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Many people dream of the financial independence that can be found by working for themselves. However, there is a lot more involved with breaking away from traditional working and employing yourself. So if this is something you’re thinking about doing, then there is a lot you’re going to need to learn. This article aims to help outline the ideas you need to understand in order to find success when working for yourself.
Business Owner vs Freelance
First things first, you need to decide whether you want to be a business owner or a freelancer. While these are both fantastic ways to work for yourself. There are plenty of aspects in each that differentiate them from the other. And choosing the right one for you is going to be an important way to make sure that you can work for yourself in a manner that is fitting for you. This means you’re going to want to think about your decision carefully.
What’s the Difference?
The difference between being a business owner and a freelance worker is really one of personal liability. When you are a freelancer, you are the business yourself, meaning you are still liable for all costs, debts, and financial responsibilities beholden upon yourself as a freelancer.
However, if you start a small business, you are considered an employee of that business rather than the business itself, meaning that while the business is liable for the costs, debts, and what not incurred by the operation of that business, you are not personally responsible for those things.
There is obviously more nuance involved in both of these fields, and it’s a good idea for you to do your own research, but this is the main difference that you should be looking into.
Deciding on an Industry
Once you’ve decided whether you want to be a business owner or a freelancer, the next thing you’re going to want to think about is what industry you want to get yourself involved in. There are plenty of industries that will allow you the possibility to work for yourself.
However, the most important thing to keep in mind is where your skills lie and what you are interested in working in. Working for yourself is always going to be an intensely difficult thing to do, so making sure that you are doing work you love is the best way to help yourself and make the work as easy as it can be.
Creative Fields
One of the most common reasons that people seek self-employment is because they are interested in engaging with the creative field and some of the only ways to effectively do that is through going into freelancing or creating your own business. This means that if you are interested in a creative industry, then working as a freelancer could be a brilliant option for you.
Business Oriented Industries
Alternatively, if you’re interested in engaging with a more business-oriented industry, such as an MYOB partner program, then you might want to engage with the idea of working as a small business dedicated to accounting, marketing, or any other area of business you feel connected to.
Getting the Word Out
Once you’re set up and ready to be working in an industry, the most important thing that you can do is to focus on getting the word out about your business. Marketing is a key tactic for any company and is the only way to really secure customers and help your career begin to find traction. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways for a small company or a freelancer to start finding this traction themselves and work towards widening their customer base.
Focus on Good Word-of-Mouth
One of the most important things that you can do to help effectively get the word out about your company is to make sure that you deal with your customers in a brilliant way, give them an excellent experience, and promote the idea of them sharing good word-of-mouth about your company.
Customers that are converted to a business through the recommendation of a friend are far more likely to be consistently valuable to a business, and this is exactly what you want when you are establishing your own small business. After all, you’re unlikely to be able to work with a large number of clients, so you want to secure quality clients.
Establish a Digital Presence
A brilliant way to enhance the marketing you are already doing is by building a digital presence for your company or freelance endeavor. So much business has operated online these days that a bit of digital presence can be a key tool in finding lasting success within your business and skyrocketing your popularity. After all, the only way you can find success in any kind of business is by reaching the people that are willing to pay for your products or services.
Building a Website
There are plenty of ways to easily build a business, and if you are doing it yourself, then you’re going to want to invest in one of these services that allow you to quickly and easily design and create a business for a low cost. Businesses such as GoDaddy or SquareSpace can be incredibly useful for these purposes, and whether you are a freelancer or a small business, these kinds of websites can really boost your ability to find clients.
Consider SEO Strategies
Regardless of how small your business is, you’re always going to want to think about how you can optimize your content for SEO. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the art of creating content online that is most likely to draw in searches that use specific keywords. This is a combination of several complex engagements with search engine algorithms. However, by making use of this tactic, you can gain a surprising boost in your visibility online.
Securing Clients
Finally, one of the most important things you can do when you are working for yourself is to ensure that you are securing clients effectively. Regardless of whether you are an independent business or a freelancer, clients are the single most important element of your profitability and success in working for yourself. This means that the more clients you can secure, the more effective your business is going to be as a whole.