So, do you want to know how to escape a 9 to 5 job? How did the 9 to 5 come about anyway? The 9 to 5 is an arbitrary working time slot popularised in the industrial revolution in Britain. Wealthy factory owners exploited the poor and made them work long hours for very little pay. The workers formed unions and demanded a limit on working hours and fair pay.
On 17 November 1915, Uruguay adopted an eight-hour working day, under the government of José Batlle y Ordóñez. On 3 April 1919, Spain introduced a universal law restricting the workday to a maximum of eight hours. The 8 hour working day was born! See more about the eight hour day movement on Wikipedia.
Today, the 8 hour working day is still in full swing. The trouble is, times have changed! No longer are workers needed in only a physical capacity in factories. Today, much of the workload is technical and can be performed from a laptop, from home. With greater access to technology, anyone can take a course online and learn how to start an online business. More and more people are awakening to the possibility of working with greater freedom – working from anywhere. So, the arbitrary 8 hour day becomes less and less appealing.
The concept of selling other people’s products online (affiliate marketing) came about in 1989, but it wasn’t until 1996 that it was popularised by Amazon. Today, more and more people are realising that they can make a living online, without a boss or a job and through selling other people’s products. This can give you not only financial independence and ultimately financial freedom, but also complete geographical freedom and autonomy from a workplace.
How To Escape A 9 To 5 Job – Foundation
While there’s plenty of opportunities today to shift to a more self sufficient working style, not everyone makes it work. It’s not an easy path becoming entrepreneurial, or self employed. Many try and fail to build businesses of their own in order to create financial independence and free themselves of their employment. So what makes the difference between those who succeed and those who fail?
If you’re currently struggling hanging on to what seems like a dead end job, take heart! A job is a blessing, even if it has become a mill stone around your neck! You’re much more likely to succeed with your new venture if you have the money to back it up. So whether you decide to escape your 9 to 5 with a service based business, or through some online venture, keeping hold of your job is a good idea!
Use the time in your job as a springboard to motivate you in building your new venture on the side. Use the pain as a reminder as to why you are building an escape plan. Keeping your job going while you’re fundamentally checking out mentally is known as quiet quitting. Quiet quitters turn down overtime and avoid promotions.
They are simply using their job as an income spring board for their side hustle, which will eventually replace their income so they can quit. They need the time to build their side hustle, and the mental space to do so. Accepting a promotion or working overtime is therefore counterproductive for quiet quitters who are building an escape plan. Their ultimate goal isn’t more money from their current job, but to escape the 9 to 5 permanently, through the creation of an independent income elsewhere.
How To Escape 9 To 5 Job – Building An Emergency Fund
If things have got bad in your workplace, you might be tempted to quit pretty soon. But that could leave you without a steady income. Trying to build a side hustle with zero funds isn’t much fun and you have much less chance of success if you can’t invest in growing your own business (through advertising). With this in mind it’s a good idea to start putting away some money for the end-game scenario when you can’t bear it any more or when your side hustle demands more time of you. Ideally you’ll plan at least a year ahead because it usually takes at least that long to get a side hustle up and running, making money.
But you can take some of the edge off this if you build up an emergency fund. If you’re already living pay check to pay check, take a look at some of your monthly outgoings. What subscriptions can you cancel? Are you living to your means, or beyond it? Have a look at your weekly expenses and make a note of everything you spend money on. If you do this diligently, you should find some wastage somewhere which you can eliminate. See also 10 money habits of the wealthy and finding the money for a side hustle. Doing a thorough audit of your spending habits is a vital first step in taking greater control and putting money aside for a venture or time off work.
Set Up An Automated Payment
If you don’t want to give up your Netflix, nights out, smoking or drinking, ask yourself how bad you really want out of your 9 to 5! You can probably save a packet if you only gave up one thing. Set up an automated payment for your emergency funds which goes out every month on payday. It doesn’t have to be a huge amount, and you can always add to it over time. Consider this payment like paying a bill. Over 12 months you’ll have an emergency fund which will help you transition to self employment or live without a job for a couple of months, whichever comes sooner!
This fund could also be used for your side hustle, if you’re lacking the funds to get started. The automated payment method of saving is a much better idea than trying to maintain the discipline of putting money in a jar. In a jar, you can always be tempted to “dip in” to it. Plus, you won’t always have the motivation, discipline, or spare cash to put money aside. But if you set up an automated payment into a savings account, you can consider it like any other bill you pay. Except you’ll be paying yourself! Ideally, use an account which is difficult to get into, so you can’t easily get to your funds.
This fund is specifically for your business venture or time in between jobs should you choose to quit. It will give you more confidence and security if you do eventually decide to quit your job and work full time on your venture.
How To Escape A 9 To 5 Job – Choosing Your Path
There’s a variety of opportunities which could help you escape your 9 to 5 job. Whether it’s a service based business you want, or some online opportunity, there’s plenty to go at. In the online space alone, you could become a Forex marketer, an affiliate, build a drop shipping business, use print on demand, or start your own shop on Etsy, for example. (Checkout this free video series for more information).
In the service based business arena, you could start a painting and decorating business, setup a handyman service, or build a business around jet washing people’s houses and property. See this post for more service based business ideas.
Some business models will demand more from your time than others. But if you’re sticking out the 9 to 5 for a few months, you’ll need something you can do outside working hours. So, a business which has some automation built in might be suitable, such as affiliate marketing, for example. In a service based business, it’s going to be difficult building up clients and work if you can only work weekends and evenings. So consider how you’ll build your business. You may need to shift to part time hours in your main job to accommodate, if that’s a possibility. If not, a more flexible venture might be more suitable.
Choosing An Online Based Business – Foundations
An online based business is the choice for a lot of people who want to escape the 9 to 5 life. It allows them to get up and running fairly quickly, even without any of their own products and without a service to sell of their own. It’s also a business which can be built up around existing working hours and automated to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Still, there’s a foundation which needs to be built and you need to take an online business as seriously as any other business.
The foundation of an online business is the infrastructure of your sales system and your own knowledge and understanding. With an online business, systems and automation can promote and sell products online even while you sleep! But this can only happen once you have the infrastructure in place, and are running an effective advertising campaign. The benefit of such as system is that you can run it 24 hours a day, while you are working your day job, and build up your business alongside your 9 to 5.
The main systems to get in place for an online business are your tools such as:
- Website – where you attract visitors to your products
- Email list – a list of subscribers who are interested in your offer
- Advertising platform – used to target people specifically according to their needs
- Product range – a range of high value products including subscription and high ticket items
A System For Selling
Once a system for selling online is set up, your main job is to drive targeted traffic into it, in order to start bringing in customers. This takes a bit of understanding and training so your education should be considered as the foundation of your business, along with the basic infrastructure of the systems for selling your products.
With a normal job, you are trading your time for money, so there will always be a limit on what you can earn. Even in a well paid job there’s only so many hours in the day. But when you earn money through selling products and services online, this relationship is different. The money you earn is dependent on the products you sell. With a globally accessible product the potential is almost unlimited.
Once you’ve learned how to sell a product once, you can do the same again and again. The process of selling products online can also be largely automated, so the relationship between your time and how you make money is different than with a job. You can make sales in your sleep with an online business because you can sell products with automation.
Goal Setting & Mindset
Your first major goal as an online business owner is to make your first sale. Before that can happen, there’s plenty of steps in setting up your online business system and learning how to run advertising campaigns. You’ll need some budget in order to invest in an online business in the first place, and then in running advertising campaigns. (Get started here).
If you quit your job too early, getting online traffic can become a major hurdle if you don’t have any advertising budget to spend here. Finding free traffic online is possible, but it’s a lot more long winded and labour intensive!
Before you make your first sale, there’s a lot of work to be done in setting up your sales system. This can seem like it’s all for nothing unless you actually follow through and start running an advertising campaign. It’s at this stage where many a would-be entrepreneur gives up! But remember, any business takes time to set up and only when you attract paying customers do you make any money. Hence why your first sale is a major milestone with an online business.
A large portion of online business owners quit – something like 97% which means you’ll need to be in the 3% who carry on in order to make it work! Having the right mindset is a major part of this, so make sure you surround yourself with positive people on the same mission as you and get the right training and education.
Stay The Course
Nobody said escaping the 9 to 5 would be easy and building your own business is no mean feat! But with job unhappiness at an all time high, according to a recent Gallup poll, it’s worth going the extra mile for what you’re trying to achieve. During the building of your escape plan, you’re sure to have some setbacks. So it’s well worth writing down your reasons for wanting your own business. When times are tough, and you’re thinking of quitting on your business, take the time to remind yourself of the reasons you’re doing it in the first place. Here’s some of my reasons for building an online business:
- Financial independence – means nobody can control my life or time
- Time and financial freedom – I can work when and where I like, anywhere in the world
- I can say no to a boss – (I can also say yes, but my own income means I have more choice)
- No more commute, no more lousy bosses
- Owning my own life – I can build my business around my lifestyle, not my life around a job!
A common thread for successful business owners is that they have a very strong reason for pursuing their goals. Without a strong enough reason you may likely join the many who drop out when they meet a hurdle in the road. Having the right mindset, and the right blueprint for a successful online business is vital for your success. Ultimately though it comes down to your perseverance and this is often determined by a huge motivating factor. Your “why?” for building your business is therefore an important motivator and it’s a good idea to keep it in mind!
Re-evaluate Your Goals Occasionally
From time to time it’s worth re-evaluating your goals. Building your own business can be the answer to escaping a 9 to 5 job. However, there will be times when you will doubt your entrepreneurial journey, and you may even look back with rose tinted glasses at your 9 to 5! That’s why it’s definitely worth keeping hold of your regular pay check from a job if you can, at least for a few months. A regular income from a job will help you build your own business much more quickly than if you have to advertise on the cheap! When you have a lot of financial pressure to quickly build a business, it’s also massively stressful.
Once your business is off the ground and you’ve started attracting customers, you’re made a huge step in the right direction. But you need to keep growing your business past your previous goals otherwise you can easily get stuck. If you’re juggling a full time job, it can easily get too much and you can stall, and fall back towards your comfort zones. You may even consider quitting your business at this point!
This is why it’s worth re-evaluating your goals periodically because they will naturally have changed. You may consider shifting to a part time position in your job, for example, if your business is taking off. Your goals from a year ago, don’t necessarily correlate with your current circumstances. So it’s wise to keep an eye on your long term intentions and goals.
If you’re ready to get started with an online business you can do that here!
