Ten Challenges To Successful Self Employment

Being your own boss is so tempting! No more working for the Man. No more politics. Total control over everything. Time to smell the roses. Time to capitalize on all those experiences and skills that you have acquired.

What follows are ten areas of challenge that face everyone looking to make a successful leap from working for an organization to working for themselves. Successful people have stepped up to these challenges and made them work for them.

In the questions that make up the ten challenges there are no right or wrong answers. But each one requires some real thought and decision making. Being your own boss is not for everyone, and every year lots of people find that out. And lots of other people hit the ground running and never look back. Use the ten challenges to decide, commit and prepare so you never have to look back.

​First - Motive - Why are you thinking of doing this? What makes working for yourself so attractive? If the answers are based on opportunities to build on what you've already done – as the next step in a career path - as a sound use of resources - that's good. If your answers are focused on a negative – a bad boss, a bad job, a bad career, or anything else that is based on getting away from something, think twice.

Second – Commitment - Are you ready to make the commitment to be successful? What represents success – to you? How good have you been on commitment so far? How passionate are you about what you plan to do? In an organization it's fairly easy to ration your commitment and effort and do what needs to be done to survive. When you are on your own that just doesn't work. You gotta be totally committed . Commitment and passion go together. A friend – a corporate person – once described the condition of the self employed as “the servitude of the self employed.” It's servitude only if you're not totally committed and passionate about what you do.

Third – Business - What business will you be in? What value do you bring to the marketplace? Can you express your value to a stranger in thirty seconds? Many people feel they know where they are going and don't need to write it down. That's a mistake. A business plan doesn't have to be a long, complicated document. But it should be a legitimate plan that answers those questions. For many people working in companies the switch from having the prestige of the organization behind them to being a Lone Ranger is tough. You have to know, behave and promote what you do – and state it in ways that have people asking you “How do you do that?”

Fourth – Customers - Who are you going to sell to – and who's gonna want to buy? What is going to be your market? How are you going to market what you do? Do you have contacts in your profession or industry that can help you hit the ground with that first sale? It's tempting to think of everyone as a prospect, but that's a trap. If everyone is a potential customer, the truth is that no one is a prospect. Be very careful of “business opportunities” that have high entry costs and paint a picture of the whole world as your prospective market. Defining and focusing on a niche is a must.

Fifth - Preparation and Credibility - How prepared and what “ chops” do you bring to the table? How have you prepared and what does your target market demand of the successfully self employed? What certifications, product relationships, technical skills, references do you bring to the table?. How does your Summary of Experience and Qualifications read?

Sixth - Critical Personal Skills - What are your influence skills? How are you going to shift from being an authority in an organization to being an influencer in your own business? How will you work with very little leverage? How good are you at asking - asking for work, for meetings, for the business?
Do you have the personal discipline to work hard with no one looking over your shoulder?

Seventh – People Network - What are your relationship skills and abilities? Who is in your network. How big is your file of names of people? How big and diverse is your Universe of people? Are you comfortable asking for referrals? How good are you at reaching out for help, relationships, partnerships, associations?

Eight – Baggage - How much mental and behavioral baggage do you have to throw away in order to be successful on your own? What are the things that have to change ? No admin, no HR, Accounting, or PR staff support. The old days of budgets as the barometer of success are over. Not making mistakes as the way to success? Not when you're on your own. All of us carry a set of assumptions built on our experiences. Being conscious of how those assumptions may get in the way of success is critical to change and growth.

Ninth – Sales and Marketing and Business Development - How are you going to deal with going from being in demand in an organization to looking for work? Within organizations work and opportunities go to the most effective people The most effective people are used to being sought out for opportunities and assignments – their phone rings – their E Mail box is full. Even the very best self employed person must constantly be searching for opportunities, for suspects, for prospects - their phone won't ring based purely on capability.
I asked a very successful consultant in the personal development business what was the highest value position in his organization. He didn't hesitate: Sales – getting the business. He felt that was 70% of the equation for success. I challenged that on the basis that the work had to be delivered in order to get paid, to get referrals, to establish relationships for the future. He agreed that was all true, but, in his opinion, getting talent to do the fulfillment work - be it seminar leaders, coaches, writers and course developers - was a hell of a lot easier than getting an effective sales and business builder.

Tenth - Self Knowledge – Are you an opportunity person – or a consequence person? Opportunity thinking is critical to gaining customers. So is optimism – it's a quality that can keep things going even when things look bleak – as they invariably will. How well do you know yourself? How well aligned are your perceptions of how you impact people with the reality of how you affect and impact others? If those are far apart, they need to be brought into alignment. You need to know what you're good at – not just what you think you're good at.

Being self employed covers a lot of different scenarios. No two people or businesses are exactly the same. Neither are their motivations. The answers to the ten challenges in this article will differ tremendously from one person to another – even in the same self employment niche. But the ten challenges can help you determine the why, what, when, where, who and how of your own business. They can help you be more successful – if after answering them, being in your own business remains your chosen path.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph& Fax: 602-795-4100; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com;Website:www.coxconsultgroup.com; Blog: http://multiplysuccess.blogspot.com

Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved

Nine Ways To Discover and Develop Your Strengths

Malcolm Forbes said: “ Many people overvalue what they are not, and undervalue what they are.” That's another way of saying that we place more value on our weaknesses than we do on our strengths. And in that mistaken evaluation lies one of the main reasons for under achievement, frustration and lack of personal clarity.

If I asked you to list ten of your strengths and ten of your weaknesses, what comes to mind first?

Answer that question – right now. Write those ten strengths and weaknesses down.

For most people strengths are hard to describe. Weaknesses, on the other hand, seem to be much easier to discover. It isn't bad enough that we define our own weaknesses; it's made worse by all the other people willing and able to point them out to us. We see someone performing at a high level and rather than just enjoy the performance we tell ourselves we couldn't possibly do that. That may be true – but it's also true that we have other strengths – we just haven't valued them the way we should. But every time we make one of those negative comparisons, we chip away at our own feeling of worth.

My Dad used to say that the best football players never played football. That used to drive me nuts – how could you argue that someone who never played the game could possibly be the best football player? As I got older and discovered my Dad knew a thing or two, I began to see what he meant. He meant that the people who could have been the very best never played the game. Lack of opportunity, self doubt, other interests, culture, necessity, risk avoidance - all work to keep people from discovering their strengths – from playing their game. Some of those things can't be helped – that's life. But self doubt and risk avoidance can be dealt with.

How do we overcome those negative voices that create doubt and feelings of unworthiness and lack of ability? Here are nine steps to take.

1 - Adjust that habit of thought that looks for what isn't before it looks for what is. Our daughter, when she was in fourth grade, came home in tears one day. She'd gotten four wrong on a test. When we pointed out that she had gotten 96 right, she stopped crying and it dawned on her that she'd done pretty darn good. She worked on getting the correct answers for the four questions she'd missed, but she did it from a position of success, not failure.

2 - Believe that there is plenty for everybody. Someone else's success is a cause for celebration, not a time to feel as if something was lost. Appreciate the strengths of others for what they are, and avoid making negative personal comparisons that highlight weaknesses.

3 - Interdependence is a key to discovering and developing strengths. Synergy – one plus one equalling four or five – occurs when the strengths of one person compliment the strengths of another, and the weaknesses of each person are absorbed by the strengths of the other. If you're a good speaker and presenter but a lousy administrator, your speaking strength will be leveraged by a good administrator who isn't good at speaking. It's called a win – win relationship.

4 - Think in terms of opportunity. Strengths are drawn to opportunity. weaknesses push opportunity away. If you are a consequences person team up with an opportunity person who values your strengths as you do theirs – and reap rewards that neither of you could have achieved alone.

5 - Seek out positive people that see opportunity and grow with them. Avoid the toxic people who are always seeing the glass half empty. You know who they are – they can suck the life out of even the most accomplished optimist.

6 - Take risks by reaching outside your comfort zone. How else can you find your strengths than by testing and trying new things? It could be a project at work or doing something that the late comedian George Carlin called having a sense of “Vuja De" – the feeling that you have never ever been in this place before. I had a teacher that reminded us constantly that the only difference between a rut and a grave is that a rut's longer. Don't let the comfort zone become a rut – keep pushing at it.

7 - “Aim with your heart, adjust with your head, and always do all you can.” A saying from Tut The Universe. A great way to express the “ Ready, Fire, Aim” approach to success. Avoid the definition of madness - “Continuing to do things the same way and expecting a different outcome.”

8 - Get assessed. Discover yourself. Find out what the results of an assessment of skills, motivators and behaviors can tell you about yourself. Then use that knowledge to focus on who you are, what makes you tick and on the personal skills that you possess in abundance.

9 - Identify a hero or heroes. We all need people we can look up to and emulate. Just don't let the celebrity and strength of the hero cause you to diminish the value of your own strengths. Write down what makes them a hero to you – in that analysis lies terrific information on what you value – what you want to be.

It's easy to overlook the strengths we were born with and have acquired through experience, work, life and education. Often we assume everybody has what we have - nothing could be further from the truth The outcome of that assumption is that we underrate our unique set of strengths.

Apply these nine steps to your own life and get your focus on the good things that make you positively unique and valuable. Play your game - the result will be greater success personally and professionally.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph& Fax: 602-795-4100; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com;Website:www.coxconsultgroup.com; Blog: http://multiplysuccess.blogspot.com

Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved