How the Employee Mindset Keeps You Stuck and Broke

Are you running your business like the job you left? If you are, this is a sure path to frustration, not to mention under earning in your business.

Having an employee’s approach to an entrepreneurial venture simply doesn’t work. What’s so ironic about this is that on the outside you may show all the signs of a successful business owner. If you’re lucky you may actually have a lot of clients and to the world you appear to be doing everything right. On the inside though, you might be feeling trapped (that’s a topic for another day) and your bank account might also be suffering.

The employee mindset not only limits your growth, it insidiously works against you financially, often without you even realizing it. When I speak with other corporate fugitives, I often see signs that they have yet to fully break free from their careered pasts. And length of time in business has nothing to do with it!

Here are three ways that holding on to the employee mindset affects the money side of your business:

Under-dreaming:  Most entrepreneurs (or aspiring business owners) come out of their employment background with the sole intention of covering their financial commitments and making as much as they did in their jobs. If pushed to state an income projection, they often set their goal relative to their previous salaries. They also tend to start businesses doing the same thing they did in their jobs, just doing it now as an independent business owner, in the same sector and often getting contracts with their prior employers. They do what they’re already good at and what they think they can make money doing. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, unless that work doesn’t make your heart sing! Embracing the entrepreneurial mindset means dreaming as big as your potential is, and creating the business that allows you to achieve it. It also means allowing yourself to remove any perceived boundaries and to ask yourself, what is it that you REALLY want in your life, and then your business? And then having the courage to pursue it.

Under-pricing: Business owners coming from a corporate background tend to under price and under value their services, for a variety of reasons ranging from inexperience in the market to underestimating the costs of doing business. Since so many provide consulting or service-based offerings, they also tend to bill at an hourly rate which is often too low to start with, as well as being a bad idea in general. Billing by the hour instead of being paid for stellar results is the cardinal sin for many business owners. In addition, many newer business owners tend to fall into the comparison trap and set their fees in relation to where they think they fit on the totem pole of experience, especially against other business owners they look up to, instead of in relation to the value and results they provide for their clients. Making this mental shift is difficult because often the behavior is unconscious. Years of being educated and then working in a structured environment where time served and working your way up is what yields greater income is a tough pattern to break!

Another variation of under pricing is failing to set up a business model with enough products or services to have more than one stream of revenue, and not having a higher priced or premium service in the mix. Many business owners feel they need to work up to this, when in reality, nothing is further from the truth. Having more carefully designed services at strategically chosen price points makes your business – regardless of age – appear more credible and more attractive to your potential clients who come in all shapes and sizes and will not all want to work with you in the same way!

Under-billing: Undercharging for your work is much more than not setting your price high enough. Many business owners, especially consultants and service-based, simply fail to charge for ALL of their work. This shows up in the form of giving more time to a client than you had intended, allowing extensions to projects that affect your ability to complete and bill for it, failing to keep on top of your financial paperwork and not invoicing in a timely fashion, and not having financial terms with your clients that work in your favor. It can also mean giving away your services in the name of “helping” someone else, bartering, and failing to set boundaries with your clients. Many corporate fugitives fall into the trap of feeling responsible and approach their clients’ missed deadlines, cancelled appointments and endless changes and revisions as an acceptable part of doing business. As an employee, some of this is expected as part of your job (whether fair or not); as an independent business owner, it isn’t. The difference is that you can control this when you are the boss. Your role is to provide an agreed upon value in exchange for a financial payment, you are not indebted to your client. However many ex-corporate employees operate from a place of servitude instead of service in their business.

Which leads to a fourth very important point – if you’re afraid to lose clients and worried about finding new ones, you may tend to hang on to bad clients and work with those who really aren’t a good fit for you. When you operate your business from this place of fear, you may also stop marketing or do it so inconsistently and unclearly that it isn’t getting the right results for you.

At the end of the day, having a business can be so much more than getting paid for something you’re good at. If you’re choosing self-employment, make it work for you, instead of you working for it!

Want to use this article? You can as long as you include this footer: Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success SystemTM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and live outside of the ordinary. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful and extraordinary business. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for information and step-by-step resources to take you from overwhelmed employee to extraordinary entrepreneur.

Not So Crazy Advice for New Business Owners

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I grew up in a self-employed family. My father built his business through years of physically and mentally demanding work. As a contractor doing mainly commercial work, he travelled a lot and was gone for weeks at a time working in remote locations in northern Canada.

My dad did not have a privileged upbringing. He quit school and moved out before most kids nowadays get their first car. He created his own success and he worked very hard to attain it. He also worked hard to hold on to it when the recession of the 1970s hit, interest rates jumped through the roof, and people abandoned homes and building projects because they could not pay for them. He built it back up again and worked hard to hold on to it when the stock markets crashed, not once but twice.

So coming from a self-employed family, you may think that I was encouraged to start a business. The truth is most of my family and many friends thought I was crazy to walk away from a highly paid and coveted job.

You see, I was the first person in my entire extended family to get post secondary education. I climbed the corporate ladder quickly and earned double my age before I was 30 years old. I had benefits, lots of holidays and all the trappings of the “good life”.

So when I would get restless and dissatisfied in my career, I convinced myself I must be crazy. It was the only reasonable answer to explain why I wasn’t happy with what everyone seemed to think was the American (and Canadian) Dream.

This went on for 20 years. I quit a government job for a corporate job, then a corporate job for a non-profit job, and so on. To make a long story short, I accepted a position at an international company. I very much enjoyed it, but physically and emotionally, I felt drained. I became very sick with pneumonia, and it wasn’t the first time.

I realized something shocking. I felt relieved to be at home instead of at work. So two months later – a very long, painful two months – I summoned up to courage to tell my husband, and then my boss, that I wanted to quit. I didn’t tell my parents right away, that’s a whole other topic! Ironically this was the first time in a long time that I didn’t feel crazy, but everyone else seemed to think so.

When you quit, you’re making an unexpected and uncommon choice. Most people would rather stay in jobs that consume their souls than take a chance on their futures.

This risk is what stops other people from making the same choice, and what makes them fear for you. So expect that your closest family and friends may be less than thrilled by your decision. Give them time to understand and don’t take it personally if they don’t throw their 110% support behind you.  Most importantly don’t let their doubts become your burden.

Here are my personal tips for coping with this transition.

Be Yourself – If you are thinking of quitting your job, never do it on impulse or based on strong emotion. Take the time to explore what you really and truly want. As Escape from Cubicle Nation author Pam Slim wisely reminds us, “hating your job intensely is not a business plan”. Once you have quit, allow yourself to detox and don’t expect to be a rockstar business owner overnight. Do use the time to think about what your passion is, who you’re ideally suited to serve, what your ideal business could look like, and then put practical structure around it.

Be Realistic – Rome was not built in a day, and contrary to popular Internet myth, neither was any successful or sustainable business. It takes time and planning to create a business and to get clients and make a profit. There are steps you can take to make this happen more quickly, like getting help and professional advice, but most people are not likely to replace their previous income for several months. There are certainly exceptions, however it is more realistic to expect a cash flow trickle for a while until you can build the foundation of a solid business. 

Be Prepared -  I have yet to meet a corporate fugitive who has followed the totally impractical advice spouted by the mostly employed of saving up six months’ worth of living expenses. But it’s good to have some game plan. This is why it’s not smart to make any rash decisions. In my case, once I knew I was going to quit, I was able to quietly look for potential contracts, put out some feelers and plan financially. To borrow the Scout and Brownie motto of “Be prepared in mind and in body”, do what you can to plan for potential scenarios, prepare a strategy to grow your business, and have the discipline to stick with it. Being prepared in mind is a little trickier.  If you’re like most of us, you’ll alternate between wild exhilaration and gut wrenching fear.  You may feel, as one Corporate Fugitive subscriber described it, “optimistic with a shade of anxiety” akin to a low-grade fever.  Another client described it as a rollercoaster ride alternating between “abject terror and excitement” that requires her to “hold on to her dreams with a death grip!”

Whatever you do, don’t give up. There’s a whole world out there and with time and skill you will attract and provide value to that first ideal client, followed by many more.

Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success System^TM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and  live outside of the ordinary. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful and extraordinary business. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for information and step-by-step resources to take you from overwhelmed employee to extraordinary entrepreneur.

Corporate Detox – Life on the “outside”

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Sometimes I think there should be a halfway house for ex-corporate employees to help you adjust to life “on the outside”.

When I started my first business after a 20-year career spent working for other people, the hardest change I had to make was in my own mind.

I remember alternating from feeling totally and intoxicatingly free to completely overwhelmed and panic-stricken.

As excited as I was, my first and last waking thought many days was “What have I done and what if this just doesn’t work?”

Let’s face it, there is just no preparing for a feeling you have never felt before.

My immersion into self-employment was sudden. I had thought about it for years, but I literally became “sick” from work and realized that something had to change.

Knowing what to expect when you quit a corporate job to start a businesses can help you get there with less sleepless nights and second thoughts, and more action and conviction.

So here are a few common signs of an aspiring entrepreneur in transition.

To feel unqualified – Valerie Young calls this The Imposter Syndrome. Despite all of your outward accomplishments, you may feel completely inept. Especially if you left a lucrative career behind, being an ex-employee but not yet a thriving entrepreneur can be very disconcerting. No one is going to proclaim you an expert, so you’ll have to claim your expert status yourself!

To feel like you don’t know yourself – When you are in that neutral, no-man’s land, you feel a loss of identity. This is very uncomfortable especially when our society focuses on occupation as a sign of social status. The best approach is to embrace your new status wholeheartedly. Introduce yourself with boldness and confidence, and don’t make conditional statements like “I’m just starting” or “I haven’t been in business that long.”

To feel unmotivated or paralyzed – When you go from a highly structured environment to the freedom and blank slate of working on your own, it can be disorienting. Many new entrepreneurs are unable to cope with a lack of routine and, combined with the detox of letting go of their employment, find themselves completely unmotivated. When this happens, you need to listen to your inner voice, be compassionate to yourself and take the time you need to recharge.

To feel like you’re running out of time – The flip side to feeling unmotivated, is feeling completely rushed. For some people, especially those who left high level corporate positions, the pressure to achieve and succeed quickly becomes almost an obsession. This can feel literally like a race against the clock.

To feel like you won’t measure up – Many business owners spend time focusing on what others are doing rather than on their own business. While monitoring the landscape is prudent, it does not substitute for making your own goals and plans. Many new entrepreneurs are quick to change courses just because someone else is.

If you’re experiencing these symptoms, take heart. Every leap begins with a step and all successful entrepreneurs began just as you are. The same drive that allowed you to make this big life decision can take you to your own thriving business.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:  Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success System^TM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and  unlock their business potential for greater  personal freedom and prosperity. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful entrepreneurial adventure. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for free tips on how to unlock the business in you.

Overcoming fear in business

If you have already started your business, or you are in the midst of dreaming about it, you’ll be able to relate to the feeling that ranges from nagging doubt, to heart palpitations.

It’s fear. The entrepreneur’s enemy #1 shows up in a lot of ways… limiting yourself and the sheer scope of your business, being afraid to charge more for your services, not getting the help you need, and hedging your bets by following what “everybody else” does instead of what you truly want to do.

Then there’s the heart-in-your-throat kind of fear, especially when you stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone. What if my big idea is a dud? What will others think? Will I have to go back to the corporate world? What if I fail?

Like President Franklin D. Roosevelt told the American people paralyzed in the grips of the Great Depression, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

What President Roosevelt brought to the nation was hope, combined with action. Now, I can’t promise to deliver the solution to today’s economy but I can tell you that fear is normal, and the best gift you can give yourself is permission to feel it, and then keep moving!

Know that behind every successful entrepreneur is fear – and guess what, it doesn’t go away! The most successful entrepreneurs feel it too.

In fact, if you aren’t feeling at least a little uncomfortable, you probably aren’t pushing at the edges of your comfort zone, which is precisely where you need to be to reach your most fabulous potential. Here’s what Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz fame had to say about this last week when I interviewed her for the Entrepreneurs Unplugged telesummit.

“There’s a lot of fear that goes into having your own business and it’s one of those things where I don’t think you can ever have top 10 tips for not being terrified, right? That’s not the way you can get rid of fear is with bullet points, but I think that it’s important for people to realize that if you’re not at least a little bit afraid, you’re probably not shooting for the right goals.

If you’re absolutely certain that this is going to be a cake walk and it’s just no big deal, if you have that feeling that it doesn’t put you a little bit on edge, you’re not shooting for the right stuff. You’re getting yourself a job. If it’s safe then it’s really not what business is supposed to be because I don’t think it can be exciting, if there’s not a little bit of fear attached to it. But I think it’s important to realize that between the feedback that I’ve got and people have asked questions I’ve talked to over a thousand people and all of them are scared and some of them are pretty freaking successful… just be aware that other people are afraid because then, you don’t feel so alone and I think that’s some of way the fear comes in, because fear begets fear and more anxiety.”