At one point in your life, you’ll face the dilemma from the heading – whether you should keep working for others or push the envelope, spread your wings, and feel the air of business freedom. The decision you make at that point will affect your career both in the long and short term. Also, it may affect your income and financial stability in general.
After reading the following five considerations, you’ll be able to make up your mind more easily.
1. Expenses, costs, and revenues
Being someone else’s employee ensures a certain level of comfort. You don’t have to care about overhead expenses, employment costs, and the profits of the company. The business owner and the managers are responsible for that share of work.
As an employee, you use your skills and qualifications to perform the assigned tasks. Of course, being a committed and skillful employee is a must if you want to progress at work.
On the other hand, becoming a business owner means that you’ll be dealing with a variety of non-core tasks. From coping with small business accounting and paying taxes to asset management, you’ll have a lot on your plate.
The bottom line: ask yourself whether you want more comfort or more challenges. Your answer to this question will show you the way.
2. Acquiring clients vs. performing assigned tasks
We’ve already mentioned that performing assigned tasks is a safe lane. You’re a part of a clearly organized structure and you simply do your job. And if you’re ambitious enough, you can climb the business ladder and become one of the company’s managers.
On the other hand, you might want to test your own capabilities and skills. Launching your own business will give you a chance to put your ideas to work and collaborate with a handful of handpicked clients. And this will be one of your greatest challenges – generating leads and acquiring new clients. If you don’t have any experience in terms of business negotiations, prepare before your first meeting. The tips for SMB-owners in business negotiations put together by the guys from Forbes can help you improve your meeting skills.
3. Time management
This is usually one of the most challenging aspects of entrepreneurship.
When you’re only an employee or even a team leader, you have your working hours. You might do some overtime work from time to time but your professional life and your private life are two separate things.
As a sole proprietor or a small business owner, you might not have the privilege of working hours. Many business owners work more than 10 hours a day. As Catherine Baker from Strategic Nude explained for Business News Daily many entrepreneurs work until they get things done.
This is something you need to be aware of. Running your own business sometimes requires spending all your time at work. This might affect your social and family life, together with your health. So, think twice before you set your foot on that path.
4. Workload and outsourcing
The main reason why many people start their own venture is that they got fed up with their current job. Apart from that, they believe that the experience they’ve gained and the skills they’ve fine-tuned are enough to be successful.
The reality is somewhat different. The fact that you’re an efficient task solver as an employee doesn’t mean that you’ll keep doing it equally efficiently as a business owner.
This is where we get to an acceptable workload and potential outsourcing. Every new business owner needs to calculate how much work he or she can accept and perform without affecting the quality of the output. In a nutshell, take the average number of daily tasks you perform as an employee. Calculate their market value that you can charge them as a business owner. If that amount is enough for you to make ends meet, you don’t have to increase the number of tasks.
However, if these tasks won’t cover all your expenses and provide you with regular income, you’ll have to increase the workload.
What you also need to consider before you go your own way is outsourcing. To cut a long story short, outsource all the business operations that don’t belong to your essential activities. From accounting and web design to office cleaning and supplies delivery, leave everything to professionals. As explained by the Web design team from Houston, business owners should leave their websites and apps to professionals to be able to focus on their primary business tasks.
5. Business perspective
When it comes to business perspective and future, working as an employee provides a certain level of security. You can get a mortgage or a car loan more easily as a long-term employee with a steady job.
On the other hand, people might find such a work environment sultry and stifling. In every industry, there are individuals who don’t want to spend their lives working within the predetermined frameworks. Such trailblazers have always introduced innovations and changed the face of the business world. Elon Musk allegedly changed dozens of jobs before he decided to launch his first small business.
So, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to sail your career away on a calm but boring sea or take the plunge and get into the eye of the business storm.
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Conclusion
The final verdict is that people who recently started their careers should spend some time learning the tricks of their trade.
Once you’ve gained some experience and built up your professional portfolio, start with side jobs and occasional gigs. These escapades will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses. Keep combining your regular job with those activities until you feel you’re ready to turn a new page in your career. And if you don’t feel that urge, don’t worry. Keep doing what makes you feel comfortable in business and commit yourself to your professional tasks to the full.