It's not abnormal to feel discomfort in the daily routine of a well-ordered life. In his book The Pathology of Normality, the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm noted that our well-ordered societies give rise to mental illness and suicide. An OECD report confirms this, particularly in view of our drug consumption.
If you too have a Bullshit Job, as defined by sociologist David Graeber in his book of the same name, i.e. a job that serves little or no purpose, it may be high time to slam the door and live on your own, before you sink into addiction or depression.
Let's take a look at the steps you need to take to resign from your job and set up your own business, from obtaining unemployment benefit to the assistance you can claim, and under what conditions.
Would you like to become an entrepreneur? That's what we explain here.
Yes, of course, it is possible to resign and set up your own business. But even asking the question is a sign that such a decision seems at odds with the way in which our society has accustomed us to viewing work as salaried employment.
However, before you leave your job with your head held high, there are a few key points to consider:
- The limits of your project,
- Notice period,
- Your entitlement to unemployment benefit.
You can't just quit a job overnight and imagine you've come up with the perfect business idea. And while a successful Plan A may not require a Plan B, the best thing to do is to assess the viability of Plan A.
There are a few steps to follow:
- Assess the feasibility of your project,
- Assess its viability,
- To find financing, you need to draw up a business plan,
- Develop a sales strategy,
- Select your communication channels,
- Find your accountant or certified public accountant,
Let's expand on these steps a little, so that you can use our article as an initial guide to ensure you don't forget the most important elements.
1. Evaluate your new career plan
Assessing a professional project is based on one fundamental element: putting emotions aside. This means that the only data to guide your decision as to whether or not to embark on this or that project must be purely factual.
In other words, if you start looking at the situations you're going to face, and analyzing the data you find, from the angle of what other people think of your idea, you're going to stop before you've even started.
The reason is simple: almost everyone will tell you that your idea won't work.
2. Assess the health of your competitors
To assess the feasibility of your project, you need to start by gathering data on your competitors. Assessing their health will enable you to sound out the market, so as to know whether it is buoyant.
To do this, after drawing up a list of around ten competitors, from large companies to small SARLs, go to the infogreffe website and enter their names.
You'll either get the sales figures for each year, as well as the results and the number of employees, or you can order the documents for just over 8 euros per document.
3. Get to know your future partners, and their costs
In addition to your competitors, it's essential that you identify your suppliers, and any other players required to produce your product or create your service. You'll need to know the costs of the items they'll have to deliver, or the services they'll have to provide.
You should also consider trends in the raw materials markets on which your products or services depend. Is it particularly volatile? Is there a seasonal pattern? All this information will help you to plan ahead.
4. From business plan to communication channels
All the information gathered about your competitors will give you access to your potential customers. How can you do this? By following these companies on the social networks they operate.
The mistake not to make here is to launch yourself on as many networks as possible.
Determine your target clientele and, depending on their socio-economic characteristics, initially focus on a single communication channel, or two at most.
The reason? It's better to master one or two of them thoroughly and exploit them well than to spread yourself over several channels and exploit none of them properly.
Unless you have a full-time marketing team dedicated to managing your communications, you won't have much credibility with investors if you tell them you'll be active everywhere.
Communication is a time-consuming business, and mastering a channel takes practice.
Once you've gleaned all this data, you'll be able to put together a business plan that investors will find credible. You'll then be in a position to raise funds, perhaps in addition to your unemployment benefit.
Pôle Emploi reiterates the principle that an employee who resigns is not entitled to compensation. However, resignations for the purpose of professional retraining are eligible for compensation.
Opening a business is a perfect example of professional reconversion. This possibility, which has been open to you since November1, 2019, is nevertheless conditional on a real and serious project. In other words, the famous business plan, including the market study and all that goes with it, will be particularly useful here.
All the more so since you have to follow three steps:
- Ask for career development advice.
- Be issued with a certificate attesting to the real and serious nature of the project you are pursuing.
- Respect the 6-month filing deadline.
Before looking at them in a little more detail, you need to have worked continuously for at least 5 years (excluding periods of availability, sabbatical leave or unpaid leave) on a permanent contract under private law, to be eligible for an allowance.
1. What is professional development advice?
Advice on career development can be obtained from specific structures. Executives should contactAPEC, while people with disabilities should contact CAP Emploi.
For the others, France Compétences lists the competent people for each region.
2. Attestation of the real and serious nature of your project
This is where you need to make your case, with a precise, well-organized business plan. Convince whom? The Commission paritaire interprofessionnelle régionale, also known as "Transition Pro".
To convince your audience, a business start-up project is just what you need. It's up to you to demonstrate that your project is financially viable.
3. 6 months to apply for the allowance
Once you have given your employer your resignation, you have 12 months to register with Pôle-emploi.
This is where you need to pay particular attention. The 6-month period following receipt of the certificate attesting to the real and serious nature of your business start-up does not extend the 12-month period. So don't waste any time.
To make sure you're eligible for compensation, visit demission-reconversion.gouv.fr, and take the test.
If you don't meet all the requirements, you're still in business. There's plenty of help available.
Social assistance is available to help you set up your own business. There are three types:
- ARE (back-to-work assistance).
- ARCE (aid for taking over or creating a business),
- ACRE (aid for starting up or taking over a business),
1. ARE can be granted to you if you are not already receiving ARCE.
This assistance depends on your age, the date of your registration with Pôle emploi, and the income you receive. To receive it, all you need to do is register with Pôle-emploi.
2.ARCE is an unemployment benefit paid to you in the form of a lump sum.
This assistance is subject to registration with Pôle emploi. It also implies that you have already set up your own business.
3. TheACRE is a partial exemption from your company's social security contributions.
To qualify, you must be a jobseeker and eligible for compensation from Pôle emploi. Otherwise, you must have been registered with Pôle Emploi for more than six months.
As you can see, these social benefits are subject to strict controls. If you can't benefit from them, now is not the time to give up.
Entrepreneurship is all about solving problems and overcoming difficulties. These will be neither the first nor the last. Your job will be to find solutions to each and every one of them.
