A genuine Plan B?

[masonryan]

Hi,
Any ideas about a genuine plan B when a proper well-paid contract is not available?

I'm not talking about any dodgy pyramid sales type thing. Just honest work locally doing something straight-forward in a perhaps completely different field, for a fraction of the contract rates you can achieve usually?

I hear much talk of zero-contract hours and how bad they are... but wouldn't this suit contractors rather well in the downtime?

Having said that, jobseekers allowance is £72/week, so 12 hours at min wage is a waste of time if you get jobseekers.

[northernladuk]

Ring a couple of agents and see if you can do some sales leads calling for them on a commission basis?

[masonryan]

Ring a couple of agents and see if you can do some sales leads calling for them on a commission basis?

No thanks. No sales or spam work thanks.

[Old Greg]

No thanks. No sales or spam work thanks.

Several of the posters here get commission from the agency blacklist by reporting contractors (from work, the Internet, casual conversations) who complain about agents. Worth a go perhaps?

[masonryan]

Several of the posters here get commission from the agency blacklist by reporting contractors (from work, the Internet, casual conversations) who complain about agents. Worth a go perhaps?

trick or treat scares me more than you do

[jmo21]

trick or treat scares me more than you do

[aoxomoxoa]

How about copywriting for the recruitment agents' PR companies to promote their services and enhance their already burgeoning reputations. I guess that would suit you nicely

[Lockhouse]

Hi,
Any ideas about a genuine plan B when a proper well-paid contract is not available?

I'm not talking about any dodgy pyramid sales type thing. Just honest work locally doing something straight-forward in a perhaps completely different field, for a fraction of the contract rates you can achieve usually?

I hear much talk of zero-contract hours and how bad they are... but wouldn't this suit contractors rather well in the downtime?

Having said that, jobseekers allowance is £72/week, so 12 hours at min wage is a waste of time if you get jobseekers.

Take a look at Dalton's Weekly. See if there's any ready made businesses in your area for sale that you could make into a workable Plan B, then perhaps you could offload the management of that when you got "proper" work. It might also give you some ideas. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy though and very little gives you so much return for an eight hour day as contracting. If it did we'd all be at it.

[northernladuk]

I always thought the definition of a plan B was something that ran in parallel and continuously to your main work. A plan B isn't really to fill in in between gigs like JSA. That is another job surely. Just minor points of definition I guess.

[DieScum]

I teach an evening class at the local uni.

Last spot of bench time I cold emailed a few hundred local businesses and replied to dodgy gumtree/craigslist posts selling web design stuff. Made a few thousand for a whole load of headache.

I have been trying forever to get passive income from adsense, affiliate links, etc but very little joy on that score.

Next bench time I am going to try and build and sell some off the shelf SCORM compliant courses, I think.

For zero hours casual work, I'd quite fancy one off work like a clearing up after a festival or something but it's never come up at a convenient time.