Ah, self-employment. We love it, while some of us hate the idea. Well, surprisingly enough, these days, almost 35% of America’s workforce are freelancers. That says a lot. Even those who hold regular boring jobs do some work on a side hustle that equals self-employment. However, others have a little more time on their hands and make themselves a truly legitimate living solely on being self-employed!
So how do they do it? What’s their secret? In this guide, we’re going to tell you how you and just about anybody can become self-employed these days. There are some upsides and downsides, but there are many people across the world who have become freelancers and ended up becoming multi-millionaires from it.
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What’s Wrong with Being a Self-Employed Freelancer?
Being a self-employed freelancer can be one of the most rewarding and freeing things you can do for yourself.
There is nothing wrong with this other than the word itself. To be successful, there are some things that people need to realize. The term “freelance” is just a tag anymore. In the past (for example, in the 1980s and 1990s), freelancing itself was called just that. It was a way for people to consider themselves a “self-employed’ person because they did side “gigs” for clients. In the 2000’s that all started to boom, and by the 2010s, it started changing.
Now, almost nobody says, “I’m a freelancer” anymore. We’re going to get into that a little bit coming up. But first, a short word from our sponsor! Just kidding.
How to Truly Succeed While Being Self-Employed?
Here are some pros and cons for you to weigh if you’re thinking about becoming self-employed.
There are a lot of rules and tribulations when it comes to starting your freelance business. Believe it or not, many people try it and fail at it. The facts are that one out of every two self-employed businesses fails before their second year of starting. However, to be successful, the truth is in their perseverance. Here are some major ground rules that you need to follow if you want to become successfully self-employed:
1. Treat your self-employment as a business from day one!
You’re now employed. You just run it all (more on that in a little bit). If you don’t treat your self-employment like a legit business, then you’re setting yourself up for numerous disasters and failures. Don’t worry, this is common, and it’s all a learning experience!
2. Be prepared to pay taxes and get some backup funding.
This self-employment checklist is an excellent guide if you’re thinking about taking the leap.
It doesn’t matter what continent or country you’re in; all of them have taxes. Being a self-employed company or representing yourself brings extra responsibility. You’ll possibly face a higher tax payment than you would from a dead-end job. Still, it’s worth it if you’re succeeding, now isn’t it?
3. Be patient! Clients will come in due time.
The first part of any journey’s usually the toughest. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Field of Dreams” with Kevin Costner, Bull Durham had it right – “Build it, and they will come.” This is true in the entrepreneur world too. Give it time and keep pushing. It will start to work and get better after a few years.
4. Being self-employed means you should be prepared to do everything – no, literally EVERYTHING.
You’re self-employed now, and with that comes great responsibility. You may have to learn and be good at several different skills.
Most of the time, even if you’re working with a spouse or partner, you have to do it all yourself when you’re working solely as someone self-employed. Remember that responsibility we talked about earlier? Even the most introverted individual can succeed as a self-employed freelancer. You have to do it all, though, from answering phones to posting writings (as an example if you’re choosing writing), finding customers, and completing the job.
Think paperwork is terrible if you’re a supervisor for a major corporation or company? Think again. There’s a reason why many of them have multiple departments and numerous people in them. But don’t let that get you down either, and you’ll go far!
5. Don’t be afraid to fail, but learn from it.
Let’s face it; not every client is a dream. But you’re self-employed, and you’re the boss, so you may have to do what’s best for your business, even if you have to fire a client.
Everyone fails. Everyone has terrible clients or customer experiences. Take them with a grain of salt. Be honest to yourself and accept criticism, the good, the bad, and even the ugly. Bounce back and learn from your mistakes. Believe us; they’ll happen!
6. It’s a dog eat dog world out there.
You can’t just trust everything and everyone out there. When it comes to running your own business, you’re going to want to keep records of every single thing, and you can’t just hand them off to anyone. One good thing you can do if you’re going to succeed is to hire a network storage solution to help you with consistent backups. This will ensure that you never miss a record, contract, receipt, or anything else. Keep them because you’re going to need them later – for disgruntled customers, taxes, and much more.
7. Don’t get too personal and get the right business tools.
Having the right tools at your disposal will make being self-employed much easier in the long run.
You’re going to need to get some ground rules set. Many businesses make common mistakes of giving away their personal information to the wrong person. One of the best ways you can help your self-employment success become true is to set up a VoIP phone. But what if all you have is a cell phone? Well, you can still get a trusted solution that can hook you up and allow you to give information for your business (you can even register a VoIP phone number for your business number – most companies actually do) so you can have unlimited conversations and calling, but still keep your phone numbers and calls private.
At the same time, it may be a good practice to learn some software skills, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook (for e-mail), Google Docs, Sheets, and more. At the same time, you’ll want to use something like TurboTax Self-Employed to file your taxes so you can get QuickBooks for Self Employed.
8. Set your ground rules. You are your boss, and the client is the customer. You’re hiring clients (you just get paid for it).
Setting ground rules for employees and clients right out of the gate is extremely important when you’re self-employed.
Here’s the thing. People often mistake stuff because the “customer is always right.” There’s a big difference between customer service and having a customer think they’re your boss. If you’re going to be self-employed, you need to know that this happens in every business. Even if you have a dedicated IT department for your business, they have customers once in a while who will pose the same problem for them, so they’ll understand. It’s just human nature, but as long as you stick to your guns, make your policies, and do things right with confidence, you can succeed in business.
Mark Zuckerberg (the owner of Facebook) proved that you sometimes have to be stern while being a genuinely nice guy. This doesn’t mean you walk all over people, but you must stand your ground. Any service is hiring their customers to pay them necessarily (and you can too)!
9. Know the various types of “trouble” you’ll run into.
There will be mistakes and errors, as we mentioned earlier. The most common problems that people have are with other customers, backing up their data, keeping their data in check, and utilizing numerous social media tools such as YouTube, and other things to learn how to promote themselves.
So Is It Difficult?
This is going to be a hard journey, should you decide to go this route. It would help if you asked a lot of questions. You may get half-hocked answers from many people, but the truth is, nobody will ever tell you their secrets to ultimately succeed. Whatever you do, don’t pay some random training program (as a matter of fact, create your own once you’re established!) to teach you how to be a successful entrepreneur. Just keep at it, and you’ll persevere!