“Well, what you do sounds interesting, but could you send me a sample project?”
This is one of the most-feared questions a solopreneur encounters. You might freeze, not having a portfolio of the best, sufficiently-anonymized examples of what you do. A much better approach is to turn the question around and find out what your prospective client is most concerned about. What is he really worried about — that you can’t do the work? that your deliverable will be a piece of junk? something else?
One of the critical characteristics of a successful solopreneur is the willingness to hold what Zen Buddhists call shoshin, or “beginner’s mind,” in every situation. Beginner’s mind looks with wonder and without preconceptions, assuming that you do not understand or see all aspects of the situation or all the possibilities present. Even (especially!) when you considers yourself an expert, you look at it as if seeing it for the first time. This willingness to let go of the ego-attachment of being an expert lets you see things in a different and fuller way.
In my experience, this means constantly living slightly outside my comfort zone, to acknowledge that each situation is new and what was true in other situations may not be true in this one. Being an expert, even being the expert in a field, isn’t sufficient to build a successful business. While I always feel a bit stretched, it is a good and healthy thing to be reminded frequently that I need to look at situations from a fresh perspective.
