9 helpful facts about self-employment no one will tell you – except me… (and what I wish I’d known when starting)
Self-employment – the act of working for yourself, setting your own working hours, and your own pay rate. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? No boss. No clocking in. No fastidious manager criticising your every move and then taking credit for your hard work.
Except I firmly believe it takes a certain type of psychopath to work for yourself. You have to be the employee, the boss, the accountant, the marketer, the counsellor, the cleaner, the admin support, the creative agency. All in one go. Very often, it can be lonely. It can mean working longer hours than you would if you were employed. Time away from family. It is missing out on social events because you have clients booked weeks in advance.
So why do we do it?
Why I Started Self-Employment.
I was a single mum. I received a call from the school one day, informing me that my youngest had broken her finger, and needed to be collected immediately. Back then, I had a job in teaching, so it required a certain level of commitment from me to be present to deliver the classes. I went to my boss, cap in hand (think Oliver Twist, asking for more gruel) and asked to go & pick up my child.
The request was denied and, in the end, my sister was the one to collect my child. As a single mum without financial support from the kid’s father, I couldn’t afford to simply walk away from a full-time job. But it was the catalyst I needed to push the fledgling beauty business that I was tinkering around with on the days that my children spent at their grandparents.
To be fair, I didn’t have a bloody clue what I was doing. I went into self-employment without any idea what a content strategy was, without knowing how to cost out a treatment, without factoring in the admin side – and certainly NO IDEA about marketing or writing content.
But I knew how to complete a service. I knew how to charge someone. And I was committed enough to turn up to an appointment on time, every time.
It worked. Somehow, it bloody well worked.
How It’s Going…
My father is a highly successful entrepreneur. By that, I mean he’s run several businesses that have brought about a comfortable lifestyle. He’s also had failures. And failures are part and parcel of working for yourself.
After almost 20 years of being self-employed in one form or another, I’m now a copywriter & a content marketer, working with a wide range of businesses from solopreneurs, right up to 7-figure global companies that trade around the world.
Here are the 9 helpful facts about self-employment that no one will tell you & that I wish I had known when I started out on my self-employment journey; the things that I wish I could go back & share with that bright-eyed, bushy-tailed JoFo to smooth out the bumpy road of working for yourself.
- You Can’t Please Everyone
When you first start, you want to work with everyone. You don’t care who they are, as long as they have the money to pay you for your service. It’s akin to running around a party & trying to make friends with all the other guests, believing that you’re going to be friends for life after that event.
You want to make a product or deliver a service that makes everyone happy. You want to have a horde of raving fans, with no complaints whatsoever. You will turn yourself inside out to make something that makes people love you & love your product.
But the truth is, it’s impossible to please everyone.
Not everyone will resonate with what you’re selling.
Not everyone will like you. And this is regardless of how awesome your product is.
Sometimes, there is no reasonable explanation for this conclusion.
These people are not your customers.
Your customers are out there – you just have to find a way to reach them.
You have to get comfortable with not being for everyone.
- Every Business has Peaks & Troughs.
This one was a tough one for me to learn. No matter what industry you’re in, no matter what business you have there will be times that it is easier to make money than others. It might be a seasonal thing – times affected by school summer holidays, or the wedding season, or the financial year-end. It could be that your current audience has grown static; you’ve not put out any content for a while because you’ve been busy, and the marketing has slipped because your time has been squeezed.
How you negotiate the leaner times will teach you how to make the most of the better, money-making times.
- Listen to Successful People
If someone who has had a lot of business success gives you some advice, take it. Listen to it. Implement it.
If you’ve paid a mentor for that advice… well, erm… listen & implement.
By investing in yourself, you have a little skin in the game. But taking that advice & then doing nothing with it? You may as well take that money & set fire to it instead. Coaches can’t make you successful. Mentors can’t wave a magic wand & fix your business. What they can do is provide you with training, advice & information that you have to IMPLEMENT. Take action. Do the work.
And while I’m on the subject, surrounding yourself with like-minded humans has been instrumental in bringing about longevity in my businesses. Business owners get the struggles that employed people won’t understand. Employed folks won’t have the extra worries about trying to do a good job or waking up at 3am when your brain chooses to drop a juicy little nugget for a cracking content post into your consciousness.
Find those people online. Find networking spaces. In-person events. Find those people who will hold you up even when your back is against the wall, and give you a kick up the arse when you need it.
- Not Everyone is a Coach.
I know, I know. I just told you to listen to successful people. But there are charlatans & flimflammers out there who will roll a lump of shit in glitter & tell you it’s foiled chocolate.
Just because someone has a slick & shiny marketing strategy, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re a decent coach. So how do you spot a decent one?
Hey, even a hardened business owner like myself has been taken in a time or two, lured by false promises of being able to solve a problem & make money.
The truth is, they’re not always easily spotted. I tend to be turned off by the telltale promises of being able to make money in a short amount of time (I know just how bloody hard it is to build a business organically unless I’m prepared to sink a significant amount of money into paid advertising). I also know that I like food way too much to be sucked into the belief that I can lose a dress size in two weeks with this one skinny trick. (It isn’t a trick. It’s bullshit, is what it is!)
I will look at testimonials. Did the people leaving the testimonials have a similar problem to the one I need solving? If they did, what results did they get? I also rely on good old-fashioned gut instinct and word of mouth for that marketing.
If you are not getting the results you’d hoped for with your mentor/coach, then stop. It makes better financial sense to cut your losses & walk away.
- Not Every Idea is a Money-Maker
Ooofff – this one. All of this one.
We all want to be the ones to make waves in business. The ones who come up with a quick money-making idea that means we will be able to retire early to a tropical island somewhere & live off a passive income without lifting a finger whilst sailing around the world on our private yacht.
I’ve trialled so many ideas – trained in many beauty courses – all ideas that sank without a trace. I’ve come up with packages that I thought business owners needed, instead of doing some market research about what people ACTUALLY needed.
However, being the first one to do something isn’t always the best thing. There might be a valid reason why no one else is doing it – because it’s a stupid idea.
- Don’t Be a Busy Fool
Being cheaper than your competition might seem like a good idea, especially when you’re on your arse broke, red letters piling up on the table & hungry kids. (I’ve been all of these things)
But being cheaper isn’t good business sense. Your costs remain the same, so you’re eroding any profit away. By cutting your price, you attract the price-hunter clients who, more often than not, end up turning into nightmare clients who will push the envelope to get more & more out of you for their money.
The limits of someone else’s budget isn’t your problem. It’s theirs. There is already a gender pay gap – don’t compound that by cutting your price because you think that will get more people through the door. All you do is end up running yourself ragged for people who don’t respect you, your service, your time, or your health.
Instead, by sticking to your boundaries, you attract customers who love what you do and will pay you accordingly for a job well done.
Out-compete your competition instead.
- Look After Your Bread & Butter
No, I’m not talking about a tasty British snack. By your bread & butter, I mean your loyal customers. Those regular folks who come back to you time & again, the ones who are your loyal fans. These are the lifeblood of your business. They will tell people about you & how great your business is, doing your marketing for you. They are the ones who come to you for work whether it’s feast or famine times, and will help carry you through the quieter periods.
If a regular customer comes to you with a rush order, you move things to fit them in. If they need a tweak that means you staying up an hour later, do it. It will pay dividends. Honour the grandfathered prices. Loyalty is a rare quality – treasure it.
- Take Time Out
This one feels a bit of a paradox. After all, when you’re self-employed, if you’re not working then you’re not earning. You never know when the next lead/enquiry is going to come through the pipeline. This means that there is a tendency to work non-stop for fear of the money not being there at the end of the day.
Of course, it’s always a good idea to get your finances straight so that you have little pots of savings to allow you to take some time out.
Taking a break improves productivity. There is science behind this theory. Our brains are not designed to be actively engaged 24/7. It is when we take a restorative break that our brains enter a ‘diffuse’ mode. This step away from focused activities like completing tasks is the time when our brains foster ideas, consolidate information & make connections between ideas.
Try it. Take a 10-minute break away from your desk. Go & do something unrelated to your work, like stepping outside into the fresh air & going for a walk. When you return to your desk, you are re-engaging your mind into focused mode – watch the workflow.
Doing things that look after your health will help you keep on top of your game.
- Outsourcing.
As business owners, we are expected to be able to do it all. The marketing, the admin & invoicing, the accounting, as well as the bits of your business that make you money.
The most successful people have gotten good at outsourcing the parts of their business that don’t make them money. It is a good business strategy to work out if your time is better spent learning a new skill – like writing the words for your business – and then investing the time away from your business to hone that skill & learn to do it well, or would your time be better spent in your business doing the things that make you money?
Marketing is a skill. Marketers have had to spend time learning this, too. They are trained to understand the differences between content that nurtures, the content that builds awareness & content that is designed to sell. Marketing your business takes time & effort. When relying on organic marketing, you need to allow time & have patience.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Relying solely on social media for all your marketing, especially with all the algorithm changes, is going to make things feel a little desperate. Align a message to your business. Ensure that there are a variety of touch points for people to connect with you.
There you have 9 Helpful Facts about Self-employment that no one will tell you – all of which I wish I had known when I was starting out.
It might not paint the prettiest of pictures for owning a business, but I will tell you that I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Being self-employed has given me the flexibility to build a life around being present for my children. It’s given me a lifestyle that has meant that I’ve been able to travel.
And it’s brought lots of truly awesome humans into my world.
Is there anything you think I have missed? I’d love to know – send me your thoughts on hello@thewordwoman.co.uk
If you are looking to outsource having your words written for your business, and want some clarity on the right ways to reach the right people, why not book a discovery call? I have a stringent onboarding process to ensure that I can help before you part with any money.
If I’m not for you, I will tell you.