Solopreneur

Banish Business Failure in 4 Easy Steps

Becoming a solopreneur is a dream for many budding professionals, but some still view it as a pipe dream. You can be successful in a solo enterprise – if you take the right advice. If you’ve been longing to go into business for yourself and chase your business dreams, know that you’re not alone. Becoming a successful solopreneur is an exercise in diligence, patience, and ingenuity. Follow these rules of solopreneur success:

Planning Is Your Friend

Establishing a successful solopreneur enterprise requires a clear mission and vision. Take a step back and invest some time in a planning session before you dive into business. Entrepreneurs tend to be driven by innovation and a jumble of ideas, but jumping headlong into the foray can be a recipe for disaster.

Grab a cup of coffee and plunk down in your favorite chair or coffee shop and map out your business plan. What direction do you want your business to go? What is its central purpose? How will you specifically achieve your intermediate and end goals? Do you have a plan to quantifiably chart your progress? One of the worst things you can do is be halfway through your first year of business and realize that you lack any clear direction or focus.

Realize You’re Not An Island

You may have gone into solopreneurship to make a go of it alone, but just because it started that way doesn’t mean that you should be alone all the time. Sure, being an entrepreneur can be a lonely lifestyle: you’re plugging away at long hours while your ex-coworkers are unwinding over drinks.

It’s not beneficial to completely isolate yourself. Join a professional organization where you can connect with like-minded individuals at events. Keep a list of names for people you can call on for freelance work once you’re settled into business. Outsource things like bookkeeping and maintaining your website so you can focus on what’s important.

Celebrate All Successes (and Stop the Comparing Game)

When you’re part of a massive undertaking such as a solo career, take the time to revel in all of your successes, great or small. An endless game of self-criticism will only lead to burnout. Another trap that entrepreneurs fall into is the senseless game of comparing themselves to others. Keeping your eye on the competition can be beneficial, but only to a certain extent.

Focus on your own goals and vision, and let the rest play out naturally. Don’t think about your success solely in terms of the amount of money you’re making. Consider your amount of personal fulfillment and how you’re reaching others. When you have a good day, celebrate it with a glass of wine or a conversation with a friend. If you’ve hit a slump, acknowledge it, learn from it, and move on.

Be Consistent

Whether it’s being true to your brand or keeping your promises, consistency is the thing that separates the successful solopreneur from the unsuccessful ones. Keep your branding consistent, and align yourself with strategic partners that align with your unique company values. Your customer base will value your steady practices and will trust you in turn.

Solopreneurship is a worthy undertaking, but it’s not without its risks. As long as you stay true to yourself, balance your priorities, and reach out for help, the rest will fall into place organically.

CLICK HERE to learn about my Solopreneur Coaching program

Additional Resources:

• The 5 Rules of Solopreneur Success
• 10 Things Every Solopreneur Should Know To Be Successful
• The 8 Steps to Becoming a Successful Solopreneur with Dawn Marrs

Do You Need a Solopreneur Coach?

As the job market continues to recover from the economic downturn of 2008, more and more enterprising individuals are turning towards starting their own businesses. However, a large percentage of new businesses fail within the first year. How can you ensure your business doesn’t go down this costly and devastating path? A solopreneur coach may be the perfect solution.

What Is Solopreneur Coaching?

A “solopreneur” is simply an entrepreneur who single-handedly runs his or her own business. Does that sound like a daunting task? It doesn’t have to be. By creating your own work and your own guidelines, you can find financial success and personal fulfillment. It can be rewarding to cut the corporate cord and live by your own rules, but to find success, there are some general rules you should follow.

Create (and Elevate) Your Personal Branding

To successfully start your own business, you need a clear vision, mission, and achievable goals. This means the development of an action plan is essential. With a clear roadmap and measureable, time-based goals, you’re giving your start-up the best chance possible.

Once you have a plan in place, it’s time to work on your branding. This means elevating your PR game. To become a master of PR, there are a few things you can do.

Take to Twitter

Social media is no longer just an avenue to connect with your old college pals. With Twitter, you can use hashtags to spark a conversation with others in your industry, and with those who share your interests. It’s a casual way to network, but it can also be a valuable way to connect with potential clients or vendors.

Make Your LinkedIn Profile Shine

Don’t publish the bare minimum to keep your LinkedIn account public. Be as explicit and as detailed as possible. Include volunteer experiences, professional affiliations, hobbies, interests, or anything else you think will make your LinkedIn profile stand out from the competition.

Get Your Name Out

Networking is a powerful way to get potential clients to see what you’re all about, and you have to do so creatively, even if it takes you out of your comfort zone. Here are two ways to get your clients talking about you:

Start a blog. It takes a little creativity and a lot of upkeep, but starting a blog is essential if you want to start your own business. If you write about your field often and with authority, people will start to see you as an expert, making them more likely to come to you when the need arises.

Do pro-bono work. We’d all like to start making cash on day one, but the reality is that you need to prove yourself before people start to trust you. Don’t know where to begin? Pick a charity that means something to you, and offer up your services. You’ll be making a positive difference, and they’ll be more likely to recommend you to other organizations in the future.

Hone Your Marketing Skills

To succeed as a solopreneur, you’ll need to market yourself and your product. This means perfecting your public speaking and presentation skills, which fills most people with dread. But with proper coaching, you’ll be ready to take on the next conference or speak at that next local event.

CLICK HERE for more information about solopreneur coaching.

Additional Resources:

• How to Become a Solopreneur in 10 Easy Steps
• How to Become a Solopreneur
• 7 Reasons to Become a Solopreneur Today

As a solopreneur coach, I teach ambitious individuals how to reach for and achieve their dreams. Among these lessons are networking, business management, accounting, and more. Foremost among these skills is personal branding. It is one of the first things new business owners must create, and serves as a master key to public perception.

A personal brand is not just your identity, but your story and personality. It relays to consumers what type of products you offer. It serves as a gauge of user experience. Consumers should immediately identify with your brand and see it as something they could relate to.

For example, if your personal brand story involves a young man from a poor household rising to the top of his field selling high-end products, you should position yourself to provide a luxury service for those less able to afford luxury. Perhaps your service is the most reliable among your competitors, or it’s available 24/7. Whatever you are offering, it all starts with your story.

Find Your Niche

Before you tell that story, your company must identify with your demographic. Your story must appeal to those outlined in your business plan. The story should be true: never say you grew up in a rural area if in fact you hail from Los Angeles. Before you create your brand and its logo, it is very important to understand what urges the customer to make a purchase. After your initial market analysis rolls in, you can begin to craft your story.

Tell Your Story

Marketing is storytelling. Stories are easier to remember than facts, and people are more likely to remember information populating a story. It makes people care about who you are and the services you provide.

Think of it another way: the business is important to you. However, when your ad is crammed in between several others on a website or on the radio, customers will likely tune you out. Your passion will never catch fire with consumers unless your story makes them care.

Here are some simple tips for effective personal brand storytelling:

• The story should outline your business origins
• Explain why your product or service is important to you
• Make clear the benefits realized by consumers when they work with you
• Give a mission statement that all of your employees wholeheartedly embody
• Make your story easy to identify with, to the point, and quick

Your story is a tool for strengthening relationships with customers. It should be subtle and easy to digest. The story should be approached with the customers in mind, not your business needs. Potential customers intuitively know stories crafted with their needs in mind are more customer-oriented.

Personal Branding is a challenging process. Would you like to master your mission statements and company storytelling, and improve your PR results? Let’s work together to develop sustainable goals and a business model that appeals directly to your target market.

CLICK HERE for more information about solopreneur coaching.