8 SOLOPRENEUR SKILLS (PART 2)
If you watched part 1, you’ll be aware of a talk I delivered in Feb 2017 called Solopreneur Skills. You can watch part 2 here.
And if you’ve not yet signed up for your free 5 day DO 1 THING program, which helps busy people make progress in their work and life, then add your details above to get started. One of the tools you’ll be emailed is Get Purpose, which helps you uncover your big why, or reason for existence. After some people find their purpose, they can start to see the limitations within their current working environment and ask bigger questions about their next career steps. A logical conclusion for many is to found their own business, so they can freely express their purpose through their work.
DIY OR OUTSOURCE?
Running a business on your own, also known as flying solo, is not for the faint hearted. It’s a rich journey which will test you and demand that you learn a lot of things, quickly. I created the talk with the intent of helping new founders understand some of the things I had a to learn (usually through my mistakes) 16 years ago when I started.
One of the principles and tools I shared is the idea of DIY OR OUTSOURCE? When you have a job, there’s lots of other people doing different roles around you that help you do your role. When you become a solopreneur, all of that drops away. And so an important skill to develop is to figure out whether you are going to do something yourself, or outsource it. You need to leverage your strengths, and plan for your weaknesses and pretty soon after starting up, you’ll face a range of problems you need to solve. If you don’t find resolutions for them, your business will fail quickly and you’ll be asking for your old job back.
By using this free downloadable flowchart, and exploring the 3 things shown below, you’ll quickly be know whether to solve the problem yourself or find someone to outsource it to:
1. Your skills, as in what do you know how to do already.
2. How much spare time you have.
3. And, how much available cash flow you have.
When you come face to face with your first problem, start on the left and work through the various options until you find the best solution for you. I explain more about how to do this in the movie.
LEIGH’S STORY
I started mentoring Leigh in August 2017 to help him transition from senior executive to business founder. At this point he is currently still employed and putting the finishes touches to his big launch, so the movie we’ve made can’t be shared just yet. Leigh has been smart because he paid attention to principle 8 in my talk which is to start from a strong (financial) position. After one of our mentoring conversations he took a proposal to work 4 days / week to his employer who agreed. And for 6 months, Leigh has been using his Monday’s to develop the structure and marketing strategy of his business.
In a few months time, I will be able to share more of his story with you, but for now I want to tell you about one of the businesses he used to outsource his logo design to called design crowd. For a few hundred dollars you can get your new business logo designed through this great design marketplace business. Leigh got over 200 designs back and after a month of robust design conversations we had about fonts, colours and styles, he finally chose his logo for his business. For Leigh, the challenge of how to brand his business was a decision which he decided to outsource and with the right guidance of where to look for help, he managed to resolve the problem easily.
Starting up a purpose-lead business is not an overnight thing and there can be many challenges en route. Having a mentor can make a world of difference. If something inside you knows you’re ready to start up your own business, and want to learn more about my Start Up Mentoring programs, email me here and let’s start a conversation.
