If you’re considering taking the leap from employment to self-employment, you’ll feel a mix of excitement and uncertainly. Starting a new business from scratch is a scary prospect for many, holding various unknowns. A better way is to make a plan based on your current situation. Start where you are and use what you have, for a smoother, less daunting way of making the transition.
If you’re considering taking the leap from employment to self-employment, you’ll feel a mix of excitement and uncertainly. Starting a new business from scratch is a scary prospect for many, holding various unknowns. A better way is to make a plan based on your current situation. Start where you are and use what you have, for a smoother, less daunting way of making the transition.
Here are five straightforward ways of going from employed to self-employed.
One option is to do the role you currently do, for the same company, but on a freelance rather than employed basis. Perhaps you base the contract on a specific number of days per month or, even better, a specific set of outcomes.
What matters to your existing employer is not the number of hours you do, it’s the output or results you produce and the quality of your work. If you know your job takes you less than 40 hours per week, see if you can turn your employment into a contract instead. Not only will this free up your time to find other clients, it means you can make better use of your time and achieve more with less.
Cutting out the mundane aspects of employment can be efficient and more enjoyable. Saying no to team-wide meetings, performance reviews and appraisals and needing to clock in and out at a certain time might be the flexibility you’re looking for. This baby step could lead to giant leaps and new opportunities opening elsewhere. If you approach the conversation in the right way, your employer will understand the benefits of not having you as a member of staff.
Assuming you want to stick within your current field, you could join freelance marketplaces where you build a client base from inbound leads. People Per Hour, Fiverr, Upwork, 99Designs and many others allow you to list yourself and your skills and secure project-based or ongoing work.
Particularly effective for roles including designers and writers, this approach involves you backing yourself to win clients and putting the work in to create an impressive profile, complete with work examples and references. Once that’s done, it could be an abundant resource of future clients. Securing the first few will lead to reviews on the platform, attracting more people.