Author: Anthony Lawrence
Format: PDF, 285 pages
Published: AP Lawrence, 2008

In today's troubled economic times, many people are presented with two options: starting a business on their own or not working at all. Statistically very few people actually make the jump to self-employment. The reasons are probably as varied as the people themselves, and can be anything from not believing they have a good idea or not believing in themselves. The bottom line being simply not believing. Some folks dream of becoming self-employed, but the dream word has a negative connotation of the team a fantasy, something that you may never bring about.

There are many books on the market today which deal with motivation, overcoming fears, and other things that prevent you from making that first step to becoming self-employed. This is not one of those. This is a book intended for those people who have either already made the decision to become self-employed or who are seriously thinking about it and want to find out what it's all about. Another thing that this book is not about is telling you how to start a company in your garage and make it grow to become a multinational corporation. It would be nice if you could, but the odds are it's not going to happen. On the other hand, the vast majority of self-employed people do not run multinational corporations.

The book contents are pretty clear by the title. It's only about working for yourself. That is, being your own boss. And as the author puts it, if you're going to work for an idiot, it might as well be yourself.

Another thing this book is not is telling you how to become a multimillionaire by running your own business. And statistically, most of self-employed people are not millionaires, but they do make enough to get by. Many could make a lot more money being an employee of some big company, but they have decided that the beneficial aspects of being your own boss far outweigh any monetary benefits.

Another thing that this book is not is fluff. Tony does not go through all lot of success stories or useless hyperbole to convince you to buy the book. That's what I'm here to do. Instead he tells it like it is. Rather than trying to overwhelm you with a success story of someone who started their first company, which then later became an international success, Tony writes from 30 years in the business. Not everything went as he expected or hoped, and he ended up having to simply stop doing that job, for any number of reasons. However, he has been successful. Anyone starting a business today will consider himself lucky just to be able to survive. Tony's book will get you there and more.

From the very beginning and Tony talks about the way he did it. He emphasizes the fact that it's possible, if not likely, you are going to work differently. For example, Tony calls himself "a lone wolf", since he likes to work on his own. Naturally this attitude finds its way into his writing, but Tony is upfront about that. Not everything he says will apply to you if you're planning to open up a business with five other people, but most of it does. In any event, it is all useful information.

The book starts off with talking about being self-employed in general terms. What the motivations are, benefits, and in some of the downfalls.One very exciting thing that Tony pointed out was the fact that in reality only 1% of businesses actually go bankrupt. The reason that most businesses ceased to exist is that the owner decided to move on. Either they wanted to do something differently or they realized in advance the business was not going anywhere. To the author, and to me as well, this is not really a failure.

After the basic introduction, there are chapters on the joys of self-employment and the other on the pain of self-employment. The chapter "The Joy of Self-employment" is relatively short and (as you might guess) talks about the benefits of being self-employed. This is relatively short describes a single day in the life of a self-employed person. Because of its brevity, this chapter does not go into details of being self-employed that some other books might, bu I found it a nice perspective and fitting to the overall tone of the book.

Following this is "The Pain of Self-employment". This chapter is also relatively short and could use a few more details, but it's still addresses the key factors over why being self-employed is not always a good thing. Here the author talks not only about the money issues but also about the stress of being self-employed, in general. These are both written in a very pleasant prose and although they contain basically no details, they do give you a very good feeling about becoming self-employed and enable you to at least make the decision about whether you want to even pursue the idea further or not.

We then get a chapter where the author is talking about his own personal experiences with being self-employed. The author is upfront about the ups and downs he has encountered, and I think this provides a very human overview of what might happen as you strive for success. There are likely to be setbacks, but access is just as likely. The next chapter we start getting a few more details about the motivations behind becoming self poised. This includes both why and when it wants to become self employed as well as the situations where it may not necessarily be a good idea. For example, if you have a decent job which you like fairly well, then it might not be a good idea to become self-employed, particularly if you're doing it just to become self-employed.

Up to this point, they're still have not been to any real specific details. Once you reach this point, however, you should have a good feeling for whether or not to something you should even consider.

Finally we get into the nuts and bolts of becoming self-employed. The first one Tony addresses is health care. This is an obvious and important issue, so it makes a lot of sense to me that it is one of the first issues addressed. Technically, this still could be considered background information, but we are now beginning to get specifics.

This chapter is then followed by some very basic aspects of self-employment such as the difference between a contract employees and being self-employed, how other businesses relate toward self-employed people, what motivation means for the self-employed and so on. One thing that I found very interesting is the author pointing out the fact that success doesn't require you to have a Ph.D. or come from a rich family. Instead, the author points out a success quite often comes to people whom you least expect. Since we learn so much on our own once made in the business world, it makes sense that a formal education is not a requirement.

There is a section which talks about happiness and success. The author points out quite honestly that money is not success. One can make a lot of money whether self-employed or not, but does not imply a person is truly happy either with themselves or with the job.

In the remainder of the book, he goes through very specific aspects of being self-employed. This covers everything from what makes a successful business, raising the money to start your business costs naming your business, the type of business, and so forth. You are then goes on to talk about the financial aspects of actually running the business such as accounting, taxes and what you charge your customers. There are a lot of specific details about what you need to consider, but the author still continues to maintain its very friendly, conversational tone.

What I liked in later chapters was the discussion of the "soft skills" of being self-employed. Perhaps, there is a better term than this, but these are the aspects that you often don't consider when setting up a business, but often are key factors in the success. One thing I thought was particularly interesting was a section on "fire in your customers." Perhaps you might be shocked at the prospect of refusing to work for a particular customer, but this is often the only way you can keep your sanity. If one customer begins taking up too much of your time, it is likely in your best interest to get run.

I have read other books on self-employment or starting a business and all of them address "advertising." What I like about this book is the author takes this one step further. Advertising is simply not taking up space in the magazine. Advertising is making people aware of her name and the services you provide. Today, this also means you see available technology, including setting a website, creating podcasts, creating blogs, and many other things that you can do, even before you actually start a business.

Tony gets one ding because the table of contents entries are not hyperlinks. Another shortcoming is a lack of detail in some areas. However, I am by no means calling it ding. To cover every aspect of every topic addressed, this book would need to be many times larger than you would probably become overwhelmed with information. Even without the details in some areas, I found those sections useful because the author makes you think about things that you may not have. Perhaps your business will still be a successful, but this book definitely keeps you from having to reinvent the wheel.

Another thing to consider is that Tony is writing from the perspective of an American, so there are some things that simply so not apply in other countries. For example, there are references to specific forms from the American Internal Revenue Service which have very little meaning to people outside of the US. Still things like this still give you food for thought (i.e. missing forms do not free you from your obligations).

One common thread throughout the book is the author's own experiences. This covers both the good and the bad, those times where he made decisions that helped along in those times where the decisions perhaps did not. The author is very blunt about where problems might occur and what you can do to avoid the problems. Often, these problems cannot be avoided, which the author tells you, giving yourself a chance to be prepared should it happen.

Although Tony runs a computer consulting business and a lot of what he says is specific to businesses of that kind, the information he provides is applicable to anyone wanting to become self-employed. He even goes so far as to address issues that you are not likely to encounter as a computer consultant, such as potential limitations if you are preparing food or limitations of your normal homeowners insurance (assuming you work out of your home).

This book is definitely worth your time and considering the price, one of the best investiments you can make. It is available from Tony's website (www.aplawrence.com) as a PDF. You can also find two other books which I will be reviewing in the near future.

Title: Psst...Wanna Work For Yourself?
Category: Other
Sub-Category: Books
Author: Jimmo
Related Link: AP Lawrence
Added: February 16th 2010
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