#74- Career Diversification: What, Why & How to Diversify Your Career & Income

Career specialization has been associated with having a passion for a particular field or industry, and being a great way to create a niche for yourself. But, is that really the smartest career decision? In this episode, co-hosts Lori Vajda and Nola Boea discuss the advantages and disadvantages of pursuing a “career path” versus creating a “career portfolio”. They share 7 avenues for diversifying your career portfolio so you can create multiple streams of income.   ​

Thanks for Listening!
Ready to diversify your business so you earn multiple streams of income? Could you use help developing your business and personal brand? Schedule a free 20 min. consultation call now. 

If you enjoyed this show, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you’ll never miss an episode. Find out more about us and our services at Sticky Brand Lab

We love hearing from you! Leave or speak your message here

If you haven’t already, please connect with us on Facebook! 

Would you like to be a featured guest or have your question, comment or review mentioned? Ask Muse!

Business success strategies are in the works. Come have a listen!

In This Episode You’ll Learn 

• The definition of career diversification/career portfolio and how it can financially benefit you.  
• Why diversifying your career helps you gain more leverage and become more professionally valuable.
• 7 ways to diversify your experience, knowledge, and skills while still working a traditional career track.

Key points Nola and Lori are sharing in this episode:
(3:41:90) How the ‘Great Resignation’ has led to this new definition of a successful career path.   
(7:16:06) The definition of portfolio work and how it applies differently depending on whether you’re career is as a specialist or generalist. 
(10:54.58) Three career and income advantages of career diversification. 
(11:47.75) The top seven ways to diversify your professional career portfolio so you create multiple income streams.

Resources 

You can subscribe to Lori and Nola's show, (we love you and want to make it easy) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Sign up for our newsletter and never miss another podcast episode

This episode was supported by: Be-YOU-nique
​
ConvertKit: Our #1 Favorite Email Marketing Platform  (This is an affiliate link)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nola: The idea of diversifying your investments or retirement fund is pretty standard thinking. But what about your career opportunities? Professional diversification not only gives you protection from being stuck in one field. It opens up opportunities to expand your knowledge, experience, colleague network, and creativity. And if all those weren't enough reasons to consider diversifying your career pursuits, try this one. The ability to generate multiple streams of income throughout your lifetime. Stay tuned friends because in this episode, we're discussing why diversifying your career may be the best path to becoming a side business entrepreneur.

[00:00:40] Announcer: You're listening to the Sticky Brand Lab podcast, where time strapped professionals like you learn how to create a business you love in as little as three hours a week.

[00:00:51] Lori: There was a time, at least when I was growing up, when the idea of having a long-term career with one, maybe two companies is the goal. Not only has that thinking changed, but in a time characterized by uncertainty and unpredictability, it seems as though job changes, career pivots and company firings are more the norm rather than the exception. And Nola, here's a few statistics that I found from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average person will have 12 jobs during their lifetime. The average employee stays within their employer for 4.1 years. However, that number is slightly different depending on gender. For example, women will leave a job under the four-year mark typically, and men will go past the four-year mark before they leave. 29% of people have completely changed fields since starting their first job after college. And that would be me. I started in mental health, not even close to it anymore.

[00:01:57] Nola: Me too. I started in the early childhood industry and went onto marketing and then nonprofits. So yeah, completely changed fields several times.

[00:02:08] Lori: Here's a number that actually kind of surprised me. But really didn't surprise me. 91% of millennials expect to change jobs every three years. I can remember a time going on an interview and having somebody look over my resume and question the fact that I had actually changed jobs on average three to four years. That there was a time period in the early two thousands when that was frowned upon.

[00:02:38] Nola: It was frowned upon. The more jobs you had, the less ideal it was. I'd like to think that those are bygone days. And I think some HR recruiters may think twice about that, but it is coming around. It truly is the new reality with millennials, but you and I are not millennials.

[00:02:57] Lori: We weren't. And I was just going to say, we're not millennials. And we were ahead of the curve.

[00:03:01] Nola: Absolutely. Well, the past two years have drastically changed the way I think we all think about work. And perhaps leading those changes is that more people just really want better work-life balance. They don't want to commute as much. And so many people were laid off, people have found that they had all their eggs in the one income basket and finding another job takes a lot of time. And in the meantime, you've got all these living expenses. It's just really a wakeup call that makes you really think twice about just focusing on one path for your career. And even without the Great Resignation, where everybody's kind of bailing out of the one job mentality, I would say the time has come for us to really rethink what a successful career path even looks like.

[00:03:55] Lori: Yeah, I think that's where the idea of the career portfolio, rather than thinking of a career path, the career portfolio, I wouldn't be surprised if more people leave college thinking that way, rather than thinking, I got a degree, this is the track that I'm on for the rest of my life. Instead, I'm thinking, this is the degree that I got, or this is the training or certification that I got and here's opportunities that I can move into throughout my lifetime rather than a single road.

So the term career portfolio was originally coined back in the late 1980s, early 1990s by Charles Handy. He's a gentleman who was a oil executive for shell out of the UK. And he could really think about him more as a futurist in his thinking. I think he now he's like in his nineties, but at the time, he was really opening up these ideas or a way to think about business and your career that are pretty prevalent in today's lexicon. So even though there are five theories that that are associated with him, we're only going to focus on two of them.

And the first one is what's referred to as the portfolio working. He foresaw the emergence of employees who would pursue multiple facets of their career in which they take responsibility for their earning potential, their personal development, professional development, and their general wellbeing. So rather than enter the field, spend the next 40 years with one or two companies and then retire and look at exploring hobbies or travel, he first saw a time when people would be doing that within their career throughout their lifetime.

Which then also dovetails off of his second theory, which is, careers for life are a thing of the past. He predicted that people would orient their work around their lives as opposed to a single position that lasted 40 years. So today we think about that, especially during COVID, when more people have had to do hybrid or virtual working and thought about how, as you alluded to earlier, we don't want to spend our time driving in traffic. How else might I use that hour or two hours a day that brings in a well-rounded self or gives me more of a balance with my family, my friends, my other areas of interest?

[00:06:32] Nola: I really liked that idea of having a career portfolio. It's interesting because I think you and I have done that, but we didn't know there was a name for it. And I used to think that maybe something was wrong with me. Why can't I just focus? Why can't I just stick with one thing? Why do I get bored so easily? I should just be able to stick with this and focus and...no! I instead, you and I both we've dabbled here. We've started businesses there. We've done freelance work. We've done side businesses. Some of them have been in our area of expertise. And others have been just things we had interests in. And now I know there's a name for it. Portfolio working. Yes, of course. That's what I've been doing.

So for our listeners, what does portfolio work mean? Well, it means that you can generate income in a variety of ways. Now, this could be from your full-time job, plus your part-time job, a freelance or maybe a contract employment. It could mean that perhaps you're running a side business while you keep your full-time job. Might also be that you're doing work to create multiple avenues of income in several ways that may even be related. And, and we'll get into that in a little bit.

[00:07:46] Lori: Yeah, that opens up the idea between a specialization and a generalist. And that's really important, especially when you're thinking about diversification of your career pursuits. So you don't have to be a subject matter expert in order to diversify. You can be a Jack of all trades. Or you can be a subject matter expert. So a way to think about that is in the specialization, you're focused in one area. For example, let's say that you have a background in marketing and communications. You might pick a vertical within that area that really you're excited about and passionate about. So think of specializing, for example, in SEO, search engine optimization. Or email marketing or content management. All of those are a specialization that you have your background in a general sense. And then you take a deeper dive and become the expert in one area. Versus generalization.

One way to think about the generalist position is wearing many hats. And you often see this in nonprofits or startup businesses, because there's just not enough funds to hire people for each position. It happens to be personally something that I enjoy. I like wearing a variety of hats, but for some people that just causes stress. They do not like wearing many hats. So the idea of generalized or specialized, either way, you can do both of those and still have a career diversification.

[00:09:26] Nola: Absolutely. I can think of times where I have been a specialist such as copywriting and have not only done contract work in that, but also taught and consulted in copywriting. And at the same time, working in nonprofits, kind of became a generalist if you will, and sampled experience from all aspects of nonprofits. And I would say it's fascinating. So I would say there's certainly pros and cons of each, but I would say that they're both valid ways to diversify a career portfolio.

[00:10:01] Lori: So a good way to think about diversification is to think along the lines of a content entrepreneur. As a content entrepreneur, you have multiple clients. You're not just working with one client. And then when that client leaves you then search for a new client. You always have people in the funnel. You might only work with a few at a time, but your mind is thinking I need to keep having clients that I'm trying to get into the funnel as well. So that when one leaves I have somebody to replace them with. That's the same in the career diversification. If my main focus of my job, if I have one traditional job and I'm doing something on the side, if I lose that main focus, I still have the side businesses that I've created in which to generate income. So diversification, the benefits of that path is that you gain and leverage your experience. You become more valuable because you have a lot of knowledge that you've put to good use. And if something happens, you don't have to worry that you don't have multiple income streams from which to draw upon.

[00:11:15] Nola: This is so true. So let's talk more about what diversification means. Just to put it simply, it's setting yourself up to either acquire new skills, knowledge, and experience in other fields or to follow your own curiosity, hobbies, or talents, or enhance what you already have skills in or interests in. Okay? it's diversifying either beyond or what you already have. And so we're just going to give seven examples of ways that you can diversify your career portfolio.

The first one is consulting. So you can serve as a consultant in your area of expertise, or you can consult in a side area in which you've developed some skills and knowledge. And just a caveat, there are some specializations that may require certification. For example, accountant or perhaps financial advisor. Certain types of coach may not be required, but pretty advisable. So those are something that you would want to look into. But if you have knowledge to share, and if people are often asking you questions because of your expertise, this is something that you might want to consider: going into consulting.

[00:12:36] Lori: Yeah. You know, currently my husband is probably a really good example of that. He has developed an interest and actual passion in the NFT space. And his background was in sales. And so he has been doing some consulting in this area because of being naturally curious about it. And then helping people in the NFT space to understand the business aspects, which is just his background.

[00:13:03] Nola: That's a great example.

[00:13:05] Lori: Yeah, it's totally different field, but something he's passionate about and a great way for him to be of service, if you will.
A second way to diversify your career portfolio is with speaking. So speaking engagements, speaking on the stage, being a keynote speaker, often those that are specialized in their field, you will see on stage talking and sharing their knowledge with others. It's a great way to get paid.

[00:13:31] Nola: Number three is very similar and that is teaching. So you're sharing your expert knowledge, and these can be in teaching positions, such as like an adjunct professor or perhaps your own side business tutoring others. You can also offer community courses, whether that's in person through like your local chamber or online.

[00:13:56] Lori: The Small Business Association has some areas of expertise there. So that's live teaching. You could also do teaching online and you could do that by developing courses, so as an online course creator. The difference between teaching online in real time might be thought of as active income. And if you develop a course for on-demand, that would be more of the passive income. So you could think about it from that way. You could get on one of those platforms, like a Teachable or Coursera and develop your own course and sell it. So that could be your side business as well as teaching on demand.

[00:14:39] Nola: Yes. And another way to leverage your specialized knowledge and skills is through writing books. You could look at self-publishing, such as print-on-demand, or eBooks or even audio books, or you can look at publishing it through a literary agent in traditional book publishing industry. But the idea is to put your field of specialization, your specialized knowledge, the unique message that you have to give to your niche audience and make it available for purchase. Now, this can be combined with some of the above. So you often have people who do public speaking and they offer their books. For example,

[00:15:21] Lori: That's absolutely right. Which another way to sell online, if you will, is to create products for a specific area of interest, whether that was in your field or in the area of interest being your hobby. You could create products that are related to your area of expertise or to your area of interest. So I'll give you some examples. If before, when we talked about marketing and communications, you may develop templates or checklists that small business or startup businesses might refer to because you figured out processes for communication or email marketing or whatever that area is that you wanted to focus on. And you could sell that template or checklist within your industry as a side business. If you were creative type and you had a passion, let's say for calligraphy, and you took that into design for online, you might use your calligraphy to develop cups or quotes or journals or whatever the area of interest is. So products that you could sell online.

[00:16:34] Nola: That actually is a great segue to the seventh example. That also has to do with products. And rather than products that focus or pertain to your area of expertise, the thought is that most of us really are multi hyphenated, meaning we have outside interests. And turning those outside interests into products, is a valuable way to expand your career opportunities. For example, if you had a creative bent and you created, I don't know, sculptures or jewelry or some kind of a design, you could sell them from e-commerce sites like Etsy or Amazon or your own website and draw your own traffic to it. The idea is this would be outside of maybe your full-time area of expertise and this would be expanding your other interests into an income stream.

So we've just given you seven examples of ways that you could diversify your career, create a career portfolio. And those are just to recap, consulting, public speaking, teaching, creating online courses, writing books, creating products related to your area of expertise or creating products related to your other skills or interests. And I would just give a caveat that while you could probably do it all, you may want to just make sure there's a balance of passive income versus active income. Active income, meaning it requires your time and attention to produce and to deliver. Passive, it is not necessarily something you have to be present while people purchase. So make sure there is a balance.

[00:18:20] Lori: Yeah. One of the challenges when you are in your field is being able to think, how might I develop diversification of my career? And we offer a consultation for any listener out there who might be interested in diversifying their careers, but aren't quite sure what that might look like. Check us out. We offer a 20-minute free consultation. If that looks good, we can go on to a full two-hour consultation in which we write it up and give you our recommendation.

[00:18:53] Nola: And it's something we have fun doing.

[00:18:55] Lori: We love to do it.

[00:18:58] Nola: That's why we do this. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. We hope it makes all the difference in you getting started on your business, or diversified career, so you can create your best and most exciting life. If you found the information shared here today, helpful, let us know by posting here while you're listening or on our Facebook page.

[00:19:23] Lori: Not sure how to turn your idea into a profitable side business? Contact us at stickybrandlab.com/contact. We'd be happy to help you.

[00:19:33] Nola: Be sure to come back next Tuesday and every Tuesday for another informative, inspiring and motivating episode. And remember action creates results. So tap into your desire to create a business and brand you love by taking 1% action every day. Small steps, big effects.

[OUT-TAKE]
Nola Oh, wow. What about, sorry that you
[00:19:54] Lori: were going to say, I thought you were going to say,
[00:19:59] Nola: oh, well, yeah, me too. Oh, wow.