for is not your main area of expertise, but I’m going to ask anyway (as a starting point, if nothing else).

Lately, I have been through much searching for answers regarding my life and work. Ultimately, I have come to the conclusion that the best first step for me to take would be finding the right company to work for.

Toward that goal, I wonder if you can direct me to resources, ways, places or people who know more about companies’ cultures than just what they tell prospective investors? As a pointer, let me say that I currently work for a company whose ownership and management is arrogant, greedy, selfish, malicious, culturally limited, closed-minded, and would rather employ and promote their cronies who do barely-passable work than someone outside of their small circle who does excellent work. How does one go about discovering whether or not a company’s executives have these flaws before becoming employed by them? After all, it isn’t possible to poll a representative sample of the employees of every company that I might seek work with.

If you have any ideas, or know someone who does, I’d be very appreciative to hear them.

My reply:

Thanks for your articulate query. I think about this a lot because I hear the same complaint from so many of my clients. It’s discouraging to hear that so many leaders of organizations are failing so many people. I think it is possible to research the people for whom you will work; and you can pick up a lot of information from what you sense — if you tune into your reactions — when you even step into an office, let alone meet with someone.

There are also tools online that help — like www.glassdoor.com and Vault.com — can give you inside info on organizations. Smaller businesses can be harder to research, but with so much transparency out there you can find out a lot before committing to a company. Still, disappointments happen. Keeping your network alive is always important so that when you see things or people that go against your integrity you can start to work your alternatives.

I think the best defense is a strong offense. Spend a great deal of time looking for and at companies or organizations that are led by people you believe in. Do your research and then target those companies. And then become a great leader who can help create a great environment for others.

I’ve been collecting stories from clients and others to share how people are landing jobs even during these difficult days. We’ll keep updating this as they come in.

“I feel really alive”

Just wanted to check in and let you know how I am doing. School is fantastic! I am only about 7 weeks into the program and I love it. We are learning a lot of medical assisting techniques and information, and then on to the radiology portion of the program.

I can give all kinds of injections and even draw blood already. I am going to try to pass the phlebotomy test for my license, and then I can start working in the medical field right away. I have never even said this before, but I love my life. Everything is very chaotic with school every day and then working in the afternoons, and then studying at night, but I feel really alive. I want to thank you for having the intuition and insight to make the suggestion that you did at that moment.

I struggled for a decade with an “innate feeling” really at the gut level that I needed more, that I KNEW that I needed something else. But the cues from my environment were all telling me you just need more customers, more product (I’m in sales remember), but my body was telling me “I don’t care anymore.” I went through these exact phases… Indifference, Escapism and finally Resignation. And that’s when you came around. I hope this helps someone out there.

I hope that all is well with you!
Best, Vickie

P.S. Just so you know, I won’t make a lot of money for a few years, but the point is I embraced the concept of the “small self” and what limits that places on you.

Found a new job from a completely unexpected source

Working with Daisy opened my eyes to many new possibilities. I had been looking for a new job for over a year when I came to her. She helped me to broaden my search directions and really think outside of the limits I had placed on myself. Opening up some of the boundaries I  had placed on my search was scary at first because there were suddenly so many more options available.

Over the next six months I gave myself time to explore those options and figure out what really felt right to me. In the end I found a new job from a completely unexpected source and my career has gone in a positive new direction because of it. I never would have found this great opportunity if I had not allowed myself to loosen my perceptions on what I should be doing, in and instead look at what I could be doing.

Thank you for all your help. The journey continues, along with the growth.

Sincerely,
Rachel

Solid preparation and a relentless approach to applying for positions pays off

Do you consider yourself a leader in your field? Are you a leader disguised a follower? Is your boss getting in your way of leading and undermining your abilities to lead? Doesn’t just thinking about this make you mad?
The upheaval our world is experiencing is making leadership opportunities more available to more people who might not have thought they could take the reigns and make an impact. Could that be you? I’ve worked with young clients who went from frustrated retail clerks to being in strong, thought leader positions because of the things they just knew how to do — and of course their willingness to get out there and try some new things, meet new people and ultimately package themselves and their skills in a compelling way. Don’t just get mad. Get going! Now’s the time for new people and to create opportunity for themselves; for those who see a new way to make things happen.

Entrepreneurial Edge: Managing Your Career as a Business

By James Flanigan

Amid job uncertainty, more people are finding online employment sites and social media a way to take control of their own careers.

EMPLOYMENT experts have some advice for the many Americans either looking for work or fearing they soon will be: Consider yourself an entrepreneur — of your own working life.

The term entrepreneur is usually applied to people seeking to start their own small businesses. But those in the recruitment and employment industry say the uncertainty in the current economy means that workers need to think of their careers as their own small businesses.

“The lesson of today is that you’re working for yourself,” said Janice Bryant Howroyd, the founder and chief executive of Act 1 Personnel Services, a staffing and employment company. “Most people say they’re giving their lives to the company, but it’s more of a cooperative process. Companies have tasks to perform and you must put in your best effort and identify yourself with that job,” she said.

Employment experts say they see a complex picture of changing job patterns as employers respond to hard times, global competition and fresh opportunities. So as companies and organizations are forced to be more innovative, they say, so must employees.

Jim Jonassen, head of Jim Jonassen & Associates Venture Search, noted the explosion of online employment sites and social media that have transformed the marketplace in recent years. “You used to be scared your boss would see your résumé on Monster.com,” he said. “But today your boss’s résumé is on LinkedIn along with your own.”

Ms. Howroyd is an entrepreneur in the traditional sense. She said she left Tarboro, N.C., in 1976 to work for a brother-in-law’s talent agency in Los Angeles and two years later started her own small employment firm. At the beginning, she said, she played off the fact that “I was a minority-owned business in two ways, as an African-American and a woman.”

Through the years, Act 1 has grown past its original role as an employment agency. One division, Agile 1, for instance, supplies and, in some cases, employs people for other businesses. One of its clients is MetLife, the giant insurance company. Jeffrey Hebert, strategic sourcing consultant at MetLife, explained: “An operation may need a new person but not have the budget to hire this year. So we get somebody from an agency like Act 1, which handles that individual’s payroll and benefits.”

While flexibility helps businesses, it means that workers are not insulated from hard times and insecurity.

Mr. Jonassen, who has founded half a dozen software and personnel companies over two decades, said he and his latest firm suffered a dry period starting in the fall of 2008 when the high-technology start-ups that he recruits for stopped hiring and began laying off people. “The venture capital outfits that backed them had ordered these entrepreneurs to stop following their visionary plans and cut back to where they could make a small profit, by doing research for others in digital technology and other routine work,” Mr. Jonassen said.

But, he said, “In July of this year, demand picked up for computer and mobile phone applications, and these entrepreneurs found they had cut too much.” Now, he said, they are scrambling to hire skilled people, and his recruiting business is thriving.

Joy Chen followed her own entrepreneurial career path. Ms. Chen, with a master’s degree in business administration from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, had been a deputy mayor of Los Angeles and then went to work for Heidrick & Struggles, the management search firm. She left to start her own recruiting firm, Chen Partners in 2007, just as the economy started to slow. Business was initially scarce, she said. “Many employers were even then hunkering down.”

Then this year, Ms. Chen said, things changed. “Many companies noticed that after all the layoffs and uncertainty, skilled people were available at lower salary demands than in former years. And now business is very active.” The lesson of the economy’s ups and downs, she said, is that workers cannot let hard times or lower pay discourage them. “It’s a change in the market, not a depreciation of who you are as a person.”

Ms. Howroyd, whose Act 1 Group has grown in recent years as businesses have experimented with assembling staffs from a mix of full- and part-time employees, said she had noticed the same increase in demand. “We are growing this year,” Ms. Howroyd said, because “employers now recognize that they must decide how best to manage staffing, whether with independent contractors, temporary or full-time employees.”

Ms. Howroyd said temporary work used to be seen as a dead end but that that was not necessarily true anymore. “In the recent market, we see companies taking people on temporarily or as contract workers who could become full time when conditions improve,” she said. “It’s more flexible today and that’s smart, rather than hiring people on and then letting them go.”

Caris Diagnostics of Phoenix, which is also a client of Act 1, is a molecular testing company that employs cell biologists and skilled lab technicians. It does not routinely hire short-term help but occasionally needs to fulfill a special project, said Wendy Brown, the company’s human resources manager. “So we contract for as many as 40 scientists for limited periods.”

Scientists working as contract labor, part time, as needed — the old model of permanent positions and fixed employment has changed profoundly.

And workplaces will continue to do so, Mr. Jonassen predicted, because “recessions like this spawn entrepreneurs.” In the downturn of aerospace-defense industries in the early ’90s, he recalled, “many people had to rethink careers and become entrepreneurs.” Today, because companies can be formed cheaply thanks to cloud computing and mobile communications, he said, “I think we’ll see a new surge of entrepreneurs.”

Source: NYTimes.com

Are you discouraged by the headlines about unemployment? I’m ready for some new ones. To that end I’m asking for your stories about how you found your new job or career — whether you worked with me or not. I know plenty of people who have created or found new positions and I want more people to hear the story that this does happen and how. Please ~ if you or someone you know has a story to share, please have them send it to me. We’ll post it. We need to give the other side of the story of unemployment to give others hope and inspiration.
With heartfelt thanks,
Daisy

Deceptively simple question, right? When I ask people this question I see their eyes drift upward and to the right. I see them start to envision what they have and what could be. Simple answer: to be happy. To enjoy success. Then we begin to drill down. What’s your version of success and happiness? You might think it’s the same for everyone, but it’s not.
In two years will you be doing the same work with the same people? Will your commute be shorter or longer? Do you imagine you’ll have more time with your kids and your spouse? Have a spouse? What do you want your friendships to be like? Are you spending enough time with friends? And are you making more or less money?
And when you think of the people you work with, are they doing what they, and you, are doing now or is it perhaps completely different from what you’re doing now?
‘Introspection’ isn’t a dirty word. Neither is ‘daydreaming’. Socrates would never have his place in history if he hadn’t said those important words, ‘Know thyself.’ So, what do you want?