Making It

A former business manager finds that being laid off comes with benefits

Tya Bolton used to manage outplacement services for laid-off people. Then she was downsized herself. And she says it's the best thing that ever happened to her.

Tya, 31, grew up in Prince George's County, graduated from Prince George's Community College and took jobs as an administrative assistant, working her way up to office manager. Then she went to the career development and outplacement firm Lee Hecht Harrison, where she became business manager for its regional offices. She helped companies put together packages for their displaced employees and advised the employees themselves about Lee Hecht Harrison's services. She'd been there less than two years in December 2005 when a reorganization led the firm to let her go.

It was a bad time for Tya personally. She was getting divorced, her father was ill, and she had three children -- then 5, 10 and 12 -- to care for. But she didn't despair for long, she says: "I knew that this had to be a sign of something bigger." She used her contacts in the temp agency world, and "I wasn't even off for a whole week before I had my next gig."

Tya temped for several weeks and was even offered a well-paying position in a law firm. But she didn't want to work long hours away from her children. What she really wanted was a flexible business of her own. When a local charter school was established, Tya, who was then living in Fort Washington, contracted with it to set up and run its office operations. She realized this might be the business she'd been hoping to create for herself. "I was like, okay, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I can do this: The little things I've been doing all of my adult life, I can do for someone else in my own company." She studied the field of virtual assistants (people who do administrative work away from the employer's location) at night on her laptop -- "I didn't sleep at all," she says -- and she hired a career coach for entrepreneurial support. She built a Web site and soon had her second client, an accountant.

Now Exceptional Business Solutions has more than 20 active clients, and Tya has a pool of virtual assistants and other workers to help her handle the clients' needs. She charges clients based on the service: Basic administrative tasks, such as scheduling and answering phones, costs $30 to $35 an hour; Web-site building and designing would be $75 an hour; handling an office move would be about $5,000. Tya, who moved to Columbia in 2007, works out of her home office and rents space for meetings as needed. She schedules most of her appointments when her children are in school. "My kids love it," she says. "I'm much more accessible."

The first year, the business brought in about $20,000; the second year, $80,000; last year, more than $100,000. Start-up costs were between $5,000 and $7,000. Tya put her own money into the business -- her severance package, savings and home sale gave her money to sustain herself for a while -- and only occasionally draws a salary. She hopes to see revenue grow to $200,000 a year, and her goal for her own salary is $75,000 annually.

The woman who once counseled downsized employees now has some firsthand advice for the recently laid off: Stay focused; evaluate what you liked or disliked about your former job; decide where you want to go; and network. She says she often runs into people who, like her, have become consultants or business owners after being laid off. "It's not always such a bad thing."

Are you succeeding with a new and unusual career, invention, business or creative endeavor? E-mail changb@washpost.com.