So far we have covered:

• The perception that self-employed people have to work for long hours
• Self-employment is riskier than traditional employment
• You need lots of money to start a new business
• Self-employment is stressful
• Self-employment is too complicated

We continue with our series, 10 myths about self-employment and our focus today being: Self-employed people have to do everything themselves.

One of the things that discourage most 20 something year olds from establishing businesses of their own is the perception that they will have to do everything themselves. With this comes fear that most of your time will be dedicated to the business meaning your social life could end and everything in your life will revolve around the business.

As Steve Pavlina, a self-help author, motivational speaker and entrepreneur, puts it, self-employed people may be responsible for making sure everything gets done, but it’s usually foolish for them to do everything themselves. That would be way too much for them.

You are probably thinking, “What if I don’t have enough cash to employ people won’t I have to do everything by myself?

In as much as this might be the case, there are ways through which you can get some assistance at a minimal cost. Interns come in handy during such circumstances. I know of interns who used to get paid from the wallets of their employers who were setting up their businesses; in fact, I was one of those interns.

If you are setting up an online business and want to generate revenue through advertising from your site, start by using Google Adsense. You won’t have to sell the ads or deal with the advertisers, Google handles all of that. This system actually saves you cash since you won’t have to focus most of your time on selling every ad yourself, you could instead focus on getting people coming back to your site.

Derek Sivers, an entrepreneur, programmer and self-proclaimed avid student of life, in his article: Delegate or die: The self-employment trap tells the story of the early years of his business. He worked from 7am to 10pm, seven days a week. Everything passed through him. His employees couldn’t make decisions without first consulting with him.

The danger of a business that is over dependent on one person is, once that person leaves the business, there is a high likelihood that the business will collapse. Simply put, the business starts and ends with that one person.

It will also be hard for you to get anything done if you constantly have to keep answering questions all day. “Sir, can we accept wire transfer as a form of payment?” “Sir, the invoice is ready, should we send it the client?” sir this, sir that, it will in the long run push you to the limit.

You are probably asking, isn’t it ideal to keep a close eye on what your employees are doing? In as much as it’s advisable to keep tabs of what’s going on in your business, there are limits you shouldn’t cross.

Don’t be like one of those micromanagers who manage by closely observing or controlling the work of subordinates or employees. Micromanagement generally has a negative connotation.

Micromanagers take perfectly positive attributes – an attention to detail and a hands-on attitude – to the extreme. Either because they're control-obsessed, or because they feel driven to push everyone around them to success.

Micromanagers’ risk disempowering their colleagues, they ruin their colleagues' confidence, hurt their performance, and frustrate them to the point where they quit.

This doesn’t have to be the case, self-employed people don’t have to do everything themselves. Delegate or die, there’s no way around it.