âThe difference between being self-employed and being a business owner basically boils down to whether you are working for someone else or someone else is working for you," says Patrick Burke, managing partner of the tax and business consulting firm Burke & Schindler PLL and author of The 10 Biggest Business Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. âIf you are strictly working for yourself, providing services to another person or company, you are self-employed."Kathleen Overfield-Zook, assistant director of the Gilliam Center for Entrepreneurship at James Madison University, worked as a freelance musician and instructor for 25 years. âDuring this time, I considered myself self-employed," she says. âI worked on my own terms. If I wanted to expand my teaching schedule, I announced I was taking on more students and added them to my workload. If I wanted to play a certain concertâor more specifically, didn't want to play a concertâI'd say yes or no."Overfield-Zook didn't have a business name. She was paid directly, and her income went directly into her personal bank account. âThis combination of freelance work, where I was not paid full time by any one company or business, was how I made my living," she says.Being self-employed means having complete control. However, you are limited in how many different directions the company may take by how much time you have.