January 10, 2005

MBA lament

1 Comment

zzzzazzdggg65.jpg
Keith made an extre­mely salient com­ment in a recent gaping­void post, “Advice For A Young Musi­cian”.

Hell, I’ve got an MBA from a res­pec­ted school and 15 years expe­rience run­ning my own busi­ness – a film/video post-production house. The bulk of my busi­ness was tied to mar­ke­ting and adver­ti­sing. I sold the busi­ness in 2000, just when the reces­sion was rai­sing its ugly head and put the bra­kes on the eco­nomy. Yes, I’m a “crea­tive” and thought that with my expe­rience, I’d have no pro­blem star­ting a new career. Shit, was I wrong!
Look, there are thou­sands of folks out there like me; ove­re­du­ca­ted, middle aged – and unem­plo­yed. Few com­pa­nies are willing to hire a gra­ying, forty-something MBA with a wife and kids (i.e. com­mit­ments) when a freshly min­ted twenty-something MBA with no per­so­nal life will work 100 hours a week and tra­vel all over the country.
Now, I’m loo­king around and I see ski­lled tra­des peo­ple pulling down serious money – deep into six figu­res – cabi­net makers, machi­nists, car­pen­ters, mecha­nics. MBA’s are a dime a dozen. Try fin­ding a guy that will fix your car or rework your plum­bing; you’ll pay out the ass.
A real world exam­ple: my friend is a middle-aged, highly ski­lled pro­gram­mer with a mas­ters degree. He lost his highly-paid job with a For­tune 500 and was unem­plo­yed for well over a year. Now, he owns a small busi­ness that cleans out sep­tic tanks. He makes more than he ever did in cor­po­rate America.

OK, so I’m rea­ding this again three times, trying to see if I can find anything I even slightly disa­gree with. I can’t.

One Response to “MBA lament”

  1. StephanF says:
    January 11, 2005 at 2:54 pm

    There are two basic kinds of jobs: Glo­bal and Local.
    A glo­bal job is one that you can do at Star­bucks with a Lap­top and a cellphone. It is a job that can be done in Bos­ton or Ban­ga­lore, These are great jobs but will flow to the peo­ple with the lowest cost of living, who will be able to post the lowest wage requi­re­ments. These are jobs that have no trans­por­ta­tion costs, bits are cheap to ship. To win at these jobs you need to be very highly spe­cia­li­zed: acous­tic folk gui­tar, pre­ci­sion tita­nium sheer bolts, busi­ness card art:).
    A local job is one that has limi­ted geo­graphi­cal reach. There are big trans­por­ta­tion costs asso­cia­ted with it, dea­ling with atoms. If it takes are real per­son wor­king on real things, you are loo­king at a local job.
    The mar­ket radius of a hot dog stand is 1 block, a day care cen­ter: 10 miles, a lumber-mill: 150 miles. What is your mar­ket radius?
    There are all kinds of jobs like this: Cons­truc­tion, cabi­netry, auto repair, home repair and remo­de­ling, child care, health care, jani­to­rial, fit­ness, res­tau­rants, trans­por­ta­tion, raw mate­rials sup­plier, and many others.
    The peo­ple who win in this space are those who can com­mu­ni­cate best with their clients, find out what the real pro­blem is and solve it.
    When a per­son buys a frill they are not buying a drill they are buying holes, or rather the abi­lity to make holes, and a drill is not the only way to make holes.
    When someone goes to a res­tau­rant they are are not buying food they are buying time with their family and friends rather then with coo­king and clea­nup.
    When someone calls on a home jani­to­rial ser­vice they are not buying a clean house but rather lei­sure time.
    Peo­ple want it fas­ter, bet­ter, chea­per. It being “doing their work” or “living their lives.” Talk to them to find out what they really want, have the con­ver­sa­tion and don’t just treat the symp­tom but solve the real problem.