Self Employment Opportunity - Time Constraints
by Sanders Consultation Group Plus
http://www.newbiehangout.com/articles/sanders/timeconstraint.htm

Introduction - Self Employment Opportunity Introduction

So you've read the other self employment opportunity tutorials on our site. You've made sure your self employment opportunity is not a scam. You've checked your self employment opportunity against our tutorials on MLM's and freelancing. You've done the research to check your self employment opportunitycosts to make sure you can work from home. In addition, you've read our tutorial on start-ups too for information pertaining to your self employment opportunity. You think you have it all under wraps, and are ready to move forward. Nevertheless, are you? What about the time factors involved with new start-up self employment opportunities? That's what we're going to look at in this tutorial.

You have to keep in mind that a self employment opportunity is just like any other job out there in the world. To be professional, you have to view it just like any normal company you might deal with on a daily basis. Think about that for a moment. What kinds of companies do you deal with on a daily basis? Of course, you have your personal need types of companies like your landlord, your utility companies, your grocery store, and others. These are companies that provide us with our daily living needs. We need these things to make day to day life more comfortable and bearable.

For some of these things, you may have no choice in the company you deal with. However, in the areas where you do have choice, like your grocery store, why is it that you choose that store? We could talk about this all day, and there are many valid reasons for why you make purchases at those places. However, the bottom line reason is the trust they have built with you, their professionalism, and their ability to provide for your needs. Nevertheless, what about the other companies you deal with on a daily basis? Again, the chances are that you purchase from them for the same reasons you purchase from your "necessity" companies. Trust, professionalism, and the ability to provide for your needs are the top reasons you buy from them right? Are you starting to see where I am going with this? Our tutorial on emotional marketing touches more on this topic. It is a valuable resource for understanding that marketing practice.

I want you to understand some of the top requirements for establishing an effective self employment opportunity. I want you to think about these things because they are going to be an important part of the rest of this self employment opportunity tutorial. By having the answers fresh in your mind, it will help you to better use the information I am about to present to you. So please take a few minutes and reread the above paragraphs. Then take a couple minutes and actually sit down with pen and paper and answer the questions I asked. Once you have this on paper, then continue to read on.

Now that you have your answers, we need to look at them and try to project a realistic time frame of how long it will take you to accomplish these self employment opportunity qualities. You need to be critical and brutally honest here. Not honest with me, but honest with yourself. Don't go into this trying to fool yourself. You will only ensure your failure in the end.

For each of the things you have listed, how long do you believe it will take you to accomplish them, and how will you do it? These questions are not as difficult as most would expect. All you need to do is think about your own answers, and then apply them to the self employment opportunity you wish to start. How do you feel about the companies you make purchases from? Why do you feel that way about them? What are they doing that make you react positively towards them and purchase from them? Can you use any of their methods to make your self employment opportunity as attractive to your potential customers as they make their goods or services look to you? If so, then how? Lastly, how long will it take? Don't worry if you are not sure about some of your answers. In the following section, I will attempt to touch on the different possible answers you came up with from above. One important note here. Take notice to how many things I come up with below. Then consider how many of your thoughts match mine. Can you see how simple marketing can be just by putting yourself into another's shoes? Is marketing really all that hard when you think about it? It's all about getting into potential customer's heads.

Professional Appearance - Self Employment Opportunity Requirements

Would you buy legal services from someone who sat around their office in blue jeans and a tee shirt? Keep in mind you have just met this person, and have no information about them other than the advertisement you found in the local yellow pages. Would you buy website design services from a website that was disorganized, hard to navigate, had fuzzy images or cartoon drawings, and listed no contact information at all? Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? I agree that these are extreme examples, but I think you get the idea. With each thing we buy, we already have a predefined notion of what that purchase should look like, and how those providing it should look, act, and even speak. It goes much beyond just those things too, but the list is too numerous to spell out here. For space requirements, we will condense things a bit. When you place yourself in the potential customer's shoes, would you buy from you? If your self employment opportunity does not provide the nuances necessary for your potential customers, then they are not going to buy from you.

Professional appearance takes many forms. It is conveyed in a web site design. It presents itself each time you send out an invoice to a customer. It is seen every time someone looks at your business card or other print correspondence. Professional appearance value is perceived from everything you place before a potential customer's eye sight. In addition, that's not all. It is also perceived through your words in spoken language, your messages over a phone line, or the faxes that you send. It is within everything you do that reaches your potential customers.

Time Projections - Self Employment Opportunity Schedule

How long does it take you ask me? That all depends on what means you are going to use to reach your potential customers. It all depends on your own skills and the speed with which you apply them. It all depends on the time you have to invest each day into your potential self employment opportunity. It also depends on the amount of material you already have generated to use with your self employment opportunity. These are all factors involved. The more you have to work with initially, the less time it will take you to complete an image of professional appearance. Professional appearance applies to everything you do. You should convey it through everything you do, and through everything your potential customer sees.

Do you need business cards, letterhead, company logo, or website design? Does your self employment opportunity require a physical storefront? Will you be selling goods or services? Can you do everything it will take to provide your self employment opportunity to potential customers or will you need help to do it? Do you already have the skills this self employment opportunity is going to require, or do you need to learn them? Can you learn them? Are you presently working a full time job while trying to get your self employment opportunity off the ground? These are just more factors involved when you look at time factors and how long it will take you to get started with your self employment opportunity.

Business cards, letterhead, company logo, and website logo can pretty much all be created at the same time. There are differences in layout to keep in mind, but once created, these things can be re-used repeatedly on many different business forms. The letterhead is your essential design and is usually placed on all print media your self employment opportunity uses. I would suggest starting with your logo, and then working from there. There are plenty of programs out there you can use for graphic imaging to create your logo. SCGP uses Adobe PhotoShop. However, this is a professional print media design and web design company. There are other cheaper programs you can use for your self employment opportunity that will work.

The time involved with the process all depends on how complex your components are, your experience with graphic design programs, and what graphic images you choose to work with. A simple logo can be created in a few hours. You can also use words as a logo instead of a graphic. On the other hand, you can combine the two, which is what SCGP has done. Our logo was simple, and it took me about 30 minutes from program start up to logo finish.

From there, I would suggest that you do your letterhead next. Once these two things are completed, you can use them by varying the layout to create the rest of your business forms and site design templates. A letterhead usually includes all pertinent self employment opportunity information including things like the business name, contact information, the point of contact person, and other useful information a potential customer might want. We use Microsoft Publisher, Adobe Page Maker, and Adobe Illustrator for our print media requirements. Because of the complexity and graphic creation required for our print media, it took me about an hour for the business cards, and another two hours for all the forms.

Website design time requirements are a bit more complicated. If you want a page or two that is laid out professionally, includes some company information, and doesn't rank very well on search engine search results, then you could invest about 15 minutes and toss a simple page together. Note that this page would not include any graphics, and assumes that you already know HTML or have a WIZYWIG editor that does. Also, note that this page will probably not rank well in search engine results unless you are familiar with meta tag creation and keyword density requirements. Not to mention it also doesn't include the time needed to find a reliable host to host the page for you, or find a free host that won't clutter your page with banners for their own programs.

If you want a site in scope like this one, then you better know HTML in and out, know about search engine optimization, and be willing to put in long hours for about a month to put it all together. Understand that this site doesn't just hold useless links. Every link located on this page, and any other, has been extensively researched. It's all a part of that trust issue I mentioned earlier. There is another catch in that. A website is a constant work in evolution. New technologies are appearing every day. It takes more and more from day to day to keep web surfers happy. If you use a website and want it to generate you income and visitors that will pay you while working your self employment opportunity, then you need to keep it updated and fresh. I spend a good 40 hours a week right now between writing tutorials to add to the site, search engine optimization, submission, and other marketing tactics. I want a site that draws in mega visitors a day. A web site is a venture that is going to cost you time on a daily or weekly basis to upkeep and maintain. Read our time management tutorial for information on internet based self employment opportunities time management.

If you require a storefront, then you are looking at a 40 plus hour a week commitment. You will need to order supplies, order merchandise, stock shelves, shuffle paperwork, and much more. If you have money to spare, then you can hire people to do this for you, and might be able to sit at home while they work. It's a possibility but not likely, as most entrepreneurs that make it in the self employment opportunity world tend to put in long hours at start-up. It all boils down to your resources and what your objectives are.

Marketing - Your Self Employment Opportunity Decision and How You Reach Your Potential Customers

Now that you have your basics done, there is also the time it takes in marketing. The web and your self employment opportunity are not a field of dreams. If you build it, they will come? Sorry to burst your bubble if that was your idea, but if you build it and they don't know about it, then they will not come. As I stated in the previous paragraph, I spend hours weekly promoting the site. I submit articles to places that will print them for their online visitors. If you drop to the bottom of this one, you will find an author box. In that box there is a link to this site. If you are viewing this article on another site ( other than Sanders Consultation Group Plus ) or a newsletter, then you know what I am talking about. Marketing time depends on what means you are using, how well they work, and whether or not you are meeting your income goals. It might take you more time, or less, all depending on your learning curve.

Marketing is a whole other story. I will summarize it like this. There are all kinds of people out there that will tell you how easy it is to do this or that. They will pump you full of ideas and pull at you because their way of doing things is the best. Allot of it is hogwash. No one thing works the same way for every person who tries it. Just because SCGP promotes International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs and is making a buck by promoting it online doesn't mean that you can or will do the same. My suggestion: watch for the real people who aren't afraid to give you both the good and bad of their self employment opportunity or affiliate program. In my opinion, anyone unwilling to be honest with me has something to hide. If they have something to hide, then how much are they truly looking out for me? Believe it or not, there are actually people out there that are honest and willing to tell all. Believe it or not, there are some of them that actually care about people and being able to help them make their lives better. The people at SCGP are here to help you. Send us an email sometime and find out.

Summary - Self Employment Opportunity Wrap Up

In summary, you now understand that putting actual time constraints on the talked about areas are dependent on too many variables. I'm not going to be like your average know it all guru and tell you it will take you this much time to do this, or that much time to do that. Why? Because everyone is different, has different learning abilities, different skills, and are just different all the way around. What I do might take me a few minutes per task, but I have been involved in self employment opportunities since 1992. I have a much shorter learning curve than the newbie starting out.

I want to clarify something about this tutorial, and it is something I hope you have been able to read between the lines. It was not written to discourage you from chasing the self employment opportunity of your dreams. A self employment opportunity is a lot of work. That is something I want you to understand right up front. As I said, I have been involved in self employment opportunities since 1992. You think I haven't failed? Well, I have. However, I've learned valuable lessons along the way. By realistically looking at your self employment opportunity, I am trying to help you to avoid some of the pitfalls that I have made. So, in closing this article, I want you to remember this. A self employment opportunity is what you make of it. It is hard to be self employed and takes many disciplines that most people do not have. That's why the rewards are so much sweeter when you succeed. Take care, and chase those self employment dreams with open eyes.

Dreams: Dreams are what make up our life. The dreams that come true make up our life reality. Those that do not come true will remain our dreams. Everything in life starts with a dream. It is the accomplishment that brings it into reality.

By James R. Sanders

About the Author
James R. Sanders is the owner of Sanders Consultation Group Plus. He has been a webmaster and website designer since 1997. He has also been involved in self employment ventures since 1992. He is presently a contributing author of NewbieHangout. His writing is targeted to webmasters, would be webmasters, website designers, would be website designers, self employed, or those researching information looking for solutions to questions associated with design, business operations, and promotion today. His goal is to provide practical information based upon his years of experience to help webmasters, website designers, and self employed people achieve their goals in today's competitive global market. You can subscribe to his free newsletters at SCGP - Newsletter.