Have you ever thought about becoming self employed and have concerns about taking on and retaining good staff? Are you thrown by those who tell you about the nightmare of staff sickness, maternity leave, employee benefits and taxation? Many budding small business owners are often faced with the same worries, which often lead them to feelings of inertia and condemning themselves to never escaping the rat race.
However, good news is always just around the corner. Here's some for you: you can start a business and make a success of it without ever having to take on a single employee. An article by Jim Hopkins in USA Today discussed the rise of the microbusiness, which numbered 20 million in the USA alone back in 2006. That's 20 million people making it in business without the headache of employing anyone else. How do they manage it? Here are a few ideas to get you thinking like a solopreneur.
Strategic partnerships
Bringing in a partner is a resource often overlooked by the first-time entrepreneur. Take the example of a Bob the Baker who makes the most wonderful cakes in the world. Bob knows his cakes would be a hit all over the country and needs to work out how to sell effectively on line. So, he teams up with a Winston the Webmaster who also happens to know how to use the internet to market very effectively. This partnership works quite simply because two people, who each need the skill the other possesses, have come together to produce an income. Bob cannot sell the cakes without the skills of Winston and vice versa. Any employees? Not necessary. Theirs is a simple partnership and they decide to split the income fifty/fifty. Is it not better to have half a successful business than own a failure in its entirety?
Outsourcing
The baking business is booming now, Bob is busy making all those lovely cakes and Winston equally so updating the website and promoting them. Orders are pouring in from all over with as many as 20 emails a day. Is it now time to take on an office administrator to deal with this? What about someone to help bake the cakes? What about someone to look after order fulfilment and some of the more tedious website tasks? That makes three new employees, right? Wrong. All of these jobs can be outsourced or, in other words, contracted out. A VA (virtual assistant) can take on the job of taking in and responding to the emails, another baking firm could be contracted to make the fillings for the cakes, yet another VA could be used to manage parts of the website.
Franchising/licensing
The business has grown phenomenally in its first year and the cakes are amazingly popular. There are now no fewer than 6 contractors involved, all looking after various aspects of the day to day running of the company and still nobody is employed. Bob and Winston, however, are feeling the burn and would like to take a little more of a back seat. But how do they start doing less without having to take on staff to manage the business? Sell licences for people to take on an identikit business of their own, running it in exactly the same way as they do. By creating a licence or a franchise for the business the owners not only create substantially higher revenues from their original idea but do so by stepping out of the business to manage the franchise operation, still without employing anyone!
It sounds so simple, does it not? Business really can be as simple as this with some thought and planning. Obviously there is hard work, talent and determination involved in getting through each of the steps but the end product really is achievable without the need to wade through the red tape associated with taking on permanent staff. Any more excuses to not go for it?
David Cook All I Really Need
In a recent conversation, I was asked how much perfume a woman really needs. My interrogator used the term "a woman," but she really meant me. She was not being unkind; I think she was willing to assume that this hypothetical woman was a woman of fragrance and so I think she was going to allow that the proper answer was beyond one or two, but she was probably thinking more along the lines of six, whereas I am pretty sure it is some expontential factor of that same number. I do not know what the number is or if it is even a number; perhaps it is more like a range. At any rate, I am quite certain that my own ample collection of fragrance products is nowhere close to that range. But, as I launch out on another online venture to add to my collection, I started to wonder about the question myself. Why do we perfume lovers need so much fragrance? And I know part of the answer for today at least. Because it's summer...
Why do we need all of those choices?
One reason is mood. Aromatherapy may be suspicious in scientific circles but most of us fragrance fans know that perfumes can enhance and even affect our moods. There are scents that seem business like, scents that seem playful, scents that are sexy, and scents that are perfect for a night on the town. Since life is hectic and most of us multi-mood as well as multi-task, it is almost a given that you'll need a few different scents just to get you through the week.
Summertime is a great time to get some new scents, particularly because the warm and more relaxed months of summer require lighter, sportier scents. Summer is a great time to test-drive some of the gender-spanning scents (try One by Calvin Klein or Gramercy Park by Bond No. 9) or to try something playful (Incanto Charms by Salvatore Ferragamo and360 degrees Blue by Perry Ellis come to mind)
Summer is perfect for citrus-based scents. Just like fashion, everything old becomes new again. The original "cologne" is 4711 Cologne from Cologne, Germany. It's been around for centuries and after years of being in the closet as an old-fashioned scent, this light citrus scent is perfect for the warm summer months of 2007.A more recent entry to the roster of great citrus scents include Lemon Sugar by Fresh; one of my personal favorite citrus perfumes is Little Italy by Bond No. 9.
There is a whole slew of new food-inspired type fragrance products available right now and these pleasure-loving, fun scents are a great counterpoint to the more traditional scents of the perfume counter. Get out Coney Island by Bond No. 9 (Margarita-inspired), Groove by Carol's Daughter (peachy), Sunset Heat by Escada (tropical fruit), and Sake by Fresh.
Florals are always great scents but in the summer, it's nice to go with tropical flair (Euphoria by Calvin Klein, Beyond Paradise by Estee Lauder) or to go with something that's light yet wonderfully dramatic (Very Irresistable by Givenchy).
Coco Chanel once said that a woman should apply perfume to only those places she wishes to be kissed. For those romantic summer moments, my pick is Agent Provocateur. It's British, not normally a good sign for a perfume, but this stuff is intriguing and complex but without being heavy.
And you can't beat the classics, even in the dog days of summer. What's wrong with adding Chanel No. 5 (or even better for summer, No. 19) to the collection? Throw in some Beautiful by Estee Lauder and Premier Jour by Nina Ricci.
Summer is an active time for most of us and all of that activity in the hot weather can cause perfume to wear off sooner. During the summer months, either upgrade to an eau-de-parfum or perfume product for more staying power or re-apply more often. Since summer time generally increases the frequency of showering, that means we can switch fragrances more often.
If you perspire a lot, you will have trouble getting scent to last. Tips from the experts include layering your fragrance (using fragrant shower gel and soap, then applying fragrant lotion, then the perfume), but I am not convinced this works. It's fun, I just don't believe you gain much on fragrance scent-span if you sweat a lot. A better option is to apply perfume to your hair and clothing as well as your body. At last resort, just keep touching up.
Summer is also a great time to experiment with new perfumes. If you're looking for something new and different, try Aegean by Niel Morris, Stella by Tocca, or Delices by Cartier. These are fabulous fragrances for summer and they're not the sort of fragrance that "everybody" is wearing.
Both Sarah Rourke & Joanna Mclaughlin are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Sarah Rourke has sinced written about articles on various topics from Perfumes, How to Podcast. Want to learn more about escaping the rat race at a normal pace'Go to
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