How to use the slow holiday season in your solopreneur business
Now that December is officially here, a lot of us will see a slow down in business. Events aren’t happening as much, clients aren’t as available and it takes longer to get a response from someone. So what’s a solopreneur to do? Believe it or not, lots! There are some specific things you can tackle right now to set the stage for a great next year. Imagine waking up on that first day back to work after the new year begins and being ready to jump right in!
Last year, I wrote a series on just what to do at this time of year to prepare for next year. Click here to read part one of the series, and then follow the links to parts 2 and 3.
As a solopreneur, there are a lot of tasks that need to be done just to keep the business running. These include things like answering emails, filling orders, posting to social media, blogging, etc. There are also tasks that build or expand your business to the next level of sales. Expansion projects need to be carefully nurtured and kept in the forefront of your awareness so they keep moving ahead.
The problem with expansion projects is that we humans have a strong tendency to want everything NOW! We see other people with much fuller business structures than our own, and know we could thrill all the new customers we’d get if only we had all those things in place. Add to this the almost addictive pull we entrepreneurs feel toward new ideas and we have a recipe for getting nothing done. We may have many grand, beautiful projects in the works but nothing is actually done and making money. An expansion project is done once it’s part of your maintenance routine. For example, if you decide to add video to your marketing, you’ll need to do the initial set up on various sites, get familiar with your camera and the upload procedure, craft a strategy, etc. Once you are in the groove of shooting and uploading video, it’s just another maintenance task.
I often work with solopreneurs who are in the midst of several big expansion projects. I have done this to myself before. The key thing is realistic limits on what you can do. Ideally, take on just one expansion project at a time. Complete it, tweak it, optimize it and then put it neatly to bed by adding it to your maintenance routine. If the projects are small or are prone to stopping and starting because of other people, then you may need more than one expansion project going on all the time just to keep moving ahead. You may also want more than one if you get bored easily or if the project has a lot of boring parts. It may help keep you motivated if you only have to work on the boring parts for a short burst of time every day.
The thing to avoid at all costs is to take on more expansion projects than you can handle. If your business isn’t project management, then managing and juggling many projects should not be a huge part of your day. Take it easy on yourself and build your business in a healthy, sustainable manner. Think marathon, not sprint.
Have you ever bitten off more than you could chew in new projects for your business? How did it work out? How did you handle it? Leave a comment and tell me about it.
I was recently interview by Juan Gallardo for The Driven Class blog. The topic was entrepreneurship and being a woman entrepreneur. Take a look and let me know what you think in the comments.
Solopreneurs have to know why they are doing each activity
One of my favorite things to teach and coach on is strategic thinking for business owners. Entire books and degrees can be had on this, but one of the core ideas of strategic thinking is asking “Why?” before doing anything or expending any resources. There are so many moving parts to a successful business that it’s imperative to know what function each part serves and how it will contribute to the bottom line.
So often, I hear people tell me they are going to start doing something new to build their business and when I ask them how this will improve their bottom line they have no idea. When I ask what made them consider starting this new activity, it’s usually “fill-in-the-name told me to” or “everyone is doing it” or “I saw it on a forum for my industry.” There’s lots of right reasons to take on a new activity, but none of these are good reasons to add something. Your time, creativity, energy and mental bandwidth are some of your most important finite resources, and being a successful business owner has as much to do with managing these as it does anything else. So, no matter who said it, don’t ever just add more activity to your business without understanding why it will increase your profits.
This idea applies to general activities such as blogging, Twitter or email marketing but also to specific blog entries, Tweets and emails. In other words, you should have goals for the activity as a whole as well as goals for each individual entry in that activity. Take your blog for example. One entry might be to introduce a new product, while another might be to educate your market on a product or service you provide that they may need but not know is available. Still another might be to share some personal information to build a connection with your audience. You might have entries that are rants against practices you don’t like. Some entries might be geared toward enticing people to sign up for your list. These are just a few examples of purposes you might have in mind for specific blog posts.
As entrepreneurs, we are drawn to ideas like moths to a light. It’s a blessing and a curse – our fire for new ideas drives our business but can sidetrack us down unproductive but fun paths. Make sure you have a clear purpose for anything you take on.
One of the biggest time wasters in business is going back and forth to try to set a meeting time. It’s bad enough with just two people, but add a third person or
Easy meeting scheduling for solopreneurs
even more and it can take hours of time spread over days just to schedule a simple meeting.
What I found is that someone would want to schedule with me “in the middle of next week.” I would email my availability on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and wait to hear back. In the meantime, since I offered those times to someone already I was unable to offer them to anyone else in the meantime. I might even have to put the next person wanting to meet with me on hold. You can see how this one thing could bog down several people for days.
What I switched to was an automated, online scheduler where people who want to meet with me get a link to a page where they can see my availability and book an appointment on the spot. I cannot tell you the hours this has saved me over the last year and a half and I get lots of positive feedback on how easy it is to use.
I researched several tools for automated scheduling, and tried one other before settling on Timetrade. Here are a few things I like about Timetrade:
You can set up multiple types of “activities” that people can schedule and when you send them to the page for that activity they can only schedule that activity. In other words, if you are working with someone in half-hour phone sessions they can only schedule a half-hour session not more or less time and not an in-person meeting.
Your guest does not need to create an account to use your scheduler. He or she will be asked for an email address for the purpose of an email confirmation.
Your guest sees your availability in real time but does not see any details of your other appointments. Timetrade syncs to Outlook and Google calendar (my choice in calendars) so once you schedule an appointment on your own calendar your availability is automatically updated in Timetrade.
Once your guest books his or her appointment, it is confirmed for both of you so that there is no need for back-and-forth communication.
Time zone differences are handled automatically based on the settings on the computer used by each person. Each person gets the time in their own time zone.
Getting used to an online scheduler took some time and effort. People can book appointments with me any time, so I always have to be on top of that. If I want to go to the gym on Monday afternoon, I have to put that in my calendar so nobody can book an appointment in that time. If I’m done an appointment at 3:00, the scheduler sees that I’m free at 3:00 and may offer that time to someone. I have to remember to put in some extra time so that I don’t have another appointment until 3:30 or so. I don’t always like last-minute appointments or jam-packed days, so I have to remember to close my day if I don’t want any more appointments. Overall, the adjustment was not that hard and the payoff has been huge.
Timetrade is just one of several dozen resources I share in my Solopreneur Success Rolodex. You can get a copy of my rolodex as a bonus with my system “The ABC’s of a Successful Solopreneur Business.” Grab your copy here.
How do you handle your scheduling? Do you use an automated scheduler?
Get your project done? Get you unstuck? Get you to what’s next?
One way to nudge you forward when you need it
Last week, I shared some ideas on the value of getting things done vs. getting them perfect. Of course, we always want to do our best, but sometimes done really is better than perfect.
Today I want to share one of my favorite tools for getting unstuck and getting a project done. Here’s the question I use:
What would be good enough to move forward?
Note that the question is not “how great can I make this” or “what else can I add.” Both of these are great questions to use in some settings. They may help you to really increase the value of a project or product, but they are not the right questions to ask when you are stuck. When you’re stuck and overwhelmed, the last thing you need is to be thinking on adding even more to the project. What may help is a narrowed focus with a realistic idea of what you need. This question will help you get that. You can use this question to just get you moving forward – you can always change your mind at a later point in the project but this will let you get to that later point.
I first heard this question from one of my teachers Lisa Sasevich. I was at a 3-day event where we were composing a talk to use in business promotion. The event was a working bootcamp, and by the end she promised we’d be ready to speak the next day. At one point, we were doing some heads down work, and she asked who was stuck. About a third of the hands went up, and she said those people were not focusing on “good enough to move ahead.”
The people who need your work aren’t looking for perfection and you can’t provide it anyway. What they want is your help, so offer it sooner rather than later and focus on getting it done. When we get stuck in the midst of something, we can get caught up in a trap of not knowing how much to do or what to do first. It all seems important to get exactly right. But by focusing on this one question: What would be good enough to move ahead? you just might pare down that huge list of things you still need to complete your project into a neat, do-able task list.
Solopreneurs can serve best by editing what they know
I just got back a few days ago from a live workshop given by one of my favorite teachers Alicia Forest. As promised, I’ll be sharing some insights I gained there over the next few weeks.
One of the outstanding things about this event was the perfect pace. There were ample breaks and the days were not excessively long, and this made for great learning. Contrary to what it may seem, I’m sure I learned more because of the “white space” the schedule provided. I don’t think I would have been able to learn as much if we had long days, night sessions and short breaks. Even though more information could theoretically be conveyed with a more intense schedule, the retention and the big shifts I got would not have happened.
Aside from being beneficial to me in this setting, it made me think about how often we as solopreneurs tend to “firehose” our clients in our fervor to serve. We have so much to give and so much passion for helping that we tend to give too much information. This might seem like you are being generous and selfless with your knowledge, and perhaps you are, but maybe you could serve your clients better by pulling back and filtering what you deliver to better suit their needs. No client needs to know everything you know about a subject the first time they ask about it.
Why do we do this? I think it’s a mix of a few things. We are so on fire with what we want to share with clients and customers that we want to give it all. Maybe they don’t have another session booked and we want to make sure we give so much that they can’t help but see the value. Maybe it’s a desire to be recognized for how much we know. Maybe we don’t remember that we gained our knowledge over a period of time and it’s best for our clients to gain it the same way. Maybe we use our knowledge so much that we forget what it’s like to be a beginner. Maybe it feels like cheating to hold back.
For whatever reason you might be overdoing it on the information delivery, try to recognize it and stop. Take a few seconds and listen to what is being asked and then consider the range of answers you can give. Instead of trying to give all you can every time, make your highest goal that which would best serve your client. Even if you know much more than you say right now, that which serves your client best is the best answer to give. You may know 10 ways to do something, but don’t give all 10 if they only need one. They could Google and get the 10 ways to do the task, but only you could help them pick the one that is best based on your experience. That’s what makes you valuable to your customers.
Have you ever stopped to ask for directions and the kind person helping you gives you 3 different ways to go, leaving you confused and in search of someone else to ask? The best, most helpful answer is to give just one choice. As a stranger in town, you have no way of evaluating the 3 choices, so that wanna-be-helpful person could be much more helpful using his knowledge to winnow your choices.
You might even want to frame an answer by saying that there is tons of information on this topic but what you need to know right now is the first few pieces. Once they have the first few pieces down, you can give them the next few pieces in the right order for them. That’s where you can add value.
Giving more information than requested or than a client can use is not being of service. The best answer is just the right amount of information tailored to exactly where the client is right now. Oh yeah, and for the record, I’ve been guilty of this but now that I’ve been taught both ways I’m resolved to do better.
What is your experience of getting too much information? Is it a service or something you wish people wouldn’t do? Have you been guilty of underserving by giving too much?
One of the best things I’ve learned about business management is to always assume the worst – assume that everything will go wrong and many mistakes will be
Solopreneurs should figure out what to do before things go wrong
made. This rule has saved me and saved my projects when I was a project manager in corporate America, in my home renovation and of course in my business.
It may seem that this would lead to negative thinking, but I think it works just the opposite. By always assuming the worst and being prepared for it, things will almost always go better than you think and when they don’t you’ll be prepared. This helps me to keep a positive outlook. Given the complexity of modern living, it’s realistic for things to often get messed up so acknowledging and preparing for it isn’t negative, it’s just realistic. Even when things do go bad, I feel better about it because I know I’ve done everything I can to prepare.
What can you do to save yourself and your projects before things go wrong? Here are some ideas:
Confirm the details at least twice. Don’t give a second thought to offending anyone – communication is tough and your efforts will save everyone later. It may not even be the other party that gets things wrong, so confirm for yourself as well.
Get things in writing whenever you can. I’ve found that it’s much easier for two people to get different ideas from the same communication if it’s verbal as opposed to written. If you are talking to someone, send a follow up email outlining your understanding of the conversation. Having something in writing gives you something to refer to if things do go wrong.
Get clear on a next step. What is to be done, who will do it and by when? If the next step belongs to the other person let them know and get their approval to follow up with them if you don’t hear from them. I say something like “So I’ll call you Wednesday if I haven’t gotten the report okay?”
Always have a backup plan or more than one if you can. I cannot tell you how many times this has saved me when things have gone horribly wrong. Try to think of everything that can go wrong and have a solution before you need it. Before going to great lengths on this one, make sure to weigh the potential damage if things go wrong vs. how much effort it will take to make a backup plan because it’s not always worth it. Some things go wrong and there’s very little negative effect so it wouldn’t be worth it to create a backup plan.
Knowing that things do go wrong, leave slack in all of your projects. Build in extra time and money and any other resources that could sink your project such as technical expertise. If you are depending on someone else such as a contractor or copy shop, give them a deadline well before you actually need it in case something goes wrong.
Do you use this mindset in your work? Does it make you feel more positive? Leave a comment telling me how it works for you.
When I first started my business, I didn’t work exactly in my current specialty. I started as a professional organizer who specialized in productivity, systems and time management for entrepreneurs. Like most solopreneurs, my focus has changed and will probably continue to evolve over time.
Like many solopreneurs, I assumed all I had to do was set up an online brochure (aka a website), print some cards and get to it. I knew my stuff and got great results so how could word not spread like wildfire right? Ha, ha. Wrong.
I thought I’d be spending a little time every week on “business,” things like paperwork and an occassional lunch or coffee meeting. Even with my extensive business background I was unprepared for just how important it is to be an excellent business owner and not just an excellent provider of whatever you offer.
Fast forward a few years, and investments of time, money and energy into my own learning and I’m so much wiser. What I finally get now is that as much as we spend time getting the skills we sell up to par, we have to invest in getting business skills up to par as well. You can be the best at what you do, but if you don’t run a solid business you won’t be successful. Like it or not, the day you opened shop you became a business owner.
That brings me to the point of this article – get help with the business part of your business. No matter how great you are at what you do, you still need to run a business that works great for you and there are people and products that can help you with this. Of couse, this is what I do so it would be dishonest to say I wouldn’t be thrilled if you choose me for help. However, I’m hugely committed to the success of solopreneurs everywhere, so if I’m not your pick that’s fine but please pick someone or something.
Getting help with your business should not only be a non-negotiable in your set-up, but it should also be an ongoing activity you are always doing. Now that I see how much this kind of help can shortcut my success, I’m always on the lookout for the next thing to boost me. Start paying attention to what your are having difficulty with so you can be on the lookout for your next solution. Whatever problem you are having, it’s likely someone else has faced it, solved it and now sells the solution to.
One final point – beware of any purchasing more help than you’ve implemented. Try to only buy as much as you can put into practice soon, otherwise you’ll end up with a backlog of “shelf help,” i.e. things you’ve paid for but haven’t implemented and are sitting on the shelf and not helping you. The only time I make an exception to this is when I see something at a really great price that I know I will need soon.
What kind of help do you use in your business? What has it helped you achieve? What do you wish you had gotten help on sooner?
I’m really excited to share a brand new tool I’ve created to help you build your solopreneur business faster and with more ease!
I often get into conversations where people ask me what tools I use in my business. It’s one of my favorite things to talk about, and often people are surprised that there are free or paid tools to do the very thing they need to do.
I’ve compiled a list of the tools I use to run my business into a handy document called the Soloprneur Success Rolodex. It has 32 of my tops picks for services and products that are integral to my success.
