Four Secrets to Solo Entrepreneur Success
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Transcript of Four Secrets to Solo Entrepreneur Success
The Four Secrets to
Solo Entrepreneur Success™
By
Lorraine Cohen
BZ Riger-Hull
Terri Zwierzynski
Rose Hill
of Team Solo-E
http://www.Solo-E.com
© 2005-2006 Solo-Entrepreneur.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This is a free e-book. You may give it away at your web
site, offer it to your list, include it as a free bonus, include
it with a package deal, offer it to other web sites, put it on
a disk, give it to a friend ... distribute it any way you want,
as long as you don’t make any changes to it of any kind!
Thank you.
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The Four Secrets to Solo Entrepreneur Success™ http://www.Solo-E.com
Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................. 5
Secret #1: The Secret of Personal Development....................... 6
Personal Development – A Page from the Corporate Handbook .......6 What does that have to do with being a Solo Entrepreneur? ...........7 An Example.............................................................................8 Conquering the Chaos...............................................................9 Bottom Line........................................................................... 10
Secret #2: The Secret to Working With Clients You Love – Create Your Attraction Niche.................................................. 12
What is An Attraction Niche?.................................................... 13 What an Attraction Niche Can Do For Your Business .................... 14 How to Create Your Attraction Niche ......................................... 15 An Example........................................................................... 16 Bottom Line........................................................................... 17
Secret #3: Leverage -- The Secret to Doing What You Love – And Only That......................................................................... 19
How can you do it all?? ........................................................... 19 Why do you do this to yourself? ............................................... 20 How can I afford help? ............................................................ 21 An Example........................................................................... 22 Another Kind of Leverage ........................................................ 22 Automate!............................................................................. 23 Bottom Line........................................................................... 24 About the Author ................................................................... 24
Secret #4: The Secret to Getting More Done and Making More Money as a Solo Entrepreneur – Collaboration ....................... 26
The Benefits of Collaboration ................................................... 27 The Best Collaborations for Solo Entrepreneurs .......................... 29 An Example........................................................................... 31 Bottom Line........................................................................... 31
Conclusion.............................................................................. 33
Download the latest version of this document:
http://www.Solo-E.com/foursecrets/4secrets.pdf
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The Four Secrets to Solo Entrepreneur Success™
Introduction
Certainly our four secrets have been taught, singly, elsewhere.
However, for reasons best understood by those that study culture and
human behavior, these concepts are the least publicized, understood,
and implemented strategies for business success — even though they
are acknowledged as the most powerful drivers of success for the
Solo Entrepreneur*.
In pondering these secrets, I marvel at their simplicity — while at the
same time, I recognize my own resistance to actually applying them in
business. You might recognize this same resistance within you as you
read this report — that’s okay. Because you’ll also be inspired and
begin to see your own barriers to being a more successful Solo
Entrepreneur start to dissolve.
To your solo success, Terri Zwierzynski Conductor of Extraordinary Ideas (CEI) http://www.Solo-E.com
* Solo Entrepreneur: one who wishes to work for themselves, with no or few employees (and little inclination to hire more), and who does so because of a desire to do work that fits their values, passions and lifestyle. Typically a corporate refugee, but not always.
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Secret #1: The Secret of Personal Development
Written by: Lorraine Cohen
Edited by: Terri Zwierzynski Copyright Lorraine Cohen 2005 for Solo-Entrepreneur.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved
"Success is about who you become. The big challenge is to become all
that you have the possibility of becoming. You cannot believe what it
does to the human spirit to maximize your human potential and
stretch yourself to the limit." -Jim Rohn
As a Solo Entrepreneur you may be starting a new business or
intending to grow your existing business. Aside from getting the most
obvious systems in place — technology, business and marketing
plans, defining your product or services, and finances — what else is
needed to be successful?
Personal Development – A Page from the Corporate Handbook
Companies have been bringing in corporate trainers for years. It’s
good business to invest in programs that teach employees how to be
better leaders, manage conflict, improve communication, increase
sales effectiveness, become more confident, and so forth. Using a
myriad of tools — including personality and behavioral assessments,
skill building techniques, and self-reflective exercises — many training
programs empower people to develop both professionally and
personally. Smart, right? Of course, the integration and sustainability
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of the information is dependent upon how much a person values self-
development!
Having cutting edge technology, innovation, great products and
services is not enough to guarantee sustained success. Why? Because
people drive the success of a business. The greatest asset a company
has is its workforce. To grow a business, you must also be growing
your people.
What does that have to do with being a Solo Entrepreneur?
I’m so glad you asked!
If I had a $1.00 every time I heard someone say, “Just show me (or
tell me) what I need to do to accelerate my business, build wealth,
manage my time….” Many people believe that focusing solely on
strategies to achieve external goals is the best way to achieve success.
The truth is that, for your business to flourish, you must be flourishing
as a person. Looking to grow your business without investing in
yourself is a plan to limit your business success. Your outside world
(your life) is a reflection of your inside world (who you are). Who you
are affects what you do (or don’t do!)
If your business and personal life is NOT flourishing, where you are
looking for your solutions? Personal Development is a vital key in
having a successful business AND a fulfilling life!
For a solo-entrepreneur, investing time, energy, and resources
to grow yourself is a critical key in the level of success you
achieve.
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An Example
One of my coaching clients (I’ll call her Carol), is a solo entrepreneur
who owns a graphic design company. Relocating two years ago, she
has been working long hours to jumpstart her business and build a
name for herself in the area. Because of her hard work and marketing
savvy, Carol has built a strong following very quickly. (Normally,
business takes 3-5 years to build). In fact, her business is growing so
fast, she is unable to keep up! You might be thinking, who wouldn’t
want that? She should be celebrating, right?
She’s not! In fact she began feeling depressed. Working such a hectic
schedule was beginning to take negative tolls on her. BIG RED
FLAGS!!!!!
Here’s the rest of the story…
Carol works 16 hour days and works on weekends because she fears
losing business. Her private life is almost non-existent.
A perfectionist, Carol put enormous pressure on herself in servicing
her clients. She constantly feels stress and worries about keeping her
clients happy. (They are usually thrilled with her results!) Even though
she is highly talented, she’s tough on herself, and lives with fear and
self-doubt.
As a one woman-show, she manages every aspect of her business.
And, having grown so quickly, she has no systems in place to help run
her business efficiently. As a result, she feels overwhelmed and
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stressed with all the people and responsibilities she has to manage.
Who wouldn’t?
Her relationships with her husband and friends are suffering. She is so
busy working, she has no time for the people and things she loves the
most. Or, even time for herself!
Despite all of her business success, she is concerned she is losing her
enjoyment for her work. She has difficulty sleeping at night, unable to
turn off her brain. She often feels exhausted. She feels more like a
human doing than a human being.
If her outer world was in chaos, imagine how she felt on the inside!
Conquering the Chaos
Carol is a smart woman. She realized she was working harder, not
smarter. What did she do? She understood she needed help to
continue to grow her business and thrive as a person. She also
realized that in order to change the way she was running her
business (or more accurately, how her business was running her), she
needed to look at herself. Not an easy task — changing what has
always worked for you but is no longer working, takes courage and
support.
So, she hired a personal and business coach. Some of the things she
worked on included:
1. Identifying her values, vision, and purpose
2. Learning how to manage her time
3. Engaging in extreme self-care
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4. Designing strategies to help her stay focused and motivated
Motivated by the chaos and anxiety in her life, Carol has made huge
progress in six short months. Choosing to make the investment in her
business and herself, Carol is beginning to enjoy her work again and
have a life!
Bottom Line
Learning more about who you are on the inside (your beliefs, core
values, natural strengths, passions, and innate talents) is the KEY
INGREDIENT to making decisions that produce deep satisfaction and
extraordinary results. By bringing who you are into the equation, you
can view a full spectrum of choices and solutions to reach more
satisfying and richer outcomes — like bringing Technicolor to a black
and white picture!
At Solo-E.com, we help you unlock the power of Personal
Development. Sign up now for our free Solo Secrets newsletter and
experience it for yourself http://www.solo-e.com
About the Author
Lorraine Cohen brings more than 25 years experience in business
and personal coaching, psychological counseling, and sales to more
than 1500 business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives from a
wide range of industries. Working with business people to accelerate
their business, she coaches people from the inside out — to achieve
exceptional results by executing action in alignment with core beliefs,
values and life purpose. An expert in breaking through fear and
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eliminating barriers to success, she helps people articulate what they
want and gives them the tools to succeed. Check out Lorraine’s unique
products and services at www.powerfull-living.biz Sign up for her
free e-course and newsletter today!
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Secret #2: The Secret to Working With Clients You Love
– Create Your Attraction Niche
Written by: BZ Riger-Hull Edited by: Rose Hill, Amy Ewart, and Terri Zwierzynski Copyright BZ Riger-Hull 2005 for Solo-Entrepreneur.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved
What do you do to attract clients and customers instead of running
around after them? Is your definition of whom you serve aligned with
who you’ve discovered you are?
Would you like to know a secret to attracting all the perfect clients and
customers you want with ease?
A secret that lets you have fun marketing…
A secret that lets your passion in business shine through…
A secret that — once you understand it and integrate it into your
Attraction Marketing mindset — will let you easily create multiple
income streams that will allow profits to flow in.
And what if I told you this secret would also bust one of the top myths
that hold Solo Entrepreneurs back from thriving?
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The secret is having a clearly defined, developed, and deep niche. Not
just any niche — but an Attraction Niche.
What is An Attraction Niche?
A traditional market niche is a targeted group of people or businesses
that share a common characteristic that makes them easy to locate
and reach with your marketing activities and messaging. For example:
• Realtors
• Financial advisors
• Stay at home moms
• Divorced dads
An Attraction Niche, however, is even more targeted. It is directly
related to the solutions you provide, your expertise and passion in
business, and the qualities and characteristics of your perfect
customers and clients.
An Attraction Niche lets you attract the customers you want to be of
service to — in a way in which you can make a powerful, positive
impact in their lives or businesses. Thus allowing you to attract a
bigger universe of prospects than someone who doesn’t have an
Attraction Niche. And with your Attraction Niche you can create
multiple income streams for your business, allowing your niche to
change and grow as you and your business evolve.
An Attraction Niche is not about limiting the people who you can work
with. It’s about aligning your passion with the process of how you run
your business and who you really want to connect with. It allows you
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to market with fun, integrity, and a creative strategic approach,
dramatically increasing the number of perfect customers you attract.
What an Attraction Niche Can Do For Your Business
An Attraction Niche is one of the most powerful tools for growing your
small business. With an Attraction Niche, you know exactly who and
where to focus your Attraction Marketing actions, allowing you to
quickly and easily attract your definition of success.
Part of creating your Attraction Niche is to identify your target market.
Financial viability is another important criterion of your Attraction
Niche.
Once you clearly and specifically define your target market, you can
then broaden and deepen the scope to which you serve that market
through your Attraction Niche. The profits your business can gain from
attracting your perfect customers and clients from within your
Attraction Niche will broaden and deepen as well.
An Attraction Niche is not limiting — it is freeing. It doesn’t shrink the
pool of potential customers — it makes it a whole water park filled
with perfect customers and clients.
An Attraction Niche frees you up to focus on attracting your perfect
clients instead of running around trying to talk with and be visible to
everyone — only to find out the people who do hire you or buy from
you are not a good fit at all. Deciding who your perfect clients are —
and who they are not — is essential to success in creating your
Attraction Niche.
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Once you shift your thinking about the importance of having an
Attraction Niche, and start to see what a powerful tool it can be, the
one question that comes to mind is:
How do I find my niche?
You don’t. A niche is not something you find. It’s something you
create.
How to Create Your Attraction Niche
A great Attraction Niche is:
1. Based on your passion in business
2. Intentionally designed
3. A generator of great success and wealth for you
4. Continually evolving and growing as your business does
5. A receptive audience with whom you can easily connect
6. Filled with perfect customers who love to refer you new business
An Attraction Niche is created based on the solutions you are
passionate about providing. Then you can broaden the niche and
develop multiple income streams for it by adapting your solutions to
specific industry or demographic segments.
Let’s say your current niche is helping people with solutions to time-
management challenges.
This is a solution-based niche that you can provide through a number
of different vehicles: in person, in groups, via Teleclass, with
workshops, and many other formats. You could also develop a number
of different products that solve the challenges people have around
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time management. A few examples would be e-courses, audio
recordings, check lists, and assessments.
You could then develop several focused sub-niches based on your
solution of time management. For example:
• Time management for single moms
• Time management for small business owners
• Time management for traveling sales women
By taking a solution you are passionate about providing and targeting
it to a specific sub-niche, you can provide a fantastic product for
people — one that really solves their challenges, fits their needs, and
gives them the specific solutions they are looking for. In addition to
having satisfied customers, you have a product that commands a
premium price. Because your product is specialized and custom-
tailored to a specific audience’s need, your customers don’t have to
wade through generalized information that doesn’t benefit them and
their specific circumstances.
An Example
A great example of the power of an Attraction Niche is my client
Juliann. Juliann had been a solo entrepreneur for 3 years when we
started working together. She wanted to be more successful and
increase her income. By focusing on her passion in business and
clearly defining and developing her Attraction Niche, she was able to
do just that.
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Within six months Juliann had fine-tuned her website and marketing
materials, increased her monthly income by an additional $4,000 a
month, and was connecting with more of her perfect customers.
Using marketing language that attracts your perfect customers and
focuses on your Attraction Niche makes your website a powerful tool to
increase your income.
For Juliann, creating an Attraction Niche allowed her to reduce the
amount of time she was working while increasing her profits each
month. But she says the most important thing it did for her was she
fell in love with her business again. New ideas easily flow to her and
she keeps the ones that fit into her evolving Attraction Niche and lets
the rest go.
Bottom Line
Why is an Attraction Niche so important to the enjoyment of your
business and level of income flowing in?
Without a clearly defined niche and strategic systems to attract your
perfect clients and customers, marketing becomes a struggle.
Attracting prospects and converting them becomes a hit-or-miss
process. And your passion and income quickly erode.
Defining and developing an Attraction Niche is essential to making
steady deposits into your spiritual and financial bank accounts.
At Solo-E.com, we help you unlock the power of an Attraction Niche.
Sign up now for our free Solo Secrets newsletter and experience it
for yourself http://www.solo-e.com
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About the Author
BZ Riger-Hull is an expert Success Mindset Coach and Bodacious
Marketing Consultant and author of the Web Success Wizard. BZ helps
you develop and effectively market profitable products and services.
She knows how important having a step-by-step process to get the
clients, customers, and income you really want flowing in, is to
creating Bodacious Success. BZ helps you focus on what is most
important, demystifies marketing and helps harness your creativity
and market your products and services through your website, blog,
podcast, newsletter, autoresponders... Making the complex technology
pieces easy to understand and implement. "Success comes from you
not to you, it’s all about committing to your success and taking
action." She lives on Martha's Vineyard and begins each morning with
a beach walk with her two white Labradors Taza and Luna before
getting to the days' customers and clients. Please contact BZ
[email protected] for solutions to help you be Bodaciously
Successful. http://www.BodaciousSmallBusinessSuccess.com
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Secret #3: Leverage — The Secret to Doing What You Love — And Only That
Written by: Terri Zwierzynski
Edited by: Rose Hill, Amy Ewart, Jeff Morrow, and Kasey Zanolli Copyright Terri Zwierzynski 2005 for Solo-Entrepreneur.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Ah, the sweet promise of Solo Entrepreneurship. No boss to tell you
what to do or when. No commute through the daily gridlock. No
employees to supervise.
And then there’s the reality of running a business on your own.
Bookkeeping, ordering office supplies, marketing, answering the
phone, updating your web site, and oh, yeah — doing the work you
love with clients! If you’ve followed the first two Secrets, those clients
and customers are rolling in — how do you keep up?
How can you do it all??
The short answer? You can’t. If you try to wear all the hats in your
business, you are likely to find yourself overworked, underpaid,
frustrated, and ultimately, burned out. The hours you can spend with
clients, actually making money, will be limited — and so will your
income! As your frustration mounts, it starts getting harder to get
clients — because they can sense that you aren’t enjoying your work
or doing your best. Instead, you are distracted by that bill that needs
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to be paid by Friday, by the clutter in your office, by those brochures
you need to get to the printer by 4:00 p.m. Trying to do it all is like
stealing from yourself.
You are keeping yourself from doing the work you love, your genius
work, by forcing yourself to learn all the aspects of running the
business, and then trying to perform them all.
Why do you do this to yourself?
Probably a couple of reasons. First, especially when you are starting
out, you think you can’t afford help. “I’ll get a
bookkeeper/receptionist/assistant later, when I have enough
business.” Somehow, enough business never comes… because you
simply never have enough time to get that business! Because you are
too busy doing everything else. It’s a vicious cycle!
The second reason might be about control. Face it; you got into
business for yourself so that you could have control over all the
aspects of your “job.” You want your clients to experience a high-
quality product or service; after all, it’s your name on the masthead!
You want your accounts in order; you dread the thought of a tax audit,
or worse, someone stealing from you. You want your web site to be
just so, and it’s just easier to do it yourself than to explain to someone
else how you want it. No one else will ever do it the way you
would!
It’s time to let go of the myths and fears.
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The truth is: you can’t afford NOT to get help. And you have to LET GO
of the need to oversee everything. If you want to have a business that
gives you the freedom and flexibility you want, you need to take
advantage of the secret that successful Solo Entrepreneurs know and
apply consistently and profitably: The secret is LEVERAGE.
How can I afford help?
Leverage is defined as “Supplementing, Enhancing, or having Gained
Advantage.” One example of leverage is when you take that first
simple step to outsource some task that you dislike or aren’t good at.
For instance, one task that vexes many Solo Entrepreneurs is
bookkeeping. Suppose it takes 4 hours a month to do the bookkeeping
for your business. And for this example, let’s say that you can
outsource your bookkeeping in your community (or virtually) for
$25/hr, and you sell your own services for $100/hr. The instant you
replace yourself with a bookkeeper, you’ve increased your potential
monthly income by $300. Could you use an extra $300 a month,
$3600 a year? And that’s just by outsourcing one task! Additionally,
you have created a business write-off, which is essential to lowering
your taxes.
In today’s virtual world, you can outsource just about any service you
might need. Of course, you’ll want to hire carefully to find someone
with the skills and integrity that meet your standards.
What about a service that is just as costly as your time? What if you
could hire a marketing consultant to help you with your market
research, but their hourly rate is the same as yours? Sure, you could
do that research yourself — but how long would it take you to do it?
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A marketing consultant who is skilled and practiced at market research
can do the job in a fraction of the time it would take you to do it
yourself.
An Example
When we started Solo-E.com, my business partner and I did virtually
everything ourselves. We limited our cash investment by editing much
of the web site ourselves, posting all the articles and classes, and
creating the newsletter each week. We were able to get started on
only $10,000, which lasted us more than a year. But our membership
didn’t grow as we forecast, partly because we didn’t have the time to
devote to things like setting strategy and marketing!
When we finally contracted with three Virtual Assistants, a huge weight
was lifted off my shoulders. I realized how much I disliked the kind of
detailed work that our VA’s loved doing! Suddenly I was free, not only
with more time but without the negative energy dragging me down. In
hindsight, were I to do it over again, I would find the money to get
help immediately. Solo-E would have grown more quickly and had
more to show for our investment sooner.
Another Kind of Leverage
The leverage described above is about how to leverage yourself:
using your time in the most productive and profitable way, and hiring
others who are more productive at the tasks you aren’t suited for.
Another kind of leverage that will boost your business into the
stratosphere if you take full advantage of it is leveraging your
knowledge.
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If you are a typical solo service professional, your work is time-based.
Your income is limited by the number of hours available to work on a
project, to teach a class, to talk with a client. If you want to make
more income, you have to work more hours.
Leveraging your knowledge removes that limitation. If you have
valuable knowledge to share and can package that knowledge and sell
it, your income potential is now limited only by your skill in marketing
(or the skill of that marketing consultant you’ve contracted with!).
Recorded Teleclasses, e-books, e-courses, audio or video CDs, and
print books can all be sold 24/7 via the Internet with a good
eCommerce solution. Electronic products can be delivered
automatically, and you can outsource the fulfillment of physical
products. The possibilities are endless. By leveraging your knowledge
and taking advantage of technology, you not only create multiple
income streams, you also can make this money even while sleeping, or
golfing, or vacationing.
Automate!
No discussion of leverage would be complete without mentioning the
role of technology. There are many ways you can use technology in
your business to leverage your time. Examples include using email
rules to automatically sort your email, autoresponders to send oft-
requested information, and of course your cell phone, PDA, Blackberry,
and other assorted technical gadgets.
The key is understanding the difference between the nice-to-haves and
those that allow you to optimize your focus on leverage. Recall what
we mentioned above about leveraging your knowledge. Consider how
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you can combine technology and your knowledge into a money-making
product! That's the key! You now have your custom content being
automatically paid for and distributed... while you are meeting with
clients. Oh yeah... and your virtual assistants are helping set you up
for your next round of success.
The one other thing that our webmaster points out (notice the
leverage) is to be careful about your choices in the technology arena.
If you get too excited and grab the first thing that comes along, it may
not be the best or most cost-effective solution.
John Foster Dulles reminds us: "The measure of success is not
whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it's the
same problem you had last year." Go for it! Leverage your way to
success.
Bottom Line
So gain advantage, enhance your business, and supplement your
income by using the secret of leverage. Make a list of the tasks you
do in your business that you dislike. Call a couple of bookkeepers to
find out the going rate. Start the outline of an e-book you’d like to
write. Do something today, and everyday, that takes advantage of
leverage in your business.
At Solo-E.com, we help you unlock the power of Leverage. Sign up
now for our free Solo Secrets newsletter and experience it for
yourself http://www.solo-e.com
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About the Author
Terri Zwierzynski is the CEI (Conductor of Extraordinary Ideas) at
Solo-E.com. She is also is a coach to small business owners and Solo
Entrepreneurs and the author of 136 Ways to Market Your Small or
Solo Business. Terri is an MBA honors graduate from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Terri has been coaching for over 10 years in a variety of settings,
including 6 years as a senior-level coach and consultant for a high-tech
Fortune 500 company. She went solo in 2001. See all of her
companies at http://www.TerriZ.com.
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Secret #4: The Secret to Getting More Done and Making
More Money as a Solo Entrepreneur — Collaboration
Written by: Rose Hill
Edited by: Amy Ewart, Lorraine Cohen, and Terri Zwierzynski Copyright Rose Hill 2005 for Solo-Entrepreneur.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved
If you’ve followed the first three secrets, business is humming now.
But it still seems as if something is missing…
The great paradox of being a solo-entrepreneur is that, by definition,
you are flying solo in your business — but you only reach the pinnacle
of success when you collaborate with others. Teaming up with others
allows you to focus on the special services you provide, while
increasing your business and leveraging your resources.
Let’s start with a fact: You only have three ways to increase your
business:
• Get more money from each sale.
• Get new clients.
• Get your current clients to hire you more often.
By collaborating with others, you put all three of these factors to work
in building your business success.
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The Benefits of Collaboration
When you use collaboration you can:
Land more business and increase your income.
By working with others in your business, you gain access to new
clients and new markets. That’s because you gain access to their
networks, clients, and alliances — vastly expanding your sphere of
contacts and influence. You can participate in bigger projects; package
your services with those of others to land new clients, and partner with
the “big boys” to extend the reach of your business.
Handle more clients.
You only have 24 hours in a day. And not all of that time is billable —
you’re limited to the number of billable hours you have in any period.
By calling on your collaborators you can avoid the dilemma of either
over-committing and not meeting your commitments to your clients,
or of under-committing and cheating yourself out of potential income
and new clients.
Eliminate the feast-or-famine cycle.
Too many Solo Entrepreneurs operate in a feast-or-famine cycle. That
is, they land a client, focus on providing their services to that client,
complete the project, and then look up to notice that they don’t have
their next client or project ready to start. Or, they are oblivious to the
greater economic landscape in which their business functions,
repeatedly being blindsided when external factors, such as economic
stagnation or an industry recession, hit their business.
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By collaborating with others, you can keep yourself working steadily
regardless of the state of the macro-economy in which you work.
Take on bigger, more interesting projects.
When you work by yourself, you might be presented with a project
that requires skills that you don’t yet have or that will take more hours
than you alone can provide. When you have a cadre of collaborators in
your contacts database, you can easily take on these projects with full
confidence.
Increase the ease with which you can change directions when
needed.
Because you can draw on the skills and abilities of your collaborators,
when your client wants something done that you haven’t mastered you
can instantly provide it. Having the skills and abilities of a collaborative
team will extend your scope of services and expertise to a broader
audience.
Be seen as a serious player in your niche.
Unfortunate, but true, many of your potential clients view Solo
Entrepreneurs as “dabblers.” They lump you in with the growing
numbers of “consultants” made up of professionals who have been laid
off and who aren’t really serious about building a business for the long
haul. Aligning with a group of business-oriented collaborators will
communicate an effective/strong professional message to your target
audience.
Enhance your credibility or reputation.
By working with a team of collaborators that includes people who
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already have great reputations in your field, industry, or area of
expertise, you benefit by the halo effect. And they benefit from yours.
Stretch your promotional budget — get more bang for the buck!
Leveraging your marketing and advertising through joint ventures with
your collaborators magnifies your visibility in the marketplace.
Sounds great, yes? It is!
The Best Collaborations for Solo Entrepreneurs
To maximize your business success, focus on:
• Project-Oriented Teams
• Marketing Alliances
Project-Oriented Teams
A project-oriented team is created for the sole purpose of completing a
specific project. Hence, the number and skills of members in a project-
oriented team is dictated by the needs of the project. Once the project
is completed, the team disbands. These teams come together and
disband as needed, with tenuous ties among the collaborating
members when they are between projects.
Project-oriented teams consist of one project leader and multiple
subcontractors. You can work this from either side — as the project
leader or as a collaborating subcontractor. Usually, the project leader
is the person who secured the contract with the end client. The
collaborating subcontractors are other Solo Entrepreneurs or small
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businesses that then contract directly with the project leader’s
company to supply specific services and deliverables for the project.
If you’re an adept marketer, you can quickly develop your business by
pulling together a cadre of high-quality and qualified subcontractors
that you can call upon for the fulfillment of your large projects.
If you’re new at marketing and promoting your business, or if you
don’t have all the work you want, you can offer your services (at your
wholesale rate, of course) to people who you would normally have
considered your competitors. Doing so allows you to extend your
network, enhance your reputation, and increase your billable hours.
Marketing Alliances
In a marketing alliance, you join with other business owners to create
or provide mechanisms to cross-expose your clients and prospects to
the services and expertise of those in your business alliance.
The keys to success in these alliances are:
• Each partner must be perceived as an expert in their profession
or service.
• Each partner must contribute something that is of equal value to
what is contributed by the other. Unequal exchanges usually
destroy these alliances.
The goal of all actions is to substantially increase the visibility of each
partner’s business to their target market — resulting in increased
revenues.
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An Example
Here’s a common example of a marketing alliance:
A Business Plan Writer partners with a professional association that
serves entrepreneurs. The writer offers to contribute a column entitled
“Tips & Shortcuts for Great Business Plans” in the association’s
monthly ezine. The writer also offers to host a free, quarterly teleclass
on how to write a Business Plan. In return, the writer gains the third-
party endorsement of being in the association’s ezine, and she gets
exposure on a regular basis to those who can use her services to
create their Business Plans. And the association gets information that
is highly valued by its members, allowing the association to attract
even more entrepreneurs into membership.
Bottom Line
If you’re ready to expand the pool of clients and projects available to
your business, be seen as a serious business professional, and make
more money, start collaborating with others today!
At Solo-E.com, we help you unlock the power of Collaboration. Sign up
now for our free Solo Secrets newsletter and experience it for
yourself http://www.solo-e.com
About the Author
Rose Hill made the leap of faith into full-time self-employment in
1990. A self-taught entrepreneur, she also studied coaching at a
variety of well-known coaching programs, including The Coaches
Training Institute, the Academy for Coach Training, and the Graduate
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The Four Secrets to Solo Entrepreneur Success™ http://www.Solo-E.com
School of Coaching. Additionally, she has developed and presented
classes for the School of Small Business Coaching centered on how to
coach the solo entrepreneur, and regularly presents her program
entitled "Are You Ready to Be Self-Employed?" for the Professional
Development Center of Portland State University.
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Conclusion
Are these the only strategies necessary for success as a Solo
Entrepreneur? Of course not. However, our experience tells us that
these are the most often overlooked, misunderstood, and
underutilized. Here are other strategies that are more obvious, but just
as crucial to your success:
Passion — If you don’t have a passion for what you’re doing, you
may need to look harder at the Secret of Self-Investment, or the
Secret of Niche. Or you may need to re-evaluate whether being a Solo
Entrepreneur is really the right path for you.
Self-care — Solo Entrepreneurs need vacations too! Figure out a
way to take a hiatus — put your clients on hold for a while, find a
colleague to cover for you, do something that will give you some time
away — no computer, no cell phone, no <fill in your favorite gadget
here>. You might just re-discover your passion after you’ve had time
for some much-deserved rest.
Persistence — The average Solo Entrepreneur business takes 18
months to really get off the ground; some more, some less. Knowing
these Four Secrets can get you there faster — and you still need to
have the tenacity to keep trying new things, experimenting, and
learning.
Find the Right Teachers — Don’t make the mistake of looking for
the holder of the magic bullet – the one guru whose formula you will
follow (isn’t that why you left the corporate world, so you could stop
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mindlessly taking direction from others?). Find the right teachers that
can help you get in touch with the guru within. You don’t have to do
exactly what they teach; instead, figure out how they think, pick the
pieces that fit your business and your style, and build your own
formula for success. At Solo-E you can find many qualified, inspiring
teachers to help you find your keys to unlocking the power of all the
Secrets.
Take Action Today! Here’s the Solo-E Challenge.
• Are you investing in yourself?
• Are you aligning whom you serve with who you are?
• Are you leveraging your time and knowledge?
• Are you joyfully working with others to do even more?
If the answers to these questions is anything less than a resounding
YES!, you are not alone! Even 7-figure Solo Entrepreneurs keep
tweaking and honing their skills, knowledge, and application of the
Secrets. Shouldn’t you be too?
Find the keys to unlocking the Secrets™ at Solo-E.com. Sign up now
for our free Solo Secrets newsletter and experience it for yourself
http://www.solo-e.com
Feedback
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http://http://www.Solo-E.com/foursecrets/ask4secrets.shtml
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and type away. And if you catch any mistakes or find a broken link,
please include that in your comments too.