Do you know the difference between being Self-Employed and being a Business Owner? There are a lot of people out there that think they are the same, but once you realise what the difference is your life will change.
One of the many books I have read is Rich Dad Poor Dad. It is an amazing book and quite a few things resinated with me while reading it. But the main thing that hit me like a slap in the face was that being a Business Owner and Self-Employed are totally different things.
In our world today there are people looking for Employment, there are Employed people looking to work for themselves, there are Self-Employed people looking to grow into a Business and there are Business Owners wanting to become Investors. But what is the difference between them all?
Lets take a closer look at each level. Firstly we have people looking for employment; these can be students, unemployed people, people in between jobs. They normally receive welfare of some type and some of them will move into employment or into being self-employed.
People who are employed trade their time for money and they pay the most taxes. They focus on earning an income and usually greatly value a safe, secure job or career. For most employed people, this is what life is about.
People who are self-employed also trade their time for money and pay the most taxes. They have at some stage in their life created themselves a job. They usually have decided while they were employed, that they didn’t want to work hard and earn someone else money or they could do things better than their boss so they decided to become self-employed.
Self-employed people can have all different types of careers, from builders, plumbers, bookkeepers, accountants, Chiropractors, Doctors, any type of specialist really. They usually work huge hours and often wonder why they did this in the first place.
Business Owners use other people’s time and sometimes money to create assets to produce income for them even when they are sleeping. Don’t get me wrong, Business Owners work hard, but they also work smart. They know that having staff and having the right systems and building their business up so it isn’t just trading time for money is the way to go.
They also look outside the square, find different forms of income through making investments, either in shares, property or other businesses. They gain financial freedom through being driven to make everything work for them so they don’t have to worry.
Investors are very much like Business Owners; they use other people’s time and money to create assets to produce income for themselves even when they are sleeping. They have multiple investments all around the world, property, shares, businesses etc. If their investments are diverse enough when things go on a down turn they take advantage of this and not suffer any great losses. In fact down turns for investors are usually when they make even more money.
After reading Rich Dad Poor Dad and having this understanding slap me in the face I could identify that I, even though I had a few staff members, was self-employed. I was trading time for money and I didn’t want to do that anymore. I could also see a lot of my clients were doing the same thing.
18 years ago I woke up and decided I needed to go back to work, I didn’t want to put my babies in childcare and I really didn’t know where to start looking for work that would be flexible around my children. Then I stumbled across a few people doing admin work at home for businesses. At this stage the term Virtual Assistant wasn’t around, but that was basically what it was.
So I purchased a computer, went to the Small Business Centre and had some sessions with a business advisor and got started. Trading my time for money, giving myself employment. Along the way my business has allowed me to grow to having 5 staff and then back pedalling to 1 staff because of my son having cancer. So it has given me some flexibility but it has still been trading time for money.
So now, after reading this book I have a plan to become a business owner. I have done a budget to work out what it will take for my small business to become big enough for me to stop trading my time for money and actually run, coordinate and train staff.
Once that is happening I will then leave it to tick along and go and either buy other businesses and do the same, or investments of some type or both. I totally believe in the term multiple sources of income and that is what I am driving myself towards.
I love working with small business owners to make their businesses work and to share my knowledge with them, that is why I created Ask the Bookkeeper. To improve peoples knowledge, not only in bookkeeping but in business ownership as well.
I want to help the self-employed either get their business running at capacity for themselves so they are happy or help them turn their self-employment into a business.
There are a lot of self-employed people out there struggling to find the work to even remain self-employed. It breaks their heart to struggle the way they do and would give anything to be working 38 hours a week with clients. I want to help them achieve this.
There are also a lot of self-employed people out there working 50 – 80 hours a week and are totally exhausted whom I would love to work with to help them turn their self-employment into a business. So they can have people and money to give them an income even while they are sleeping.
So now I want you to sit down and look at your situation. Work out where you are, Employed, Self-Employed, Business Owner, Investor and then identify where you want to go or if you are happy to stay where you are.
If you identify that you want to stay where you are, then work out if you are happy there, if you aren’t then work out a plan to what would make you happy. This may mean more hours at work, or a promotion of some type. You might want to become the Manager of a department or the whole store or factory. Work out how to get to where you want to be.
If you are self-employed, love doing what you are doing, but really need more hours to make it worthwhile. Get a Mentor or Business Coach and work out a way to make your small business work.
If you are self-employed and working huge hours, work out what it would take to become a big business owner and start working towards that. Get yourself a Mentor or Business coach and start working to make your big business.
When we play sport we usually have a coach of some type, or have in the past. All Olympians have coaches, usually several for different areas. Business is the same, you need a Mentor or a Coach or both or several. Invest in yourself and your future and you will soon turn things around so that you are enjoying your employment, self-employment, business ownership or investing.
If you would like to read Rich Dad Poor Dad then click here to go on over to Amazon and purchase is. Otherwise if you like listening to books then click on the Audible link at the side of this blog and download it from Audible so you can listen to it.
I would love to hear from you about where you are at. And what your intentions are. Leave a comment below or go over to my Facebook page and let me know there.
