Career Planning :(

I just got word from word from a head-hunter to essentially not get my hopes up regarding the position at Campus Entertainment. He didn't or couldn't go into details, but did encourage me to "aggressively pursue" the two other opportunities I have [those are in very early stages with limited communication, however]. 

I'm very ambivalent about what to do next, as there seems to be no clear, obvious path toward success. I think  - marriage wise - I'm in a place where, if we collaborate in a positive and respectful way, we can come together and solve this, while also creating a relationship victory of sorts. [I find that very inspiring and will post about it as it happens.]

They way I see it, I have three options: 1) exclusively go after salaried work, 2) reboot 4goodmedia, 3) be a consultant + look for work

If I go after a salaried position:

PROS:

• Steady pay, benefits [probably], gives us predictable budget
• Expands my network 
• Alleviates stresses [lesser issue]
• Potentially presents a great next step in my career, in terms of exposure, pay, responsibility, etc

CONS:

• Need to know at least one person connected with the company hiring for that position. 
• Positions needing 7-10yrs experience are very rare and difficult to find
• Traction and momentum is very very difficult to achieve
• Competition is very high for each position
• Preparing a thoughtful cover-letter/resume can be time-consuming [lesser issue]
• No indication of what is/isn't successful so I could be spinning my wheels and run out of time.

PRIMARY CHALLENGE: Get enough qualified positions so the odds are in my favor to get hired within 2-3 months.

If I try to reboot 4goodmedia:

PROS

• I would get paid, b/c my hours would be billable
• We'd go to market with a more refined/efficient approach, building on successes in 2011 
• A large volume of leads can potentially overcome downturns in the market.
• Even if the deal size is smaller, or if my billable hours are not many, SOME income is better than none at all.
• As the "face of 4goodmedia" I would likely get valuable exposure for future job hunts
• I'd be more involved with the finances
• We have a company that would finance our cashflow, so getting paid on a regular basis is much less of an issue than before
• We could potentially use Michael's programming skills to drastically reduce many time-consuming tasks [he's mentioned being willing to do this, but I need to lock him up]

CONS:

• I am not totally clear how we would source projects
• Would require about $20k in seed money, to be used to launch our own content stream [replacing FOM], pay me, and fund our promotion.
• We could use up all our time and money and still fail.

MAIN CHALLENGE: Get enough leads that will turn into sales by October, which is 2 1/2 months away.

If I go after consulting projects AND look for work:

PROS:

• It's potentially "low-hanging fruit" as there are a couple of success stories on which I can rely [david meerman scott, Tim Dempsey, and others]
• four-digit project work is potentially easier to sell
• Could extend my job search "runway" allowing me to be choosier about the full-time work I accept
• getting started requires a new website, which Michael has offered to design/build for free
• It may get my name out there in a positive way [lesser certainty on that - it may also counter-act my job hunting]

CONS:

• Networking is costly: $40 per event x 10 events per month
• No guarantees that any of the above will happen
• Risk of prioritizing work over job-hunting / time mgmt conflicts
• Operating alone surfaces more of my weaknesses [proper perspective in the form of judgement/prioritization, etc]

MAIN CHALLENGE: I dont know how to get customers efficiently; I dont know what services are most needed/most salable.

I'm beginning to land on option #3. I think rebooting requires too much time, money, and human resources that I dont have. And #1 doesn't feel right, b/c there's just too little oppty out there.  I dont want to end up having nothing to show for my time out of the work cycle.