Flying the corporate coop

So you’re ready to ditch the workaday world of face time, office politics, and slaving long hours for someone else’s dream? Congratulations and welcome to the challenging, yet usually rewarding, world of self-employment.

You’re not alone.

A new report by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business – based on the 2006 Canadian census – found the number of people nationwide opting to run their own company grew by 18.6 per cent between 2001 and 2006, more than double the rate of aggregate employment growth.

“Not only did these individuals create their own jobs but they also became employers in much greater numbers,” wrote the report’s author, CFIB Chief Economist Ted Mallett. “The increases were the largest seen in the incorporated segment in 20 years, and far larger than the mere 1.6 per cent change in the number of self-employed in unincorporated businesses.”

The 2006 Census shows nearly equal growth rates of self-employment among men and women. Within incorporated businesses, the growth rate among women was 19 per cent between 2001 and 2006, and 18.4 per cent for men.

Boomers are leading the charge: three-quarters of the net growth in self-employment came from women and men in the 45- to 64-year-old age group.

For people like Gabrielle Durning, owner of South Surrey’s Uptown GiftBox Company, once the dream of going it alone grabs hold, it won’t let go. “It felt like this was something I had to do,” she says. “It brought together all of the skills and all of my experience into one place at one time. It just felt right.”

As the name suggests, The Uptown GiftBox offers high-end gift boxes for all manner of occasions. Her clients have included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ben Affleck, and Richard Dreyfuss. She has also been in talks with various 2010 Olympics suppliers and sponsors to provide welcome gifts for visitors.

Before launching the business several years ago, Durning worked for a decade for a number of companies in the event management industry.

While on maternity leave, she discovered the Self Employment Entrepreneur Development Society, or SEEDS. Since 1997, SEEDS, a non-profit organization, has helped some 1,600 individuals make the leap from employee to self-employment and business ownership.

The idea for a new business opportunity came to Durning while she was working in event planning. “Part of the job involved providing gift baskets,” she says. “But no matter how hard I looked, I could never find much more than the old wicker basket full of stale biscotti. So I knew there was a market need not being met.”

Like many others who have flown the corporate birdcage for the blue skies of entrepreneurship and self-employment, Durning identified an opportunity in an area that allowed her to exploit her strengths.

Coming up with a business plan is one thing. Bringing it to fruition is quite another.

Between December 2005 and November 2006, Durning cloistered herself in her home office while setting up her business. “I had to finance the business from a personal line of credit,” she says. “I had been a risk taker, but this was something new.”

In her first year of operations, she had to move the business three times to accommodate growth, an effort she had not planned on.

Of course, along with the challenges come the rewards. In January, Durning won the White Rock -South Surrey Chamber of Commerce business excellence award in the new business category.

Having successfully made it through the initial hardships, what advice can she offer other prospective do-it-yourselfers?

“First, it will cost more money than you think,” she says. “Make sure you have a plan and that you keep it flexible and revise it as needed.

“Learn that you have to delegate, so do the stuff you’re good at and leave the rest to others. In other words, work on the business, not in it.”

Her final guidance is perhaps the most important: “Make sure you’re doing this because it’s something you have a passion for – something you love to do.”

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Breaking free

In most regions of Canada, incorporated self-employment grew faster than employment or unincorporated self employment. Provincial findings reflect the national norm, suggesting changes in the entrepreneurial economy were structural rather than random, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

The biggest gains were in the Prairies. Incorporated self-employment increased 27.2 per cent in Alberta and 23.6 per cent in Manitoba between the 2001 and 2006 Census.

British Columbia saw its incorporated self-employment rate increase 13.6 in the same period, to 108,125 employees. The number of those self-employed but unincorporated was 205.875.

Source: CFIB / Census 2006