As a child, I read Aesop’s Fables avidly; I like getting my life lessons from animals rather than humans, I suppose. One fable that caught my attention way back then was The Dog and The Wolf, the TL;DR version of which is a well-fed dog offered to help a scrawny wolf get regular food from his master. The wolf listened but noticed a bald spot on the dog’s neck where the collar sat. Goodbye, said the wolf. There is nothing worth so much as liberty.
Handling scope creep
Scope creep, the phrase that strikes fear in the heart of every consultant…
We have all had that experience, where we carefully plan out every aspect of a project, estimating the necessary time and resources and even adding in a safety margin, only to have our client ask for “just a little more” work or “just this little addition” to our deliverable halfway through the project. All of a sudden the expected work load has doubled, for no additional income.
What I learned at summer camp
I just got back from my annual trip to solopreneur summer camp, otherwise known as the AIIP Annual Conference. I always come away inspired and challenged, ready to try out new ideas and approaches.
This year’s conference focused on pivoting as a strategic approach—something that we solopreneurs do continually as we adjust to our clients’ changing needs and pain points. We were lucky enough to have Jenny Blake, author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, as our keynote speaker and Anne Caputo as the Roger Summit Award speaker. Their talks sparked rich hallway and mealtime conversations about how we can remain nimble and responsive while staying grounded to what our clients value the most. Here are some of the insights I brought home with me.
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“Busy” is a four-letter word
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a nice column by Elizabeth Bernstein on the use of “I’m busy” as a point of pride. (It’s behind the paywall at wsj.com/articles/youre-not-busy-youre-just-rude-1489354275. Seriously, consider a subscription; it’s a great newspaper. You may not always agree with the editorial page, but the reporting is high quality and neutral. These days, we need to support real journalists.)
According to Bernstein, studies have found that “busier people are perceived as having a high status. ‘We place a high value on hard work and rewarding effort, which is really rewarding activity and not necessarily achievement,’ says Woody Woodward […] Bernstein encourages us to stop using “busy” as a positive description but, instead, to focus on what specifically is eating up our time—and, just as importantly, to own our free time as rightfully ours.
Think like a rock climber
I’m from Boulder, where there seem to be more professional rock climbers than people like me who like our feet planted firmly on terra firma. Whenever I drive up a canyon, I can see the tiny figures of people halfway up a sheer rock face, appearing to defy both gravity and common sense.
Our local newspaper has a regular column for rock climbers and a recent one caught my eye. Chris Weidner, in “Don’t just get stronger, get smarter“, offers four tips for mental toughness that seemed directed at us solopreneurs as much as it was to those about to scale the side of a mountain.
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How’s your solopreneur mindset?
I have often wondered about why some people succeed as solopreneurs and others don’t. Almost everyone I run into has at least the basic skills needed for their business; it isn’t that they can’t do the work. Rather, I see attitude and approach as the distinguishing factors between successful business owners and those who never seem to get the traction they need.
Improving your ca$h flow
Summer is a slow time for many solopreneurs; our clients are on vacation or taking Fridays off, and they just aren’t calling as often as they do during the rest of the year. That means that many solopreneurs are facing a cash crunch this summer. Our recurring expenses — utilities, ISP, health insurance, etc. — still need to get paid, but the income isn’t coming in. If you were able to anticipate this slow-down, you put money aside to cover your basic expenses when your income is not coming in. But even with preparation, it’s nice to get the cash flow going again. The following are a few thoughts on how to ease cash crunches.
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Who’s showing up for work?
We solopreneurs are CEOs of our business, but that stands for Chief Everything Officer. We are responsible for everything from strategic planning to marketing to sales to accounting to – oh, yeah – whatever it is that we charge our clients for.
20 Ways to Kick-Start Your Marketing
Every business experiences lulls, times when it seems that you barely have the energy to drag yourself into your office, and you can’t stand the thought of having to go out and generate business. This happens to everyone, and it often happens at the end of the year and during the middle of the year, as people are out of the office or in vacation mode and not doing a lot. Here are some of the actions I add to my marketing plan when I need to rev my marketing efforts up a notch.
One trait of successful solopreneurs
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.