5 Lessons Learned In 2 Years of Self-Employment

Today marks CB Production 2nd ANNIVERSARY!

It is said that it takes 3 years to build a successful business and seeing consistent results. Nonetheless the journey so far has been incredibly beautiful and overwhelming, tearful at times, and rewarding at others. If we had coffee (or wine) together you might know that I have plenty of stories but for the sake of this blog post, I would like to share my biggest 5 lessons.

• Self-employment requires being persistent. Nothing of value comes easily in this world. Therefore entrepreneurship requires working your ass off, sacrifice, and dedication for something you have no full control over. Entrepreneurship is about pushing through no matter what. Entrepreneurship is about getting knocked down, getting up and keep persevering. I learnt also that being persistent shows to your clients and prospects that you firmly believe in your product and will strive to maintain and improve standards.

• Self-employment requires multi-tasking. You know that being an entrepreneur means you are responsible for making your vision of success a reality. Consequently, responsibility comes with a number of roles to play. That means that you are your own accountant, your own secretary, your own PR person, your own marketer, your own cleaning lady, and so on. With time, you might not wear as many hats but the ever-growing needs of your company will always require you to multitask and to be versatile. I knew that I would to deal with my own finances but I was firmly convinced that I should stick to my strengths, meaning video. But guess what, I had to the work of a translator sometimes, a voice artist and a photographer for my clients. Till this day, I wonder where the line should be, because I believe you should only offer services that you can fully support. There is nothing worse that finding yourself in the midst of a gig and you are simply clueless. But sometimes the reality of the market just smacks you in the face and you cannot longer afford offer services that too niche for the market. Therefore you have to keep expanding your knowledge and know-how.

• Self-employment requires prioritizing. You can multitask but you can’t do everything. And therefore, you have to prioritize to make the best use of your time, put things in proper order of importance and accomplish things that move you towards your goals. In a nutshell, it is about knowing how to make choices.

• Self-employment requires delegating. Although I decided to build a brand around my initials, I learnt that no one can do all the liftings! Depending on the size of the project, I most of the time have a crew with me. I learnt that my sanity is too precious to lose it over the need of having full control of every aspect. And as much multitasking is vital, it is equally as important to learn how to delegate. On that note, since I started being open to collaborations, I not only learnt a lot from others but also built a netWORTH.

• Self-employment requires being sensible… the real word I am looking for is business-minded. I learnt and am still learning how to make moves that make financial sense. There’s no dirty word here. We all work for money and we depend on this income. When I am being too flexible, I let other people behind from my office landlord, videographers and animators that I subcontract and many other people part of that value chain. Also, being sensible means knowing how to analyze situations from multiple angles, weighing opportunities and consequences objectively.

My goal for next year is being able to anticipate a bit better and growing my networth. But one step at the time. Entrepreneurship is the hardest and most rewarding thing I have ever done. I am still not where I want to be but the lessons I learnt (and keep learning) are invaluable and will stay with me throughout my life.