Why You Should Start Your Own Business Today
Six reasons to become an entrepreneur
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 recent 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 Network Marketing.” 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 Network Marketing 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!
Great reasons!
ReplyDelete