Six,One,Half,Dozen,the,Other,Y DIY Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in When starting a new work at home business it is very easy to become consumed by it. We spend so much time trying to get the business up and running that we may end up becoming burned out and lose our motivation. There is so much to learn and

You've read many articles I'm sure about the advantages and disadvantages of working for yourself from your own home. Many of them I've written myself, in fact. But how many articles have you read that give equal time to the advantages of working for someone else compared to working for yourself?This article seeks to redress the imbalance by comparing and contrasting the respective pros and cons of running your own home-based business and working for someone else.COMMUTINGWhen you work for yourself from home, your commute is, at most, a few steps from one end of the house to the other. When you work in a traditional paid "job" your commute may be a five minute drive or it may be an hour and a half or worse. Both ways. That can add up to a substantial chunk of time over the course of a week, a month or a year.CHILDRENIf you work from home, you can be around for your kids. If you work outside the home, you may be spending a fortune on childcare if your kids are too young for school and worrying about what they're up to between the end of the school day and when you get home if they're not.On the other hand, having kids around while trying to run a professional business from home can be a major distraction and constant source of interruption. You may find you need to use childminding services occasionally to take care of business undisturbed.INDEPENDENCE AND AUTONOMYWhen you work for yourself, you call the shots, you make the decisions and you do it without anyone looking over your shoulder and breathing down your neck. When you work outside the home, you are subject to the decisions (good and bad), whims and control of your boss. Your boss dictates your regimen.On the other hand, along with decision-making autonomy comes an awful burden. If you get it wrong, you may not make any money this week.WORKING HOURSWhen you work for yourself, you can set your own hours - both the actual hours you work and the number. When you work for a boss, you work when and for how long you're told (within limits, obviously).Although setting your own hours may sound like freedom to you, all too often working your own hours translates into working all hours so you need to be able to set limits for yourself.Also, when your boss dictates your hours, that may or may not fit in with your body clock. One of the real advantages of working for yourself is that you can choose to work during your peak concentration time and not at all during your sluggish times of the day. If your peak time is 5:00 am through to 10:00 am, you can work those hours and another couple sometime in the afternoon catching up on brainless type tasks. If you work for someone else, you work when you're told and if that doesn't work with your body clock, too bad.STATUSIf you're a professional in the paid workforce, you may enjoy a certain status and prestige, if that's important to you. On the other hand, working for yourself you may find it difficult to be taken seriously at all. Again, whether that's a relevant factor depends on how important things like "status", "image" etc. are to you. If they are important, take this seriously. Although it may sound shallow, if it's going to be a thorn in your side, give it some serious thought.BOUNDARIESWhen you work for someone else, you have a ready-made structure. There is a time for work, and there is a time to go home. When you work for yourself, these boundaries can become blurred over time, so much so that you may find you have difficulty turning work off since you are, after all, living in your work environment and vice versa.PERSONAL DISCIPLINEIf you're a personally disciplined person, working from home will probably suit you very well. But if you find it difficult to motivate yourself to do what has to be done and you find yourself procrastinating over starting a particular work- related task, you may find the distractions of being at home particularly difficult to resist. If you find yourself doing laundry and gardening when you should be working, this may be a problem for you.CASH FLOWThis is one of the biggies. THE big advantage of working for someone else is that you have a regular paycheck coming in. Leaving aside any worry of downsizing, assuming you do your job competently, you can reasonably expect to receive a certain, known amount of money at regular intervals. When you work for yourself, however, the amount of money you make and when you receive it can be, at best, spasmodic.On the other hand, the money you make from working from someone else is limited to your salary. When you work for yourself, the sky's the limit provided you are successful at what you do.EXPENSESWhen you work for someone else, your boss is responsible for capital expenditure and day to day expenses and you don't have to worry about it or even think about it, for that matter. When you work for yourself, however, you're responsible for buying your capital equipment (computer, photocopier, fax machine) and paying for repairs as needed. You're responsible for paying your own electricity and phone bills, printing costs and advertising expenses ... you name it, it falls on you.BENEFITSSimilarly, when you work for someone else you get to participate in your employer's pension plan, you get paid health insurance and vacations as well as numerous other benefits. When you work for yourself, to get any of these things you have to pay for them out of your own pocket.RISK MANAGEMENTYour employer pays for various insurances to protect the business unit from risk. The types of insurance taken out will depend on the nature of the business but will include, at a minimum, products liability, business interruption and the like. Again, as a home business owner, you must foot the bill for this expenditure.LICENSESYour employer is responsible for ensuring that the business obtains and maintains all necessary business licenses. If you're the boss, this is your responsibility.VACATIONSWhen you're an employee, you get paid vacations. When you're self-employed you don't. And even if you decide to take a couple of weeks off, who's going to run the business in your absence? Can you really just walk away for two weeks? In reality, when you work for yourself, true vacations are a thing of the past.TAXAs an employee, the most you have worry about is paying your state and federal income tax and claiming whatever credits you're entitled to. When you're an employer you have to think about all of that as well as self-employment tax and a myriad of other business-related tax issues. An accountant becomes an absolute necessity. Also, as a self- employed person, no-one's withholding tax from your checks. Make sure you put enough aside to pay the tax bill!SECURITYSecurity is relative. For some, security comes only from working for someone else. For others, this is merely an illusory form of "security" since none of us really knows what's around the corner. We could be next to be laid off. For some, real security can only come from being in control of their own destiny and that means working for oneself.SKILL SETAs a self-employed person you need a broad skill set. Not only must you be able to perform the main skills inherent in the business you have chosen for yourself, you must also be able to handle the myriad other jobs around the office that your secretary would otherwise do for you if you were in the paid workforce. This forces you to be something of a generalist which in turn dissipates your focus from the central core of your business. When you work for someone else, you are generally more able to specialize in a particular area and, over time, develop something of an expert status, increasing your marketability in the workforce.WARDROBEIn the corporate work-world, you have a certain professional image to uphold. When you work for yourself, at least on days when you don't have to meet with clients, you can wear what you want, even your rattiest sweats, if that's what you feel most comfortable in.HARD WORKSome people think that leaving the paid workforce to work for themselves from home means they will work less hard and fewer hours. The reality is usually the opposite. In the early days of a home business you will probably find you need to work harder and longer, only to make less money than you did in your paid job. This will get easier over time but in the early days, expect to have your nose to the grindstone.RETIREMENT PLANWho's going to provide for your retirement when you work for yourself? You've got it, you! No more employer-funded pension plans for you.GETTING PAIDWhen you work for someone else you get paid like clockwork, even if your employer hasn't yet been paid what he or she is owed from clients. When you work for yourself, whether your client pays often determines whether YOU get paid. So you need to be diligent in following up slow payers and take appropriate action in response to non-payers.OFFICE POLITICSWhen you work for yourself you can kiss goodbye the endless office politics that used to drive you crazy. On the other hand, you're also out of the loop. ISOLATION AND LONELINESSAlong with being out of the loop comes the isolation monster. Although the early days of your home business may be an absolute luxury compared to the rigors of your corporate work- life, over time you may find you start missing the office politics and lunches with colleagues.OUT OF THE LOOPOnce you leave the corporate life for home-business entrepreneurship you may find it hard to get back in, if that's what you decide to do. Many employers will label you as "not corporate enough" if you've been out of the workforce for any length of time. They may also, however unfairly, figure that you couldn't make it in the corporate world which is why you left to start your own home business and now that's failed too. These are just a few of the issues you need to think about when deciding whether working for yourself or working for someone else is right for you. It's crucial to be brutally honest with yourself about your particular strengths and weaknesses, as well as your emotional and mental make-up. A good way to dip your toe in is to consider moonlighting - starting a home business on the side while you continue to work your full-time job. Sure, this will mean some both-ends candle burning but better that than making the break and then finding out you made a mistake. Another alternative that may work well for some is to telecommute. Work for someone else out of the comfort of your own home. These types of positions are pretty rare and usually can only be negotiated by long-term employees in positions that lend themselves to individual, as opposed to team, projects. But don't let that discourage you. If you have particular expertise in a field that lends itself well to telecommuting and your boss won't go for it, start looking around for companies that will hire you on this basis.FURTHER READINGThis article touches on some of the major areas that you need to think about when deciding whether the self- employed or employed option is best for you. For a more detailed treatment of these and other issues, check out the following articles at http://www.ahbbo.com/articles.html :=> And Never the Twain Should Meet => Checklist for the New Home-Based Business => Entrepreneurship: Do You Have What It Takes? => Flipping the Switch: How to Turn Off Your Business and and Turn On Your Life => Focus Your Light => Getting Paid ... Minimizing Bad Debts in Your Home Business => How the 9 to 5 Grind Could Be Costing You More Than You Earn => Look Before You Leap ... Is a Home-Based Business REALLY For You? => Moonlighting's Greatest Challenge ... How to Beat the Time Crunch => One Foot in Each Camp => Overcoming Isolation in Your Home Business => Overcoming Procrastination in Your Home Business => Putting Theory Into Practice ... A Personal Perspective => So You Want to Be a Freelancer => The 9 to 5 Home-Business Tug O'War => The Telecommuting Alternative. Article Tags: Someone Else, Home-based Business, From Home, Other Hand, Paid Workforce, Over Time, Think About, Home Business, Early Days