You’ve probably heard some of these:

• Put your money where your mouth is


• Eat your own dogfood


• Sip your own champagne

Chutzpah, redefined: LifeLock

The CEO put his social security number up there on his front page. In a headline. For a company selling identify theft protection, that’s a powerful statement. It says he believes so strongly in his product – not just in selling the product, but in the product itself – that he’s willing to put himself on the line to prove it. He’s putting himself way out there.

Add to the list of maxims: “Set yourself on fire”

LifeLock’s CEO reminds me of the story of Bill Simpson, former CEO of Nomex. His companied invested a fire retardant suit. To demonstrate its effectiveness and quality, he donned one of the suits himself and lit himself on fire. He was engulfed in flame for 25 seconds before being extinguished. He was completely unharmed. (link)

This is part seven of a series exploring factors in self-employment and traditional employment. For more about this series, read the opening article.

Challenges

How difficult your work is and your influence over it

Conclusions

I consider “challenging” to be a good thing. Entrepreneurs have to be open to new challenges and difficult work – that’s a lot of what self-employment involves. A regular job can also provide challenges, but if your particular situation doesn’t lend itself to that, you will find yourself frustrated and bored. And as any 1st grade teacher can tell you, bored kids are not happy, productive kids.

Winner: Self-Employment

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This is part six of a series exploring factors in self-employment and traditional employment. For more about this series, read the opening article.

Independence

Your freedom in what you do and how you do it

Conclusions

If you’re an independent contractor, it’s pretty obvious who wins the independence battle. But for small businesses in a more traditional sense, independence is challenged by resources and circumstances. However, many (too many) businesses seek stability and fear risky changes. Stability is just another word for inertia. Big businesses are particularly concerned about this. But as Seth Godin says, “safe is risky.” Adapting to change is one of the smartest things a business can do, and small businesses have a major advantage. With little history and low impact on the organization, changing on the fly isn’t a calculated decision for most small enterprises – it’s what they do.

Winner: Self-Employment

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This is part five of a series exploring factors in self-employment and traditional employment. For more about this series, read the opening article.

Career Potential

What the future could hold for you in terms of work

Conclusions

If you want to change what you do or how you work, self-employment gives you the freedom to make those choices. Self-employment also has the wonderful benefit of providing experiences well outside of the normal candidate. That’s a major advantage. Working for someone else gives you access to a lot of resources – people, funds, and experiences – but many of those are available in your own business.

Winner: Self-Employment

This is part four of a series exploring factors in self-employment and traditional employment. For more about this series, read the opening article.

Stress

How stressful the position is

Conclusions

Working for yourself is very satisfying. As stressful and demanding as self-employment may be, your freedom and the reward of a victory are enough to temper the stress. They keep you going, even when business is tough. But a regular job is stressful all the time – and you rarely have the freedom and flexibility to adjust to your own personal work habits. On a Friday afternoon when you’re just not productive, being able to start the weekend early is a huge perk.

Winner: Self-Employment

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I’ve been reading a lot about marketing for non-profits, as one of my major involvements right now is helping Camp Fire USA and Camp Tannadoonah (the summer camp where my wife serves as camp director). I caught this excellent piece:

From Marketing for Charitable Nonprofit Organizations at archrespite.org:

“Here is where many organizations make a serious mistake. They fail to recognize who the potential donor represents. That donor really is paying the bill on behalf of the indigent hospital patient. Yet, when the hospital approaches a foundation, corporation, or individual donor for contributions, it usually couches its request in terms of money for the hospital, not the indigent patient.”

This applies to normal marketing. People don’t want to hear about how their purchase will help your company. They want to hear stories about how it will help them. Benefactors don’t care about your organization, they care about the people who benefit from your organization. Tell them stories – and give them an action that they can use to buy into those stories.

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This is part three of a series exploring factors in self-employment and traditional employment. For more about this series, read the opening article.

Benefits

What kind of non-financial compensation you receive

Conclusions

As we’ve discussed before, startup mode usually means low budget. An excellent 401k package may be in your future, but most small businesses simply can’t offer the kind of competitive packages that larger companies can. It isn’t impossible, but it’s something where financially stable companies have an advantage. More recently, co-op plans and HSAs have opened the door for small companies to provide some of these benefits.

Winner: Traditional Employment

This is part two of a series exploring factors in self-employment and traditional employment. For more about this series, read the opening article.

Money

How much financial compensation you receive

Conclusions

Working for yourself can pay a lot more than working in a traditional setting. If you can meet your bare minimum – what you absolutely need to maintain your lifestyle – you’ll find a lot more satisfaction in your pay. Meanwhile, arguing with your employer about how much you should be making or constantly looking for a new job that pays better is stressful and distracting. Put another way, is there any way your job can make you rich?

Winner: Self-Employment

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