Never Underestimate Yourself

– Michelle Campa

“You are over 50 so we won’t even ask you about your job searching. It is very hard to find a job in this area if you are older.” That is what the unemployment agent told me when I lost my job in 2002 and signed up for benefits. He said there is age discrimination “out there” but you cannot prove it. I collected benefits until they ran out the following year and was never asked about my job searches.

I spent the entire year that I was collecting benefits searching for a job. I was always a dependable and dedicated employee with team spirit. I figured I was valuable and an asset to a company. After all, as a corporate salesperson, I had always made excellent sales and was the best salesperson in my territory and number three nationwide. It was not long before I found out that I was not of value at all.

Job searches ended with doors slamming behind me. I heard every excuse in the book. After some time, I had to set my sights lower. I was told to get computer knowledge in this program and that program. So I went to night school and got the education. A few hundred dollars later I went back to the same companies and the new excuse was that I had no experience. Talk about a rock and a hard place. So I set my sights even lower. You cannot get much lower than retail sales. Suddenly there were lots of jobs available to me…but at $6.00 an hour. That was far less then my previous income.

One of my retail jobs, at $6.00 an hour, lasted a whole nine months. Wow! I was actually one of the employees who lasted a long time. But after the abusive customers and the fifth manager turnover, I finally quit.

About four years ago I sat quietly and started to think about my future. It became very clear that I had to start my own business. I had no idea what to do. I had always loved painting and over the years sold my paintings at arts and craft shows and also over 100 paintings to greeting card companies who published them. I remembered a Bible quote: (paraphrased) “What do you have in the house?” So I started to think about that. I walked around the house looking for clues. Then I looked at my art and the idea hit me. I took some of my paintings and made prints of them. I matted them and framed some of them. I set up at my local farmers market with two card tables. I started to sell. As I made more prints and made more money I set up more tables and invested in a canopy for the rainy days. Each year I grew.

With the weekly exposure people began to give me commissions. Last year I decided to expand to other communities’ farmers markets. Not only was I doing well in other towns, I also got orders for art in public buildings. As I met more people I had requests to teach painting. So I started to do that as well, which keeps me going in the winter months when the farmers markets are not in operation. My freelance art for publishers grew as well. It was hard to find time to actually paint new art, but I did.

In 2006 I realized that I was doing well in my small community but that it was time to think larger. So at the end of 2006 I had a web site created. My plan now is to market my art all over the United States. Since tourists from all over the U.S. were buying my work, when they were on vacation in my town, I figured other people in other areas would like it too. I am right. Never underestimate what you can do on your own.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 1:07 pm and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.