Being a solopreneur and running a one-person show might sound daunting, but once you get the hang of it, there’s definitely nothing like it! If you’re looking to start your own solo adventure, here are some tips that might help you along the way.
Stay Confident
Do you have what it takes to run a business on your own? Will you make a successful solopreneur? Your immediate response should be yes!
Confidence is the foundational base of every successful solopreneur. When you’re confident about what you’re working toward, you’ll automatically find yourself striving toward success with every approach you take.
Also, when you’re enthusiastic and confident about your venture, the people around you— including your family, friends, investors, and clients—will place their confidence in you.
Manage Time
As your own boss, only you can keep yourself disciplined with efficient time management. Distractions come in all shapes and sizes. Be it your dog asking for a walk with those adorable puppy eyes or another episode on Netflix, fight your distractions and stay focused when it’s time to work.
Create a schedule for your working hours and incorporate breaks just like you would at a normal day job. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself procrastinating all week. Creating a schedule helps you maintain a normal work-life balance that won’t drive you insane.
Clarify Scope of Projects
Clarity of boundaries and scope should be a top priority when accepting a project. The boundaries should include your goals, budgets, and timelines. The first question when you approach a job should be regarding the expectations the client has of the outcomes.
Imagine having to spend extra time on a project because your initial work wasn’t in line with the client’s expectations. Now, time that you could have spent on another client has to be put into revisions of an older assignment. At this point, you can’t refuse to make any changes because that would lead to loss of clients and maybe even more potential clients. Perhaps you could have saved yourself this hassle if you had a clearer understanding of the project.
Stay Consistent
As a solopreneur, it can get difficult to maintain a certain quality of work while meeting deadlines. This is something you have to push yourself toward achieving; consistency is vital to retain existing customers and attract new ones.
If your clients consider you to be consistent and dependable, they are more likely to keep coming back to you regularly. All long-term customer relationships are built on the basis of reliability, and that is what you should aim for, too.
Be Open to Collaborations
The process of creating something, anything, is only enhanced through collaboration. Don’t expect that you’d get a project and be able to finish it all on your own. Be open to input that you receive on the way and adjust accordingly.
Instead of differentiating between the clients and yourself with a ‘them’ and ‘me’ mindset, consider that all of you are on the same team working toward a common goal, as all of you will benefit from the successful completion of the project.
Keep Yourself Motivated
Perhaps the most important trait for a solopreneur is self-motivation. Since you’re running the entire business on your own, you need to have the drive and passion to turn your dream into reality.
As a solopreneur, especially in the initial stages, you might not make enough money to keep going. There will be some good days and more bad ones, but you have to persist.
Have faith in yourself and keep the creativity flowing to do better and achieve more each day.
Imagine if Steve Jobs had given up on his ideas all those years ago—how many lives would be different today? Among many other successful entrepreneurs, he continued to work on his dreams despite being criticized and ridiculed. Draw inspiration from such success stories and keep yourself motivated to do your best.
Listen to keynote motivational speakers like Bill Wooditch, a professional business speaker who has helped thousands of solopreneurs overcome their fears and struggles through his presentations, podcasts and his bestselling book Always Forward!
