Welcome to TheOhioOutdoors
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Login or sign up today!
Login / Join

Self Employment

giblet

Junior Member
41
9
I think most people, like myself, go through the majority of the year half asleep. By that, I mean you have a daily schedule that you stick to day in and day out never giving much thought to the broader picture and how that all fits into what you really wanted to do.

However, usually about once a year, typically around New Year, I find myself thinking there just has to be a better way than making money for the man. Now don’t get me wrong, I truly am thankful to have a job in this day and age but it’s a cutthroat world and I couldn’t tell you how many people I’ve seen get the rug ripped out from underneath them unexpectedly over the years for no good reason. In this what have you done for me lately world, yesterday counts for nothing. So you couple this lack of loyalty, busting your ass with no certainty for the future and then asking “mother may I” every time you want to get a couple days off for hunting or do something you enjoy and well……it gets a guy wondering what the hell he could be doing differently if anything.

Now, I also know self employment is no cake walk. Probably twice the hours in some instances and you definitely will be taking your job home with you. But this isn’t about that……its not the work. Its about controlling your own destiny, working on what you think is important each day and building something for the future.

Anybody else ever get to thinking about this? If you could start a business tomorrow, would you do it? Why or why not?

For any of you guys already self employed, whats it like? Are you happy? What would you do differently if you could?
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
Since getting laid off on November 17th for reasons solely tied to politics (in conjunction with a down turn in the energy market) I have thought about this over and over. If raising capital wasn't an issue, I would start a business ASAP. The only thing that keeps me from doing it is in order to succeed, I'd need to work 70-80 hours a week and I'm not that kind of guy. I don't mind hard work, but I work hard to play hard. My dad is a live to work kind of guy and I see his regret now that he's nearing retirement. Me, I'm a work to live kind of guy and it's hard to do that when you are a sole proprietor.

Great thread BTW!
 

Joel

Senior Member
3,049
113
Centerburg, Ohio
Just now starting year 4 of being self employed. I'm not sure I could recommend this venture to anyone with a straight face. However, the thought of working for someone else 9-5 makes me want to keep trying and make it work.

Best advice I can give is try to have another source of income while you get started and understand that most small businesses fail. If it were easy everyone would do it.
 

Jamie

Senior Member
5,690
177
Ohio
I've been self-employed for 23 years. I could write a book about the pros and cons, but at the end of the day, I am my own master, and that works best for me. I don't ever have to kiss anyones ass or suck dick to advance my "career" or beg for vacation time in November. the hours aren't always good, the money isn't fabulous, my body hurts, I get filthy dirty sometimes, and I get stressed out. being the boss isn't all that it's cracked up to be, but I get to live my life how I see fit most of the time. the best part of being self-employed (if you can hack it) is freedom. real freedom, not the illusory kind you get from having a high paying job that takes up 90% of your life until you retire. I've been pretty fortunate. it isn't easy to succeed at operating a legitimate business within a system that is designed to make you fail.
 

brock ratcliff

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
24,834
247
I agree with Jamie!

Getting a business started and making it a success is not an easy thing to do. Personally, I worked 60 hours a week at my regular job while starting and running our little pizza joint on the side. Fortunately, I was able to do it because I found myself working at night for a "regular" job. If things had not changed there, I'd still be doing it. I found myself having 16 hour nights on a regular basis, and it just became a bit much to handle. In hindsight, I've never regretted leaving the security of employment. I do wish I did not have to pay out of pocket for our family's insurance... aside from that, I hope I never have to "work" again.

If you have something you want to try, just do it. You WILL drop dead one day. Do it with no, "I wonder if's".
 

CJD3

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
14,630
201
NE Ohio
Been there. Done that.

IF you just looking for a way to "make more money" put the thought out of your head now. The hours are usually at least 1 1/2 times that of a W2 job. It's a sacrifice to your family so they better be very understanding. You will usually be the first in and last to leave AND the last one to get paid...

BUT,
As they say, "find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
I spent just over 25 years self employed. I have never worked harder and never had greater self satisfaction. The reward (for me at least) of personally building a business is not the money. That's a secondary benefit. There were good years where I brought home some big chunks but also some lean years where I barely got by.
I'll stop there. Those of you that are self employed like Brock, Charles, Sam and Phil (among others) already know the arena I refer to. You have to believe in it.

If you believe you can provide for your self and your family you should try. Providing a service or product and doing it better than any of your competition and taking away their market share is exciting. Study the competition. Figure out where you can meet and exceed them. Know your demographics. Target them.

The saddest thing would be to be old and gray one day and sit there saying "I wish I had tried that"
 

jagermeister

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
18,060
223
Ohio
Great input already. Jamie really nailed it especially. I'm rolling into year four of being self employed and I really enjoy it... usually. The freedom to work your own hours and be your own boss is very nice. But, BUT, being your own boss also means being on top of things... making sure invoices go out, checks are coming in, supplies are being purchased, calls are answered, emails are fired back, etc etc etc etc. For me personally, I find these "administrative" type of tasks to be the most difficult and most stressful. It is a lot of work, both physical and mental, to keep your business running in the right direction. If you can do that, though, you're really increasing your odds of being successful. I believe that's a big part of why so many small businesses fail. Because they really can't keep their shit together. The work itself is one thing but being disorganized, hard to deal with, and a poor communicator will push you under, no matter how good your product is.

I actually have a "9-5" full time job already. I started my own business simply to supplement our household income. The first couple years my business was okay but it was just that... supplemental. The past 12 months have really given me a challenge, though. Business is booming and at this current rate I could consider transitioning over to self-employment alone. But like Brock mentioned, insurance and benefits are incredibly expensive when you're fronting the whole bill yourself. That's a huge reason why I likely won't ever go for the full monte in self employment.

I think we can all give you a lot of good advice on this matter but really deep down you're the one that knows whether you should take the leap or not. I believe some people just have an extraordinarily high level of ambition inside them. They always have that fire that makes them want to try new things, to outwork anyone else, to be successful no matter what it is they're doing. If that's you, I think you have what it takes to run your own business and do it successfully. It really IS a lot of work and sometimes the stress is daunting, but I can tell you (and I'm sure others here can to) putting money in the bank that YOU worked hard for through YOUR own efforts and YOUR own ideas and YOUR own goals is just about as rewarding as it could possibly get. For me at least, my level of pride in my work far exceeds even the best performance I've mustered at my nine-to-fiver.
 

CJD3

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
14,630
201
NE Ohio
Good point ^

I had forgotten ho much I hated the 1/4ly tax's and "administrative" side. :smiley_depressive:
It got in the way of the "fun stuff"...
 

Beentown

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
15,740
154
Sunbury, OH
Jamie nailed it. 8 years here.

My transition was extremely hairy (my wife and I were both let go within 2 weeks of each other after 13 and 7 years with the same companies, respectively).

Best thing to ever happen to us in the working world. I wouldn't change unless we had TOO.
 

hickslawns

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
39,720
248
Ohio
Lots of good stuff posted already.

the hours aren't always good, the money isn't fabulous, my body hurts, I get filthy dirty sometimes, and I get stressed out. being the boss isn't all that it's cracked up to be, but I get to live my life how I see fit most of the time.
I've been pretty fortunate. it isn't easy to succeed at operating a legitimate business within a system that is designed to make you fail.

Very accurate. If you run a legit business, the cards are stacked against you. Nothing easy about it.

IF you just looking for a way to "make more money" put the thought out of your head now. The hours are usually at least 1 1/2 times that of a W2 job. It's a sacrifice to your family so they better be very understanding. You will usually be the first in and last to leave AND the last one to get paid...
I have never worked harder and never had greater self satisfaction. The reward (for me at least) of personally building a business is not the money. That's a secondary benefit.

Also very accurate.

I was very fortunate. Many things fell in place for me in order to allow me to survive. No mortgage. Part time job with insurance. No wife or kids. Plenty of drive. If it weren't for these factors, I would have never made it. I worked ridiculous hours and attended the school of hard knocks daily when I started. Then I bought a house a few years after starting the business. Shortly after I got married. My wife has always held a job with benefits which helps immensely. Like Brock, I hope I never have to "work" again. I have been off the "employee" leash for 18yrs. It would be real tough to be chained up again to an employer. I would likely be fired within a couple weeks.

We have a bunch of guys with various self employment backgrounds on TOO. What would you like to do? Maybe one of us could fill you in on specifics to that industry.

There is NO such thing as a get rich quick business. Breakout stars in the music industry? Likely been playing 10-15yrs prior to "breaking out". Same goes for most small businesses. You might start getting noticed and people think you are new. Then you tell them you have been around the last 10years. haha. I think many businesses fail because people think they are going to start out making ridiculous amounts of money. When they realize it doesn't work this way, they are done. Others fail because they start out great, begin pulling in some revenue, and fail to realize they don't get to keep it all/spend it all. Often times a business is nothing more than a holding tank for money. When you have it. . . You can't touch it. Each business is different, but many owners make the same mistakes which cause them to fail. Financial discipline is critical. Or a wife or book keeper or someone who doesn't let you touch the money helps IF you do not have this self discipline.

Man I could go on and on and on. Good luck to you!
 

giles

Cull buck specialist
Supporting Member
I owned my own little tiny buy/sell/trade military store for 4 years. I took a very small company and made it really into something. I have 3 kids and made it home about half the nights to eat dinner with them and put them to bed, then I was back at the shop... It really took away from my family the more it took off. It was soon something I couldn't do on my own anymore and I needed to hire some employees to help me out. This added an entire new stress to an already stressful situation. I was now a babysitter on top of owning a business.

After year 3 I found myself no longer living in my own house and renting a room for myself to catch a nap. I was down to 135 lbs and people thought I was sick. Turns out I was sick with skin cancer...I fought myself through that all by myself. Didn't even tell my wife (which I was no longer living with) or any family. This was NOT where I wanted to be in life...

So at the end of year 4 I had enough money in the bank to do something about it. I told my wife that I was going to sell the company in a couple months and I was going to move back to Ohio someplace and would like to take a couple of years off to spend with her and the kids. (This was hard on her as her entire family lived in that area) she never batted an eye and we started looking for houses. I sold the company and have never looked back. After 3 years of not working we started to run low on money and I needed to find some work. We often talked about starting another company and quickly got away from those thoughts. I started working for a company 3 months ago and seriously love being able to go home at the end of the day and "work" is over!

The company I started is still doing very well and I don't see that ending for a very long time. I don't miss it at all, the money was great but not worth the time I lost with my family.

As far as financial things people are bringing up? The first thing I did was hire an accountant! Money well spent. They suggested that I paid myself a certain amount, and that worked well for me to be able to roll more money into the company and keep my mo eu separate than the business money.

Now...once my kids are grown and out of the house...I'm guessing I'll end up starting another company doing something I love. I just won't be trying to make it anything more than a hobby to keep some play money around.

Much like everyone else has said, I could go on for days about this subject. I just wanted to bring up some real serious things on the negative side. Also realize that I'm an all or nothing person, that doesn't except failure. My family felt this in the worst way, I'm thankful they gave me the opportunity to try and show them another side. In the end, we all learned a lot from it, but it wasn't worth it to me. I'm glad my kids were young enough that I don't think they'll remember....my wife and I sure do though... Just got a tear in my eye thinking about all the pain I put her through. I'm gonna go crawl in bed with her now and tell her how thankful I am.

Best of luck in whatever you do man. It just wasn't who I was at that time in my life. It really woke me up though.

(And I beat the cancer!)
 
Last edited:

giles

Cull buck specialist
Supporting Member
You see...now it's 0300 and I can't sleep. That's just from thinking about it! No other reason to still be awake, damn mind is just a wondering.
 

moundhill

Senior Member
Supporting Member
5,327
103
Hebbardsville..
You're the man giles, you were in a tough situation but kept on keeping on. Hates off to you man, and I'm glad you pulled through all that. As for the self employment, I have sorta kinda been on both sides of that coin. Taylor and I had a small lawn care business through high school, and the year or so after. Now this wasn't a full fledged business like many of you are talking about, but nonetheless we still were our own bosses. And that was great, I loved the freedom and making our own schedule. How ever, we quick found out that there's a lot of competition with small business, and no benefits to go with it. We both ended up backing out and finding jobs working for the man. I didn't want to be like so many people I know, and to through life without benefits and retirement. So I ended up landing a lower paying job, but next to none benefits and retirement, and I can sleep better at night knowing that. I'm just a young dumb kid still, but I'm glad I've made the decisions I have, and got out of the self employment.
 

giblet

Junior Member
41
9
Thanks all for the great replies and sorry for the slow reply but had a lot going on lately. Some very informative comments in your posts and its good to hear it from the people that are getting it done. Some of it reads like a “scared straight” program for W-2 employment but that’s good – LOL it’s the reality of it.

I went to lumber grading school a few years back and one of the ideas I have been kicking around relates to that. I think there is some opportunity to be had in either upgrading lumber that has more potential than it was originally given or by reworking what looks like slabwood and getting more potential out of it (ie think hardwood flooring). I think a lot of this really hinges on knowing your customers, what they need and what they can get by with but its an idea for now.
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
I am considering a side business myself. If I can't get back to work in the next couple weeks, I'll probably make a go at it. I don't see it ever paying the bills, but it could provide some good play money.