How do you move from being an employee to becoming an entrepreneur – and what is the hardest part about it?
I often hear the answer: “Getting the first clients.” In reality, however, the biggest challenge is changing your mindset – stopping thinking like an employee and starting to think like an entrepreneur. This is exactly what I help people with when they leave the corporate world and start building their own business.
Typical example?
From Manager to Entrepreneur
A woman in a managerial position with 20+ years of experience in her field. She leads a team, reports to the board, and has simply had enough. She wants to focus on her expertise and start her own business.
During our consultations, we set up the framework for her business, including pricing. This often comes from the idea of charging “a bit more than her current salary”. The future entrepreneur automatically counts on working eight hours a day – and during the early stages of the business, probably a few extra hours as well.
And this is where the first important AHA moments appear:
- Running a freelance business is not just about working for clients.
- A freelancer never invoices 100% of their working time.
Let’s look at it more closely. Working for yourself includes, besides professional work for clients, a number of other activities:
💼 sale and networking
💼 marketing, accounting, legal matters, IT
💼 your own education and development
💼 holidays, sickness, caring for children, time for your partner and time for yourself.
Professional work
Although every new entrepreneur mainly looks forward to doing expert work for clients (and to leaving behind team management, endless meetings and other corporate managerial duties), it is wise to think about the supporting activities as well. Ideally right from the beginning.
Employment, despite all the annoying meetings, also offers many advantages that are easy to get used to and that employees quickly start to see as automatic. When working independently, however, you also manage without paid holiday, sick leave, a company IT specialist, accountant or lawyer. And without a company phone, computer, equipped office or company car.
In other words, you take full responsibility for your business, and you arrange all this background in your own time and at your own expense.
Which means you also need to earn enough to cover it. And that is why your rate cannot be just “a little more than your current salary”.
Mindset
In my consultations, I help not only with setting up the business itself, but also with the mindset behind it. So that the business is sustainable in the long term and brings joy, fulfilment and financial stability.
I also work with these topics as a mentor in the community #HolkyzByznysu, which connects women in business. I speak daily with women who are just starting their entrepreneurial journey.
Are you considering moving to self-employment? Feel free to get in touch. I will be happy to talk with you about how to manage the beginning in the best possible way – and how to overcome the initial uncertainty, obstacles and worries.
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