It's no secret that living the life of a self-employed business owner is full of days spent on the beach sipping fruity cocktails with umbrellas in them and working 'whenever.' WHAT! NO! What I meant to say is that being an entrepreneur is much, much harder work than working in a cube farm. While the idea of being on your own time is wonderful, we are still accountable to our clients, our vendors, and ourselves. Find a system. I am currently working out my own processes and systems since my workload and client base has made a drastic uptick in the last year & I never adapted my work-style. After all, there is no way for me to successfully delegate tasks to an assistant if I have no idea how and what needs to be done myself!
Thanks +BlogHer!
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Why You Need Systems and Procedures as an Entrepreneur
So you’ve started your business and your humming along. You’re thrilled to be free of the restrictions and red tape of working for “The Machine”. Yet if you truly want to be free, you need systems…
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So very true. It's sooo much easier to work for someone than for myself (for me).
Good advice! I've been self-employed for 17 years…STILL trying to make things work more efficiently!
Ha. this frightens me a bit… we always think the grass is greener, but not if it means wasting more time than you could be working for someone else. I guess it's the 'reward' of better pay, time, work-life balance.. but if that doesn't exist in your favor.. is it worth it? 😛
Very true. People think its a joy ride being self-employed. Reality is exactly the opposite
The time management is one of tools you should use effectively
+Alex Laferriere: That's the challenge of the entrepreneur… the learning curve of understanding the best business model to achieve those "rewards"… hence the need for systems to relieve or reduce the time/effort sink of the day to day distractions encountered when running one's own business… otherwise you may end up spinning your wheels not being able to see the bigger picture on how to direct one's enterprise.
Every task has risks.
I personally think "The traditional job", is a waste of time. Try the finer things of life.
This applies to everything with God directing my steps. AMEN.
This is my second phase as a self-employed entrepreneur and it's been going on for sixteen years now! Systems I have in place which I am constantly trying to improve upon:
1) legal contracts for a variety of scopes
2) proposal templates which I modify per client
3) Quickbooks time tracking, estimates and invoicing
4) tons of design software
5) a deep technical library (yeah – real books! they're sometimes more efficient than the internet)
6) regular advertising
7) a monthly cash flow worksheet
8) online banking and billpaying
9) for the first time, I'm going to add credit card payments by using Square
10) Contacts
11) tagged bookmarks for important tech docs and tutorials
12) backup systems for all my hardware
13) archived files and backups
14) alerts and notifications
15) a trusted team of advisors both in real life and online
16) online to-do system
17) goals
Mmm, it is harder, but more entertaining… In fact there is a nice feeling that even though is harder you are creating something for you that will last in time and is. It only for the paycheck of next month or for that promotion in 5 years. Nobody said it was easier…but better.
The main trick is not to be demotivated i guess
Some great stuff to read and learn from. With today's overly stimulated world, It's almost tough to really nail down a good path of operation. I mean, is a "YouTuber" a form of self-employment? Is there a business model and growth plan? It's almost like running a blog, or other "New Media" form of creation. It's thrilling and exciting, but not everyone is going to obtain +Ray William Johnson or +Mashable status. I guess I am just starting to learn about 'purpose' over 'goals'.