If your primary source of cash flow is a job, it’s of paramount importance that you become an unfireable employee.
Like the name suggests, an unfireable employee is one the company wouldn’t even dream of firing.
There are a few ways of making this happen:
A) Be an extremely profitable employee
The company makes so much money because of you that it would be incredibly stupid to fire you.
If you’re paid $150k but you make your company $500k in profit, they will not fire you, no matter how bad the economy is. The bonus may not be as good, but you’re not on the chopping board.
Work hard and don’t be one of those liability type employees who add little value. Make the company lots of money and there will always be a place for you.
- Find a way to get the company new deals
- Find a way to get the company new clients
- Find a way to get existing clients to sign up for more projects
- etc. (All of these are dependent on your sales skills)
A paragraph from a book I read a few years ago that drives this point home. Of course, it’s better to be liked than to be loathed. This is from The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron (India, USA).
B) Do something that no one else can do (or be so good you can’t be replaced)
Be too useful to be fired.
This means doing stuff no one else can do or very few people know how to do.
Say, the place you work at has a complex computer network system. You maintain the IT systems along with your regular job role.
They will not lay you off because if they let you go, and the network goes down, they won’t know what to do and it will be a big hassle.
There are no guarantees in life but if you have 3 staff members who do the same thing and one of them also does something integral that others can’t do, and you need to fire one of them – who is on the chopping board?
Not the guy who can do something that the others can’t.
Make yourself indispensable at your work.
If you can do something that no one else can do, you won’t be the one who’s kicked out first.
Likewise, if you are such an expert in your field that if you quit, finding someone with equivalent skills would be close to impossible, your employer will be scared of you quitting.
C) Be so entrenched in the system that it’s too painful or risky to remove you
This is a risky strategy, but if you have nothing else, it’ll have to do.
Here you play the political game to the extreme. You try to be well liked by the right people. You suck up, flatter, and feed their insecurities.
You hope that when the time comes, you are spared because you are liked by the right people.
You can get extra insurance by becoming the main point of contact for a few high-value clients.
This actually works really well because no company wants to risk creating friction with important clients.
In any case, if a job is your main source of cash flow – you can’t afford to be out of one.
Do what you can to keep it while you build up a business on the side (this will actually set you free).
– Harsh Strongman
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