hmm
I quit my job once to become a professional musician. It was a disaster. My efforts were completely destroyed by everything but lack of talent. You expect to see someone who sucks crash and burn. It re-establishes the unwritten rule that it does take some talent to make it in the talent industry.
I\'m not saying that I am talented, I never got far enough to discover that. I crashed and burned because of lack of planning. I had been playing guitar and singing for about 3 years and I had a list of songs I had written. Further I had a friend who played bass who was going to quit his job as well. So, with no thought whatsoever I quit and sank to the bottom of a financial chasm like a 20 pound lead ball.
So, please learn a few things from my horrible mistakes, or else wind up exactly where you are now, only with a lot more debt.
1. Have a cushion of money, let\'s say about 3 to 6 months worth of your salary, saved in the bank. Do not spend this like you would an ordinary check. Try to make it go a lot farther. It takes most businesses about 1 year before they finally BREAK EVEN!
2. If your company is providing you with insurance then find a back up. Give your wife time to sign up at her work, even if the coverage isn\'t as good. Better to have some coverage than none. I could not afford Cobra and so I didn\'t have insurance. My wife\'s ovary ruptured, which happens to about 1 in 1,000,000 women. The hospital had to perform surgery. They cannot turn a dying person away, but they can charge you a shitload for the privledge. I still owe one third of my yearly salary on that horrible nightmare. You cannot plan for emergency, but you can be prepared.
3. Do not assume that because your family and in-laws love you that they are on board with the decision. I thought that. I even asked. But no sooner had I quit my job than my mother-in-law began to sabotage everything I did. When the whole ordeal was over and I was humbly back at my current job I learned that not a single person I knew supported my decision to leave. Even my best friend thought I was a fool. But not one of them said a thing before I quit.
4. Have a plan of attack. I\'d suggest visiting other B&Bs and talk with the managers. It\'s better if you can visit one\'s outside of your city so that the manager will not view you as competition. You need honest feed back. Find out how long they\'ve been in business. Find out how long it took them to turn a profit. Remember to ensure them that it is research and their name will not be used at all. Find out how many B&bs are in your town. You might have a surplus. Look up Bed and Breakfast in the Yellow Pages and call them all just to see if they are still in business. Learn how to plumb. Learn how to cook and omlet. Understand that you will never, ever be \"off the clock.\"
5. Have a hedge maze.
6. Give CMON users a discount when we come to the next convention in your area.
barkel
