Why You Should Be A Self-Employed Professional

Self-employment is an alluring prospect for many. It’s a chance to live your life on your own terms, to achieve more fulfilment and meaning from your career, and to earn enough money to create the lifestyle you desire.

But not everyone manages to create the self-employed lifestyle they were hoping for. Many self-employed professionals find themselves trapped in a situation where they’re overworked, underpaid, unhappy – or even all three!

?There are three great reasons to become self-employed:

1. Flexibility?in how you live your life
2. Fulfilment?in the work you do
3. The?financial rewards?for taking a risk on yourself.

1. Flexibility

Self-employment offers a shot at freedom, autonomy and independence. You have unlimited potential for professional development and growth, and absolute responsibility for making that happen.

When you design your business, it’s important to begin how you mean to continue. Many consultants are so nervous about not being able to attract clients, that they take on more than they can handle and make compromises they’d rather not have to. However, if you don’t draw some boundaries around your life early, you risk getting burnt-out.

Before you start your SEP journey, ask yourself a few important questions, so that you can build your business with flexibility in mind:

• What aspirations you have for your life that?aren’t?to do with work?
• What kind of work/life balance will you need to achieve these?
• What kind of people do you most like working with?
• How do you most prefer to work – location, time, relationships, et al?
• What boundaries will you need to draw around your time, energy and personal life?

2. Fulfilment

Two of the biggest frustrations experienced by employed professionals are the compromises they make in their values, and the deficit they see in their impact.

They do great work, only to find themselves hamstrung by corporate constraints, bureaucracy and delays.

Self-employment offers a career pathway outside of those constraints, where you can have the impact you’ve been craving for all of your career.

However, this won’t happen by accident. Those constraints on progress and impact are there for a reason, and unless you’re clear on the difference you want to make in the world, you’ll find yourself in the same trap.

Even the most well-intentioned SEPs can find themselves working with clients they don’t like, or doing work they don’t believe in.

In the early days, when you’re designing your business, consider some of the following:

• What are your most important values?
• What does success look like to you?
• What kind of work are you not willing to do?
• What are your criteria for clients and projects?

3. Financial Rewards

So many consultants are struggling with cash-flow – despite entering self-employment with the hope of bringing more home than they were in their job.

This is usually a result of inaccurate pricing calculations, fear and under-charging. When you’re used to a salary, you compare your chargeable hourly rate to that, rather than the overall amount of time you spend on your business and the value you bring to clients.

Some people are so grateful to have any work at all, and to achieve the kind of freedom and fulfilment they’ve been craving, that they feel uncomfortable charging appropriate rates.

But values are not incompatible with value, and if you don’t capture enough of that value for yourself, you’re choosing to take a purpose penalty – when it isn’t needed.

Here is some useful advice for determining how you price your services:

• Calculate the value of your work to clients (How much time, money or energy will this save my client? What is the value of my expertise, long-term, to their business?)
• Consider the total amount of time you spend in your business (Chargeable time is rarely more than 50%. This necessitates an immediate doubling to capture your target hourly or daily rate)
• Compare your rates to your target competitors (What are people paying for this kind of service? Remember to consider all their add-ons and extra staff in this number, and add it to your business-of-one rate.)

Why Now?

You already know?the benefits of self employment ?– freedom to shape your own work and lifestyle, increased earning potential, more fulfilling and impactful projects.

But did you know that the environment is particularly favourable for?self-employed professionals ?(SEPs) right now? Timing is everything, and now is the perfect time to get going.

Check out the full guide to find out if you should go out on your own as a self-employed professional - and access free worksheets to help you on your journey! ????