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Business Loan Information7 Fiscal Strategies for Transitioning from Salaried to Solo
by:
Nina Ham
Copyright 2005 Success from the Inside Out
A 40’s thing
woman was talking to me the another day just about her growing sense of frustration with “working for person else” and her yearning to “do my own thing, driving my own wagon”. But, she aforesaid with consternation, “I have family count on me and a standard of living I don’t want to sacrifice.”
Everyone has to decide for themselves what level of sacrifice and risk they’re willing to undertake in order to enjoy the satisfactions of working independently. Knowing several strategies for managing the risk will allow you to do a well-informed decision.
Of the seven strategies enclosed
below, the 1st two suggest route to bit by bit transition from salaried to solo, instead of diving off the edge. The second two are route to stretch the dollar; and the final three are ideas for acquiring started without stopping.
1. Continue to draw a (reduced) salary
Leaving your current employment in order to develop your new business may look like the only option, based on an assumption that you won’t get approval for reducing your hours. Piece this may prove to be the case, asking yourself why and how your institution will profit from holding your skills and experience for a transformation period can provide the basis for approaching your employer. Be sure to do your prep first, however, and be able to back up your request with a solid rationale.
Also consider the issue of timing. You want to weigh informing your leader
of your will to leave with being prepared to leave if the answer to your request is no.
2. Develop another financial gain
stream
If you need to leave your present employment, is there a skill in your toolbag that you can resuscitate and put to activity without a significant expenditure of time or energy? Is moonlighting or freelance activity an option? Virtual e-lancing websites (such as eWork.com, Guru.com, and e-lance.com) may be worth looking into for short-term professional services opportunities.
Examples: A community mental health worker transitioning to private practice used his conflict solution experience to sell a training package to public schools. A woman transitioning out of an insurance brokerage created and oversubscribed seminars on long term care funding at local retirement centers.
3. Reduce expenses
Apart from fixed expenses - mortgage, taxes, insurance, etc. –are discretionary expenses that do up the larger part of budgets. Doing a careful analysis of these expenses and choosing what you can predate for for a piece can often save thousands per year.
Carefully analyzing hidden expenses – credit card interest rates, bank charges, late fees, car debits, phone plans – or “lost money” from low interest rates on savings may generate several thousand much per year.
4. Borrow
It isn’t necessary to wait to borrow for start-up cost until you have a well-documented idea to submit for a business loan. Refinancing a house or taking a line of credit are comparatively
low-cost route of generating capital. Depending on your credit rating, you can besides get time-limited low-interest loans from credit card companies.
If you choose this option, applying for loans or refinancing packages piece you’re still employed is powerfully
advised. Your rank as a recipient declines quickly once the regular paychecks stop.
You don’t have to wait!
Get started on your new business idea piece you’re still employed. Some of the all-important 1st steps (below) can be started piece standing in the grocery line or running on the treadmill. They involve asking yourself several questions and doing several informal research to get crystal clean just about your idea. This can take weeks off your actual start-up time.
5. Identify your niche.
Think just about the services you’re unambiguously
qualified to provide, as well as the ones you most enjoy providing. Be specific! Write them down! Then think just about what group of folk would-be get benefit from those services and have the ability to pay for them. Again, be specific: age, wherever
they congregate, habits and values, how they define the problem your services are going to solve. If you don’t know, ask. Find person who fits your “ideal client” profile (s/he may be on the treadmill next to yours at the gym) and get permission to ask several questions. Folk generally love to be helpful.
6. Create your marketing plan.
Don’t be intimidated by the term “marketing plan”. Piece what you need from a marketing plan will get much sophisticated as your business develops, for now it just means respondent the question, How is my business going to do money? What is the product or service you’re going to sell? How will you describe it so folk quickly recognize the value? How will you package it? (fee for service? by the project? on retainer?) How will you cost it? (What’s being charged for comparable services? What “feels right” to you?)
7. Manage fear!
For most people, thing
involving money involves several level of fear. It’s important to acknowledge to yourself and to others that you are taking a risk, and you’ve distinct it’s a risk you want to take. So consider the fear natural, and find route to manage it.
Getting keep from folk who believe in you and in what you’re embarking on is #1 in fear-management tactics. Don’t assume that you’ll get it from the folk nearest to you, or that if you don’t have it you shouldn’t proceed. They’re probably the ones most wedged by your decision and so may be least available to offer support. Their consent – a disposition to go on
with your plan – is helpful, but keep may have to move later.
It’s besides helpful to set a goal (and a date for completion) that’s key to your new venture – arrange funding by a particular date, or sign a lease – and announce it to at least one person. You’ll find that devising that commitment, expression it out loud, and following through will in turn generate much confidence and much forward momentum.
To all of you who are tired of march to person else’s drum and are eager to go solo, these strategies should help you take prudent but positive steps toward realizing your goal. Nice luck!
Just just about the author:
Semitic deity
Ham is an internationally certified women’s business coach and a accredited psychotherapist. Her company, Success from the Inside Out, provides programs and services essential for anyone devising the salaried-to-solo transition, including niche identification, marketing fundamentals, and self management for solo professionals. Go to her site, http://www.SuccessfromtheInsideOut.comand take her free quiz, Is Going Solo for You?
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