So, you have taken the plunge and gone self-employed. Now all your friends and family think you’ve gone mad. You’ve given up a guaranteed pay check, a company car, a pension and your social life with your colleagues… Not only is everyone around you telling you you’ve made a mistake, but your inner critic questioning how you’ll pay the mortgage, how you’ll get a regular income and even you’re even good enough to go it alone in the first place.
Is the doubt setting in – what on earth have you done!
I want to say to you firstly is: well done you! If you have recently gone into self-employment, this is brilliant, and I wish you all the success with your business! It’s, going to be a long, hard road but you will get there and the rewards will be plentiful. Just imagine that first invoice you submit - his is a very exciting day! Or when you have won a client, provided them a great service and you alone have created your first self-employed pay check!
So, my blogs over the next few weeks are going to be about being self employed and what you may experience, my question to you this week is -
How do you get a pat on the back? – when you are self-employed you have to be happy and confident about your product 24/7 this can be exhausting and not always achievable. If you are having a bad day this is not something you can share with your staff as this will cause them concern - are they going to get paid at the end of the month?. You can’t share this with your clients as they may lose confidence in your ability to serve them. Can you share this with you close friends and family? Possibly, but if they already thought you were mad going self-employed you don’t want to add fuel to their fire of “I told you so!” possibly, but not if they are in the ‘think you have gone mad group ’ as above, you may be fearful of them saying I told you so!
When I was self-employed my strengths came in total belief (most of the time) that I was fabulous. I recall going to my coach and had a real issue with other Estate Agents in my local area not liking me! She thought this was crazy and really tried to understand why. I never thought I fit in with the other estate agents, however my coach helped me to understand that they were simple terrified I would take a pinch of their pie! Really, there was always enough for all of us. With my coach, I discovered that they were threatened, I had set up their own business to provide a different, perhaps better, service to property owners and the other Agents didn’t like it. Eventually, after several coaching session, I used this fuel to drive myself forward, to win business and be different to the other agents! Despite the comments from clients suggesting other agents had spoken about me, I learnt they had their own issues and they were none of my concern! This really made me a great deal more confident about going out there and being me and offering a high-quality service the way I wanted to for my business not the structure of anyone else’s.
One huge piece of advice to you, never slate your competition! It is really bad practice and people do not respect you for saying this, if someone is slating you to a client take it as a compliment as they feel threatened that you will get the work and not them!
Self-employment is not for everyone and it will not always work – BUT, if you wish to give it a try, will it be worse to live with regret than maybe enjoying your own success!
To be continued …….