Self-employment is one of the most attractive forms of work in recent years. The traditional work model, supported only by an employee-employer relationship, has lost strength: we all dream of being our own bosses and building a more independent and exciting work life.
A self-employed person, despite going through very demanding challenges in their professional path, in return gets the freedom to make their own decisions, build their work to measure, follow their own pace and schedule, and collect the highest percentage on the invoices.
Through this article, you will learn more about what self-employment is, what are the ways in which you can make it possible, its advantages, disadvantages and recommendations to start in the world of self-employment and leave that office job that seems to wear you out.
What is self-employment?
Self-employment is the status or employment situation of a person who has created a job opportunity for himself, that is, he directs his own professional activity, without depending on a third-party official employer.
In short, a self-employed person or someone who develops self-employment has managed to be “their own boss.”
Types or forms of self-employment
There are two ways or modalities in which a person can develop self-employment:
Freelance mode
Instead of working in a traditional way for a company, a freelance self-employed person offers his professional services in a personal and independent capacity, in order to manage himself, take all the corresponding profits and establish a direct relationship with the clients.
Entrepreneurship modality
Instead of being employed by someone else or offering freelance services, the self-employed entrepreneur brings their business ideas to life, usually starting from digital resources, to create a company, manage and direct their operations strategically under an innovative vision.
A self-employed person can even alternate work options between these two modalities and in some cases manage an enterprise and be freelance simultaneously, in order to obtain a greater number of income and professional growth.
6 tips to start self-employment and earn money on your own
At last! You’ve decided: you’re interested in being self-employed, but you have no idea where to start. Keep in mind the recommendations that we will see below:
Define a self-employment niche
Like any properly incorporated company, the self-employed must also focus on a niche to offer their services freelance or start a digital business. This is not the time to shoot arrows everywhere.
Focusing on a niche is important to ensure that all of your invested resources, including time, money, and labor, are turned into audience recognition, sales, and revenue.
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That’s how it is! To achieve success as a professional you must specialize, so you will reach clients who otherwise would not choose you. In addition, you will have the opportunity to work on a specific area, meeting little-attended needs.
Segment your ideal customer
In this phase, it is essential to segment or identify your group of ideal customers and have a deep understanding of their profiles, preferences, methods, and common consumer products or services, etc.
Only by segmenting your audience will you have a broader vision of their needs and can you increase your chances of making money as a self-employed person, offering exactly the services that fit expectations.
Create self-promotion strategies
No one will hear from you unless you make a good name for yourself. Whether you offer your work in a freelance mode or have started your own company in a personal capacity, self-promotion is an essential element to make yourself known to your ideal client profile.
With the passage of time, it is more difficult for consumers to bite the bait in any attempt to attract advertising. Today, audiences behave much more selectively and consciously before deciding whether an offer is relevant and worthy of their attention.
However, the self-employed will have to manage until the last minute to show the best face of their ideas, jobs, and projects to gain the attraction and loyalty of potential clients.
Don’t be afraid to share your work on different channels, generate valuable content around it, network, and create a community with which you interact.
Develop your own framework and management system for the job
There are no bosses or superiors looking over their shoulders anymore. Now that all responsibilities correspond to you, ensuring due control is the only way to guarantee success in all your projects and endeavors as a self-employed person.
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Rather than relying on improvisation, be sure to create established systems to automate those parts of the work that need to be paced, develop a system for managing projects, have backups of possible solutions to common problems, and create a cycle that takes shape from time to time. as you go.
Establish a value proposition
Self-employment, despite having many opportunities with different clients around the world, can become highly competitive and require you to differentiate yourself from other self-employed who offer professional services or entrepreneurship models similar to yours.
This is achieved if you have established a good value proposition.
The value proposition is based on a series of advantages, benefits and unique solutions, that only you offer within your budget and services, in order to attract the attention of your potential clients and make them prefer your work over the proposals. of others.
This differentiating value can be offered, for example, when you add an additional advantage in delivery times, an attractive offer for a limited time, an extra service included for free, a pre-test, recommendations and special references, among many other means that they will position you as the only best option.
Learn to manage your finances
It is normal that when exercising self-employment, your income does not come regularly as a traditional salary. Some months may be more unstable and others may positively surprise me.
For this reason, learning to manage personal finances is essential to not exceed your consumption habits, but not to restrict yourself and live like a hermit.
Carefully record your expenses, have a savings backup, set your monthly budget, prioritize and divide how much money you let go of your account and do not miss your tax obligations as a self-employed person.
Advantages of being self-employed and disadvantages of being self-employed
Like any other work modality, self-employment has a series of points in its favor and in turn, some aspects that deserve the effort to closely evaluate to decide if this work style fits your lifestyle.
Next we will see the main advantages and disadvantages that being self-employed can trigger.
Advantages of self-employment
On the bright side, these perks are direct reasons for wanting to become self-employed:
- Generation of own income: unlike when you work for someone else, in self-employment the profitability and earnings stay “at home” and you are not condemned to the economic decisions of your employer.
- Scalable income: every professional venture has the opportunity to grow after implementing the correct strategies. You are not destined to earn the same salary every month.
- Flexible hours: one of the main charms of self-employment is that strict office hours and days that do not seem to end, here run according to your own rhythm and decisions. You don’t have to come in and out of work at a specific time. Everything is up to you!
- Possibility of work according to your own initiative and passion: while in the traditional employment modality, there is often the need to accept job offers that do not coincide with our own initiatives and passions, self-employment offers you the opportunity to live doing what you love and develop your career as you always dreamed of.
- Freedom to work from home or while traveling: space is another aspect of self-employment that is not tied to a fixed point. In a digitized work context, you will have permission to work from home or from anywhere in the world, in the style of a good digital nomad.
- Personal skills training: as a self-employed person, you will be in constant need of reinventing your personal skills and competencies to adjust to the challenges and problem-solving context. This represents a level and pace of professional growth that generally you will not live working for the same company for many years.
- Job development with low initial investment: you don’t need to have millions in the bank to launch a digital business or start your freelance career to become self-employed. In these cases, creativity and innovative thinking tend to outweigh money, especially at the beginning of the journey.
- Alternative to escape periods of unemployment: Job opportunities seem not to reach you and you are desperate? If you have the relevant skills, self-employment is an alternative to escape cycles of unemployment and start your own path promoting your skills without waiting for a large company to decide to hire you.
- Feeling of professional self-fulfillment: Who has not dreamed of having at least a little more independence and professional freedom? If you want to feel that you have control and the voice of command in your professional decisions, instead of waiting for orders from a higher profile, self-employment is a way to savor that level of self-fulfillment.
Disadvantages of self-employment
On the other side of the coin, these are some negative aspects that we should study closely before jumping into self-employment:
- The problems are also in your charge: when you enter self-employment, each challenge, challenge or complication is left to your responsibility. This can be a problem when you have a lot of things on you.
- Difficulties in reconciling work life with personal life: in some cases, the line between your personal and work life blurs when both intervene within the same environment.
In short, personal problems can be a latent concern around you while you are working and on the other hand, work issues can appear out of nowhere while you are spending time for personal enjoyment.
The key is to find a balance so that neither side interferes more than it should.
- Although the pace and hours of work are flexible, some days you will work longer hours: the more responsibilities you have, the more time you will have to dedicate to solving work issues that arise.
Although it is true that some days you will have plenty of free time to use it as you please, on other occasions you will have to work even more hours than you would in a traditional job.
- Periods of instability: during the first phases of your venture or your freelance career, you will always be at risk of not having a stable exchange rate, causing earnings to fluctuate.
- Direct business competition: In the world of self-employment, you won’t be the only freelance professional or self-employed entrepreneur struggling to gain attention within your job niche. Commercial competition is direct and you will be the person in charge of building a plan to take the advantage.
Conclusion on self-employment
As you can see, if your personal and professional goals are based on achieving financial freedom, there is no better way than self-employment to put yourself on the goal.
Whether you have a business idea, a professional service to “make a name for yourself” independently, or you can explore both opportunities, although the path to getting started in self-employment is not easy, the long-term results will make it worth the effort.
Has this article helped you learn more about self-employment and how to get started? Congratulations!! Here is a guide on how to be self-employed in Spain to face all the legal processes of self-employment step by step.
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