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self-employed

Who Knew That I Was an Entrepreneur?

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That Was Never My Plan

Most people in construction would not consider themselves entrepreneurs. They see themselves as self-employed.

There’s not a huge difference between the two, but it is significant.

It’s the difference between working in your business or working on your business.

Someone who is self-employed is earning income from their own business, trade, or profession. This is how most people working for themselves in construction see it. It’s just a job like any other.

Most of them started out working for someone else. They learned their construction trade but not the business. Being self-employed tends to overlook the business part.

Doing business is scary…not to mention most self-employed construction people don’t like doing paperwork. The problem is, like it or not, self-employment is being in business.

An entrepreneur, on the other hand, is someone who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of the business. This difference is mostly perspective, and it’s critical. It’s how you see yourself.

It’s about where your focus is. Are you focused on just showing up on the jobsite every day doing construction, or is it bigger than that? This is the difference between having a job and owning a business.

Is what I’m doing just a job or is it building a business?

If we see ourselves as just having a job, the daily rat race becomes overwhelming and is often the reason self-employed contractors go out of business within the first five years. The numbers are staggering.

So if you see yourself as self-employed, what are you going to do to avoid becoming one of these statistics?

The first step is becoming aware. You have to see the problem before you can do anything about it. Then you can decide if you want to keep doing things the way you always have or do something different.

After you become aware of the problem, you need to understand it. This is where things are going to get harder. It’s going to require some research. This is going to take time that you don’t have, but it’s time well spent if you want to stay in business.

Now that you understand the problem, you will need information and instructions for implementing changes. I know this sounds like a lot, and you may be wondering, is it really worth it?

If it is, then you need to learn these new and different ways of doing business and change how you do things.

If this seems like too much, maybe you should just go back to working for someone else!

If you decide that you want to accept the title of entrepreneur and work on building your business rather than just working a job, then we can help.

At Solution Building we help you make this transition from self-employed to entrepreneur. We have business building tools and training available.

If you have questions about transitioning from self-employed to entrepreneur, you can set up a free 30-minute construction company consultation. It’s up to you. You get to decide if you want to accept the role of entrepreneur or continue working as an employee for yourself.

Why Do We Make Managing Time as Complicated as Rocket Science?

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When in Reality, It’s as Simple as One, Two, Three

I’ve shared before about some of the great discussions we have in our masterclass. This week’s was no different.

The question that got the gears in my head spinning was this –

When self-employed and working from home, how does one schedule time and determine boundaries?

Now, is this a great question or what. How does one do this?

When working from home it’s easy to be sidetracked by all the things that need done, like – yard work, gardening, vacuuming, washing the dishes, repair projects, laundry, changing the oil in the car, checking out social media, researching new and better computer programs, emailing old friends… You get the point! All the things on this list are worthwhile and important things that need to be done.

There were some great answers from of the group.

  • I work when my wife is gone to work. When she gets home, I stop working and spend time with her.
  • I have an office space that is only accessed by going through the garage, up some stairs and through the attic.
  • I start my day at 8:00 just as if I was going to an office.

The key to managing time is intentionality!

Having been self-employed for most of the past forty years I have a head start on most of the people in this group. But believe me I understand. I’ve struggled with this for years and just began to figure out over the past 8-10 years.

My figuring it out took a big step forward with a wakeup call from God. He got my attention with a board upside the head, literally. This incident persuaded me to step back and look at things differently. I got a more well-rounded, big picture view of life and it helped me to see things differently.

I’m a workaholic and love what I do. Now I look at my whole life, all the different aspects of it, as my employment. This a word that is typically connected to a job, but that’s not completely accurate. Being employed is – the active use of or engagement in services. Being engaged in activity. I see employment as more than just a job.

The freedom perceived as a part of self-employment is the one thing that most often prevents these ventures from succeeding.

One of the biggest issues with self-employment is lack of boundaries. It’s like kids when they first move out of their parent’s home. There’s a newfound freedom. Nobody is looking over their shoulder telling them to get up and go to class or to not stay out late so they can get up and go to work.

Most people have been raised with some kind of structure. Working for someone else is the same thing. When we become self-employed it’s like moving out for the first time. There’s no boss preventing me from washing the dishes or mowing the yard.

This new freedom leads to an uncertain, unclear understanding of what we should do, when we should do it and in what order.

There are three things that need to be present if you are going to be successful in self-employment. –

  • Intentionality – Be intentional about what you spend your time on. Why is it that we won’t be late to a meeting with other people, but will blow off meeting with ourselves? We’ve been given enough time to do everything we should…just not everything we want.
  • Prioritization – This one can be tough. What makes one thing more important than another. This is where being crystal on who you are, who you’re going to help and how you’re going to help them comes in.
  • Spending time wisely – Time is limited. It is the most valuable commodity you have. It’s up to you to decide how much you’re going to spend and what you’re going to spend it on.

The SELF in self-employment means “the buck stops here”. It’s up to me to manage my time…no one else. Our human nature is to make things more complicated than they are or need to be.

Managing time doesn’t have to be rocket science. Intentionally prioritizing how you spend your time is all it takes.

Check back, we will break these down more in the coming weeks.

How To Balance Passion and Profit In Business

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It Doesn’t Have to Be One or The Other

 

Why is it that the owners of small businesses struggle to even make minimum wage? When you factor in the number of hours and amount of stress that most small business owners endure, often it’s less.


I had this conversation with a local contractor last week. The same conversation I’ve had with different contractors, including myself, repeatedly over the years.


Self-employed people are generally in business for one of two reasons. They either love what they do or they’re in it to make all the money they can. The ones who focus on quality and service usually don’t put enough effort into profit. On the other side, the ones who focus on profit, do so while neglecting the quality and service.


Let’s look at some of the reasons for this problem.


In a Score Contracts blog post, “8 Reasons Why Small Businesses Are Not Making Money” they list eight reasons. Most of these you have heard or experienced, but some are worth repeating.


#2 – They don’t know what they’re doing. They are technicians or trades people trying to run a business. They need to have a business plan in place and use it.


#5 – Poor thinking. Most are hard workers but have poor thinking habits. They spend more time planning their meals, vacations and daily chores than they do their life.


#6 – Lack of education. Not formal schooling, rather self-motivated expansion of knowledge like reading, studying, courses, on the job training.


#8 – Self-doubt or fear. Most people quit before they even get started. They look at the options and then talk themselves out of even giving it a real try.

 


Here are some additional reasons that small businesses find it difficult to make money, found in a blog post “17 Truths About Running Your Own Business”. 


#1 – You can’t be everything to everyone. You need to decide what your priorities are, be selective and learn to say no to the things that aren’t.


 

#6 – Your business isn’t a piggy bank. You can’t just spend money on everything you want without a plan. You need to be sure to have money for taxes, equipment or building repairs, investments, etc.

 


#8 – You can’t do everything. You need help. You need a team and they need to be good. You need to know what that looks like and how to get them.


#10 – Your customers are your most important asset. Treat them as such.


#17 – You are your own most important client. You need to spend some time every day working on your business and not in your business. If you don’t take care of the business, it won’t last.

 


What are we going to do to make our business profitable while being true to our passion?


As is the case generally, everyone’s specific situation is different. The important thing is to listen, learn and apply information learned. If you learn new things and don’t use them, they’re worthless.


Application is the hard part.


Because we have struggled ourselves with finding a business system to fit our needs, we decided to develop a user-friendly business system that can be tailored to different business’s needs including training and implementation support.

 

 


It doesn’t have to be only passion or profit; IT CAN BE BOTH.


Here are some previous posts about some of our business system thoughts and struggles.


Building Your Business Is Critical to The Survival of The Business
Be Careful About Short Table Legs
What Does It Take to Be a Builder?
The First Next Thing to Building A Better Business

 

Share business struggles that you or someone you know has had in the comments below. This will be helpful to us as we design the system.

 

 

Who Should I Blame for Being Too Busy?

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Too Much to Do Is, “Self-Inflicted Pain”

 

I have too much to do and not enough time to do it.

We had all heard someone say this or said it ourselves and for sure we have all felt it. Just over the last few days there have been numerous times in a variety of situations that I have heard it.

One of the discussions about this had to do with someone who was self-employed. This person’s family couldn’t understand why they couldn’t do some additional things around the house. They had extra time because, after all, they were self-employed. Another conversation was with a business owner. They said they hoped they wouldn’t need to work on the upcoming Father’s Day, because they had already worked the last fourteen days. Then he said, “but if that’s what it takes, I guess I will”.

This struggle is nothing new. I would venture to say this has been a problem since Adam. Can you imagine how overwhelmed he felt when God brought all the animals of the earth to him and he named them all. (Genesis 2, 19-20)

I know this is SELF-INFLICTED. It’s 8:30 PM on a Friday evening as I’m writing this. It will still be another hour or two before I get this finished and posted.

WHY?

We all know that there is a fixed amount of time so why is it that we’re always over filling it? Even less ambitious and less driven people complain about not having enough time to do everything they want to.

This brawl we’re in, trying to do more and more and running out of time is internal. It is SELF-INFLICTED. If this is the case, then we are the only ones that can do anything about it.

The first thing that we must do is understand who’s responsible for this situation. Next, decide if we want things to change. If so, then we need to evaluate the things that are filling up that time and decide what to keep and what to eliminate. Then there’s the hard one…learning to SAY NO. Ouch, that’s gonna hurt.

There is something about self-driven people. They’re always over filling their time with more than they can get done. If we don’t want this battle to continue then we are going to have to start practicing some self-control, self-restraint and self-discipline.

We have the power within our-SELF to take control of this.

Here’s an acronym to help you remember that if the problem is SELF-INFLICTED you can find the Solution, be Empowered and Live Fully without being overwhelmed.

Solution

Empowered

Living

Fully