4 Ways to Thrive With Self Employed Courier Jobs

Aug 24
15:43

2015

Lisa Jeeves

Lisa Jeeves

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In tough financial times, the way you select the best self employed courier jobs is different than during busy times.

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Survival,4 Ways to Thrive With Self Employed Courier Jobs  Articles not avoidance, is the key to doing business when facing trying financial times. Whether they come through a lag in the economy, a drop in the local market, or a dip in your business, you simply can’t avoid their eventuality in any industry.

Those who work in small-scale delivery work know that the need to survive and even thrive during quiet periods drives the need to find work, even when work is scarce. The most successful independent contractors are prepared to do so by making tough decisions.

Quantity or Quality?

When the market for self employed courier jobs shrinks due to external factors, you may be forced to be less selective as there are simply fewer clients offering jobs. The savvy operator understands that selective need not dissipate into a willingness to accept just anything, but that there just simply may be a need to adopt a new measuring stick. The question of quantity or quality becomes all the more important during tough times when selecting work. There will always be some clients offering work that will sustain you for longer, either by amount of remuneration or efficiency of service. Others may offer quicker routes, which allow you to move on to the next job sooner. There is no right or wrong about what to choose - it is a matter of understanding the implications of each in your own business context.

Short-term or Long-term?

An equally important question is whether you should take on short-term or long-term work in tough times. Long-term or repeat contracts give you greater security, while short-term yet more lucrative routes offer you a quick injection of funds. Both can be extremely rewarding. The choice is ultimately an illusion of sorts, since the ideal is, naturally, a balance between the two. The bottom line is your self employed courier jobs need to be both sustainable and offer a profit - hence the need for a relative mix of both short- and long-term work.

Invest or Save?

If you're worried about finding sufficient self employed courier jobs in scarce times, you can also consider whether or not to streamline your operations, and then invest or save. Investment in new vehicles, technology, or services can be a tough pill to swallow when profits shrink, but cutting expenditure and putting money into the right areas prepares you well for significant growth when the market expands again. It also allows you to alter the direction of your work and seek out new routes and cargo. On the other hand, there is a point where you do need to keep money in the bank and assets secure, simply to avoid the bogey of bad debt.

Work or Upskill?

Understand that not all debt is bad. Many a transport firm has borrowed in lean times and thereafter turned financial survival in serious growth once they have restructured to sniff out opportunities that exist even in shrinking markets. After all, most of these markets expand again at some point. One decision that needs to be made is not simply whether you should invest in good debt, but whether you should invest in skills. When self employed courier jobs become scarcer, you can snatch at whatever comes your way, or you can endeavor to undergo training in logistics, business skills or outsourcing to be prepared to be bigger and better at what you do when the market swells again.