Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By James Daniels

When you are looking at becoming self-employed or opening a one-person business, you might be daunted by the possibilities and the steps you need to take to ensure that self-employment is a financially sustainable option for you. To help you, here is a guide that can help you kickstart your self-employed career and make sure that you can continue down this career path for many years to come.

– Look at your options

The first step that you need to take to kick start self-employment is to look at the available options. To be successful as a self-employed individual, you will need to harness your skills and strengths in an attempt to lend your expertise and services to others. Your options will include professions that you excel at, whether this is translation or consulting. You should also consider looking at the many types of self-employment that there are. For instance, you might decide to go freelance, set up your own one-person business, or become an independent contractor. This will affect your day-to-day way of working, as well as the tax that you will have to pay.

– Get qualified

However, to make sure that your period of self-employment is successful from the start, you will need to make sure that you are highly qualified. More than ever before, when you are self-employed, potential clients will be looking directly at you and your expertise to decide whether they want to do business with you. They are looking for an individual who has the right skills and experience and who can carry out their job to a high standard, and there is no better way to show that you are capable of doing this than by taking the right qualification. This will also help you to attract more clients as you will be able to stand out from the other self-employed workers who are vying for business. To make yourself a really attractive prospect, you should consider taking an MBA, such as in data analytics, that you can use as evidence of your knowledge and how well you will perform the work in question.

– Use technology

If you are struggling to kickstart self-employment, you should immediately look at how technology can help you and be on your side. There are many different types of gadgets and software applications that can make self-employment much easier and which can allow you to keep on top of all of the administration behind your business. For instance, accountancy and finance apps can allow you to create and keep track of invoices, track your expenditure, and help you prepare for the end of the tax year. If you have gone freelance, you might also consider downloading apps that can help you to find jobs, such as Freelancer, which collates an array of short-term paid tasks and projects for freelance workers.

– Network with others

Whether you are looking for ways to connect with clients and other self-employed people within your industry or whether you are looking to boost your one-person business, networking can help you. Networking needs to be carried out throughout your self-employment as it is often the easiest way to make yourself known and get new clients. However, it is especially important at the start of your career, as you will find that it can be difficult to get people to hear of your name when you are stuck at home. Not only this, but immersing yourself within your industry and integrating yourself with other professionals can allow you to hear about innovations and trends in your industry which may impact your business or your clients.

– Market yourself

The key to kickstarting your self-employed career, though, is having the ability to market yourself and your skills. Whereas small businesses can advertise their products and their company’s concept, you only have your personal brand to put forward to convince clients that they want to work with you, and this can be especially difficult now that more people than ever before are self-employed.

You can market yourself by creating an active social media account for yourself on multiple channels, like Facebook and Twitter, and using it to appeal to whoever your target audience is. You can also market yourself by paying for PPC adverts and by creating a website to start writing an industry blog that can showcase all of your knowledge and abilities. You might even create an online portfolio that can contain examples of the work that you can do for your clients. This will allow them to know what to expect when they work with you.

– Know the legalities

However, you may soon come up against a barrier to success if you do not understand the legalities of being a self-employed business. For instance, it is advised that you register that you are self-employed to be able to claim tax benefits, and you may need a license, particularly if you are in industries such as fishing, accounting, and transportation. You should understand the ins and outs of filing taxes as an independent contractor. This may require you to hire an accountant who will be able to take you through the steps that you need to follow to pay your taxes on time.

– Create a healthy working space

To stop procrastinating and make sure that you can always pull off your best work, though, you need to create a healthy working space, such as a home or garden office. It is likely that, when you are self-employed, you will be working out of your own premises, or you might simply need somewhere to fill in your invoices in the evenings. If you do not create a peaceful and quiet working environment, you may find that you become stressed more easily, that you get distracted, and that you start to miss important deadlines. So, before you even start taking on clients, you need to create a healthy environment where you can access all of the files and gadgets that you need for your self-employed career to go smoothly.

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James Daniels is a freelance writer, business enthusiast, a bit of a tech buff, and an overall geek. He is also an avid reader, who can while away hours reading and knowing about the latest gadgets and tech, whilst offering views and opinions on these topics.