Be Your Own Boss: Forge A Career Online

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.“ – Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple

If your current career has taken a turn for the worse, enough to imagine packing up your belongings and telling your boss what you really think of them before storming out in a dramatic haze, perhaps it’s time for you to leave and move on to a new career. One that doesn’t entail working in a like for like environment, with the same office politics, while trying to manage an overflowing workload as the companies goals are consistently edging higher beyond attainability. Not to mention the same daily negotiation with Sue from sales over the thermostat setting and consistently boring meetings filled with suits, buzzwords, and charts. Is there really any wonder why more Americans are becoming entrepreneurial to escape the routine 9 to 5 slogs, uniforms, restricted creativity, and red tape?

Alternatively, perhaps you don’t yet have the cynicism of a well-versed employee who has worked years for the man and felt it’s added little to their life, other than a pension and healthcare plan of course. But maybe you have a dream to take a different path beyond working for someone else and helping them to reach their dreams.

Going online isn’t the only way to be your own boss, no, but it’s one of the best ways to launch your career as self-employed. To help you arrive at a conclusion on whether you can take the heat of being your own boss and whether you have the potential to forge a career and accelerate your business’s potential online you need two things;

1. To get a real perspective of the pros and cons of working for yourself and online;
2. And then, of course, finding something you can actually do online and are passionate about enough to make a living from it.

Let’s begin with the pros and then the cons of moving your career online.

Pro’s

• Work from anywhere in the world – so long as you have a laptop and an internet connection. Which means whether working in the comfort of your own personalized home office or traveling the world, as long as you have these your laptop and the internet you have all you need.
• Flexible – Your schedule is what you make it which means you work when you want. Forget the regular 9 to 5 working hours, you might choose to work 7 am until 2 pm 3 days a week it’s up to you.
• You’re The Boss – Which means you make the rules, PJ’s every day? Sure, work on the sofa today? Of course.
• No More Office politics – Eventually you can pick and choose who you work with, avoiding the usual office fails of interacting with and working with people you literally can’t stand.
• Investment – building your own online empire and establishing your own brand means you are not working for the man anymore, you are the woman or man making your own path, with your personal mission and goals to work towards.

Cons

• Prepare for a lot of work and a lot of failures – part and parcel with starting any business, you will not succeed at any given opportunity, it’s not easy, and you will be pushed out of your comfort zone mostly all of the time.
• You need to be incredibly self-motivated and can no longer shimmy by on a salary with the perks of holiday and sick pay.
• You are responsible for every decision you make, there is no fall guy as with corporate settings.
• You miss an automatic enrolment into a 401 k and healthcare plan. Meaning you need to divide your business earnings to pay for a private pension and healthcare insurance.

If you think the pros of being an entrepreneur online far outweigh the cons, the next step is to find the job that will fit in with your skills and personality, plus give you the lifestyle you are looking for.

• “If you’re starting something on your own, you better have a passion for it, because this is hard work.” -Sallie Krawcheck, Co-founder of Ellevest

Career Options Online

Initially thinking about your strengths, skills, work experience, education, and interests will help towards establishing a career online that’s right for you. Here are few online careers for you to consider;

Writer

If you have a passion for words and a flair for writing, writing online could be the career to suit you. With content writing jobs, in particular, becoming increasingly popular online as companies want and need fresh quality content on their business websites to receive validation on Google in the search rankings. As a sidestep from content writing, you may wish to launch and monetize your own blog with google ads and /or affiliate marketing. Or alternatively, you may choose to apply for jobs with online publications. Either way, your CV will need to be overhauled to succeed in the realm of writers which is currently a highly competitive market. It’s important you stand out, and this doesn’t necessarily mean completing an english literature or journalism degree. For instance, if you have knowledge and skills from a particular field such as IT, you can apply this and use this to your advantage by applying to companies who require technical writers within this sector. Owning expertise within a specific area is a desirable attribute for writing about subjects that require in-depth knowledge and research.

Virtual Assistant

Perhaps you currently work as a PA, secretary or executive assistant, and like the structure of being assigned different jobs, however, would prefer to have the power to pick and choose the tasks you want to do by becoming self-employed. A virtual assistant wears many hats and can work for one or multiple people at a time depending on the size of each task and your availability. Jobs might include requests to answer emails, schedule travel arrangements, book meetings, provide research for a presentation and so forth. It’s an advantage if you have experience in similar roles and you should apply these to your CV, LinkedIn profile in pursuit of moving your career online. You can find an abundance of Virtual Assistant jobs advertised on freelance websites such as Freelancer and Fiverr.

Ecommerce Store

Perhaps you love the idea of owning and running your own store online, but you’re unsure where to begin and how to choose a product and supplier. The initial process takes a lot of research for you to launch your business, as you must decide on the product, the audience, the branding, and marketing strategies. If you have experience in sales, web design, marketing, and product selection then this shall work in your favor. However, if you don’t have any relevant skills but are still passionate about building your own online store don’t let the lack of training prevent you from taking matters into your own hands and seeking the knowledge you need to set up a successful online e-commerce store. You don’t necessarily need to do a course, but a lot of reading and research is beneficial. Following research, you need to put the knowledge you have accrued into practice by continuously trying and testing methods to set up your store and attract an audience.

With website designers such as Wix, it’s far easier to create a site that’s professional and includes the necessary tools to sell products online.

Enter Online Business Idea Here

To discourage the notion that all careers online are structured and need to tick a specific box, they don’t, as this completely defeats the object of leaving a tick box job in the first place. You define what you want to do as a career online and you are in no way limited to the options above. You may choose to brainstorm ideas, research a gap in the market, devise a solution present in your own life, choose to offer a unique service, rebranding of an innovative product, act as a middle person to source specific desirable products for people, such as registration plates or use expired domain finder software to sell desirable web domains for a profit. With the world wide web at you fingertips the world is your oyster, leave no idea or opportunity unturned and try and test different paths until you find or create one that is most fitting to you.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” (Abraham Lincoln)

With all of the careers above mentioned a common theme that packages each option is the dedication and perseverance, each requires as with starting any new business venture. The prospect of unpaid work, the time it takes to try and test ideas, to research and consistently acquire more knowledge on a given subject, and of course to overcome and excel through and beyond the copious amount of mistakes and failures you will experience becoming an entrepreneur. All of these components are unavoidable in your endeavors to run a lucrative business online, which is why you must persevere if you want to become your own boss and forge a career online.