Could You Be Your Own Boss?

Your view of starting a business may be coloured by whether you see an opportunity – or whether you feel that your present situation (actual or imminent redundancy) leaves you no choice except self-employment.

If you are excited about an opportunity that you have spotted, it’s hard to be objective and to listen to well-meaning advice that urges you to be cautious – but, it’s more sensible to tread carefully on a new path, even it chafes a little.

On the other hand, if you feel you’re being pushed into self-employment and are not comfortable with it, then it’s unsurprising that you see negatives all around.

In both cases, you need to identify and isolate your own feelings, so that you can consider self-employment without bias – not easy, but important to try to do. Talking out your idea for self-employment with someone who can offer you constructive criticism can help you to look at it more objectively and is always a useful exercise. A colleague, friend or family member may be able to help, as may a Business Adviser from your local County & City Enterprise Board (see www.enterpriseboards.ie).

Whatever your circumstances, be objective. Look at the minuses as well as the pluses, think about the downside – but don’t let it get you down! And then, when you have made up your mind, give it your all!

The only businesses that will survive – let alone prosper – in the next few years will be those that truly deliver value to their customers. Let’s run that sentence again: The only businesses that will survive – let alone prosper – in the next few years will be those that truly deliver value to their customers. That means you MUST plan your start-up: planning is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s an absolute necessity. Otherwise, you increase your risk of failure – unnecessarily.

A critical step in preparing for self-employment is to get a clear understanding of how much you actually need – as opposed to would like – to live on. And, until your business is able to pay you this amount regularly every month, this is the amount that you will have to take from your savings each month in order to live.

Another useful calculation is “cash burn” – calculate how many months’ spending your financing represents. In other words, if you got no further investment and made no sales, how many months could you keep the business open? Clearly, the higher the figure, the better your margin of security.

It’s early January 2009; the newspapers, radio, tv and internet are overflowing with bad news stories; and thousands of people are recently – and, in many cases, suddenly – out of work. Prompted by a client, I recently developed a short book aimed at people who have just been – or expecting to be – made redundant and who are thinking about self-emloyment as an option. The material is drawn in large part from a workshop that I ran in early 2009, four times, for a multinational that was shedding staff and whose outplacement service was offering encouragemnt for the self-employment option.

Having worked with start-ups, written for them, taught them and advised for over 15 years now, I thought it might be worthwhile to put some of this material in a book, where it would be accessible to people. And, then based on the fun I had in writing a blog on my 2008 Route 66 roadtrip, I thought that a blog / website might open it up to a wider audience.

So, whoever you are, however you found yourself here, welcome! I hope you find something of interest and use to you. Please feel free to comment and add suggestions.

Best wishes, Brian O’Kane