The Self-Employment Survival Guide: Proven Strategies to Succeed as Your Own Boss

by Jeanne Yocum

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Author: Jeanne Yocum

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 1538108712
ISBN 13: 978-1538108710

Anyone who opts for self-employment quickly learns that succeeding as your own boss is no walk in the park. While professional freedom has many, many joys, it also involves significant risks. If you’re considering self-employment, or you’re already self-employed, The Self-Employment Survival Guide: Proven Strategies to Succeed as Your Own Boss alerts you to the challenges involved and provides proven strategies for surmounting these obstacles and succeeding. You’ll also learn what you need to put in place before taking the leap to being your own boss to help assure your success.

Working for yourself offers personal freedoms and rewards, but the road can curve or travel uphill at times. Here, Jeanne Yocum shares eight key behaviors that impede success and provides proven solutions for the various obstacles that might cross your path, including unreasonable client demands, slow payers, unexpected client defections, daily schedules, health and financial planning, and the feelings of isolation that can sometimes accompany working on your own.

Unlike many books that provide only a rose-colored view of self-employment, this book gives a full, realistic view of what being your own boss is actually like. By learning about the ups and downs that come with being in charge of your own livelihood, you will be better able to handle the demands of self-employment and succeed on your own terms.

Review

Yocum’s guide is practical, intuitive, and based on her decades of experience as a solopreneur, a selfemployed professional. She has been there, seen it, done that. A PR expert and ghostwriter-coauthor of other business books, she lays bare the inner and outer souls of those 10-plus million people working for themselves, with good insights and remedies to solve almost any issue. Short chapters focused on one singular aspect of the business—selling, time management, continual learning—describe the situation, then provide coping strategies, while other voices chime in from sidebars to confirm the solution. One example that plagues many self-workers: fluctuating workloads. As Yocum admits, it’s either too heavy or too light—and never just right. Sound familiar? No remedies here. Instead, she advises: “What you need to focus on during slow times is not painting the spare bedroom but rather new business activities that will bring in more work.” Misery might love company; then again, company prefers success. (Booklist)

PR consultant and ghostwriter Yocum (coauthor of New Product Launch) offers straightforward advice and coping strategies in this helpful guide to self-employment. It’s the right choice for many, she writes: in 2015, 15 million Americans were self-employed. It’s also a choice to make with “eyes wide open,” and Yocum begins by sharing challenges she faced and straightforward suggestions for dealing with them. Throughout, Yocum’s guidance is simple but useful: “discipline is required,” “set expectations with clients,” and “be willing to listen.” Yocum addresses financial matters, from tips for adequate preparation when starting out to getting the inevitable “deadbeat clients” to pay up. Readers will be most eagerly interested in the section on retirement, but it unfortunately lacks substance. Still, Yocum doesn’t shy away from exposing some of the challenges of self-employment—paying for health insurance, avoiding burnout, and dodging common behavioral traps such as perfectionism and “clinging to your comfort zone.” Salaried employees wondering about taking the leap and becoming their own bosses will find answers to many of their questions, and plenty of encouragement, in this well-written primer.
(Publishers Weekly)

The Self-Employment Survival Guide offers practical step-by-step advice on how to become one’s own boss and how to build a successful business. . . . Highly recommended and fills a need for students or employees considering a future of being self-employed. It is especially recommended to public library collections. (American Reference Books Annual)

The Self-Employment Survival Guide is a needed and vibrant new resource for anyone who wants to not only survive, but thrive in the gig economy. It’s a must-read for students, solopreneurs, and people age 50+ who are embarking on an entrepreneurial path of self-employment. (Rebecca A. Corbin Ed.D, President & CEO, National Association for Community College Entrepeneurship (NACCE))

Working with entrepreneurs is not an easy task. They tend to have their own way of thinking and are generally, very passionate about their venture. The Self-Employment Survival Guide by Jeanne Yocum helps to address many issues a beginning entrepreneur might have and maybe some they had not thought of yet. She has her own distinct perspective on starting, growing and maintaining a business based off her experiences in the entrepreneurial world. Her words of wisdom along with personal examples help paint a vivid picture of success for any entrepreneur. It is especially nice to see the advice is not all business related. Jeanne helps entrepreneurs understand the impact a business can have on entrepreneur’s life. (Tim Mittan, Entrepeneur Advocate & Business Coach; Author of The Pocket Business Coach)

Although one in ten Americans is self-employed, there is little practical support available this significant portion of our workforce. The work that many have done to help entrepreneurs certainly overlaps somewhat with the challenges facing the self-employed. However, there are unique issues that set the self-employed clearly apart from entrepreneurs. In The Self-Employment Survival Guide, Jeanne Yocum offers advice ranging from managing yourself, to managing your clients, to managing your workload, to managing your finances. Although self-employment may seem simple to those on the outside, there are many speedbumps, roadblocks and landmines that can cause the self-employed to stumble or even fail in their effort to make a living. This book serves as a resource that will greatly enhance the chances of success for the self-employed professional. (Jeff Cornwall, Professor and Jack C. Massey Chair of Entrepeneurship, Belmont University)

The Self-Employment Survival Guide by Jeanne Yocum is a refreshingly straightforward, candid book designed to empower and inform anyone interested in starting their own business. Jeanne is a fantastic storyteller, with a genuine voice and insight based on experience. The book is nicely organized into sections that move the reader through understanding what it really means to become your own boss to managing and overcoming challenges along the startup pathway. Jeanne illustrates the key concepts presented with tales from her own entrepreneurial journey and the reader gets to know her, business warts and all.
Each chapter includes ‘Other Voices’ that share stories from a variety of entrepreneurial ventures, each highlighting their own experience. These diverse outlooks add tremendous value and unique insights. What is evident throughout the book is a genuine desire to help guide nascent entrepreneurs through sharing lessons learned and providing time saving and challenge avoidance tips.
I loved the advice for new entrepreneurs to conduct business honestly, value themselves and their time properly from the start and to have not only a plan, but systems in place to build success. I also found the very specific examples of “here’s what can happen” and “here’s what to do when it does” to be invaluable. This is what really makes this book a survival guide.
The Self-Employment Survival Guide is jam packed with tips, shortcuts, down-to-earth practical advice and wonderful stories that will inspire you as you undertake your new venture. It should be on everyone’s “must read” startup book list. (Diane Sabato, professor, business administration, Springfield Technical Community College)

About the Author

Jeanne Yocum has been self-employed as a public relations consultant and ghostwriter since 1989. She is the co-author of New Product Launch: 10 Proven Strategies and Ban the Humorous Bazooka and Other Roadblocks and Speed Bumps Along the Innovation Highway. She has also ghostwritten six other business books. Her blog, www.succeedinginsmallbusiness, provides advice for small business owners. She blogs regularly onUpworthy https://upjourney.com/author/jeanne-yocum on self-employment topics. Jeanne Yocum lives in Durham, NC, with her husband, Robert Ickrath, and a puggle named Molly.

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The Self-Employment Survival Guide: Proven Strategies to Succeed as Your Own Boss