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| Erin K. Casey |
Why You Should Start
Your Own Business Today
Six reasons to become an entrepreneur
by
John was 53 when the bad news hit:
His department was being moved offshore. Since joining the company eight years
earlier, he had worked his way up to a solid position in middle management with
a decent salary and great benefits. Now, he was out of a job.
Having spent his entire adult life
in corporate positions, he knew he could go job hunting. But this was the fifth
time he’d had a “secure” position shot out from under him, whether through
downsizing, restructuring or other reorganization. With a wife and two
teenagers to clothe and feed, he was no longer willing to trust his future to this
game of corporate roulette. It was time to go into business for himself.
The Great
Migration
Across the country and around the
world, legions of people are abandoning their dependence on big business and
seeking independence through their own enterprises. Every month, about 1
million Americans go through some type of job change or loss, and increasingly
they are deciding to start their own businesses.
In a report titled Work,
Entrepreneurship and Opportunity in 21st Century America, the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce said, “Millions of Americans are embracing entrepreneurship by
running their own small businesses, through independent contracting or direct
selling.” The report also cited a recent Gallup poll finding that 61 percent of
Americans now say they prefer to be their own bosses.
6 Benefits
of Entrepreneurship
1. Job Security. Only
a generation or two ago, going into business for yourself was considered risky,
and the safest route was to get a good job in a large firm. Now, working for a
traditional corporation has become the risky option. Working for yourself has
become the new job security. “If I’m working for someone else, I’m trading time
for money, but I’m not building any equity,” says Duncan MacPherson, co-founder
and co-CEO of Pareto Systems, a consulting firm. “As an entrepreneur, I’m the
master of my own destiny.
2. Freedom. People
love the benefits of working for themselves and enjoy the freedom they gain
from designing their own prosperity. You get to choose when you work, how you
work and with whom you work. Best of all, you don’t have to make the agonizing
choice between time for family and time for business.
3. Flexibility. It
doesn't matter if you're in a big city or small town. Entrepreneurship is an
equal-opportunity employer. E-mail, cheap teleconferencing and a new generation
of Web tools make it possible to run a fully competitive business from a home
desktop. As a home-based businessperson, you can expand your business to
Chicago, San Francisco, Hong Kong and London—and still make the soccer game.
4. Make More Money. There
is far greater opportunity to make money by building your own business than by
working for someone else’s. “Everyone has heard the phrase, ‘The American
Dream.’ I look at it as ‘The American Reality,’ ” says Jeffrey Gitomer,
best-selling author of the Little Red Book of Selling and
the Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude. “When you’re in business for
yourself, you write your own history, you write your own success story, you
write your own legacy and most important, you write your own paycheck. Being in
business for yourself gives you the opportunity to work your heart out for
something you love.”
5. A Life of Greater Impact.
In the Decipher study, 84 percent of respondents said they would be more
passionate about their work if they owned their own business. The No. 1 reason
they gave for wanting to work for themselves: “to be more passionate about my
work life.”
6. A
Second Career. The nation’s 78 million baby
boomers are just starting to reach retirement age, yet they’re realizing that
they can’t afford to retire. What’s more, they don’t want to. Dr. Mary Furlong,
author of Turning Silver into Gold, says, “Boomers are looking for
ways to give back. They are taking the reins of their own futures and
redefining their lives. They want work that reflects their values and identity;
they want to make a difference.” A landmark study by MetLife Foundation and
Civic Ventures found that 50 percent of Americans in their 50s and 60s want to
do work “that matters.”
Taking the
Plunge
“Leaving the rat race is not as
daunting as it may seem,” says author Dan Clements in his guide to worklife
balance, Escape 101. “You’ll look back in later years and marvel at
how easy it was and how much you gained for so little cost.”
So what does it take? First, let’s
look at what it doesn’t take. You don’t need an MBA or high-powered business
background, and you don’t need to be rich or to take a second mortgage on your
home. Some self-owned business opportunities require expertise, such as
consulting, or can take significant capital investment and possibly training,
such as real estate investing and franchises; some can be started on a
shoestring and prove quite lucrative, including direct selling and online
opportunities. Many of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time began with no
advanced degrees and hardly any startup capital.
But make
no mistake about it: What you save in cash capital you will make up for in
sweat equity and passion.
The major investment in most self-owned businesses is investment of one’s self
in the form of time, focus and persistence. You don’t need to be a genius at
negotiation or a whiz at numbers. You need a burning desire and determination
fueled by a strong dose of passion!
Erin K. Casey is a writer, editor and book coach who helps people
and share their message. She is a Texan living in Ireland and is passionate
about living life to the fullest.
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