It’s the dream of many entrepreneurs to walk into work, hand in their notice and never look back.
Free from the shackles of the 9-5 you’ll be able to focus on building your business and enjoying the life you’ve always wanted.
But is quitting your day job really the right idea?
Three questions to ask before you quit the day job
Do You Have Enough Money?
This could be all three reasons as it’s the most obvious and the most critical. New businesses need money to run and to grow.
You need money too. You need money to live on, to pay the mortgage and to fall back on in case of any emergency.
Before you pack in the day job you need to do some serious planning. How much is your business going to cost to set up? How much will it cost to run each month? How much do you need personally?
Add all these together for the next 12 months and you’ll start to get a feel for the kind of money you’ll need to have set aside. Of course, you’re new business should be earning money as soon as possible but how realistic are your projections?
What happens if you only do half as much business as you hope? What is customers and clients take longer to pay you?
Plan your finances in detail and get professional help where you can. Always underestimate the amount of money you will make and overestimate the amount you will have to spend.
If, after all that, the numbers still make sense, you need to ask …
What can you do while still at work?
Is your day job really holding you back from following your dreams or is there work that you can be doing to help move them forward - and still keep the monthly paycheck?
Many successful businesses can be started part time - putting in the hours in the morning, at nights and on the weekend. There are 168 hours in a week, you’re at work for 40 of them. Even if you get a solid eight hours sleep a night you’ve still got over 70 hours left.
What could you accomplish by spending 20 of those hours working on your business?
If you can find ways of getting hanging on to your salary while still building your business it’ll be much less risky when you finally do take the plunge.
Are you really ready?
You’re never too young to start a business.
But it it is possible to be under-prepared. Do you know enough about your industry? Do you have the skills, the qualifications and the contacts?
Ever good entrepreneur wants to get started on their business idea yesterday - but sometimes the best bet is to do as much as you can pre-launch to ensure your success when you do go it alone.
If you can do that with a salary, why not?
