Self Employed or Bust

Why fear and impatience doom the self employed

July 6, 2008 – 9:50 pm

In The pros and cons of being self employed I took an honest look at the idea of self employment and decided that, despite some notable downsides, the concept still works for me. I want to reiterate something I’ve stated before and that’s the simple fact that far too much of your worth winds up in the company coffers when you’re employed by somebody else. Executives, board members, savvy investors, managing directors, all of these people get rich to varying degrees while you are just making ends meet.

There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I’d suggest that most workers in the US, while vocal about the unfairness of it all to their friends and family, are actually content to continue toiling away under the status quo. Why? Because of the false sense of security it provides. Because of fear. Because of impatience with the time it takes to succeed alone. I’ll elaborate.

I know full well I don’t know enough about business (yet) to thrive independently. I know that there are accountants who could do in their sleep what I’ll need a bank of super computers to accomplish. I know there are lawyers who could far more easily navigate the treacherous waters between concept and implementing a running business. I know there are MBAs out there with more business savvy in their little fingers than I have in my entire body.

But I also know that the fear of failure, the mistaken impression that we are all somehow incapable of fending for ourselves, is a self-imposed and baseless obstacle to independence. There is nothing an office full of “experts” can do that I (or you) couldn’t do or learn how to do on a smaller scale. How many grandmothers with nothing more than a talent for baking are there who’ve made a name for themselves with one successful recipe? How many mechanics or construction workers have started their own businesses and succeeded? How many internet entrepreneurs with a great idea and a little startup capital are now driving cars they could never have afforded working for somebody else?

If they can do it, why can’t we? The truth of the matter is that the only thing that absolutely guarantees failure is the failure to act. But, still, people fail to act. Why aren’t more people self employed?

In the year leading up to the creation of this blog I’ve done a lot of reading on building wealth over the internet. I’ve even applied a few of the concepts and the one thing I’ve learned as absolute fact, it doesn’t happen overnight. But that belief, the thinking that throwing up a blog with a few Adsense (more on that in a later post) ads will earn you wealth beyond your wildest dreams in just a few months seems to persist.

Enter money-starved Bob (Bob is going to be my fictional example character from now on). Bob goes out to start a blog. He knows nothing about blogging. He spends entirely too much for hosting, puts up a blog, loads up some Adsense ads, writes five or six posts and then waits. 3 months later he’s earned $0.15. Nobody is coming to his blog anymore. He gives up.

Though I don’t have hard figures, I’d guess (conservatively) that fully 60% of the people who start blogs give up them becoming profitable within the first 4-8 months. All you have to do is look at the first and last post dates to see what I’m basing that figure on. I’d guess another 10-20% don’t give up but do nothing other than continue posting irrelevant material and personal gripes and wonder why they don’t earn anything worth mentioning.

What about the remaining 20%? I’d guess that 10% of those follow through on some additional steps required, write semi-worthwhile content and break even or make a tiny profit that will never afford them financial independence.  8% probably make a comfortable living and the remaining 1-2%? They’re the rain makers. Those are the guys that tenaciously work to turn their blogs into money making machines.  

My point, though, is not to single out blogging. What I’m trying to hammer home is that get rich quick schemes only work for the guy whose book you’re buying. Being self employed, whatever business model you choose, will require consistency, hard work, dedication and patience before it ever pays off. If you can’t commit to being in the minority and sticking to the effort, learning from mistakes and growing through failure then you’re better off pursuing the same course taken by the majority of the world… work for somebody else and accept that you will likely never receive what you’re worth for your effort.

 

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