The Advantages of Self-Employment
Independence
Entrepreneurs are in control of their life. They don’t rely on an employer for their financial success. Self-employment allows a person to control their destiny. The decisions an entrepreneur makes now will shape their future. So a self-employed person doesn’t have to take into account different stakeholders when making decisions for them. In the U.S., starting a business is the route to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Starting a business on your own gives you the freedom to disregard set rules and come up with your own way of doing things. The lack of a regular paycheck doesn’t deter many entrepreneurs as it is independence that is the key driver.
Flexible Schedule
If you are not a morning person, then self-employment may be the way to go. If you can establish your business and get steady income, then it offers better work/life balance. A lot of the time you don’t get business during the regular hours. So as a self-employed person you have several options in front of you when it comes to combating downtime. You can spend more time on Facebook or Twitter scouring for business opportunities when things are slow. Or you can take the time to answer a long email from a friend. This cannot be done when you are working for someone as you are required to pad hours even when there isn’t much going on.
Building a Good Team
When you work at an organization, you can’t control who you work with. The colleagues you have may be a real negative and there is nothing you can do about it. If you are self-employed, you can always hire and fire employees until you get a team that you are happy working with. You want to wake up every day with a passion for work. Having the wrong set of work colleagues can really dent this passion. On the other hand, if you are lucky enough to work with likeable people then you are well on your way to better work/life balance and higher productivity.
Research from the Gallup organization highlights that one of the twelve factors that demonstrate an employee’s happiness with the job is having a best friend at work. When there are good relationships with coworkers, firms are able to retain employees. As a self-employed person, you can always hire your best friend or better partner with them.
Valuable Skills
People want to develop and grow their skills. This leads to higher paychecks and so it is vital that skills are built. You may want to learn and experiment with certain software, but your workplace doesn’t need it. If you are self-employed, you can always make use of this software in your business and get to put a very valuable skill on your resume. At the end of the day, employers want skills. It is about whether a candidate can do the job or not. If you have shown aptitude in an in-demand skill you are more likely to land a job even if you are coming from an entrepreneurship background.
Do what you are good at
People want to enjoy their jobs. If you are stuck in a job which you are not that good at, it is going to be difficult. Your employer may decide to send you home and hire someone who is better at what you do. When you are self-employed you get the chance to work on different things and see what you are good at. If you are engage with what you do for a living, then there is a high likelihood that you will be producing some of your best work. Self-employment can lead you to something that you would otherwise never have considered. For instance, if you have started a tour company and have noticed several French tourists coming as guests, you may decide to learn French. If you end up being really good at reading, writing and speaking the language, it is a skill that could get you hired at your next dream job.
Rewards are for you
Financial instability in the form of lack of sales, salary freezes, hiring freezes and bad press can make working in a company a nightmare. When you are self-employed, you take on the risk and ultimately get the rewards when they do come. You don’t have to share it with anyone and the profits can be huge if you do execute well. As an entrepreneur, if the profits are coming in you are recognized. You don’t have to rely on an inefficient management team to recognize you for your over-the-top work performance.
