What are the difficulties and obstacles that you may face at the outset in the field of self-employment?

As we have noted on many occasions in our series of self-employment, you will not be completely comfortable, and self-employment is not an ideal recipe without flaws, but it comes with a distinctive and special set of problems that guide those who decide to rely on self-employment. Although the first period is of course the most difficult in various types of business, it is more difficult than usual in self-employment as you will need to make a double effort to succeed.

Of course there are no two self-employment experiences with the same set of obstacles or difficulties at all, where each experience is different from the other but there are some usual patterns that make the usual problems easier to identify, so here we will try to mention the most important problems that you may face in the field of self-employment, as We will give you tips that can help you solve these problems or at least minimize their impact.

Difficulty finding jobs initially to ensure a stable current of income

For the vast majority of people who start a business, finding customers and jobs at the beginning is usually the most difficult thing to do. Perhaps: get long-term or recurring jobs.

In the normal case, reliance on full self-employment is very difficult in the first period, as the work is usually intermittent, which is difficult to rely on as a primary source of income, so always the best idea is to start self-employment in addition to traditional work, even secondary For example, the first year so that traditional work is actually a safety valve.

Tips to avoid the problem

• If you have a steady job that you don’t give up completely before starting a business, try to keep it at least at first.
• Look for workgroups and groups for those working within your same industry on social media platforms . It’s a good place to find opportunities and learn as well.
• Use one of the major freelance platforms like Standalone, Fives or Upwork it makes finding customers easier (at least initially).

Exploitation by friends and acquaintances for free or unsatisfactory tasks

The field of self-employment is often different from the traditional because most entrepreneurs really like their work and love to do it as a hobby, even if it is not. As a result, it is common for those who do self-employment to be exploited by friends and relatives in the workplace. Payment for prior knowledge.

Of course it makes sense to offer some kind of minor discounts to friends and family if they ask for a task from you, but you should be very careful here, as exploitation is very common in fact, and it is common for some people to request free services or at a much cheaper price than logical relatives and acquaintances While a small discount does not hurt, the provision of free services, especially at the outset, may have a negative impact unless it has a hidden benefit such as publicity and reputation (though such things rarely have a clear and real impact).

Tips to avoid the problem

• Try to separate your work from your personal life as much as possible and explain to your friends and family that you are taking it as a career and not just a hobby.
• If someone has asked you for a task, be clear from the start that it is a business task and not an unpaid service to avoid disagreements later.
• You have the right to say no to the tasks that you think are not suitable for you, and although it may have a negative effect in terms of embarrassment at times, some sacrifices are necessary to be able to move forward.

Inability to meet bifurcated or unallocated requests

When you work in any field, it is always best to have some knowledge of the areas close to it that are usually associated with it. Although you can refuse to work on complex projects of course, it can be very annoying especially with most customers requesting general and completely unallocated requests.

For some veteran entrepreneurs it may be easy to let go of vague tasks, especially for those who already have a large number of customers so they can choose the projects they will work on as they like, but for starters it is difficult to avoid it and usually the best is to find a way to coexist With him.

Tips to avoid the problem

• If you are working through an intermediary or on a self-employed site, it is best to be clear about the tasks you can do to minimize the risk of error.
• Focusing on one area alone is good in terms of depth, but it is better to try to look at nearby areas and gain some experience in anticipation of their need later.
• It is always helpful to have a network of acquaintances and friendships with people who work in your field and nearby areas, as they may be a support for you to be able to carry out a project that is slightly larger than your expertise or bifurcates into another field nearby but you do not have experience in it.

Absence of time management, scheduling of work and non-compliance with the finish lines

In the vast majority of traditional work, time management is actually quite easy, as fixed work timings impose fixed sleep times, so it is easy to know when to work, when to rest, and when to do other leisure activities. But when it comes to self-employment, time management becomes a real nightmare for many, and the habit of leaving work until the last time before everything is pressed quickly is hardly the dominance of free workers.

Freelancers usually suffer from one of two main problems:

• Laziness and ease of dispersion leading to waste of time and no work exceeding any finish lines or at least the need to perform work quickly with the end of the time limit only.
• Excessive work becomes the sole and dominant activity in your life until you reach a full stress that reduces your productivity to a minimum and makes you desperately need a period of downtime to work properly afterwards.

Although the laziness and extravagance of work are exactly the same in terms of the amount of work done, they are similar because they have one reason: poor time management and inability to exercise restraint. Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet, but certain activities can help if you are unable to organize their time.

Tips to avoid the problem

• Set aside a place to work or find a space for shared work and stay as far as possible from working in the same place as you sleep or eat.
• For at least a temporary period, set strict times for work and leisure, hiking or other activities.
• Use task management and tracking apps, and take advantage of calendar apps to distribute your tasks over days in a balanced way that allows you to share a logical share of work without laxity or excessive stress.

The unit resulting from work alone is outside a participatory field

Unlike traditional work that involves a lot of communication with other people, whether directly or even simply within the same space, self-employment is often very lonely as no co-workers around you and even customers are often online. While the majority of those who start self-employment do so from their homes, suffering from loneliness is a very widespread symptom and a problem that many suffer throughout.

Of course there is no solution to simply get rid of loneliness, but there are at least some preventive methods that can ease your loneliness and minimize the damage of staying away from human communication for long periods of time.

Tips to avoid the problem

• Look for regular opportunities to meet friends and relatives, and try to make these encounters outdoors as much as possible.
• Find work places suitable for self-employment so that you are in a group and meet new people as much as possible.
• Look for social networking opportunities such as sports or cultural clubs or engage in volunteer activities that help others and allow you to socialize.

Need to learn to deal with your customers correctly and set clear boundaries for business

In case you intend to start a business, there is in fact a major obstacle that is more important than experience in the field that you want sometimes, namely the relationship with customers and communication with them. Although you may have excellent experience, competitive prices and better tasks than anyone else, you will not really be able to progress without knowing how to deal with your customers and distinguish between their different types and types. Futuristic.

In traditional business areas, clients are usually dealt with completely independently of the business itself, where there are usually special customer service departments that distribute tasks to other employees. But in self-employment you must be everything, you are the manager, the worker, the sales person and everything else together, and in many cases this is harder than you think.

Tips to avoid the problem

• Keep your relationship with your clients as professional as possible, setting clear boundaries between you and them in the business so that no personal relationships ruin the business relationship.
• Respond to inquiries and requests clearly and explicitly, and when you need more information, ask for them and make sure that you are doing as required to avoid disputes in the future.
• Set specific times when you respond to customers and let you specify when to respond to avoid receiving calls or messages at inappropriate times. Be clear that you only respond to communication within pre-determined times according to your convenience.
• The best way to distinguish a good customer from bad is the details. The more you know exactly what you want, the better it is for you and the easier it is to work, but at the same time avoid customers who want to monitor every move for you and relate to unimportant details.

Difficulty getting good assessments at first

In case you, like the vast majority of freelancers, will need to use one of the self-employment platforms at first, and although these platforms are usually very useful to find new projects and get more jobs and even ensure access to dues, it suffers from a class hierarchy where the oldest and most Experience on the site has the advantage, and more recent will suffer more to get a job even if he has a great experience but on another platform.

Although freelancers have a relatively good system of ranking independents, it depends entirely on the number of your previous projects on the platform and your average rating by customers means that the first step in business is always the hardest. For you as a new freelancer on a site, the first half of your career will be harder because you need to build a completed project portfolio (on the platform) that convinces your customers as well as get high ratings.And customers looking for these things usually get first projects usually involves some material loss.

Tips to avoid the problem

• Make sure that your information is complete and clear on your accounts in self-employment platforms, and add all the qualifications and previous experience to encourage customers to use you.
• Sacrificing a reduction in the price of your services may be necessary at the outset to be able to gather good evaluations and projects implemented on the platform in a large and sufficient number.
• If you find yourself in a project that you cannot complete or if you realize that it is too late, contact the customer and apologize for not being able to continue. Keep in mind that a bad rating hurts you a lot more than not having it at all.

Difficulty in obtaining wages stable and without complications and difficulties

In the field of self-employment you do not have an employer who pays you directly or smoothly, but you usually have a number of local and international customers and several different self-employment platforms with different payment options and timings for each, and if you are not well organized and know when to order Your dues and how they can be sent to you can get complicated quickly and lead to the loss or delay of some payments for a long time.

This problem is facing independents anywhere in the world, but it is more pronounced in the world, where most countries lack e-payment services, or they restrict foreign remittances smoothly. As a result, there are many freelancers who rely on intermediaries for remittances, but these intermediaries are usually excessive and may take a large part of your entitlements as commission.

Tips to avoid the problem

• Before you start a project, make sure you know which payment method to follow, and that you can receive payments in this way.
• Ask your friends or rely on local independent working groups in your country to find out the best ways to receive money from abroad, as there are always ways to allow you to receive benefits even if they are not available by default.
• Organize your expected dues into a schedule and always update them, as many independents can forget to organize their bills and thus waste their hard-working dues.