Being self employed is a lonely experience, especially when working from home. Where can I get support and build a network?
Robin Milne, of Totem, replies: The key focus for anyone choosing to be self employed is the development, maintenance, and effective use of a business network .
"Network or die" is
a good mantra for the self employed to adopt. In today's knowledge-based business environment, it really is a case of what you know and who you know. That's the networking bit.
Being self employed, I have to constantly remind myself that it is indeed a fine line between self employment and unemployment!
Oiling the network is a must for sustaining your business. Your own office in the city or indeed a serviced office does not really do it. It is just as easy to be lonely in this environment as at home I found.
Permanent office space for me was not a runner as I was spending 90 per cent of my time on clients' premises.
But I still needed to be actively networking. The best time to be teeing up the next assignment is while you are engaged on the current one.
Some months back I became aware of - and am now involved in - a new development in the city, Totem on the Viaduct, which is a business networking hub in downtown Auckland aimed at supporting the independent worker.
It has a wide choice of venues for functions and smaller rooms for more structured client meetings. These provide the facilities to carry out various day-to-day business activities such as emailing, and also that all-important opportunity to network. It is a place to meet your own clients and potential clients and to catch up and talk to colleagues and other hub members, and a place to talk in a far more conducive and professional environment than a noisy cafe or hotel lobby.
I have written this in the member's hub at Totem, after having attended, with 100 or so others, a Totem-designed event, "Take it Personally", given by The Body Shop's Anita Roddick. Totem will run similar events regularly.
A place like Totem not only helps to avoid the potential loneliness and isolation of self employment, but also helps the all-important networking. .
Totem is at 104 Customs St ( behind the Tepid Baths).
* Send your Mentor questions to: Ellen_Read@nzherald.co.nz. Answers will be provided by Business in the Community's Business Mentor Programme.