Essential Skills for The Self-Employed

Essential Skills for The Self-Employed (well, some of them)

• Motivation: simply the ability to get up in the morning and get going without instructions from an employer or boss. ‘Lazy’ and ‘self-employed’ don’t go in the same sentence.

• Belief: in your product or service. If you have any doubts, customers will sense them and run a mile!

• Marketing: of you. No one else is going to do this for you. Sadly, this is an area the self-employed often neglect.

• Focus: (or is it vision?) and a clear sense of purpose about where you want to be and how you plan to get there.

• Resilience: bucket loads of this will be needed! The capacity not to give up when orders are lost and delays are faced will be essential.

• Organisation: deal with those piles of paper. Get your invoices out and be ready to chase when they are not paid. Remember you are not in business to be a money-lender – unless, of course, money-lending is your business!

• Loneliness: if you think this should be in the next section, then perhaps self-employment is not for you – or not yet! Linked closely to motivation, there is a different mind-set to grasp: emotional loneliness, which isn’t as bad as it sounds!

• Inspiration: sometimes just seeking it and looking forward to creating new opportunities.