I’ve made a couple of introductory posts to explain some of the core concepts already. I thought now would be a good time to post about how this is reflected in my everyday life.
I am self-employed for the most part. I am a professional apiarist. That’s a wide category so I specialize in just a few specific things that I do very well and are a desired product or service relating to bees and beekeeping.
I have broken my business down to three areas.
- Bee Conservation
- Live removal of bees from commercial structures
- Selecting and Raising bees for succesful survival traits
- Direct Beekeeper Services and Products
- Beekeeper Education
- Formal classes and training
- Workshops on specialized methods, techniques and products
- Beekeeper Coaching and Assistance
- Bee Hive Repair and Assembly
- Beekeeper Education
- Direct Bee related Community Services and products
- Presentations, Workshops and Classes
- Providing raw materials from the hive
- Beeswax
- Propolis
- Recycling unusable hive equipment into furniture and other products
In relation to the education aspects of my business, I am employed by a local community college as the beekeeping instructor, teaching a variety of beekeeping and craftworks related to products of the hive.
My “style” is as a facilitator. I can’t make people take certain classes, use certain methods, techniques or products. Nor should I. How people want to go about their beekeeping is their business. I just want to help them be successful on their terms.
How I describe it is that I set the table, if the client wants to get something from the table, it’s there for the having. It’s up to each beekeeper or person to decide what they want or need, it’s up to them to come to the figurative table.
Perhaps the biggest problem for many beekeepers is not knowing what they don’t know. Related to that is not knowing what they need to know. This is why the education component is so important.
The first thing I do with every client beekeeper or otherwise, is to ask them what their goals are. I ask what are they trying to accomplish, under what circumstances and in what timeframe. By knowing this information, I can then educate them on what they need to know to achieve the specified goals, how difficult it may or may not be and lay out possible options.
From that, the client is then in a better position to approach the table of products and services and know what they are looking for. It may be that by my educating them and their personal choices that they decide what I have to offer will not meet their needs or interests. That’s the risk I take. On the other hand, even if I make no money this time, I have hopefully built trust and confidence in that I am genuinely interested in them being successful and that they will come back to do business with me on another issue in the future.
I also have the peace of mind knowing that there is now another better informed beekeeper out there actively working to be a better beekeeper and having the ability to accomplish it. The bees win with better stewardship, the beekeeper wins because they feel more successful thus stay it it longer and are more personally invested. Everyone wins because having healthy and populous bee colonies and successful beekeepers means more products of the hive such as honey, beeswax and crop pollination are available, creating more supply to meet greater demand and resulting in better prices and opportunities all around.
So, even if I didn’t get the sale this time, I still furthered my personal goal of helping bees stay healthy and alive. That is why I am self-employed. I get to make a living (or try to anyway) doing something I believe in.
La Vida Libertarian 