Starting your own business?
Follow these 6 steps to leave the corporate rat race and take control of your working week.
6 steps to becoming self-employed
1. Minimise your outgoings.
Repay all short term debts (eg, hire purchases, credit cards etc) and work out the minimum income you’ll need per week to meet your reduced outgoings (eg, mine was $1000 per week). Also put a little cash aside to fall back on in the first few months of self-employment.
2. Commit to a date.
Take note of how many weeks there are until you will start your new business, and put a list of weeks on your fridge that lead up to this date. Cross off each week as it passes by. My date was 6 months away from the day I’d decided to take the plunge.
3. Find a mentor.
Track down someone who has become self employed and ask them to meet with you (regularly if possible). Most people are excited by the chance to help someone who wants to follow in their footsteps and having another person to encourage you will keep you focused.
4. Brainstorm.
Wake up early or stay up late (a couple of times per week) and develop a MASSIVE list of ways you could earn your minimum income per week. Focus on making the list as large as possible and don’t rule out any crazy ideas – often sensible and viable options will come from ideas that are a little outside the box.
5. Start.
Start tackling the best opportunities on your list and talking to those people who might help you meet your income target. Start doing work before/after your day job and organise the things you’ll need to have before leaving your current job (eg, website, business cards etc). The important point here is that you should start your business and then leave your job, not the other way around.
6. Do it.
Hand in your resignation for your day job once you can see how you can earn at least 80% of your income target – Ironically, this will likely be around the date that you committed to in step 2.
Now the real work begins!
The above steps worked for me. But I’m keen to hear your feedback, thoughts and suggestions – leave a comment below.
