Missing for two months!

Hey, sorry it's been so long. I have had so much going on that I haven't really had time yet this year.

I set up my consulting company in December. I started marketing my services in January. One of the things they tell you about looking for a job is that you try to let everyone you have ever met know about what you are doing. Who am I to argue.

By the first week of February there still wasn't anything happening, and I have to admit I was starting to feel more than a bit nervous.

I reconnected with an old contact that has been running her own consulting firm for several years. It was just to say hi and let her know what I was doing.
A week later and out of the blue she called me up with an opportunity. A former colleague of hers referred a bank to her. She wanted my help as I have had more recent and direct experience of the issue. A proposal followed and I feel good about it.

I had met in December with an old colleague who I have worked with several times at different companies. He asked me if I was interested in doing training work. I had always expected this to be part of my arsenal of products, so I said yes. He reminded me about the occasional training that he did for a specialist education company. He was too busy to carry on with the work, so put me in touch with the company. They were interested and I have my first assignment from them in a couple of weeks. Then he reminded me he was just returning the favour ... I had connected him to the trainers many years ago.

I was walking down the street in the City and ran into another former co-worker. He was just coming out of an office building and running to a plane. He asked what I was doing and said he was thinking of calling me. Sure he was ... but you never know. Well, he did and if he gets the contract from his prospect, he will be outsourcing part of it to me as it is more my area of expertise.

Finally, I was invited for a sneak preview of new product features for one of the leading vendors in our business. In the end, they asked me to do a video review of the product enhancements. While I was there, I had a chat with a couple of others in the company. Turns out they may have some overflow work that I can help them with.

So March looks like it will have at least one payday. First one since the end of October. Not much, but it's a start and things are heading in the right direction and I am feeling a lot more confident. I have been getting up at normal times every day as if I was going into the City to a job. I work a full day, and because there isn't any travelling time, I often work as many or more hours than I have in the past.

Anyway, the advice I can give to anyone who is looking for work is to use your connections and keep plugging away.

Lots of stuff happening with the kids, but that's a story for another day. But not two months from now.