What do you wish someone had told you

Do not lowball your price. I had a business that I ran out of my house (appling for permits required for people to build in certain areas).

I had no bills, no overhead, so I charged less per hour.

Lost several accounts to another person doing the same thing. WHY? Because people thought that I did not charge enough, and you get what you pay for.

I raised my prices, and got business

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Roger

I can't find the $3.99 ones.

I wish I was told to read 3 books

The Millionaire Next Door
Leadership Secrets of Atila the Hun
Keys to Success

Also "Guerilla Marketing"!

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

We started our business in 1987, from our home. Our CPA told us that home based businesses are THE LEAST productive and my 20/20 hindsight tells me he was correct. It is so easy to get sidetracked when you are at home -vs- at a business location. (i.e. doing just one load of laundry won't take long).

Regarding taxes.... We didn't know that we would have to pay into social security, .0765 for every dollar we made AND that amount needed to be doubled since we were the employer (most don't know their employers match their SS tax withheld), so 15% of every dollar went for social security and it emptied our savings account the first 2 years.

22 years later, do I regret being self employed? No. In my case, the flexibility was worth it (if I wanted to work at midnight, I could).

Personally, I think until one is making some serious money, they should do their own taxes/books.
It requires you to know your business in it's entirety. And if you're still small, it's not going to be an overwhelming chore. A Schedule C, for example, is really not complicated. Print one out now, so you know what you should be tracking.
I never took an accounting class (though I've often wished I had!) so everything I do is my own weird system. But, I'm capable of keeping track of my income and outgo, as well as expenses, mileage, etc.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Your business is sales - the product you will sell is crochet. You will spend a large portion of your time on paperwork, marketing, sales, and taxes. So make sure you price items based on the hours you work, not the time it takes to crochet the item.

You will mess up on tax filings and get hit with penalties and fines. Chalk it up to education and just don't make the same mistake twice.

Your people skills are as important as the items you sell.

Your expenses will be much higher than you planned and your income will be much lower.

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Rich

Never hire a "down and out" person (meaning someone with drug problems, etc...)
90% they will rob you, sometimes literally sometimes thru plain slothfulness, but you will lose!

Custom work is HARD to make profitable. Beware of "add ons". Example: Could you please just change this a little? Could you add this? Can you take this off? Customers expect you to make all these changes for free...........

If your looking to be self-employment in a service industry rather than sales, here are a few suggestions:
1 - If you want to make money, do something no one else likes to do. You'll make more per hour cleaning up crime scenes than you will babysitting baby kittens. More per hour could mean more money for the the same hours of work OR less hour required to make the same amount of money.

2 - Know your market PERSONALLY. Don't take other peoples word for it, especially if you're in a new area. When I moved across the country I bought a $5000 carpet cleaner, based on the word of someone else in another area of the same industry. He said "there's no one doing that here." He meant no harm, but there was no one doing it because there was a VERY small market - everyone was going to hardwood floors. If you are in an area where crime is low, but the demand for babysitting kittens is high, crime scene clean up might not pay well.

3 - Cutting your prices to be lower than your competition will often times harm your business. If you were going on a romantic getaway, and money wasn't an issue, would you rather go to a $500/night hotel or a $10/hour hotel? What image does each bring to mind? Lower prices may make you busier, but that doesn't mean more money - it mean more hours worked for the same or less money. And often lower prices draw penny pincers out of the woodwork, the ones who make sure they wring every last bit of value out of you they can.

4 - Know your priorities. No business is worth your health, your family etc. DON'T PUT OUR BUSINESS FIRST! You may say you're doing it for your family, but if you give yourself a heart attack, or alienate your husband/wife and kids because your always on business time who benefits? Take time to go fishing, play with your kids, chase your mate around the house, take the family out for a hike. It may cost you a day of work now and then, but the rewards will be far greater.

5 - Set business hours and stick to it. If you are the type that obsesses, can't let go of things, maybe self-employment isn't for you. You'll be up all night still doing business and ignoring the more important things.

Just a few things I've learned/am learning.

I wish someone had told me that invoicing sucks, and it gets worse the longer you wait.

I wish someone had told me even the best business plan and idea and doing what you love to do for a living is still no fun when the fish are biting and the sun is shining and that's when having a crappy job that you don't mind quitting is really nice....

...which brings me to my next point. Don't start a business that HAS regular scheduled obligations (IE; publishing a paper every Wednesday,) unless you have someone to fall back on if you should become sick or otherwise unable to fulfill those obligations. It only takes one screw up to get your customers questioning your reliability, and two to shut you down.

(I started a small one-page newspaper in a little town to fill a news void that wasn't being addressed by the big daily. The town has enough of a tourism industry that it works, thanks to advertisers and strong readership.)

>>>>4 - Know your priorities. No business is worth your health, your family etc. DON'T PUT OUR BUSINESS FIRST! You may say you're doing it for your family, but if you give yourself a heart attack, or alienate your husband/wife and kids because your always on business time who benefits? Take time to go fishing, play with your kids, chase your mate around the house, take the family out for a hike. It may cost you a day of work now and then, but the rewards will be far greater.<<<<


After 30 plus years building a one week paycheck into a million dollar business, I will have to say that is the worst piece of advice I have ever seen about going self employed.

The business is like an apple tree. It is the trunk and the limbs. Without it there will be no apples. You can care for the leaves and blooms all you want, but if you ignore the trunk you will get no apples. You must nurture the business in order to get what is needed for everything else. I have seen too many businesses fail because the owner had to take the family on weekend trips, attend his mother-in-law's birthday party, ETC. When there were orders needing shipped the next day.

Always put the business first, it is what makes all other things possible.

This is a great thread!!!!!