About this item
Anyone who opts for self-employment quickly learns that succeeding as your own boss is no walk in the park. While professional freedom has many, many joys, it also involves significant risks. If you're considering self-employment, or you're already self-employed, The Self-Employment Survival Guide: Proven Strategies to Succeed as Your Own Boss alerts you to the challenges involved and provides proven strategies for surmounting these obstacles and succeeding. You'll also learn what you need to put in place before taking the leap to being your own boss to help assure your success. Working for yourself offers personal freedoms and rewards, but the road can curve or travel uphill at times. Here, Jeanne Yocum shares eight key behaviors that impede success and provides proven solutions for the various obstacles that might cross your path, including unreasonable client demands, slow payers, unexpected client defections, daily schedules, health and financial planning, and the feelings of isolation that can sometimes accompany working on your own. Unlike many books that provide only a rose-colored view of self-employment, this book gives a full, realistic view of what being your own boss is actually like. By learning about the ups and downs that come with being in charge of your own livelihood, you will be better able to handle the demands of self-employment and succeed on your own terms.
About the Author
For nearly 30 years, Jeanne Yocum has been self-employed as a public relations consultant and ghostwriter. She credits her parents for fostering skills that have enabled her to succeed as her own boss. Her mother was a high school English teacher who led her to love writing; her father was self-employed and served as her example of how to succeed out there on your own.
Jeanne has worked with clients in a wide variety of fields, including commercial and residential real estate, dot-coms, retailing, higher education, health care, financial and legal services, manufacturing, IT analysis, management consulting, architecture, and banking. Her blog, succeedinginsmallbusiness.com, offers advice to small business owners and solopreneurs.
Jeanne's published works include The Self-Employment Survival Guide: Proven Strategies to Succeed as Your Own Boss, and two co-authored books, New Product Launch: 10 Proven Strategies, published in 2004, and Ban the Humorous Bazooka [and Avoid Other Roadblocks and Speed Bumps Along the Innovation Highway], published in 2001. She also served as editor of Stefan Lindegaard's Social Media for Corporate Innovators and Entrepreneurs: Add Power to Your Innovation Efforts, an e-book released in 2012. She has ghostwritten books on open innovation, strategic partnerships, and leading fast-growth companies.
Before becoming self-employed 1989, Jeanne was an account supervisor with a mid-size Boston public relations agency. Previously, she was Director of Public Relations at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and Director of Corporate Communications for Eastern Enterprises. She also managed the home office and field communications programs for the New England Life Mutual Insurance Company, where she served as speechwriter for senior officers and wrote the annual report.
A Pennsylvania native, Jeanne holds a B.A. in Journalism from Pennsylvania State University and a Master's degree in Journalism from Boston University. After spending most of her career in Greater Boston and in Western Massachusetts, she now lives in Durham, NC, with her husband, Bob Ickrath, and their puggle, Molly.
