Starting Your Own Business...

Five Benefits and Precautions

Need flexible hours to work around your kids’ school schedule? Want to put your mind to work creating something special and lasting? Becoming an entrepreneur may be the choice for you.

Here are five benefits—and precautions—about working for yourself.

1. You can set your own hours.
You may be the kind of person who works best while everyone else sleeps. Having your own business—Internet sales, owning a nightclub, writing free lance articles or doing other people’s taxes—might be just the approach for you.

Warning! You may find that working for yourself is a 24-hour job. If 10,000 paper dolls need to be printed and packaged by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, you will have to stay up all night and do it. Of course, when your business takes off, you can hire someone else to work into the wee hours as you rake in the profits while you snooze.

2. You can set your own agenda.
With your own business, you can determine just how you will operate. Perhaps you want to groom poodles, or offer housecleaning services to housebound people, or teach volleyball to overweight children. Whatever your vision is, you can put it into practice.

Warning! Keep in mind that there needs to be a demand for the service or product you intend to offer. If there are no poodles where you live, confining your grooming business to poodles only is not going to succeed. On the other hand, if there are poodle owners in the area but they routinely go to the local pet store for their grooming needs, you can take up the challenge to show them why using your services is a benefit to them. You might find out you have a knack for marketing to hard-to-win customers.

3. You can set your own salary.
As an employee, you can only increase your salary within the framework of the organization you work for. With your own business, you can earn as much money as you invest time, energy, and creativity into it.

Warning! You are going to have to earn every penny you make. No one is going to hand you a cost-of-living raise, merit pay, or company-paid health insurance. It’s all on you now to bring in those bucks with your determination and elbow grease.

4. You can gain a sense of fulfillment.
Working for someone else helps them realize their dream. By working for yourself you can get a sense of achievement and gratification from making your own dreams come true. The excitement of growing your own business will keep work from becoming everyday and boring.

Warning! You will have to perform some uninspiring tasks when you first begin, drudgery even. But once your business becomes successful, you can employ someone else to do the chores that bore or frustrate you. Then you can focus on the aspects of your business that excite you and make you feel fulfilled.

5. You can satisfy your need for creative thinking.
Have you ever worked a job you enjoyed but felt frustrated because you had so many ideas on how to improve it that no one listened to? Becoming an entrepreneur will satisfy those cravings for creativity. You can take your own business in any direction you choose, coming at business practices, customer service, compensation, or marketing from completely new and unique angles. Coming up with print, TV, or radio ads to market your business can open your mind to a whole new world of exciting opportunities.

Warning! Creativity can be as addictive as potato chips. Once the entrepreneurship bug bites you, you’re a goner.

And your bonus benefit...

6. You will learn something new every day.
Becoming an entrepreneur can be a fulfilling, satisfying, and lucrative step in your life. Remember though that owning your own business means you are responsible for everything going on in that business. Take some courses in entrepreneurship, read as many books about the process as you can, become a regular at small business workshops and chamber of commerce meetings, explore the advantages of e-marketing. Do everything you can to set yourself up for success.

Now, for your final warning…

Warning! You might become rich and famous—or maybe just happy!

By Debbi Miller Gutierrez

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Permalink Reply by Val Filipski on August 24, 2009 at 6:29pm

Great set of "rewards" for starting your own business! I have one more to add:

Be your own boss!
In addition to keeping your own hours, YOU get to be your own boss.
(buzzer) Wrong! You have a gazillion bosses - whether they are your clients, patients, your raving public or the consumers of your unique product. You better put people pleasing at the top of your list of skills. Knowing when to "fire" a customer and how to fire them takes guts and finesse.