What do you enjoy about being a business owner vs. employed by a business? 🤔

[isabelle]

HAPPPPY WEDNESDAY Seller Community! 💕

Today I'm wondering...

What do you enjoy about being a business owner vs. employed by a business? 🤔

What do you see as the advantages? If you are employed by a business owner, you can discuss what you see as the advantages. 

I can't wait to read your replies! ✨

[kauaipassion]

It's more about the freedom of creativity for me. I'm able to make decisions, study my idea's then follow through with the create process to design, make and deliver final products. Don't have to ask permission just get to create.

[MsEhrin]

I have always wanted to be an active participant in my child's education and being able to create a schedule that fits with my home and family life is a huge win for me. Now that she is doing school online I am her teacher and it is another full-time job but it is my favorite. Owning my business allows me the freedom to be the mom I want to be. 

[mmkkbbq]

I worked as a chef in restaurants most of my life.  10 to 12 hours a day 5 to 6 days a week.  Realized I will go no where and be stuck working under somebody rest of my life with limited salaries.

Decided to escape the cycle and created my own business.

Not gonna lie.. It was really hard.  Ran into obstacles after obstacles.  Worked stressful sleepless nights and days.

Failure after failure, even thought about going back to working as chef for steady income.

After 3 years, I am getting hang of it and seeing the hard work being paid off.

Now I have flexible work schedule and actually have time to learn new things in life.

Freedom, flexible schedule, motivation, rewarded hard work, feeling of becoming smarter(?) VS being a work robot with steady income but no motivation.

I enjoy doing what I love and money follows.

[kwestport]

I'm going to be a bit off from most of the responses so far, I loved working hard for companies (large and small), getting recognition and a paycheck. 

I find that owning a small shop with a handful of employees is far more trouble than it's worth.  Employees always want more and are often a nightmare to manage.  Customers for the most part are nice, but the few cranky ones can ruin your whole day.  The administrative tasks are never ending along with rising costs, local governments imposing rules like having all employees take sexual harassment courses... I'm sick of it.

[PARKCITYGOD]

i can see that being a head ache. the only saving grace is knowing that are situations at companies that are polar opposite, which ONLY lets you know it's humanly possible.  if you're a the point of employees and possibly not even having to come into the store, you MAY be near true ownership, however working the science of your business to where employees are empowered, SATISFIED, and your business provides a safe operating environment for both customers and employees, is the final step.  you get that down to a point you can literally HAND someone a manual and they can independently run it from the ground up, you can experience REAL freedom. either sell the business or start another one without even having to walk into the building -- hire a general manager and hand over the folder; kick back and make money in your sleep. either way, your goal is to work yourself out of a job, cause you sound stressed the hell out -- possibly to the point you forgot why you bothered in the first place, and getting back to your WHY is crucial. 

[VillageEmporium]

As someone who is both a business owner and the employee of someone else there are benefits and drawbacks to both. As a business owner I love the ability to make my own decisions without worrying about corporate breathing down my neck with metrics and technical things. Instead I'm able to focus on making sure our customers have an enjoyable experience.

As an employee of someone else I enjoy not having to worry about what promotion or sale to come up with and when I should finally make the decision to move things around and refresh the store because that's all at the direction of the corporate office. I also enjoy a different kind of freedom which is not having to worry about store expenses or overheads. Loses and write offs also very rarely affect me.

[IntelligentsMkt]

I enjoy the fact that I can determine when I wake up, how much I work, and the leverage I can gain. 

At my old job I had to be on the phones a certain number of hours each day, where as now I get paid when I perform. That could be while I'm on a hike, playing cash flow with my friends, or even just laying on the couch closing business. 

I don't have to wake up and take orders from a boss that knows little to nothing about business or sales and I get the opportunity to help and train other people to create their ideal lifestyle too. 

So i'm pretty blessed. 

When I started my own marketing agency it was difficult at first to get clients but once I started putting my name out there and connecting with other business owners I started getting more referrals and customers. 

If anyone would like help with starting their own agency or small business feel free to connect with me on social @cri.childs 😁

[chrissyd]

I love:

-Flexibility and no cap on earnings!

-No one telling me what to do! I get to run to Target in the middle of the day or take a 2 hour nap!

-The amount of things I learn how to do. Annoying at first but feels so good to know things inside out. 

-Working from home

-Pride building something from the ground up that's yours

-The possibility of semi retirement early by training people to do my job.

-Learning things that can help me in any business I would want to start in the future.

[PARKCITYGOD]

best answer. 

[PARKCITYGOD]

i can FEEL your motivation through the screen

[Elsa62]

I have worked for others most of my life. I am a former LPN and PT Assistant. My schedule was always controlled by my employer. 

I am now a Licensed Massage Therapist and sole proprietor of my own LLC.

Being my own boss has afforded me a freedom and flexibility that greatly enhances my life! 

I only wish I had done this sooner! I will never work for someone else.

[BofBArtStudio]

I have wavered back and forth from both across the years. During over 3 decades I have been a business owner and worked three high level project management type jobs. They both have their benefits. But I think that I always come back to being a business owner because I enjoy being able to make the decisions regarding how the business is run. And I enjoy the flexibility and freedom that being a business owner provides. When you work for somebody and you're expected to be there everyday and follow somebody else's schedule for you it is a little less than convenient. However, the consistent paycheck and knowing that I get paid vacations and health insurance is definitely a benefit of working for a company.

At the end of the day though I think the reason that 35 years of owning my own business with only 11 years of it being employed, owning a business is definitely my preference.

[KellyBrito]

I have been on most sides of this, as probably have most of us. Being an employee just isn't for me. It's not that I am a "natural born leader" or anything like that. As a designer, or anything else, having to be bound by someone else's rules and limitations sucks. Added the toxic office environment, long and stressful commute, and eventual nasty temper of a boss... nah, F it all! haha

Being your own boss is not perfect, of course. Having no stable paycheck, worrying about taxes and other admin things, can be stressful. I have decided years ago to not have employees based on all these reasons -so I tend to subcontract as needed, per project. This year I adopted the "VIP Day" model, which has become popular in the coaching and creative industry, to do projects quickly and subcontract less.

[NicholeB]

As a single person operation (photographer), the hard work is all mine.  There's no one coming in second shift to take over for me.  There's no one else besides myself to run problems by.  But when a client is truly satisfied with their end product, I know that's all me too.  There is nothing more satisfying than seeing your work displayed in people's homes and knowing those prints will be handed down generations from now. 

[NailsByNadine]

I haven't read others' replies yet... but for me, this is an easy question to answer! 

As a business owner:

1. I can set my own hours, days, time off, etc... this gives me complete freedom to be there for my family during emergencies or some not-so-emergencies.
2. I don't have to compromise my standards to fit within the confines of someone else's business.
3. I can use the products I want to use.
4. I can be myself!!!!!!!! (no fake personas here!)
5. I can choose who I service (PITAs need not come in)
6. I can choose what music I listen to all day. (never holiday music)
7. I am my own boss 100%!

I'm sure I missed a few... but those are my top 7!

[PARKCITYGOD]

i do enjoy being authentically myself all day and certainly playing whatever music i want ALL day. 

[tifholmes]

After 28 years of being told that unethical business practices were "just the way it is," I no longer have to allow that be an excuse for poor leadership. I'm the one in charge of business practices in my own business now, and I very much enjoy putting integrity and dignity for all at the top of my list. If something isn't right, it's on me to fix it. The difference between now and then is that now I can fix it.

[CrackerJacks]

1.I have no one to answer to except my customers

2.I set my own hours

3.I dont have a rigid schedule 

4.my time my rules.

[PARKCITYGOD]

boom. that part. 

[KittyM]

Although it seems--as a business owner I had to work twice as hard as when I was a contractor for other people's businesses....I am now seeing how the long hours, and the endless grind year after year was WORTH the hard work and sacrifice.  I have the freedom to be creative and explore my ideas...and most amazingly see how they develop and succeed.  The past few years Im seeing all that work is really paying off. As I build my business, I'm getting more and more flexability and confidence. Best of all, now I can take a nice 3 week week vacation every year---hopefully I'll one day be able to be like the Europeans and take 4 to 6 weeks off a year, and still remain solvent and productive. 

[Pop-Pops]

Freedom! As a business owner, I enjoy the freedom to be right or wrong, and not have some "authority" punishing me for mistakes, or using my success as an example to others so they can be encouraged, or feel ashamed at not being me.  I don't like being used as an example by a corporation.

My husband likes that as business owners we're not constrained by corporate orders regarding contact with customers or products.  We have the ability to develop our own products from our own research, and make any changes we deem necessary. Staff meetings could be as simple as mumbling to ourselves as we walk through our store.

Overall, we enjoy being able to be as open with our customers as we want, giving tours when we desire, creating new flavors as we choose or at the request of a customer.  We are humbled and exhilarated at what we have developed simply because one daughter asked for Peanut Butter Popcorn. We are very thankful for the opportunities to share what we have learned.