If you’re going to switch to any kind of self-employment or try to start your own business, one of the most fundamental skills you will need is reducing risk. Quitting a steady job to pursue your own business is financially risky, so you need to take steps to reduce that risk before you take the plunge. Click to continue »
Being self-employed and running a business always involves tons of busywork. You have paperwork to do, information to find, and plenty of emails to take care of. All the time you spend on this busywork to keep your business running smoothly is time that could be spent on more productive things. So how can you eliminate busywork? It’s simple: pay someone to do it for you.
Finding a balance between work and family is vital when working from home.
If you have a family – especially toddlers – working from home can be difficult. It’s easy to be distracted with family members in the house making noise, interrupting you to ask questions, coming in and out of your home office, etc. It’s also very easy to constantly think about work and neglect spending time with your family.
There are several measures you can take to keep you and your family sane and to ensure you get enough work done to pay the mortgage.
Put some effort into setting SMART goals!
When you’re setting goals for your self-employment job or business, it’s important to set realistic goals. You might want to make a million dollars in your first month, but that’s not realistic. It would be much more realistic to “reach profitability within six months” or something similar. This goal does not set some arbitrary dollar amount, but does say that you’ll be making money. It’s also time-constrained to motivate you to work hard on it for those first six months.
There’s an acronym to help you set smart goals. Conveniently, the acronym is SMART. Here’s what it means:
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You can be a successful entertainer in your local area if you have talent, promote yourself, and do a good job. When you do a good job at your local gigs, people spread the word. Word of mouth is powerful marketing.
If you want to be a celebrity, I’m not going to lie to you, the odds are against you. But with the advent of the Internet, many new opportunities are available. You can promote your music online and obtain a loyal following of fans. You can post your comedy videos on YouTube, gain a following there, and get noticed by someone in the industry. The Internet has allowed people to become celebrities without the traditional Hollywood story.
Last week I described several of the benefits of working for yourself. I don’t want to make it sound too easy, though. There are several challenges that come with self-employment jobs, just like any job. You should definitely take these into account if you’re thinking about taking the plunge to self-employment.
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Being a book reseller is a self-employment idea I’m particularly fond of, since I love books. If you love books too, you will love this job. Once you get good at it, you could also offer your services as a book “hunter.” You would hunt down rare or valuable books for book collectors, and then collect a finder’s fee from the collector.
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Being self-employed or starting a business is very common dream. It’s a romantic idea: no boss, no set hours, increased time and money, etc. The reality is that being self-employed takes a lot of work. You might not like working 8 hours per day at your regular job, but if you start your own business you might find yourself working 12 hours per day.
There are many benefits to being self-employed, though. Despite the hard work, you do get a sense of fulfillment by running the business yourself instead of reporting to a boss. Here’s a list of several benefits of being self-employed.
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