Setting Your Own Hours
There are some people who just can’t do the nine to five routine. Maybe you don’t like the two hour commute you have to make every day to get to work and come home or maybe you’re the kind of person who works until three in the morning and can’t wake up in time to get downtown for that eight o’clock meeting. So what’s the solution? Become an entrepreneur! Owning your own business allows you to create a work schedule that best fits your lifestyle. Whether you work best late at night or early in the morning, you can design a work timetable around it. You can also make sure to pencil in that extra time to spend with your friends and family, take care of children at home, or just plain have fun!
Opportunity
Have you had great ideas only to watch other people become enormously successful off of them because you didn’t take action? More and more people are realizing the tremendous gains that are to be had by setting up their own business. Over the past decade, total US small business wealth grew from $3.4 trillion to $8.3 trillion. Small businesses have also traditionally outperformed their large corporate counterparts. From 1998 to 1999 small business income grew 7.9%, far outpacing the 5% growth in corporate income. Some of the more popular areas for entrepreneurs include services (37.6% of new companies), retailing (22.7%), construction (10%), financial & insurance (10%), wholesaling (8%), transportation (5%), and manufacturing (5%). Is it time for you to finally take one of your million dollar ideas and actually fly with it?
Taxes
Another big opportunity for entrepreneurs today is taxes. If you have a home office you can write off part of your mortgage, taxes, gas and electric bills, phone bills, internet bills and other computer related expenses such as hardware and software. You can also deduct your car payments and cell phone bills. You can write off association dues, related books and magazines, client entertainment, and travel to events, meetings, and conferences. Even if you spend the same amount of money as you did as an employee, you will end up paying far fewer taxes to the government because as an entrepreneur, that spending can now be considered a business expense and is at least partially tax deductible. Also, since employees pay their taxes first and entrepreneurs pay their taxes last, it is the entrepreneurs with sound tax advice who can avoid overpaying the government and the middle class employees who end up carrying the larger tax load in our society! Which category would you rather be in?
More Responsibility
Do you go home at night and feel like you have accomplished something every day? Do you get the opportunity to stretch your mind, take on new challenges, and do something meaningful in your work? Do you feel like you have a purpose to fulfill that isn’t being accomplished through your work life? This is especially important for young potential entrepreneurs. Young people are no longer willing to accept working in a junior position doing data entry for five years before actually seeing a client and getting hands on experience. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics claims that 87 percent of American workers do not enjoy their jobs! If this sounds like you, maybe it’s time for you to become an entrepreneur and find a meaningful way to fulfill your purpose.
“If I’m Working This Hard… It Might As Well Be For Myself!”
This is the ultimate question that many future entrepreneurs eventually ask themselves. These people do not see the logic in working ten, twelve, fourteen or more hours a day so that someone else can get rich. They would rather invest the time in themselves and their own business and reap the full rewards from it!
In addition to having more and more reasons to start their own businesses, young people are discovering that the emerging entrepreneurial trends are giving them a much more supportive environment to fly in… (see my continued post next Friday)
Evan Carmichael
