Roxanne leads the way to self-employment at SCC

Every day in her downtown Vancouver office, Roxanne Davies listens to
people’s ideas. From engineers to dog walkers, financial planners to
art therapists, business managers to yoga instructors, computer
programmers and costume designers – they all come to Roxanne’s office
at 789 Pender Street to tell her about their skills, experiences, and
interests. They tell their stories and explain what they hope to gain
from taking a 10-day course that teaches the fundamentals of
self-employment.

At one time Roxanne was a reporter who wrote
human interest stories in Montreal and Vancouver, and it is this
interest in people and their lives that makes her enjoy her role as the
program manager for Successful Contracting and Consulting.

“What
I loved about reporting was interviewing people so now I get a chance
to interview people every day. I get to hear all about their stories
and their dreams and their schemes,” she says.

Program
applicants must present a clear idea about what exactly they wish to do
as self-employed people. Chances are, as the course progresses, their
ideas will evolve, but it is important to start with at least one
focused concept.

“If you’re not clear about what you want to
do, you feel weak. You’ve got so many ideas, but you need to start with
one,” Roxanne says. “We want people to really get clarity around their
consulting area and figure out a way of reaching clients and, most
importantly, to get paid. If you really are excited about what you do,
then it’s that much easier to sell it to a client – and this comes with
clarity.”

Fourteen participants gather in the window-framed
boardroom to listen to the advice of experienced consultants who come
to SCC to talk about marketing, networking, legalities, banking,
accounting systems, negotiating price, giving presentations, creating
business plans, writing consulting proposals, managing projects, and
understanding different personality types. They work together in
break-out sessions and rehearse contractor-client scenarios and
brainstorm solutions to each other’s challenges. Their ideas come to
life when they share them with others and this can be especially
valuable for people who spend their time alone in home-based offices,
studios, or shops.

“Isolation is a dream-killer and if you
tend to work at home, you’re isolated,” says Roxanne. “A lot of folks
really feel like they can generate some energy to move forward because
they feel like they’ve got people who care about them and who know what
they’re doing and who are positive.”

Established in 1998, SCC
is a joint partnership between the New Directions Business Re-Training
Association and Service Canada. Roxanne, who has been with SCC since
the beginning, explains how the federal government approached New
Directions to help them cope with fall-out from companies that were
downsizing.

“A lot of professionals, managers, and supervisors
were finding themselves out of work and, at a certain point in a
person’s life, it’s very hard for them to get back into the job market
with the skills they have at the price they want to be paid. A number
of people were trying to launch consulting careers but they were just
not having any luck. They just weren’t making enough money. So the
government saw a need for a concise practical program to cover all the
fundamentals about starting a consulting business and so it was really
geared for the unemployed manager or supervisor,” she says.

SCC’s goal is to show that people are working three months after they leave the program.

“For
the past nine years, we’ve met our goals and people are working now. I
would be lying to say that everyone became a consultant and that
everybody was making as much money as they wanted, but I would say a
good 40 percent of the people that take our program eventually call
themselves consultants and there’s no looking back,” Roxanne says. “If
you really are diligent about building up your business it can take up
to six months to start making some money.”

Each monthly class is
full to capacity and sometimes there are waiting lists. The average age
of participants is 45, with some as young as 23 and as old as 72. About
55 percent are women and 75 percent are first-born or only children.
Unlike other self-employment programs for people collecting Employment
Insurance, anyone can take the SCC program as long as they are
unemployed or “underemployed,” which means working less than 20 hours
per week.

Roxanne invites anyone considering self-employment to
get in touch with SCC and sign up for a program orientation meeting.
“Come on board!” she says, with a laugh. “We’d be very happy to help
and my motto is: ‘Never give up!

Look out for a new book in 2008
- "Boundless: The Art and Science of Consulting" in which SCC speakers
share a written version of the advice they offer students in class.

For more information, visit SCC on the Web at: www.goconsult.ca