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Thinking Of Quitting Your Job and Starting Your Own Business?

July 12th, 2009

So you’re going to to leave your job and start your own home business. Good for you! Risks are necessary if you want to see big returns. Unfortunately, risks are also, well, risky. You are essentially gambling on your ability to make your small business work. However, there are ways to make your start-up less of a gamble. In order to do that, you must have a well conceived plan and be ready to deal with the risk that you are about to take.

The first thing you need to do is reduce or eliminate your debts. If you have outstanding debts, you need to get that debts pared down as much as possible. Credit cards and the payments can be hard to manage even when you are working a regular job, much less while you are trying to get your business up and running. If you can pay off the cards, pay them off. That is the best way to take care of your high-interest debt.

However, if you cannot pay off your credit card bills, one excellent way of reducing your credit card debt is to take out a debt-consolidation loan. By combining your high-interest credit card payments into one low interest loan, you can ease a lot of your burden. There are many places that provide debt-consolidation loans including banks, credit unions, and debt-management companies.com. Of course, it is much easier to secure a loan while you are working, so you should probably do this well before you put in your two-weeks’ notice.

Another thing you have to consider is health insurance. In case you had not noticed, health insurance is very expensive. Having an employer pay those monthly fees is one of the good things about a regular job. But when you are out on your own, you will need to take care of health insurance on your own.

If you quit your job, you will usually be given the option of keeping your health insurance. This is good, because they will cover pre-existing conditions that would otherwise leave you paying both health insurance dues and your medical expenses. However, continuing health insurance coverage can also be very expensive and usually is only available for a certain period of time. Check out your options and have a clear plan for insurance in place before you leave your present job. Get several quotes from different companies and check the policies for their rules on coverage.

The third — and the most important — thing is to figure out just how you are going to pay for all this. Your business needs income if it is going to survive. So be ready. The best way to ensure you have an income is to have clients lined up ready to go. Get your name out there before you leave your current job. Start selling yourself and your business to prospective clients and see what happens. The best market research you can do is to market yourself and see what happens. Then, when you have some contracts signed, you will know that there is water in the pool before you dive in.

Leaving your job to start a small business is as exciting as it is stressful. But, with proper planning, you can make that move with confidence. By knowing what you will need and having it in place beforehand, you will be able to make that move with success already on the way.

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