by Colleen Morton

Created on: October 02, 2009

Since self-employment ranges from lawyers, accountants, doctors and consultants, to gardeners, cooks, home health care aides, baby and pet sitters, it is probably not surprising that it is difficult to precisely define what it takes to be successfully self-employed. However, in general, the following five characteristics are common to all successful self-employed people.

First, many of the conditions for success may be outside an individual's control, which means that the self-employed person must first and foremost be adaptable. He or she needs to be able to respond to what the marketplace wants, rather than holding obstinately to his or her view of what the marketplace should want.

Second, the self-employed person needs to be realistic about what skills he or she has, what products or services he or she can supply, and the level of quality demanded by the marketplace. For fields or sectors in which the barriers to entry are relatively low (housekeeping, babysitting, pet sitting, etc.), novices with few skills may be able to get a foot in the door. However, even in these fields, specializations, certifications and other indicators of experience and/or professionalism are frequently required for success.

Third, the person contemplating self-employment needs to be logical about analyzing whether there's a real need that needs to be filled in the marketplace. Can his or her home town really use another hairdresser? Is there really a niche for another organic farmer stall? How does one analyze the presence or absence of demand for these types of services or good? The successful self-employed person will have done their homework before taking the leap into a new venture.

Fourth, the self-employed person must have a good grip on finances. How will he or she finance the start-up? Will goods and services need to be purchased? What about marketing, tools, rent? How much does he or she have in savings or other resources that can be dedicated to this purpose? Will a loan from friends, family or a bank be necessary? What can be used as collateral? How fast will you be able to repay it? What's your projected gross and net revenue?

Fifth, the successful self-employed person must always be looking for ways to improve and/or innovate in order to better serve his/her customers and clients. To do this, they must be willing and able to change their approach, style, processes, products, marketing, pricing, location, personnel and technology. In other words, they must be innovative. Being successful means being able to stay in business longer than a year or two, and in the ever-changing reality of the modern economy, this means keeping abreast of trends, understanding where the competition is going, and finding ways to stay ahead of the curve. At the same time, the self-employed person needs to stay constantly focused on retaining existing clients. It takes ten times more work to win a new client than to keep an existing one.

Learn more about this author, Colleen Morton.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.