Remon Talks

Every now and then someone asks me what’s needed to become or be self-employed. I guess there are more people with those questions so I compiled a list of must-haves for the self-employed in random order.

1. A good chair
   If you’re self-employed you will most likely spend countless hours in a chair, especially in the startup fase of your business. So buy a good chair with padded arms and a high back. I need to buy a new one myself, the current one lasted around 4 years.
2. An accountant
   Many self-employed people don’t want to spend money on an accountant and do their tax stuff theirselves. While this can be good I prefer an accountant to do my bookkeeping. They usually make you money because they know all the tax rules and give out great advice.
3. Confidence
   Every self-employed person must have confidence in his/her own abilities. You will fail miserably if you don’t have any confidence in yourself.
4. A business plan
   A business plan is needed, be it small or big, on paper or in your head. You have to know which actions result in what. It’s easy to set up an online shop and make some bucks, but who is your target client and where do you find them? Too many people think that putting up a website is enough, those days are over amigo!
5. Automated systems
   This is, of course, not necessary for webmasters/bloggers but for those with webshops. Manually making/writing offers and invoices is going to eat up lots of your time. Automate it and everything else you can automate.
6. A laptop
   A laptop always comes in handy when you need to work from somewhere else, ie. while on holiday. I have a laptop with wireless internet, dial-up internet and LAN (cable) internet so I can always go online when needed.
7. Emergency fund
   When you’re self-employed you should always aim for as many income streams as possible, when one dries up you have others left. Many self employed will face times where the income is less then average. This can be seasonal or caused by some disaster (google whipeout?) so set up an emergency fund for those times.
8. Tax fund
   Don’t spend all the money you make. Uncle sam wants his share at the end of the year and you better make sure you give it to him. I’ve seen many startups in one of my niches fail because they could not pay their taxes. Ah well, less competition for me!
9. Courage
   You have to have some courage. You’ll be amazed how many people keep their mouth shut when they should ask for someones business. The worst you can get is a “No thank you”, the best is a longlasting business relation. This one can be grouped with number 3 of this list since I think courage and confidence are connected to eachother.
10. Time
    Starting and running a business takes time or money. Time if you do it yourself, money if you pay someone else for his/her time to run it. Don’t underestimate the time needed to run a business and work as efficient as possible. Also don’t forget your family, they should always come first.

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