words Al Woods
If you are thinking of becoming self-employed, there are many things that you might want to make sure that you are ready for first and foremost. In truth, being self-employed is not too tricky as long as you are ready for it and you have made a point of being prepared, but in order to do that you will of course need to know how it all works and what you can expect. In this post, we are going to try and make this a little easier for you by discussing some of the things that you can expect when you become self-employed.
All of the following are easy to deal with and won’t necessarily be huge issues, but you will need to make sure that you are doing all you can to keep on top of them as successfully as possible. As long as you do that, it should work out just fine – and you might even find that the self-employed lifestyle is incredibly rewarding as well.
Draw Up A Business Plan
You need to bear in mind that being self-employed means being a one-person business, and as such you really do need to start thinking of yourself as a business. If you are doing things in this way, it should help you to get to the bottom of what you are going to need to do as a business. One of the early things you will definitely want to do in this respect is to draw up a business plan, as that way you are going to find that you’re much more likely to know where you are going and how to get there.
If you look at example business plans online, you might find that there are quite a lot of interesting examples of how to do it. But the main thing to remember is that it needs to be detailed and exact, and it needs to take into consideration the possibility of things not quite going to plan once in a while. If you can prepare for that, you are going to find it a lot easier to be self-employed in general, and you will certainly feel more ready for this change by the time it comes around as well.
Know Your Core Activities
You also need to be aware of what your own core activities are going to be as a business. That should already be obvious in a way, because it is probably owing to a skill you have that you are thinking about becoming a freelancer at all. Being self-employed is all about making use of those skills and knowing what you are going to do with them in order to earn your money, so you should definitely make sure you are really clear on this from the outset if you can. That will help you to plan out your business so much more successfully, and you can also start practicing for the skill in particular that you will need to make use of.
Making It Official
In order to be self-employed, you will also need to make it official. That means telling the taxman that you are going to be working as a self-employed individual, and making sure that you are registered for tax as appropriate. This is an important step, because the last thing you want is to get in trouble for not paying your taxes. For one thing, you will end up just paying more in interest if you do this anyway, and you might also face more serious consequences such as prosecution if you are not careful. So make it official and keep everything above board.
Consider Your Financial Options
You’ll also need to be aware that financial options can change when you are self-employed, and that you need to be aware of what you can do about it. For instance, self employed mortgages exist simply because it can be hard to get a traditional mortgage when you earn your living in this way. So keep your eyes open to that kind of thing and you should find that the whole lifestyle is a lot easier on you.
Get Marketing
You will also need to think about marketing yourself, which is not always the easiest process but is nonetheless an essential part of keeping your self-employed business lifestyle going strong. Think about your personal brand – how you appear to others and how it might be marketable – and then ensure that you are putting this out there in a strong way. That is really going to help things along in a huge way, so it’s really important to do.
