Going it Alone after Redundancy. What's It Like to Set Up Your Own Business?

A blunt question, perhaps: have you ever been made redundant?  Most of us at some stage in our working lives have faced this situation and it's hard not to take it personally, isn't it?  The “we're going to have to let you go” mantra is never easy to deliver and far worse to hear.  Your stomach hits the floor, you find yourself blushing furiously with the effort not to a) cry, b) swear, or c) shout at the person liberating you from a much loved job.  OK, maybe not much loved, but at least it was a regular way to pay your bills and keep a roof above your head.

My own experience goes back four years and is slightly different but similar.  Having climbed the corporate ladder to reach a fairly senior position in business development, something made me snap - I'd better not say exactly what but if you bump into me at a Chamber event I'll tell you.  I resigned the following morning at 10.30am.  The boss was so outraged that I'd jumped ship she arranged for me to be paid up until 11.30am, the time at which I was frogmarched out of the office. Nice.

Although I had some savings, I had nothing to go to.  Nada.  Nix. Somehow, though, it all worked out and now here I am doing something that I love more than anything I've ever done.

So what's it like if you've lost your job or you decide suddenly to resign?  Suppose you've had enough of the rat race and want to set up on your own. How do you make that crucial transition to running your own business? Here are some of my thoughts:

Starting up your own business takes a lot of courage.  If you're used to a regular salary, earning enough income from your own customers through the provision of your services is a really scary thing to contemplate, particularly if you have a mortgage, rent or other commitments.  And you have to keep doing it.  Every month.

It's all down to you.  Yes, times are hard but you need to face facts: the marketing, promotion and sales of your business are all down to you, sunshine.  Try blaming others and you get...nowhere.

Many people know nothing about setting up their own businesses and fear, wrongly, that being a sole trader is ever so complicated.  Do I have to register my business name?  How do I pay tax and NI? Is there some legal stuff I have to sign?

Not doing the nine to five is distinctly weird, at least at first.  You're in control of your own time and this can be either liberating or a disaster, depending on how organised you are.  And no, watching reruns of Dragons' Den doesn't really count as “research”.  

Further to this, your family/personal life blurs with your working life and we mean really blurs if you don't take strict measures to counteract it.  But, you know this already and have probably already worked on bank holidays because you had to.

Ultimately, though, you'll probably not go back to working for someone else.  Once you've experienced the sheer joy of money landing in your bank account for something you did under your own steam it's unlikely that you could re-embrace the wage slave thing.  Deciding that your skills lie in writing children's fiction, or making pots, or even organising other people's weddings and then getting paid to do something you love is surely one of the best things in life.  

By Susan Beckingham, Sussex Copywriting Services

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk