What is Self-Employed?
Based on Investopedia, a self-employed person doesn’t work for a specific employer who pays them a consistent salary. Self-employed individuals, or independent contractors, earn income by contracting with a trade or business directly. In most cases, the payer will not withhold taxes, so this becomes the responsibility of the self-employed individual.
Self-employed can work with other people but they don’t have a boss, only clients. If their project becomes a big success, it is possible the project develop into a larger business with many employees. Some argue that all entrepreneurs are self-employed who work for themselves, although not necessarily all self-employed are entrepreneurs.
Some of the self-employment includes writer, trader, investor, lawyer, salespeople, and insurance agent.
What’s Good About Self Employment?
- Flexible working hours
Because they don’t sign a contract with any company, self-employed have very flexible working hours. They can decide their schedule for themselves. - Follow their passion
They have total freedom so they can work based on their passion. Small businesses can start with the owner’s passion. - Fair wages
Some employees can get unfair wages from their company. The amount of their wages doesn’t match their hard work. By self-employment, wages are adjustable to match with hard work.
How To Be A Good Self-Employed?
Choose your niche and narrow it
As a self-employed person, you need to pick a specific niche. Consider these questions: What will your area of focus be? What will your product or service solve? What kind of knowledge and experience do you already have that you could parlay into a business?
Practice a personal productivity methodology
That doesn’t mean that you have to fully follow someone else’s system. But, you have to be aware of some methods of getting things done that work for others. Then, try to find the pieces that will surely work for you.
Set your goals
Set specific goals and stick to them. These goals may how many items/services that you plan to sell in the first month or year, how would you approach your market, what will you do if you don’t sell, and which marketing strategy you would use.
Learn strong money management skills
Basically, this means one thing: make sure the money you bring in is substantially more than the money you pay out over any given period. Obviously, you can’t do this every time because of major events, but during a normal month, you need to be able to do this. If you can’t keep your own financial house in order, being self-employed will be an almost insurmountable challenge.
It may sound hard to enter into self-employment. But, it’s worth trying!
Good luck!