Self Employment Guide for anyone encountering a difficult economic environment

Is Self Employment Really For Me?
By Christopher Shennan

There are plenty of advertisements on TV, radio and the internet for self employment and all seem to highlight the same ideas

- More money- Less & more flexible hours- Do the projects that you want to do- Be your own boss

Is this really for you? From the lines above I bet almost everyone is saying yes but there will be a few of you who are slightly more sceptical.

Like the majority of you I said "yes" too, however I found that there were a number of pitfalls and I eventually had to concede defeat and admit I failed.

My aim for this article is not to discourage you from trying self-employment but rather to try and highlight self employment from the other perspective and show the difficulties that can be faced rather than just stating the potential benefits. Hopefully this will help you to avoid the same mistakes I made and really make sure that you are ready for self-employment before jumping in with both feet.

Is Self Employment really for me? - The Job

One of the big selling points of self employment is being able to do the projects that you enjoy and move away from doing the projects that you don't enjoy. I was a web developer and I enjoyed the web site and database development but I'm not a good with public speaker and writing user manuals bores me to tears, therefore, when I turned self-employed I wanted to drop off the public speaking and user manuals and focus on the website and database development.

This didn't quite work as I expected because I ended up having to do a lot of public speaking in the form of phone calls and business meetings in order to try and sell my services and get work in. I also had to write up proposals and weekly progress reports about the tasks I had done for my clients.

Looking back on it now it would appear that I didn't drop off any of the work I disliked at all but instead it was all there, all the time, just with a different face on it. I bet that many of the tasks you would like to put drop off will still need done even if you change to being self-employed.

In addition to not losing the work you disliked I found that a considerable amount was added on like proposals, invoicing, payroll, accountancy, tax returns to name but a few. This all needs on in excess of the hours you normally work and generally isn't something you can bill for. You may spend half a considerable amount of time doing a decent proposal for a job but if in the end you don't get the job you have to re-cover your losses from elsewhere.

Is Self Employment really for me? - The Hours

Everyone who is trying out to be self-employed says the same thing... they want to get away from working the 9am to 5pm and have more flexible hours so they can take the morning off, finish at lunchtime on a Friday or even have more 4 day weekends. I was looking forward to the same thing but 2 years down the line I'm still waiting to see any of these.

With the additional work you needing done (as mentioned above) I found I had to do the normal 9am - 5pm on the billable work and then spend evenings or weekends doing the non-billable work. Finishing time slowly drifted from 5pm to 7pm to 9pm until it eventually got to the stage where the only time I wasn't working was when I was sleeping.

I have tried taking the odd long weekend off but for me this is when my clients choose to call you which resulted in the most amount of phone call I have ever received in a single day and it was supposed to be my day off. As a result I had my mobile to my ear for a large portion of the day and quite a few quid racked up at the nearest internet café.

I realise it must be tempting to give out your mobile phone number so you're clients can reach you easily but I recommend against it, or at least get a separate mobile number for your work calls. Giving out my mobile number only resulted in being called anytime a client feels like it including 10pm on a Friday night or 8am on a Sunday morning. Sometimes this would even be about home IT problems which have absolutely nothing to do with the projects I was doing for them. I would recommend only giving a business number out and then you can switch it to the answering machine at 5pm on Fridays and allow yourself a break and time to relax until Monday morning.

One of the things we take for granted is the paid holiday that we receive in our employment. Being self-employed means you no longer get the benefit of paid holidays or sick days and you need to bring in enough money not only to pay for the holidays and sick days but to cover the income you will lose out on during these periods. Since my step into self-employment I don't recall having a properly holiday and the longest I can recall is 5 days and that is including the weekend.

Is Self Employment really for me? - The Additional Expenses

The will be additional expenditure required regardless what type of business you try to start up but some types will obviously require more that others. For me I had the following additional expenditures:-

- Business Insurance (Public Liability & Professional Indemnity)- Accountancy- Reseller Hosting- Travelling Expenses- Computers & Software- Running Capital

The first 3 amounts to about £200 a month for me and travelling expense varies wildly from month to month and it all has to come out of your pocket (at least initially until you've got a project to invoice). Previously your employer would have had to take care of all that and you would just submit your expense claim at the end of the month and got all your business expense back.

Running Capital is another problem I faced. Usually I had enough coming in to cover the bills and expenses but if a client wanted a new PC installed I would have to get them to purchase the PC directly as my funds could not strech to have that kind of expense put on it. This poses 2 problems:-

- This does not give the impression of a successful company- As the client is purchasing direct you cannot add any mark up on these items.

Is Self-Employment really for me? - The Person

One of the other aspects to consider is the personality of the individual going into self-employment. If you get a difficult client that comes back with your invoice and says "I'm not paying that" then are you able to follow through and chase it up and get the relevant collection agencies involved if required or would you just write it off?

If you are the latter then you may well find a lot of people will try and take advantage of your nature and push down your rate or demand you cut your invoice total even though there is nothing wrong with the value you quoted. You will have to ensure you are able to commit and not back down otherwise your clients could have you working for peanuts and throwing in extra things all over the place that weren't part of the original project specification and expect it for free.

One of the best examples I've come across is when I was doing a few home PC repairs when I was previously employed. My friends would ask me to come round after work and fix problems with their computers and in return I would buy me a pint when we went to the pub. This continued after I became self employed with exactly the same in terms of payment (1 pint) even though I could be there 5 minutes or 5 hours... they had just come to expect it that way even though every job I now did had to contribute to my income that month.

At some point I spoke to them about this arrangement and told them I would have to start charging now since this is where my income comes from and from that day forth they've never asked me to fix their computer again.

This may seem like I've lost a potential client but they were the ones reaping the benefits while I got nothing in return and they were clearly not interested in paying for the services they were receiving.

Is Self-Employment really for me? - The Sales Call

This is partly associated with the person (see section above) again. About 2 hours after I got my business phone line installed I got a phone call from a business directory trying to get me to purchase their services and they succeeded but as it turns out the service didn't do my business any good. Unfortunately I was one of the individuals who could be talked into something fairly easily and more than one company managed to get their talons into my because of that.

What I've taken away from those experiences is a process I now follow with each conversation of that nature.

Firstly, if I have the time, I listen to what is being offered and then I take the contact details and tell them I will contact them back at a time convenient with me. This allows me to research the product or services without the pressure of someone trying to hard sell it to me.

Secondly I ask the following questions:-

- Do I need the service?- Can I afford the service?- Do they want me to make a decision right now?

If the answer to either of the first 2 are no then I don't bother calling back and if they call me back then I firmly stick to my answer, regardless how they try and spin their product.

If they are offering a special discount to try and entice you but they insist you make a decision right now then again that's when I say no and stick to it. If they are trying to get you to commit to something which is only available if you accept right now then it's most likely something that not going to be useful.

At the end of the day their job is to make money out of your company and they don't care if you need it or not. Your job is to make money for your company so you will have to learn how to deal with these call very quickly otherwise you will have companies talking you into buying their products even though you don't have any use for them.

Is Self Employment really for me? - The Home Life

I think one of the most important things to bear in mind is to manage to keep a home life too but this can be hard to do, especially if you are working from home. The long hours and stress can put a lot of strain on your home life and create problems between you and the rest of your family so you will need to create boundaries to help keep everything balanced.

Although you have to work hard to become self-employed, especially when you are trying to establish yourself, you should make sure that you don't put the work over the family.

Conclusion

Although this seems to portray a negative image of self-employment this is simply highlight some of the problems I encountered as I tried my hand at self-employment. Everyone will have different experiences, successes and failures and I strongly believe if you have the drive to start your own business then you will succeed and certainly no-one should stop you from trying!

If you do intend to try self-employment I would like to wish you the very best of luck and I hope you succeed in whatever venture you decide to try. I also hope that this article helps you think about what may be involved and helps you avoid some of the problem I've faced.

Author
This article was written by Chris Shennan
Owner and operator of LotsOfFreebies.CO.UK and ManageMyAlerts

Self Employment Ideas - For the Recession Stricken and Laid Off
By Alex Kaliostro

The benefits of self employment are too obvious to ignore:

• You determine your own hours of work

• You decide how hard you need to work to maximize your earning potential

• If you work from home you cut down on travel expenses and gas drastically

• You don't have to deal with anyone breathing down your neck everyday

However here are some questions you have to ask yourself before deciding to go the self employment route:

• Are you disciplined enough to stick to your own schedule? Making your own schedule could be as much of a curse as a benefit if you're a slacker type

• Can you put in the required hours in order to succeed? Being self employed often times means putting in more hours than at a conventional job. Don't get swayed by "you only have to work a couple of hours a day" popular Internet fantasy. You get back out of your business in direct proportion as to how much you put in

• And finally, can you make the necessary sacrifices to conquer the learning curve? I can tell you from experience - it won't be easy.

If you've considered the above and ready for the next step, here are some ideas that might help you get going.

Take inventory of your talents, skills and abilities

Internet is a perfect breeding ground to express your ideas and talents - and make money online from home doing it. If you're good with Photoshop, why not think about doing some freelance work on the side. Designing logos or banners for example.

Right off the top of my head I know at least a dozen people who would gladly pay to have a cover of their ebook done or have their website header graphics re-designed. Get on some forums and see what people are looking for and don't be afraid to name your price. You'd be surprised what people would pay to not have to do those things themselves.

Start you own website and expand your services

Domain names and hosting are dirt-cheap these days and there is no reason why you shouldn't have your own site. Once you get a hang of things and get a few projects under your belt you could start promoting to a wider audience and get more clients.

Don't stop learning and networking with others

Being self employed doesn't mean you should become a hermit. Networking with like minded entrepreneurs will help you get more business and pick up more skills along the way. If you want to learn how to get paid enough to not have to resort to another 9 to 5 - check out my review on a top rated forum and community of self employed entrepreneurs.

5 Simple Ways to Come Up With a List of Opportunities For Self Employment
By Anna D. Banks

The first place to start is in your local newspaper. This is rich in valuable resources to help you find ideas. The local newspaper is always packed full of advertisements and classified ads. Start by looking here and see what people are already doing as a business in order to make money and you will very quickly be able to take those ideas and come up with new ideas, different ideas, or unique way of doing the same thing.

The second way to come up with and recognize self employment opportunities is to watch people closely. What problems do people have regularly that they need a solution to. If you can recognize problems or things that people consider a burden, and you can create a solution to that problem, you have a sure fire money maker on your hands.

The third way is to look for ways to make peoples lives more convenient and easier. Seriously, do people really need cell phones? Of course we don't. However, they make our lives more convenient and easier, so almost everyone has a cell phone. It shows the power that providing services or products that make life more convenient and easier has.

The fourth way to recognize self employment opportunities is to think about those things you really, really love to do. Don't forget to pay attention to those things that are right under your nose. If you had all the money you needed, what would you do with your time. This is where you should start, because this answer is the one thing you have a passion for, and would love to do all the time. Chances are very good that there are other people who think the same way, and would be willing to pay you to do that thing.

The fifth and final way is to look in the yellow pages of a phone book. This is packed full of businesses that people have created and is even better than the newspaper. Often times you will very quickly find business ideas and markets you would have never thought of on your own, and probably never even knew existed. This is a great source to get your mental juices flowing.

© 2009 Anna D. Banks, GCDF

ANNA D. BANKS, GCDF is a career development and life coach; speaker, and author. Ms. Banks serves on the 2009-2010 Educational Development and Marketing Committees of the International Association of Workforce Professionals (IAWP). Anna helps individuals design a game plan for a career or business. Since 1996, Anna has helped hundreds of job-seekers, managers, business owners, and sales professionals achieve career success

Author's Note:Do you have any questions about career development or lifestyle changes for Baby Boomers, which you think others, like you, would want to know the answers? Please post a comment on my blog http://www.AnnaBanks.com or email your questions to me at Anna@AnnaBanks.com

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