How to become a successful solopreneur

 

Want to know how to become a successful solopreneur? Maybe right now being a solopreneur is just a dream or maybe you’ve already become a solopreneur but still aren’t achieving the success you desire. Either way, I’m here to help. Keep on reading to find out how to become a successful solopreneur.

 

This page may include affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I may earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. 

 

What is a solopreneur?

Before delving into how to become a successful solopreneur it is important to define what a solopreneur is. Solopreneur is the combination of two words: solo and entrepreneur. Essentially, a solopreneur is an entrepreneur who is running their business by themselves. They may also refer to themselves as a solo business owner or a one-man band. According to the Macmillan Dictionary, the term solopreneur first began to appear in 2010  and has continued to be used ever since.

 

 

HOW TO BECOME A SUCCESSFUL SOLOPRENEUR

 

Define what your version of success is 

The first step to becoming a successful solopreneur is defining what it means to you to be a successful solopreneur. Success means something different to everyone so the first thing you need to do is define what your version of success means.

 

Your definition of success could involve:

• Income – Do you have a financial target in your head that if you exceeded you’d class yourself as successful? That could be replacing your salary, hitting 100K and becoming a 6–figure solopreneur or maybe going all the way to hitting 7-figures and beyond.

• Impact – Do you have a clear idea about the number of people/businesses that you’d like to impact? Some people have very clear missions about wanting to help X amount of people or businesses to achieve Y. Maybe that is something that resonates with you.

• Lifestyle – Have you become a solopreneur as you aspire to have a lifestyle business? (You can find out more about having a successful lifestyle business here). Does success for you mean that you can embrace the laptop lifestyle and work from anywhere? Do you dream of traveling more, limiting your working hours to during the school day or taking a month off every year? These are all example of defining success based on your lifestyle aspirations.

 

Take some time to think about what your version of success truly is. It is easy to get caught up in chasing another person’s version of success. As an entrepreneur you are in charge of your destiny so get clear, from the beginning, about what you really want your business, and life, to be like.

 

 

Choose the right business model for you 

As a solopreneur you have a number of options when it comes to choosing your business model.

 

Some popular options for solopreneurs are:

• A service-based business – Providing a service online, offline or both. For example, a coach, consultant, designer, therapist, accountant, PT or virtual assistant
  
• E-commerce – Selling products (physical and digital) online
• Dropshipping – Selling products online but you aren’t responsible for storing or delivering the items

• Affiliate marketing – Promoting other people/businesses products and services and receiving a commission for every sale made via you. 

 

Ideally you should get clear on your version of success BEFORE you choose your business model because each business model will offer you different opportunities and when you can review the business models against your version of success you are more likely to make the right choice.

 

For example, if you want to have the freedom to work from anywhere and want to sell products it would make sense to look at dropshipping rather than having an e-commerce store. That way you are not responsible for housing stock and posting deliveries so you are location-independent and can travel wherever you would like.

 

Set clear goals

To be a successful solopreneur you need to set yourself clear goals. It is best to have a combination of short-term goals and long-term goals. I highly recommend having annual goals and then quarterly or 12-week goals. (I talk more about creating 12-week goals and plans here) 

 

When you set your goals you want to ensure they are directly related to the version of success you’ve set for yourself. It might be that your version of success can’t be achieved in a year and may take you 3, 5 or even 10 years to achieve. That is fine, but you want to make sure that your goals are aligned with your ultimate version of success. Achieving your goals should be moving you closer to achieving your version of success.

 

Have a plan for your business

You’ve got goals but how are you going to achieve them? This is where having a plan comes in. If you are serious about being a successful solopreneur then it is important to take the time to create a proper plan for your business. This doesn’t mean you have to spend hours writing a business plan that you never look back at.

 

Instead, you should create something that is as small as possible, but still has all the key information you require. It is a document you should refer back to often to help you make critical decisions and also ensure that you are focusing on what matters.

 

If you are a coach I share a simple business plan structure that you can follow here.

 

Value your time 

One of the major differences between your average solopreneur and your successful solopreneur is how the solopreneur spends their time. As a solopreneur, time is limited and in many cases it is a solopreneur’s lack of time for the business that ends up being a bottleneck and slowing down the growth and success of the business.

 

If you want to be a successful solopreneur you have to value your time highly and ensure that you are using it in the most effective way possible.

 

Pay close attention to how you are spending your time. A great way to do this is by tracking yourself for a whole week or fortnight. Most people are awful at really knowing how long they spend completing tasks. It is easy to overestimate how long you spend doing tasks you don’t like and underestimate how long you spend doing tasks you like. And I won’t even get started about how many hours most solopreneurs are spending on social media.

 

Set yourself the challenge for a week or two to time yourself and review how you are spending your time. Toggl is a great tool to do this and you can use it on your computer or phone.

 

At all times you should be thinking about the return-on-investment of your time. Pareto’s principle states that 80% of output comes from 20% of input, and it crazy how often that is true. As a business owner you need to work out what is driving the success of your business and focus on doing more of that.

 

Build your brand

To be a successful solopreneur people need to know that your business exists. In many cases solopreneurs are responsible for building a personal brand as people will decide to buy based on their feelings towards the individual.

 

In order to increase your brand awareness you need to have a clear marketing strategy, and most importantly you need a strategy that you can deliver amongst all the other roles you play within your business.

 

You’ll need to work out what your core messages are and then decide what marketing channels you’ll use to share that message, and in some cases build an audience or community.

 

WANT HELP TO CREATE A MARKETING STRATEGY THAT WILL INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS AND DRIVE MORE SALES?  I’m a Chartered Marketer that specialise in making marketing strategies and plans for service-based solopreneurs. That means I design them for people who aren’t marketing experts and for someone who is having to be the marketer in their business alongside numerous other roles.  Whether you are looking for a strategy for an upcoming launch or an evergreen marketing campaign I can help via a Strategy Day.  To find out more about Strategy Days click here. To discuss your business and your specific needs book a call here.

 

Make the most of technology 

As mentioned earlier, as a solopreneur time is your most precious asset and unfortunately it is limited. Successful solopreneurs focus on using technology to save them time and make the maximum impact out of their time and effort.

 

Wherever possible you should be looking to see how technology can automate parts of your business. Here are some common ways that solopreneurs use technology to save time or maximise the impact of their work:

 

• Have an online calendar – Instead of wasting time organising meetings with people, have an online calendar that people can book in without involving a conversation/message with you. You can use Calendly, Acuity or Kartra.

 

• Use email automations – Email automations means you can create an email sequence once and have limitless people go through the sequence. Automated email sequences can be used as part of paid products/services, and they can also be used for nurturing your audience and generating sales. The majority of email service providers will allow email automations, but I recommend using Mailerlite or Kartra.

 

• Run digital adverts – Digital adverts can run 24/7. A business owner can take the time to set them up and then the ads can run for weeks if not months with minimal involvement. This could be on a social media platform, a search engine or on websites.

• Having a one-stop shop for running your online business – The more pieces of different software you use the more time you spend logging into different accounts, learning the software and ensuring that everything is talking to each other (hello Zaps). To avoid this, successful solopreneurs invest in purpose-built software that can run all, or most, of their business, such as Kartra. Kartra can look after your calendar and your emails, as well as being your shopping cart and housing your courses and memberships. To find out more about Katra and why it makes running your online business so easy click here.

 

 

Put systems and processes in place

Technology is great, but there are some things that need a human to do them. In those situations you want to have clear systems and processes in place to maxmise your efficiency. Setting up standard operating procedures (SOPs) in your business will enable you to ensure that you are consistent within your business. This should ensure the client/customer experience is consistent, as well as you being able to maximise your efficiency. Having SOPs in place is also great if you do decide that you want to hire other people as they are clear documents for someone else to follow.

 

Understand the financial side of your business

Unfortunately lots of solopreneurs don’t pay enough attention or properly understand the financial side of their business. I can’t emphasise enough the importance of understanding the financial side of your business. Even if you have an accountant that isn’t an excuse to not understand your business’ finances. As a minimum you should have a good understanding about the profitability of your services or products, the operating expenses in your business and your current cash runway position.

 

Regularly review and refine

Putting in time to regularly review how your business is performing is so important. Successful businesses rarely stay the same for years on end. The external world changes and you need to adjust accordingly. As an absolute minimum you should be doing a top-line review every month and having a deeper review every quarter.

 

Build a network with other solopreneurs

Last, but not least, you should spend time building a network with other “successful” solopreneurs. Running a business by yourself can be challenging at times so you want to ensure that you have other people you can talk to about your experiences. Expanding your network to include (more) solopreneurs will mean you have other people to talk to who “get it”, which is really important.

If you are really serious about being a successful solopreneur then you should also focus on building your network with others who have the success you are aiming for, or are aiming for a similar version of success.

 

That’s it! You now know how to become a successful solopreneur.

Success in business can never be guaranteed, but following these tips you’ll put yourself in the best place to be a successful solopreneur.

In the comments I would love to hear about you and your business, and if you’ve got any other tips on becoming a successful solopreneur I’d love to hear those. 

 

WANT TO GROW A THRIVING ONLINE SERVICE-BASED BUSINESS  AS A SOLOPRENEUR?  As a solopreneur there is a lot you need to consider and juggle in order to build a thriving business. It is very different to running a business with a team, but just because you are one person doesn’t mean you need to reduce your goals – you just have to get strategic! I’m a Chartered Marketer that specialises in supporting solo coaches, consultants and online services providers to build business they love, and support their long-term financial wealth. I have a 1:1 business and marketing mentoring  programme where I specifically help solopreneurs to be more strategic and smash their business goals in the process. To find out more about my 1:1 business and marketing mentoring programme click here And to discuss your precise needs book a free, no-obligation, introduction call to discuss your business here.