During the pandemic, many people have shifted from being an employee to an entrepreneur. The year 2020 saw a 24 percent increase of business startups in the U.S. Some opened businesses after losing their 9-to-5 jobs due to the pandemic. Others started businesses to have a better financial situation.
Whichever the reason, you can also transition from employee to entrepreneur if that’s what you really want to do. But this journey won’t be easy. Below are some tips to help you have a successful transition.
Have a Financial Safety Net
Starting a business means sacrificing a stable paycheck that you receive in your office job. Especially in a new business, you won’t have a stable income. Thus, you need to build a financial safety net first.
The size of your safety net will depend on your monthly costs. Calculate how much you spend per month. This should include your utility bills, mortgage, and groceries. You may also need to take into account how much you spend on nonessential items. The rule of thumb is to save three to six months’ worth of monthly expenses.
This safety net will ensure that you have something to fall back on when things get rocky in your business.
Be Ready to Take Risks
When you pursue anything new, you need to take many risks. For example, if you want to go into investing, it’s also a risky field. For example, you can try investing in the petrol industry. The market is seeing an anticipated recovery as global economic activity is starting to pick up. But other markets may not have the same positive outlook and may result in losses.
Entrepreneurship is also a risky venture. That’s why you need to be ready to take risks. You need to be okay with taking monetary losses and stressing over details of your business. You also need to accept that you will fail at a lot of things.
But these failures should not discourage you, especially if you really want your business to take off. Instead, you can use these risks as lessons so that you can do better. Besides, the road to success always has bumps.
Become an All-rounder
When you first start your business, you need to do basically everything. Unless you hire people from the get-go, you’ll have to handle the different aspects of your business, whether it’s customer service, logistics, and tax and business registration, among other things.
Therefore, if you want to successfully transition from employee to entrepreneur, you need to be a jack-of-all-trades. You need to be ready to take on all the tasks needed to get your business off the ground.
Being an all-rounder isn’t so bad. While you’re likely to work longer hours than an office job, the experience of having your own business can help you develop new skills and learn new things. It can also increase your confidence, which is important in having a business.
Expand Your Network
As a business owner, you need to have a wide web of connections. The people in your network can be your potential first customers. And they can help you speed up the growth of your business.
Usually, networking in person is the first step to increase your connections. But since there’s still a pandemic, you will have to rely on the internet. One way to expand your network is to spark old connections. You might consider messaging your old friends and colleagues. Make sure that you first establish a casual connection with them before hard selling.
Another step you can take is to make a Facebook page for your business. And you can ask your family, friends, and other acquaintances to like the page. When they do, they’ll already be part of your network and will immediately see updates on their Facebook feeds every time you post.
Set SMART Goals
When you start a business, you need to clearly define your goals so that you can easily identify when and how you will reach your milestones. Specifically, these goals need to be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, say you want to increase social media engagement. Here’s an example of a SMART goal:
- To gain a 30% increase in followers on Instagram by June 15, 2021.
The goal is specific; it clearly shows the needed follower increase. It’s measurable and attainable. It’s also relevant to the business since social media engagement is important for business growth. Lastly, it’s time-bound since there is a clearly defined deadline.
The journey from employee to entrepreneur can be daunting. The five tips listed above will help guide you through that journey.
