43 Reasons to be Self Employed

I love being self employed. Even during difficult times, even when I don't know where my next contract is coming from, the freedom of setting my own hours and having a wide margin of control over my work just can't be beat. Here's why you too should consider starting your own business:

1. Your OTJ meltdowns should be less often (and less drastic) than this.
2. The internet allows you to to take care of most of your business yourself; you don't need an advertising division, a secretarial division, and an accounting division, like you did in decades gone by.
3. Start up costs can be minimal--websites are cheap, Skype is cheap, mailing costs are free (via email), etc.
4. You can write off a whole bunch of expenses on your taxes which you can't do as an employee.
5. You can charge less than big firms yet still make more than if you actually worked for a big firm.
6. Staying small allows you to stay flexible. One part of your business isn't doing so great? Change it or dump it. No biggie.
7. You can often work from anywhere (although why people choose to work in noisy, distracting coffee shops is beyond me!).
8. You can pick your clients and your co-workers. Don't like a client? Don't work for them.
9. You can be way more creative than in a run of the mill job.
10. You can work as much or as little as your want.
11. You can work without limits. In "regular" jobs you have to be careful of "showing off" by working more/better/faster than your co workers. You have to work certain hours. You have to follow policies and procedures. Ick.
12. You can develop multiple businesses until you find something that really clicks.
13. You get to build your own brand...which can be kind of fun.
14. You can make decisions that make sense. Many businesses operate the same way "because that's the way it's always been done" whether it makes sense or not.
15. You don't have to work with power hungry middle managers, hostile underlings, and disconnected bosses. In fact, most social wrangling falls away when you don't have a water cooler to gather round.
16. You can relocate much easier by taking your business with you instead of having to quit your job and find a new job after you move.
17. You can change your job to meet your needs. Don't like having to be in a shop doing dog grooming? Just develop a mobile dog grooming business. Simple.
18. You can set your own hours (ie: you can start working right after your morning poker game).
19. You will have a cool title. Instead of being a cog in the wheel, you can be COO, XO, or CEO of You, Inc.
20. You may be able to cut your commute (and commuting costs) to nil.
21. The sky's the limit with how successful you can become.
22. The sky's the limit with how much money you can earn.
23. You can retire when you want...or just take really long vacations.
24. You can leverage the power of the net for just about everything--advertising to millions instead of just the people in your community, selling to million instead of just the people who see your ad in the local paper, doing something amazing that "goes viral" and makes you an overnight sensation.
25. Overhead can be minimal--these days you don't need a huge office, secretary, and an expense account. Now you can have a laptop, an outsourced secretary in India, and you can make your own coffee at home.
26. You won't be alone. Now more than ever you will find people through blogs, forums, and other online source who are self employed just like you.
27. There's almost nothing you can't learn online. Henry Ford used to have a staff to answer his questions and do research, now you can use Google.
28. Your business and life will flow seamlessly together (usually). No more "thank God it's Friday" since your business will become an extension of your life and vice versa.
29. You can literally start with nothing and grow your business through to an IPO and beyond.
30. You can focus on work that you enjoy. Hate certain parts of your new business? Outsource or contract out those parts so you will have more time to focus on what you do really well.
31. Your stress level will decrease...probably dramatically.
32. Your value system will feel renewed. Working for less than ethical and/or less than honest people can wear on you.
33. Your new business can take you as far as you want to go. As a cog in the wheel you are rather limited in your time and connections, but as a business owner you may end up hob nobbing with the Rotary, successfully running for office, or impacting policy at state and federal levels. Cool.
34. You will learn new stuff. Most jobs you can do on auto-pilot, but with a business, you learn new stuff daily in many business and non-business-associated areas. Continual learning is a good thing.
35. You are free to make changes. Whether you are changing your business model, service model, or product model, you never know...your business might create massive change in your industry.
36. You will quickly learn about the most important aspects of business--making money and having happy customers. From there you continue to refine your process so you will keep increasing both of the aforementioned items.
37. You will gain confidence and skills. Your basic job may entail sitting at a desk and typing on a computer. As a business owner, you may end up making speeches, advising others, and maybe even extending your reach by writing a book or giving workshops.
38. You won't have to worry about your lack of credentials. If people only move up in your company based on how many degrees they have listed after their name, take heart in the fact that in the real world, action and outcome matter more than a person's title.
39. You can make a business out of just about anything...carving pumpkins, building websites, taking people fishing, etc.
40. You can create your own job category. If no particular jobs catches your fancy, you can meld together a handful of things you love to do and create an entirely new job.
41. You don't have to worry about being riffed, downsized, or laid off.
42. Self improvement will be your new mantra. At a corporate job, people usually keep their head down and do the work they are assigned, however in the competitive arena of self bossers, you need to continually evolve and be better than others or you will be left behind.
43. You will be in charge of your own destiny. 'Nuff said.

Review: Skip College: Go Into Business for Yourself

I just received the e-book "Skip College: Go Into Business for Yourself" from author JJ Luna which came about because of this post. I took a glance at the book and figured I would read the entire book on the plane tomorrow. Then I read the first chapter...then I noticed I was already 25 pages into the tome...then I decided to keep reading...then I noticed that it was 2am...and I was almost through with the book. Then I finished the book. So, while it is creeping up on 3am, I wanted to write this review while the material was still fresh in my mind. Here's the high points:

• It came in e-book form. This is a good thing. No going to the library, getting on the waiting list, and waiting. No ordering it on Amazon and waiting for the UPS driver to bring it to my door. No going to the bookstore and hunting for it among the shelves. It was instantaneously delivered to my email. Super convenient.
• The e-book didn't disappoint. I was already sold on Mr Luna's self employment theories when I read his first book, How to Be Invisible. Reading this book just reinforced my initial theory that his ideas have significant merit and that everyone can learn something from what he writes about.
• The book covers basic theories of self employment which each person needs to put into practice for themselves. This is also a good thing. There is no such thing as "follow these ten steps explicitly and you will be successful." If someone promises you such a thing you need to run the other way because there are so many variables that having the basic theories down pat are far more valuable than following the same exact path as someone else.
• The book delves into a number of other areas that are marginally related to self employment but mostly related to personal responsibility which is the bedrock of any successful life IMHO. Things like keeping your word, not complicating your business or your life unnecessarily, living within your means, carrying cash, etc. Good stuff.
• The first sentence of Chapter 1 is like a splash of cold water. "For the majority of today's high school graduates, going on to college is an unjustifiable waste of time and money." Wow. It may be true but few people have the guts to state such a "heretical" idea. Obviously with such a bold statement, you want to read more. Throughout the book, he proves this point.
• I don't know whether to consider this serendipitous or not but just this week, I received my acceptance letter to a local university. Similar to Mr Luna who dropped out of college after three years, I also dropped out of college many years ago. I probably have more community college credits than one would think possible simply because I take classes that interest me or that I feel would be useful, however, I never did go back to college to actually finish a degree. I do, however, work mostly with people who have at minimum Masters degrees, mostly, these people are well-respected PhDs. Kind of intimidating. So a couple of months ago I felt the need to actually "finish college". If I am directing people with PhDs, shouldn't I at least have some kind of degree? I though so, which is why I was pretty much focused on going back to college, graduating, and getting the piece of paper that would make me "official". I'm not sure if it is because I have been up for more than 20 hours, or because if I look at the situation logically--I have been successfully self employed for more than 20 years--I am seriously having second thoughts about my need for a degree. This may be the tipping point for not getting a degree. In that case, this e-book just saved me approximately $9000 which I was prepared to write a check for in the next few weeks.
• I liked the tone of the book. As I was reading thorough it, thoughts of my grandfather kept popping into my mind. Although Mr Luna is a couple of decades younger than my grandfather, the things he writes about in his book--everything from reminiscing about being a fire lookout to carrying cash to take care of any problem that may arise to reading voraciously to coming up with clever ways to make money--reminded me of my grandfather. This is exactly the advice he gave so many years ago and if I would have just PAID ATTENTION, the information would have saved me untold grief and many, many, many thousands of dollars.
• Overall, I recommend this book for people who are deciding whether or not to go to college or if you are older and considering the possibility of starting your own business. I also suggest everyone read 'How to Be Invisible' as well.

If you need some more convincing about the "value" of a degree, here's some links:

• A couple with $700,000 in student loan debt (apparently they became doctors but can't do simple math)


• Law degree can't guarantee job offer.


• Top 10 Reasons Why College Graduates Can't Find a Job


• A Degree Doesn't Mean a Job


• Alumna Sues College Because She Hasn't Found a Job (which just goes to show that you can have a degree and no common sense)

If I had a quarter for every college graduate who whined about not being able to get a job even though they have a degree, like somehow having a piece of paper entitles them to a job...

Reader's Question: Becoming Self Employed

I'm sick of the rat race and working for "the man". I could care less about being wealthy, but would love the freedom of working for myself. Question is...how the heck do you manage to do it? Do I just start a blog, get the readers and go from there? I have no college education, which isn't as important nowadays as some people think. I have no trade, per say. I can work hard and do a good job. If you show me how to do something, I do it. And usually after a while I'm doing it better and more efficient than the other workers. How does this translate into a work from home/own my own business scenario? I'm not a salesman. I don't have any particularly amazing skills or talents to draw from. I play a little guitar, but I'm not a musician. I can fill a sketch book with some decent sketches, but I'm no artist. I know the basics of html, but I'm no computer guru. Do you make money off your blog or site? How exactly does that work? How do you get advertisers? I thought I'd take a stab in the dark and ask someone who's opinion I've really came to admire in the past year. Any word of advice would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and keep up the good work! J

I think a lot of people are feeling just like J. I've felt like J. After many years of being self employed (after having some pretty crap jobs like everyone else), here's what I have learned:

#1--You need to be as debt free as possible before you strike out on your own. If you have a $100,000 job and a $100,000 lifestyle, transitioning over to self employment will be exponentially more difficult because you will NEED to earn $100,000 immediately. Most self employment gigs take a while to build up to that level. So if you are deep in debt, take six jobs and get your debts paid off NOW. Resource: Dave Ramsey
#2--Blogs, most blogs anyway, do not make much money. This blog makes maybe $100 a month through Google Adsense (note to readers, feel free to click through the ads on the site which will give me an extra fraction of a cent). So this is basically a hobby for me. There is potential to monetize the site more but my regular business takes up much of my time and it generates a good steady income which I kind of like. Resource: Read this article.
#3--If you are self employed you are three things: a salesperson, a business person, and a person who provides X (your actual business whether you are a writer, widget builder, carpet installer, etc). You need to be well educated and practice all three of these things. I am not a salesperson by nature either, but it was still a skill I needed to develop. When your business has grown to the point that you can afford to hire a salesperson to sell your services/products and a business adviser/tax accountant/lawyer then you can slack off in these areas a bit.
#4--You don't have to be the best at anything (although it helps) but you do have to have a reason that people will pay you for what you do. I was in Chicago last week and there were quite a few people who would go down into the subway tubes, put out a bucket, and start singing or playing their instruments. They all made some money from this endeavour and I am guessing the ones who were good made more. So you don't have to be Mariah Carey to start a singing career. Just start!
#5--If you don't know where to start, solve someone's problem. Years ago when websites were new, I worked in an office and told the boss, hey you need a website. At the time I got some website design software and was playing around with it and found that I could put something up that resembled a website. I told the guy that if he gave me $200 I could set him up a nice website. I was in no way a website designer but I did see a problem (his business didn't have a domain name, website, or any idea how to do such things) and I offered to fix it for him (with a small fee for myself). By today's standards that site was a train wreck but it fixed his problem and he was quite happy with it (and has since hired real web designers to improve the site). I no longer do websites (CSS, Drupal...ayayay) but at the time, I took the opportunity to develop some basic skills that I could sell. Since then, this little jaunt into self employment has spring boarded me into a business that works with government contracts, critical infrastructure, occasionally the medical field, etc. It is just like selling your first skill/product to someone but on a larger scale (note, you develop the ability to sell your services/product to bigger and bigger players the more you practice).
#6--I would say "do what you love" but sometimes these things don't pay the bills. So, do what you like that can earn you an income. Or take what you love and figure out a way to monetize it.
#7--You have to just start. So many people say "I wish I was self employed like you". But that is as far as they get. They don't even actually try to be self employed. If you walk next door and offer to mow the neighbor's yard for $25 and he says yes, ta da...you are self employed. It takes balls to start such an endeavour (what will people think of me, what if I am not good enough, what if I fail) but if you let all of this stop you, you will never be self employed. Do something, anything (legal and ethical of course), that will allow you to sell your skills/services the first time and you will probably be hooked. Even making $10 is a start. Then you analyze the sale and figure out how to do it again in a better way so that you can earn more money.
#8--Employees are a pain in the ass. I've had employees and while most were great, some weren't and the overall deal with employees is that they are expensive and needy and there is a whole lot of laws governing their existence. I don't have the time or patience for that. So now all of my employees are contractors like I am. They work hard, pay their own taxes, and are really quite dependable.
#9--If you are self employed, you need to be good (continual study in your field is a must and you don't directly get paid for this although it will pay off in the success of your business), you need to be dependable, a self starter, produce an excellent product, meet your deadlines...and all the other stuff that you are supposed to be as an employee. When you are doing business for yourself, you can't slide in some of these areas like you would be able to do as an employee, however.
#10--Pay your taxes in full and on time! Most new business owners forget this part until the IRS is knocking on their door. You won't have an employer to do this for you so take 25% of every dime you earn and put it aside to pay your taxes. Don't touch it for emergencies, don't touch it for the vacation you have planned...it belongs to the IRS and they will make sure they get it.
#11--You are now financially responsible for yourself. You won't have an employer to pay your taxes (see #10), pay your medical insurance, set up your 401k, give you sick leave, et al. You need to plan these things into the prices that you charge, you need to be responsible for setting up these things and maintaining/paying them in a timely fashion, and you need to make contingency plans should something bad like and illness or a car wreck, happen to you.
#12--I am a fan of multiple streams of income. Working at one job for one client would bore me to death (it would also irk the IRS since it would kind of counter the fact that you are your own business and not an employee). Which is why my business has many clients and many ongoing projects. I may pick up a client for one short term project and never see them again or I may keep one client for years and do lots of projects for them. I also make a bit from this website, do some freelance writing which brings in some money, had rental properties which I have since gotten out of..in short, the more sources of income you have, the more secure you are.
#13--Read this guy's books. I read the original 'How to Be Invisible' book some years ago and it seemed to cover self employment in about one paragraph and it was crystal clear about the entire process. Now I see he has another book about skipping college and going into business for yourself which, while I haven't read it yet, probably does an excellent job of covering the topic based on his last book.
#14--Random stuff: take some gigs on CraigsList, have a garage sale, eBay stuff, offer to trade your skill for a friend's skill, go downtown and sing on a street corner, challenge yourself to do something that you have always wanted to do but were too afraid "of what others would think"...once you start doing things to break out of the little box you have been wedged into, you will a) find stuff that you like to do better than other stuff, b) enjoy the fact that you can earn your own income without a boss, c) develop your salesmanship skills, and d) learn to take risks which is what business is all about.
#15--Start small. Don't spend more than $500 to get your new venture off the ground. Some of your ideas are going to crash and burn and I would rather than happen with your monthly spending money than have you risk your entire 401k.

The bottom line is that everyone is good at something. I hope J will take his natural skills, brush up on them a bit, then monetize the Hell out of them and make some cash. Developing his business from there will be the easy part, getting started is often the most difficult.

Here's some more blogs/websites from people who have decided to be self employed. Notice how they have a blog but they earn their income from doing other things like writing e-books, giving conferences, etc.

• Johnny B Truant
• Art of Nonconformity
• Penelope Trunk
• Joe McNally
• Adventure Doc
• Simple Dollar

A Dozen Reasons to be Self Employed

Except in a couple of instances when I took jobs in order to learn skills that I needed or, in the early years when I wanted to make money quickly and had basically had no skills (bartending), I have been self-employed for the majority of my life. Here's a dozen reasons why people should be self-employed:

1. Lots of tax deductions not given to a regular employee.
2. The ability to earn according to your skill, need, or basic chutzpa (when you work for $9 an hour at WalMart, you have no ability to earn more than $9 an hour. Period. Depressing.).
3. A lack (or at least minimum) of office politics.
4. Flexible hours.
5. No one looking over your shoulder, no need to put up with inane employee policies better suited to pre-schoolers, and no timing of your every coffee break.
6. You get to be creative!
7. You can switch gears quickly--if one part of the business takes off, you can follow that part and drop or at least minimize work on other parts that don't make money.
8. The ability to multi-task...start the laundry, write some code, set bread to rising, write an article, mow the yard, shoot some hoops, catch the ninth inning, take a nap, blog into the wee hours...you get the idea.
9. An immediate increase in status--outside contracted "expert" versus "office flunky".
10. Flexible dress code.
11. A (sometimes dramatic cut) in work-related expenses: lunches out, coffee on the way to work, a comprehensive "work" wardrobe, money for co-worker gifts, daycare, etc.
12. No need to grovel with an employer for a fifty cent raise, an extra sick day, an office with a window, etc.