Entrepreneurship as Your Second Career
The expenses grow, the salary is never enough, and you feel completely lost... You ask yourself how you can make additional income for the family. Or perhaps you've just retired and now you're bored and feel that you must do something with yourself. This is the hour! It's time to think as entrepreneurship as your second career. So, what can you do? You can give private lessons, deliver newspapers, repair houses, sell jewels, import whatever products - you can do anything. But the principal question is, are you fit to be self-employed? Remember: being self-employed has its benefits as well as its disadvantages.
Globalization influences the employment structure. More and more companies privatize their activity, delivering it to subcontractors. Competition causes the subcontractor to become more efficient and, therefore, he/she chooses the alternative of employing workers according to his needs, thus reducing the dependence on employing permanent hands.
In a world where there are too many people searching for work, conditions decrease, especially in terms of salaries. The way to cope with this situation is to take personal responsibility and develop business initiatives. Wok places are not secure anymore, and, as employees wish to make sure and permanent income, they become skilled at additional professions. Some even combine several jobs as both hired workers and self-employed.
In some situations the employees have no choice but become entrepreneurs. A change in policy of the proprietor - that is, to work only by means of subcontracting, forces part of the employees to become subcontractors - that is, to become self-employed.
Business doesn't mean only giant corporations. Anyone who has a permanent occupation - principle or secondary - in which he is not hired anywhere, must register himself/herself as self-employed. It concerns, for instance, therapists in alternative medicine, psychologists, technicians, lecturers and many other diverse initiatives. By law, all income must be reported, and for all the money you collect you must give a receipt or an invoice to the payer; thus, even if you, as self-employed, only get pennyworth, you must report it.
The possibility of self-development, of raising a successful initiative, awards people with happiness and wealth - a true happily ever after. As if to say, yes, I did it. I am for myself for better or for worse now. I can stop being afraid of firing, my working hours are now flexible, I'll give expression to my abilities, I'll make additional income for my family...
What matters most about starting a business is to recognize business opportunities, to believe in yourself, to like what you want to do - thus you will make your business success real. The times when the mother decided for her son to become a doctor or a lawyer have sunk into oblivion. Nowadays the young people know what they want. I recommend, be what you like and what you wish to be.
The internet revolution has opened more doors for entrepreneurs, especially women. The internet has created enormous demands for sales experts in the field of media. It allows performing a wide range of services on the computer and transmitting them to the clients instantaneously. It provides satisfactory quick response time.
Sometimes people are deterred from starting their own business because they are afraid of dealing with officials and of keeping accounts; the truth is, that the bureaucratic proceedings are actually quite friendly. In just a few hours you may already be registered in the VAT and in the income tax, to have a file number and... you find yourself a business owner. If you will, it's even exciting.
(See list of arrangements required for opening a business).
Three components are required in order to reach success in business:
- The Production Level: when you are considered professional, you create competitive advantage over others. Clients want good service and high quality products.
- The Level of Management and Marketing: it is not enough to be a professional; you need to know how to manage and market your business. If up to date work has been brought to you, now you have to know how to bring work into the business.
- The Financial Level (the complementary to the other two): it is not enough to be a professional with understanding in marketing, you have to know how to earn from your business activity.
Only a combination of the three abovementioned levels will create solid base for success in your business.
Some initiators claim that another level should be added to this list - the level of luck. Indeed, luck adds to business success. An interesting study has been published in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, examining whether some people really are more fortunate than others. The answer was both. The conclusions were as follows: People who consider themselves lucky are much more satisfied in all the spheres of life than those who consider themselves unlucky or neutral. The lucky people smile twice as much as the unlucky ones and tend to be calmer. They maintain more eye contact, which brings about more social meetings and thus creates more opportunities. They do not tend to stick to conventions, they like surprises. The lucky people travel more, encountering new possibilities as a result. They welcome new experiences in life.
In his bestselling book A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking says: "I was [...] fortunate in that I chose theoretical physics, because that is all in the mind. So my disability has not been a serious handicap".[1] Incapable of moving, chairbound, Hawking took advantage of his fate as an opportunity to change our way of understanding the Universe - and did it.
[1] Cited from http://encarta.msn.com/quote_1861515331/Disability_I_was_again_fortunate_in_.html
