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Thanks to fellow S&S reader, Amelia, for today’s post. Before you go into business for yourself, make sure you know about some of the negatives and how to handle them.

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3 Unfortunate Inevitabilities Of Going Into Business For Yourself

So, you’re getting sick of your job? You’re finding it harder and harder to make ends meet in an era of corporate wage repression where businesses deliberately keep their employees’ pay low to insulate their profit margins. You’re sick of working long hours for no pay for your efforts to be taken for granted at best and ignored at worst by your management. You’re frustrated with feeling under stimulated, underappreciated and overworked. You feel as though your skills and even your personality are starting to waste away.

You think now may just be the time to throw in the towel and take the plunge to go into business for yourself. Maybe you’ve already started to run your business as a side hustle alongside your day job. This is commendable, but it’s nonetheless important to take those first steps down the path of entrepreneurship with your eyes wide open.

You may find fulfillment and you may find your fortune but you will likely also experience these unfortunate inevitabilities…

Money management will become more important than ever

When you work for the man, one of the consolations is having a set income to live on. You know that even on bad days you’ll still get a living wage, not to mention perks like sick pay and paid vacation. Needless to say, when you run your own business, these will become a distant memory.

As the CEO of your business, you will have to pay yourself a salary, and that salary may well be less than you were earning in your old job. Until your business is well and truly established and turning consistent profits, you won’t be able to pay yourself what you’re worth. And that means your money management will become more important than ever.

Your business will likely be involved in litigation

Nobody wants to think about the prospect of someone taking legal action against your business… but if you remain in business long enough, it’s only a matter of time before someone does. Whether it’s a vengeful customer or an embittered employee it’s essential that you protect yourself and your business from litigation. This will involve keeping a legal specialist with experience in business litigation such as www.WeisblattLaw.com/business-litigation/ on speed dial to protect your business interests. You will also need to be well insured to ensure that your legal costs are protected.

It may take years before you turn a profit… And that’s okay!

This isn’t to say that you’ll never be able to make a living doing what you love or that you’ll never again be able to afford the quotidian luxuries in life. But it does mean that you need to be realistic with yourself in terms of when your business will be able to break even, pay off its debts, and start to turn a reasonable profit. Businesses require significant startup funding in order to get off the ground and it simply makes sense that this would take time to pay off and that the repayments will eat into your margin.

But if you persevere and stick the landing, you’ll have the rest of your professional life to reap the benefits.