Maun - ˜Leave the bœ $$t@*ds behind an insiders guide to working for yourself

For Lucy and Theodore

You are loved, you have talent and you can choose

your own path in life.

Copyright 2013 Richard Maunk

Published by Marshall Cavendish Business

An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196

www.marshallcavendish.com/genref

Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited

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Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown NY 105919001, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke, 12th Floor, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

The right of Richard Maun to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved

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eISBN 978 981 4484 89 3

Cover design by Grand Design Consultants

1 THE EMPTY DESK
Leaving the bastards behind

2 A HAPPY BOTTOM
How to avoid a business spanking

3 YOU YOU YOU
What sort of firework are you?

4 FORM YOUR CLUB
Round up your supporters

5 LISTEN PLEASE
Sales secrets for beginners

6 BE DIFFERENT OR BE DEAD
The essence of marketing

7 THE BIG SECRET
Tell everyone you know

8 FIND THE STINKING FISH
Clear contracting for success

9 HOW SHORT ARE YOU?
Understanding transition

10 PLAYTIME KIDDO
Stop and smell the flowers

11 THE SUNNY AFTERNOON
Practical accounting stories

12 LOVE IS GROOVY
Celebrate your baby business

13 PERSONAL PLANNING KIT
Cut out and keep safe

This is a book to help people make the transition from fed-up wage slave to enthusiastic self-employed free-man, or freewoman, whether your dream is to be a florist, a plumber, a consultant or any other gig where you dont report to an odious lump of a manager and where you are free from the shackles of an annual appraisal. A world where personnel managers are just a distant memory. A world where you can decide what sort of phone to buy and where you dont have to use it to report in to a lame duck bastard of a boss, because you dont have one of those any more.

These pages have not been lovingly crafted, printed and bound for people who want to borrow 5 million and buy an established business, or who already have wads of cash and just want to play at it. No, this book is aimed squarely at people like me who started with little more than an idea and a sense of self-belief that would have made the Angel Gabriel cough with surprise.

A clue to the content and style is in the title. Cunningly the book is not called 1001 Ways to Get Started because you would fall asleep by the first chapter and probably consign the rest to the shredder. Instead it has the word bastard in the title because when people make this kind of leap they are full of emotion and dont want to be force-fed lists of tip-top tips. What I wanted when I started was a book that would help me to understand some of the business basics, which make the difference between having fun and having a house. I wanted to read something that was informative and made me think, and that wasnt varnished by the dead hand of parental advice. Most of the business books on my shelf are half-read because completing them is like trying to drive through a snowdrift without a steel snow plough bolted to the front of your car. No matter how hard you try, you just get bogged down and then have to wind down a window to let off a flare and be rescued. Leave The Bastards Behind comes without any snow-related safety kit, because it is breezy, pithy, informative and useful, so that you wont get stuck in the cold, wet, white stuff.

The world is full of bad language and its fair to say that some of it has migrated into these pages, waiting quietly to be read, laughed at and thought about. If youre not the sort of person who likes to read a few naughty words then you have a choice. You can put the book back on the shelf or you can hand it to the person looking over your shoulder who doesnt have such hang-ups. I dont mind, because we all have choices to make in life and exercising your right to choose is what its all about.

Choose to continue reading and youll find some practical guidance to help you get going with your pet project. If you Google business books you get a whopping 502,000,000 responses, but this is the only book to contain a handy height chart, some rude words about marketing types and a useful and unique personal planning kit. And if that wasnt enough, it even warns against the dangers of playing with fireworks.

Working for yourself is like sex. You can have fun, you can indulge your fantasies, but once you have fired the starting gun then there are going to be consequences, tears and a sticky patch. So this book is here to help. Its not intended to be a dull slog through the intricacies of discounted cash flow, the niceties of business law, or the pain of hiring help. Instead it covers the main issues people face when deciding to go it alone, and it invites them to think. I know, because I have worked for myself for over four years and so this book is part helpful companion and part reflections from the other side.

I have worked more hours than I ever worked when I was employed by someone else. I have had to learn fast to keep eating, and I have had days that have been so fantastically rewarding, I could have cried with the pleasure of just being me, doing what I wanted to do. On sunny days when I pull up to a client and park my car I still pinch myself that this is work. On the days when Im stuck at home wading through accounts I also pinch myself that this is work, but the rough and the smooth is what makes life as a selfer so exhilarating and so stretching.

Read this book from cover to cover, and have fun working out for yourself what you will do and how you will start doing it for yourself. And if you are already in business, read it and think about all the decisions you can change now, and about all those little loose ends that you still havent got to grips with. Then when youve finished it and completed the personal planning kit, if you want to spend some of your precious seed money on more books you have 502,000,000 choices to investigate. Life is always about choice, and Leave The Bastards Behind is here to help give you choices and invite you to consider your options. Have fun!

Whilst youre having fun, remember that no one is really a bastard. We might like to scapegoat our bosses for their bad behaviour, but as we own our own behaviour, we can choose to be powerful and do what we want to do. Think about the boss you hate. He (or she) may be overworked, under-trained and having to uphold a set of business objectives that he doesnt personally believe in, but being the boss he has to toe the party line or face the chop. Given the need to earn money to pay for life, its inevitable that peoples reaction to stress can be to treat their team with harsh words and a short fuse. Dont pity them, simply think about how life must be for them, then focus on what you want to do for yourself and give them a cheery wave as you paddle off into the sunset.