Some solopreneurs find themselves plagued by procrastination, confusion, frustration and overwhelm. It’s easy to do. I understand. I’ve been there!


If you’re one of them, you might spend your time focusing on how to write a better tweet on Twitter, or how to be a better “friend” on Facebook. Again, I understand.


There’s so much hype from The Gurus that you can make good money in a bad market and have adoring fans if you can master social media and network. Guess, what? They’re right!


But, that’s only part of the story.


Mastering social media and networking is critical, especially if you’re a service professional … a business coach or consultant. However, social media and networking are tools to help you accomplish your goals IF you can:

1. Think big
2. Find your “Why”
3. Research your market
4. Plan your business
5. Take massive action
6. Leverage those around you
7. Review, Re-educate, Revise, & Repeat

If these terms are a little too dry for you, I’ll make them more pleasing:

1. Change your thinking to achieve bigger results (think big) 

2. Avoid procrastination, a lack of confidence and burn out while keeping focused on specific actions to achieve your desired success (find your “why”)

3. Attract more of the right customers (research your market)

4. Avoid multiple false starts (plan your business)

5. Replace your busy work with results producing action (take massive action)

6. Rally others to your cause to achieve greater success faster (leverage those around you)

7. Capitalize on your current achievements for greater future success (The 4Rs: review, re-educate, revise, & repeat)


If you skip any of these 7 essentials, you’re going to create opportunities for procrastination, confusion, frustration and overwhelm. It can leave you feeling like one of the masses wondering why a few lucky solopreneurs get to play in the big game while you have to watch from the sidelines trying to figure out how they make the big plays seem so easy. I don’t want that for you. I am passionate about helping you maximize your solopreneur potential.


So I have a gift for you.


If you go to my Small Biz Break site, you will see on the right side of the page, an opt-in form where you can access the recent webinar my partner and I recorded titled, “Discover the 7 Essential for Going from Cruise Control to Crushing It in Your Business”. There you’ll find the recording, plus two bonus downloads.


If you feel like you’re watching the big game being played while you sit on the sidelines, get out of the crowds and get in the game! You can do it. Give the webinar a listen. Take action with the bonus handouts.


What’s stopping you? Don’t you deserve your big break?


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide

 
Everyone is looking for the secret. That hidden knowledge … that answer… that one thing that if you knew, suddenly your whole life and your solopreneur startup would change for the better.


Well you can’t get the big answer if you don’t ask the big question.


And if you have any children or if you’ve spent time around children for any extended period of time, you’ll have been asked this question many times. It’s arguably the most important question in the human condition and subsequently in running a small business.


And that question is … “Why?”


Now if you feel let down by the answer thinking this is way too simple and obvious, stop and think for a minute.


Why do so many people have a tough time answering “Why?”

Why do people make millions helping others find the answer to this question … both in their personal and professional lives?

Why is “Why?” the most important question?


Because it really doesn’t matter what you do, or how you do it unless you have a deeply profound, clear understanding of why you are doing it.


If you are constantly thinking about what you need to do in your business or how you are going to do it and you don’t have a clear answer as to why, you are wasting your time. Sure, you can still achieve some success, but nowhere near what you are capable of.


You’ve probably heard the self-help expression, “Be, Do, Have”.

• Who you are being (with your thinking),
• Directly impacts what you do (the actions you take),
• Giving you what you have (your results from your thinking and your actions)

If you want to change what you Have, you have to alter what you Do. But before you can successful do that, you need to start be focusing on Be.


The what and the how of your solopreneur business is all about the Do. To get your Be squared away, you need to get centered on your Why.


Why did you choose to start your solopreneur business?

Why are you passionate about it?

Why are you the right person for your business?

Why do your customers benefit from choosing your products or services?

Why are you passionate about helping them?


If you’re feeling a little lost, confused or just plain stuck, get centered on your Why. Once you have focus on your why, many other aspects of your business will become clear as to what and how you should do them.


If you struggle to answer your Why, my Small Biz Break partner, Maria, and I can help. We offer a series of online webinars and coaching services focused on the 7 essentials for going from cruise control to crushing it in your business. Why is one of the essentials we focus on.


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide

 
While these two terms may sound similar, they are really separate … but cooperative. And if you understand their individual values and the order to put them in, you can achieve astounding results.


I think you’ll see far more attention focused on time management, but this is really secondary to time mastery. It helps separate a schedule of busy work from a day full of goal achieving activities that can lead to big results.


Are you familiar with Steven Covey’s example of Start with the Big Rocks?


If not, you can watch a video here where he does an excellent job of demonstrating visually how most people confuse this lesson by filling up their time with busy work first.


And you may be likely to do the same because often we need to clear our schedule and our thinking from the busy work before we feel like we can focus on the big issues. Plus, it can feel rewarding … and often tension relieving … to get so many things checked off of our to-do list quickly. As solopreneurs, we love taking action.


However, you can lose weeks, months, even years to busy work before you even start to pay enough attention to the big issues. And then, you can be left wondering why you aren’t achieving your full potential … which can lead to self-doubt, some confusion, possibly procrastination, and often overwhelm to creep in to our businesses.


Time Mastery is about putting the right things on the schedule based upon your goals … objective, clear, concise goals that you have the power to affect … not vague, subjective things that other people have control over.


You need to master your goal setting and prioritization first before you can consider time management.


Time Management is about setting a schedule for your day, your week, your month, and your year … and setting rules for how you will contain your schedule. For example, you may decide that you will focus your time to 10 hours a day 5 days a week. Whatever works for the harmony you seek between your personal and professional lives.


Once you set your rules, stick to them! Because once you open up the opportunity to start pouring more things into your schedule, you’ll wish you were getting more done on your goal achieving activities, but in reality you’ve only increased your time bucket to fit in more busy work that will dilute your energy and your focus for your big issues.


If you are struggling with the activities your are accomplishing in your day or you’re dissatisfied with the results you’re achieving, you likely need to take a step back and focus on your time mastery techniques of defining and refining your goals instead of investing more effort into your time management skills and better to-do lists or software programs.


If you have trouble doing this on your own, contact me.


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide

Sounds like a bold title, doesn’t it? Is this just catchy copy or is it truly possible that there are just seven essential actions solopreneurs master for breakthrough success?


The truth is many of these top small business pros worked very hard to get where they are today. Their success didn’t happen overnight. The honest ones will tell you that they struggled and made mistakes along the way. Some big mistakes. Costly mistakes. I sure have. More than once … and in multiple industries.


These are all talented people that have the entrepreneurial DNA, but before they achieved their breakthrough success, they had certain patterns or habits that kept them just on the other side of success. They fought through frustration, confusion, procrastination, small results and some degree of self-doubt … all at a cost of tremendous effort, personal pride, loss of money and cashing in a few favors with the people that supported them most.


Does this sound like your current situation?


If so, we want to help you.


My Small Biz Break partner, Maria, and I are hosting a live webinar on Tuesday March 1^st at 2:00 PM EST / 11:00 AM PST titled, “Discover the 7 Essentials for Going from Cruise Control to Crushing It in Your Business”. In this no-cost webinar, we’ll talk about the seven key actions that successful entrepreneurs mastered for breakthrough success.


You’ll discover the primary secrets of:

1. How to change your thinking to achieve bigger results

2. How to avoid procrastination, a lack of confidence and burn out while keeping focused on specific actions to achieve your desired success

3. How to attract more of the right customers

4. How to avoid multiple false starts

5. How to replace your busy work with results producing action

6. How to rally others to your cause to achieve greater success faster

… and …

7. How you can capitalize on your current achievements for greater future success


We don’t believe in taking up your time with fluff and only talking about theories. We are committed to introducing you to new ideas so you can see new possibilities. We will discuss why they’re important and we back that with practical, how-to steps so you can start taking action right away.


The first action you need to take is to register for this event. At the bottom of our Small Biz Break Events page, you will see a registration form. When you sign in your name and email address, not only will you reserve one of the limited spots to:


1. Our live 60-minute free webinar on Tuesday, March 1^st

… but for a limited number of take-action entrepreneurs who register early, we will give a complementary bonus  …

2. A one-on-one 30-minute private strategy session. We are only offering this for a limited number of people, so take action now before the other action-oriented entrepreneurs beat you to it!


We’re excited to get the opportunity to help your business reach its full potential!


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide

When I was a kid, I was pretty hyper. I wasn’t the type to sit around and watch TV or hang out inside (unless it was Saturday morning when the classic cartoons were on). I loved spending time outside running around, riding bikes, having dirt clod fights with friends, and just having adventures.


At the first instinct of possible excitement outside… other kids yelling, inspiration for a new fort that needed building … I would tear through our kitchen and out the backdoor to see what I was missing or what fun I could create. Just as I would reach the backdoor, my mom would always ask, “Where do you think you’re going?”


“Aaahhhh … outside.”


“Yeah, but where?”


“I don’t know.”


I had no idea. I always figured, I’ll make it up as I go along. Who plans playing? As a kid, this was an acceptable answer. I didn’t have any responsibilities and my mom was usually happy to let us kids burn off some energy outside, so it was a win + win.


However, as I work with a number of solopreneurs, I get a similar answer when I ask them where they plan on going with their businesses. They may have some idea … often vague, but somehow ended up in the promise land of making money.


And their story starts in a similar way … the inspiration to go do something kicks in or the sense of an opportunity to make money catches their attention and suddenly they’re off and running.


The difference is kids can play, solopreneurs need to plan. The consequences are much greater as a solopreneur. Besides burning a lot of energy running around, you can burn a lot of money and time, too. And usually, you can’t afford to.


I understand, when an opportunity or passion presents itself, you want to take action … and you should. Don’t hold yourself back. But, can you afford to just figure it out as you go along? While this may seem like more fun or more productive, it’s hard to get anywhere if you don’t really know where you are going.


1. Learn the rules.
Think about it this way, when was the last time that someone asked you to play a game and you just started playing without knowing what the rules were and what you stood to win? Once you understood what it took to win, it gave focus to the moves you made to get there. Business isn’t any different. The best way to learn the rules is to do your research.

You may want to make it up as you go along, but your prospects don’t. They already have reasons and habits for using the competing solutions. How are you going to convince them to switch to your products or services by asking them to take a chance with you on your plan of “let’s see what happens”?

You can then make recommendations to your customers how to play the “game” game better once you understand how to play it.


2. Start with the end in mind.
Before you just go running out the door, have a vision of what you would like your future to look like and whom you would like to be there to enjoy it with you. Then, stop and take some time to create goals. Your goals will be your guideposts along the way. They will keep you focused and motivated.

The key to your goals setting is that you establish clear, concise goals that are within your control to achieve. Goal setting goes awry when solopreneurs set goals of wanting “more …” without setting a specific target date. Wanting “more” prospects is nice, but it’s more effective to set a goal of a specific number of prospects by a specific date.


If you are having trouble envisioning where you solopreneur startup is going, take a step back and do your research to see what you know about your prospects, what their needs and wants are, how they are currently satisfying them, and where the opportunity exists for you to create a better experience for them. And then set your goals.


Need help accomplishing this? Drop me a line.


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide