The Newly self-employed tend to make many mistakes.

Here are 10 stupid mistakes that are often made be newly self-employed people.

Don't make the same mistakes.

10. Laziness

Being self-employed will usually allow you to make your own schedule. If you have a Dentist appointment then you can be sure that you will be able to make it and not have to worry about your work schedule. The problem with many newly self-employed people is that they may decide to lounge on the couch watching Television instead of actually working. You need to get into the habit of actually working hard. If you struggle with this then it may help to pretend that you have a boss and imagine what he would tell you to do.

9. Distractions

When you work for yourself it is easy to get distracted. Instead of actually working you spend your day on Facebook, checking your email, playing Angry Birds, and reading Wikipedia articles. You need to force yourself to work and eliminate as many distractions as you can. It is vital that you prioritize the work you need to do in order to make a profit.

8. No Business Plan or Mission Statement

You need a business plan, or at least a mission statement. Regardless of how small your business is a business plan and a mission statement will help you to keep you business on track. We can often get distracted and focus on aspects of the daily grind that in reality have no bearing on our business. Expand you customer base, but keep a watchful eye on your business plan to ensure you do not shy away from your core business. Business Plans can however need to be re-written and changed around in some cases. Only you know what is best for you self-employment, however you do need to have at least a mission statement you can refer to and also get inspired from.

7. No Work Area Away From the Family

If you work from home it is easy to get distracted by your spouse and children. It is imperative that you set up a work area or office that is dedicated solely for your work. When you are working your friends and family need to understand that they should not ever disturb you unless it is an emergency. It is hard to work when every 5 minutes you kids come in and need something from you. If you worked cooking burgers at McDonald’s your family wouldn’t be coming back into the kitchen area every few minutes, so they should not do it if you work for yourself, regardless of whether you work from home or in a location somewhere else.

6. Hating Your Business

If you are self-employed then it is going to be important as to if you enjoy your niche or not. If you hate carpet, hate manual labor, and hate chemical smells then you will hate yourself if you open up a carpet cleaning business. If you love your job then you will be more apt to work hard and still be able to enjoy yourself while you work.

5. Selling to Friends and Family

If you start a business where you will be direct selling to customers, then you need to have a potential customer base that does not include your friends and family. If you start of by hounding your family to buy your products they will begin to avoid you and hate your business. If on the other hand you begin to sell your quality product to customers, your friends and family will also be more apt to buy products from you. If your friends and family ask you to buy your product without you trying to “hard sell” your products to them, then they are much more likely to use positive word of mouth to spread your products to even more customers. Positive word of mouth is one of the most valuable and effective ways of getting free advertising for your business.

4. Not Advertising

Many new business owners will not advertise in order to conserve their cash flow. Although saving money and not wasting it is vital, you still have to advertise. How can customers find you if you do hot advertise? Make sure you also advertise in a venue and method that will work for your business.  If you build webpage’s for local bars, then you obviously do not need to Advertise during the Super Bowl. Craigslist works for many businesses and it is free, however you may find that you get more results by paid advertising such as in your local newspaper.

3. High Rent Office

If you are a new tech company that consists of only a few employees, then there is no need to rent extremely high-priced office space in Downtown San Francisco. You can open up you office in an area where the rent is cheap. You are not a retail store so you do not have to have prime space. You simply need a working space and by saving money you will give yourself better odds of succeeding by not being undercapitalized.

2. Quit After Failing

Most successful business owners have had multiple failures in the business world before they became successful. Instead of looking at a business failure as a loss, you should instead be looking at failure as a learning experience and then move on to your next business and you will have much better odds of succeeding. If you fail working for yourself then you should not quit. You may have to go work for someone else for awhile, but never give up on working for yourself. You need to have not only a good idea for a business, but also the confidence to know that it truly can work.

1. Under-Funded

If you are under-funded then the odds of your business failing will skyrocket. If you cannot afford to buy advertising, then your business may not get any customers. If you cannot afford to upgrade your web server when you website becomes more popular than your business may fail because the website will crash and that will lead to no customers and no sales. It is extremely important that you have enough capital to keep your business running smoothly.

If you plan on quitting your job and simply working from home as a 1 man operation it is still important that you have some money in the bank saved up. If you are stressing about how to pay your monthly bills then your odds of having a successful career as a self-employed person will collapse.

source: infobarrel.com

What to consider when writing a resume

A résumé is a document for you to present your career background and professional skills. It is often spelt as “resume” and sometimes also known as a curriculum vitae (CV) in common parlance (though there is technically a slight difference in some countries). The purpose of the resume is to land an interview (and the purpose of the interview is to land the job). What are some of the things you should consider when writing a resume? Here are 7 quick tips:

1) Present your most relevant experience, skills or education first in your resume.

Presenting what is most relevant to the potential employer helps them to see upfront what you can bring to the table, so that there is a higher chance they will continue to read your resume. For example, if you are switching fields from an engineering background to a finance field, the most recent finance-related experience or education (e.g. an MBA or CFA) should be presented first.

2) Tailor your resume to each employer
While tailoring your resume to each employer is time-consuming, it is beneficial as it helps you to target each employer specifically. If you do not think this is practical all the time, you could tailor your resume for those high priority jobs that you really want, and send a more general one for the other jobs. You could also prepare one resume for each category of jobs, for example one for Sales and another for Marketing.
3) Use a Clean Design for your resume
Using a clean design helps the potential employer read and scan the resume quickly, so that he is not distracted by any jarring elements. Do not clutter your resume with unnecessary design elements (such as cute-looking bullets) and use lines or headers appropriately to separate the sections of your resume.
4) Use Action Words or Power Words in your role descriptions
In the description of each role, you should use action words or power words to more fully describe what you did at the role. For example, instead of saying “Involved in restructuring exercise”, you should say “Restructured company operations”.
5) Quantify your Achievements
When listing your achievements, where practicable, you should use numbers to quantify them. For example, instead of saying “Led restructuring exercise to cut costs”, you can say “Restructured company operations to cut costs by $5million”.
6) Drop the Objective Statement in the resume
Many resume templates or guides advise people to include at the beginning of the resume an objective statement, for example “Objective: To secure a Human Resources management position at a leading firm”. However, there is no good reason to include the objective statement on the resume, as the recruiting manager on the other end will usually not care too much about what your objective is, but rather how your skills or background can match the role they are trying to fill. If you decide to include it, the objective could be better covered in the cover letter.
7) Proofread and proofread again
This is very important as any mistake, large or small, spelling or grammar or formatting, will leave the potential employer with the impression that you are not meticulous or detail-oriented. This can kill your chances quite quickly. Hence, you should proofread a few times to ensure that there are no mistakes.




SOURCE: infobarrel.com

5. The waitress who got fired because she shaved her hair for charity

Stacey Fearnall, whose father died of cancer, decided to shave her head for a cancer fundraising event. But when she returned to work at Nathaniels restaurant, where she worked as a waiter, she was laid off. The mother of two was told by her boss to go home after she refused to wear a wig. Nathaniels owner and chef Dan Hilliard defended his decision, saying the restaurant has certain standards. He prohibits male staff from wearing earrings and requires employees to keep their hair at a reasonable length. The 36-year-old waitress at Nathaniels restaurant in Owen Sound, Ont., had raised more than $2,700 for the charity Cops for Cancer in exchange for her locks.

4. The woman who was fired for updating her Facebook status

How many times have you updated your Facebook status to say “…is boring at work?” Probably at least once, though statistically that number averages at 3.4 times a week. But can you imagine getting fired for it? Because that’s what happened to Briton teen, Kimberly Swann. She was summarily sacked after her boss learned — via her updated status — that she was “bored at work.” Her boss, meanwhile, says Swann’s admission of boredom revealed that “she just wasn’t happy here” and thus “it wasn’t going to work out.” The question is, why was the boss perusing Facebook on company time? Was he, perhaps, a little bored?

3. The woman who was fired for sending emails in all caps

An Auckland accountant was sacked for sending “confrontational” emails with words in red, in bold and in capital letters. Vicki Walker, who was a financial controller with ProCare Health, was later awarded $17,000 for unfair dismissal, and plans to lodge an appeal for further compensation. ProCare told the authorities Walker – who was fired in December 2007 after two years of employment – had caused disharmony in the workplace by using block capitals, bold typeface and red text in her emails. She had also acted provocatively in seeking to view complaints laid against her by colleagues. But Walker said they talked about a number of emails she had sent, yet used only one in evidence. The email, which advises her team how to fill out staff claim forms, specifies a time and date highlighted in bold red, and a sentence written in capitals and highlighted in bold blue. It reads: “To ensure your staff claim is processed and paid, please do follow the below checklist.”

2. The woman who was fired from McDonald’s because she added a slice of cheese to a hamburger

A waitress was fired after she sold a hamburger to a co-worker who asked for cheese, which she added. The fast-food chain argued this turned the hamburger into a cheeseburger, and so she should have charged more. McDonald’s was ordered to pay the former employee more than 4,200 euros ($5,900; £3,660) for the last five months of her contract. The fast-food chain had argued that the waitress – who was employed at a branch in the northern town of Lemmer – had broken staff rules prohibiting free gifts to family, friends or colleagues. (Link | Via)

1. The Vodafone employee who was fired over a Tweet to T-Mobile

Companies are clearly beginning to take their Twitter communication channel a little more seriously. For one Vodafone Hungary employee, Müller Tamás, this fact has left him unemployed. It all began when T-Mobile had issues with its mobile network in Hungary. The Vodafone competitor was having trouble connecting phone calls and to keep its customers informed, decided to use Twitter. The first tweet said: “Hungary´s T-Mobile network partly down, software to blame”; then another to calm some presumably furious customers saying:

“There will be an official statement (released) about the network problem. Please be patient!”

Tamas, as a member of Vodafone’s marketing staff responsible for the carrier’s Twitter messages, decided it would funny to retweet T-Mobiles tweet with a dash of humor to send it on its way. The tweet said: “OK, give us a ring! RT @tmobilehungary There will be an official statement (released) about the network problem. Please be patient!” Needless to say, Vodafone were not best pleased and quick to issue a statement of their own saying that Vodafone had nothing to do with this reply but it would gladly lend a helping hand to T-Mobile to fix its problem. Vodafone didn’t leave it there either, the company announced that the Twitterer acted without authorization and the remark was inappropriate.