I want to straighten out some confusion I hear often. A one-person business is a viable, sustainable, long-term business model. Not everyone wants to have a bigger operation and not everyone wants to supervise a staff. Myself, and many other people love this business model, and while I do consider myself a solopreneur I do love to collaborate with others. I sometimes get the impression that people who are not solopreneurs think that being a one-person operation is just a temporary situation until the business grows. I intend to stay solo for the foreseeable future, and lots of people I work with do as well.
Many times, when I tell people I work with 1-person or solopreneur businesses, they often ask “You mean like startups?” I usually explain that typically, startups are looking to grow and make money for their founders or to be purchased by a bigger company. Some solopreneurs may be startups – there are probably some one-person businesses looking to grow and expand. However, there are a lot of people who are most content with the small, simple model of being a solopreneur. We can hire outsourced help when needed, but mostly the business thrives on us and our work alone.
I love being a solopreneur, and I love working with solopreneurs. I love the freedom, the flexibility and the autonomy. I also love to learn, so I like that a big part of my business is learning to tackle various parts of the operations. Being a solopreneur isn’t for everyone, but if you do find yourself drawn to this life you might just love it.
Make no mistake, it is challenging to run a solopreneur business. Aside from having a product or service that people want to buy, you have to be a business generalist and know a least a little bit about everything in your business aside from what you do for customers. There is a lot to do in order to keep a business running, and you have to do it all and do the work you get paid for. This is where automation can help. I believe that solopreneurs should automate everything they can before hiring help. Automation is cheaper, mistake free and can run 24/7 for you once you set it up. What are some areas of your business you can automate? How about appointment scheduling, social media, email sorting, computer backups and monitoring your industry to start with? I cover these 5 areas plus 4 more and 3 bonus automation-related strategies (12 areas in total) in my Kindle book “The Solopreneur’s Success Strategy: Automate Your Grunt Work.” This book has a 5-star rating and some of the comments include “Very helpful,” “No fluff,” and “Rich treasure chest of productivity.” So yes, you can be a solopreneur as a permanent way of doing business. However, I strongly recommend that you automate all the annoying little tasks that you can so you can focus more on what you love. Check out the book at the link below: The Solopreneur’s Success Strategy: Automate Your Grunt Work
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