Hi Everyone
It’s Sandra Bellamy.
I have set up this Blog especially for You.
Why you may ask?
I have worked in retail for over 19 years, over 7 of those were in management roles. Part of my role as a manager was to interview, recruit, train and coach staff. During my career I have been made redundant twice and successfully managed to get back onto work. I have been able to see the recruitment process from both sides, as a recruiter and as someone who is being interviewed for a job.
At first I felt my gut was wrenched from me, worried about my future, concerned about finances, bewildered and lost, I just didn’t know what I was going to do.
A couple of weeks later I began to feel relieved it was over. I thought about the negative aspects of the job I had just left and focused on what I could change about my life and my future career to make me happy. Rather than milling along in a job, I began to see and understand what job I was meant to be doing.
What was I passionate about?
What made me happy?
And what did I ultimately want to do with my life?
I came up with two answers:
- To be a writer
- To help people
Redundancy changed my whole outlook on life and now I am a much happier, more fulfilled person, who believes in myself and what I was born to do. I do not profess to be the best, just to enjoy what I do and help others along the way as best I can.
This Blog is about helping you be a happier person and with a huge effort on your part, assisting you back into work.
Stay positive.
Sandra
Related articles
- How redundancy changed my life (quirkybooks.wordpress.com)
beatredundancyblues 
Thanks for inviting me to join the Blog Tour; I can’t wait to write my post.
PS
Encourage creativity: “Time on your hands? Take up painting/drawing/a musical instrument!”
Hi Sandra,
It was a great pleasure talking with you outside Clarendon House In Exeter (10/4/12 at approximately 15:45). I think you’ve got a great idea and I hope you are very successful with it. I also think you’ve re-motivated me to pursue my English-Chinese project, so thanks for that.
Later, it occurred to me that what you were actually doing via your survey was using the public for brainstorming and that I should have invoiced you for my services as a consultant! 🙂
Don’t worry, I’m not that mercenary!
Assuming you decide to adopt a two-tier approach with a set of free information and a set of purchased information, as discussed, I’ve been thinking about pricing your upper level merchandise.
I think you should make the “discount price” for subscribers a reasonable retail price with an acceptable profit margin for you. You can then increment that amount to the “full price” for non-subscribers. Thus, your subscribers’ discount will not mean cutting off an arm or a leg, because it is your actual retail price. The markup for non-subscribers should be a fixed percentage across the board.
It is important that prices be displayed inclusive of VAT, not before VAT. As a customer, there is nothing quite so irksome as thinking the displayed price is the full amount to be paid and then discovering you have to add on a great lump of VAT which might push the final total beyond the reach of your limited budget.
In similar vein, I recommend your delivery charge be what you get charged by the courier plus what you pay for packaging. A lot of eBay sellers make a big profit from overcharging for delivery.
I’m still thinking about the membership subscription fee. Should it be a one-off payment or a regular amount? In a way, it depends whether you will regularly be adding new content. For example, adult sites operate scales of month-based subscriptions for continuing access to their regularly updated content. I doubt you plan to add new material every week, so that approach probably doesn’t apply. Therefore, I think you’re looking at a one-off subscription fee, possibly split over several monthly direct debit payments to accommodate people with restricted incomes.
However, if you continue to add salable content, you might consider splitting your content into tiers (year 1, year 2, etc) with further subscription payments being required to access later additions. Or you could simply charge an annual membership fee.
I have no idea what amount would constitute a suitable subscription fee, sorry. Perhaps something like 30% of the difference between the subscription price and the non-subscription price for the complete collection of your salable content?
For taking payment, I definitely recommend using PayPal if possible because their transactions are secure and both parties are protected. Also, any consumer can operate a PayPal account for free – a major consideration if you’re unemployed.
However, because of purchasing scams on eBay (some buyers have said they never received the goods and the sellers have had to refund the money), I advise registered delivery for all hardcopy purchases and a free replacement-on-return, rather than a refund, for alleged faulty media (test replacement CDs and DVDs on your TV’s DVD player, not your PC’s DVD drive, so you know they’re good when you send them out). With downloads, you have an electronic paper trail as evidence. And that’s you protected from unscrupulous individuals.
Contrariwise, you should also make purchased download media continuously available to the buyer in case a catastrophe means they need to replace it.
Okay, that’s my brain fully stormed for one day 🙂
Good luck!
Affectionate regards,
Paul.
Hi Paul
It was good to meet you today. Thank you for all that “brain storming, I am glad I have inspired you. When I get the time to be creative I like to write, something I have noticed you are good at too. If you ever want help with any redundancy issues you can email me direct at beatredundancyblues@beatredundancyblues.com but if you would prefer to contact me on my blog that is open to the public, that is fine.
In the future I will email you with news and information about my new site, unless you express otherwise. Thank you for your interest in beatredundancyblues.com Good luck with the job hunting and pursuing your English-Chinese project. Let me know how you get on. All the best, Sandra.
Hi Sandra,
I know exactly what you mean I got made redundant just 2 days before New Years. They Closed the local resturant down where I was working. It hit me like lightning blot and I was not ready!!! I got complacent and angry and upset. And Then I found a temporary job and Now I am working fulltime again. However I always keep my options open and I am looking at home based businesses just in case it happens again… Redundancy is now a part of life!!!!! Keep up the blog and the good work… There are a lot of people who do not knwo who turn to when this crises happens!!! All The Best
Hi Rajesh
Thank you for your comments. It is great to hear people are benefitting from my blog.
It is always good to have a real life story with a positive ending.
Taking a temporary job is a great way of getting back into permanent work and that is what I did too.
I think you are right to have a back up plan, then if redundancy should happen again, you will be more prepared for it and be able to have some control over something in your life.
Stay positive.
Sandra