The most common mistakes of the newly self-employed

In an ideal world, everyone would have sufficient time to prepare for self-employment and go through the process of creating a business plan. Having your personal finances in order, building up a buffer for emergencies, and organising a reliable source of new clients or customers will help you get off to a flying start.

But life often throws up unexpected challenges, and many freelancers and contractors made the jump into self-employment at short notice, whether that was down to unplanned redundancies, family circumstances, or global events. 

If you’re able to plan your move into self-employment, then there’s little excuse for not adequately preparing. But when you’ve had to make the switch at short notice, it’s important to schedule time into each week to tackle the areas you’ve missed, along with creating a budget which allows you to build up a safety net over time.

And you can make sure you haven’t missed anything by going through our advice section dedicated to the newly self-employed. Or by investing in IPSE membership, which includes the Incubator program for those running their own business for the first time.

Your new self-employed business may be your passion, but it’s important to try and separate your personal identity and emotions from your work. This can take time to learn, but it will mean you’re able to deal with rejections and setbacks more rationally and effectively.

Experienced freelancers become used to clients correcting their work, and identifying when it’s a legitimate and constructive comment, or whether it’s worth arguing over a fairly small and potentially insignificant change. And learn to compartmentalise feedback to that specific piece of work, rather than letting it impact their emotions and self-confidence. 

Unfortunately, sometimes you may encounter clients or customers who will try to bully you or make personal comments. In which case the best option is to extricate yourself from those projects as quickly, efficiently and politely as possible. It may be tempting to fight back or share some honest truths, but this will just burn potential bridges in the future. And if there are any legal issues, it’s easier if you’re a completely innocent party.