How to Get a Solopreneur Business Started with Diana Stephens, Ian Watts, and Laura Khalil Ep106

Listen and learn How to Get a Solopreneur Business Started with this panel discussion featuring Laura Khalil, founder of Brave by Design, Ian Watts, a small business coach known for his expertise in lean startup methodology, and Diana Stephens from Mindful Job Alignment, who shares her inspiring transition from corporate life to solopreneurship, along with her unique mindfulness techniques to ease job transitions.

Listen and get answers to these questions:

• How do you decide what to do for your business? 
  
  
• How do I know WHEN to transition out of my job and into my business?
  
  
• What should you do in the first 90 days to find clients?
  
  
• What do I need to consider as it relates to money (paycheck vs. income) and health insurance?
  
  
• What should I be focused on? What do I prioritize?
  
  
• How do you talk about what you do to find clients?

PLUS - BOATS:
Hear Ian’s compelling "burn your boats" analogy and how it serves as a reminder of the importance of full commitment to your business mission. And Laura's suggested question, "How does this help the boat go faster?"


Watch the video playback & get the resources from Diana, Ian & Laura:
https://www.mellermarketing.com/shift

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Each package includes: 

• LinkedIn consulting / coaching, personalized to your needs and focusing on your questions.
• Review of LinkedIn profile / company page to provide guidance / advice / recommendations

https://www.mellermarketing.com/powerhour 

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:48

We are here talking about how to get a solopreneur business started, and I am super excited about this discussion because I know we have people that are just getting started joining us, and there are people at different iterations and phases of their business, and you're going to learn from these panelists and speakers as well, so I'm going to ask each of our panelists to introduce themselves. We'll go in the order in which I just had you.

Speaker 2: 1:18

So, laura, you'll go first and then we'll go to Ian, and then we'll go to Hi everyone. It is great to be here. Thanks for having me, and my name is Laura Khalil. I'm the founder of brave by design and I help consultants fill their pipeline with higher paying clients in the next quarter. I've been in business for about 11 years. I ran my own consulting business, working with some of the world's largest brands, and now I love to teach new emerging and growing consultants how they can land $50,000, $100,000, and even a quarter of a million dollar deals. So it's a pleasure to be here. I'm excited for this.

Speaker 3: 1:49

Awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:51

I love how our panelists are cheering Great team support. So, ian, you are next, go ahead, I love it. I love how our panelists are cheering Great team support. So, ian, you are next. I love it I love it.

Speaker 3: 1:56

I love it. My name is Ian Watts and I run a small business coaching and training company. I have had, or we have had, the privilege of training and coaching clients in almost all 50 states in the US and in many countries around the world, and we are industry agnostic, so we've worked with clients in over 30 different industries. We specialize in lean startup methodology with this, which is particularly helpful for those who are interested in starting their business and transitioning into a full time, because it allows you to quickly and inexpensively launch while removing the risks. We also specialize in rapid revenue growth through marketing strategy and tactics and systems for sustainability and scale.

Speaker 3: 2:34

Yet one of the things that makes us really unique is we don't just focus on the skills and strategies and tactics. We also focus on mindset. So we have as a part of our team Dr Randy Pierce MD, who's a psychiatrist that helps us to do what is in our own best interest so that we can achieve the heights to which we desire. So I'm tremendously excited to be here with you guys, and I'm only going to cut up just a little bit.

Speaker 4: 2:57

Hi Brenda, thanks for having me. So I am a unique panelist in the sense of the fact that I'm currently in the middle of my transition to being a solopreneur. I do have a corporate job I'm in software as a service, as a customer success manager, but I also am the founder of Mindful Job Alignment. And what I'm doing with Mindful Job Alignment is helping people in transition go from stressed and confused to motivated and in control of their job search, and I have an eight-part pathway that I lead clients through that really helps them create an action plan and shorten the time to landing or whatever the next piece of their journey is, and part of my process is that I do explore side work with them that can eventually lead to entrepreneurism. And I also have a section of the pathway that deals with mindfulness, meditation and stress relief techniques when you're in transition. So delighted to be here today and join the chat.

Speaker 1: 3:55

So we're going to do a round-tree Q&A discussion today and we'll do audience Q&A at the end. Now the good thing is with the panel discussion we're going to do one person at a time, so the tech issue should resolve itself through that. Let me ask the first question of Diana. So we're going to go around the room here. First question will be for you, diana. Diana, there might be people that are thinking about getting a solopreneur business started. How do you decide what to do for your business? What's your advice there?

Speaker 4: 4:26

First of all, I don't know that the process happens overnight. Maybe for some people it does, but it did not for me. But I really was looking for a business that I could do, that was online and not brick and mortar, that I could also carry through into my retirement to supplement my retirement income and I really want to work with people. And it was either going to be somewhere in the elder care space, because I do have experience in elder care personally, or else it was going to be in the job search space, because I do have experience in elder care personally, or else was going to be in the job search space because I've been through six corporate transitions. So I think, through the process of just working through my journey, I wanted to also complete my PhD, which I did in 2021. And my dissertation was on a mindful approach to job search, so that started me on the path of creating the business.

Speaker 4: 5:16

And two, I took some time to really research all about online businesses and a lot of the different components of what we're discussing today. On this call, I didn't have anything this great when I was looking, something so succinct where you have all these great speakers within a four-hour period. But anyway, I took some time to research everything and in 2023, I did launch my website and I also was part of a book from entrepreneurs from Mission Matters and I wrote a chapter on understanding the grief caused by career transitions, and it's just morphed from there. I've also been on some podcasts speaking about transitions. My website originally was going to start as a blog and now I'm morphing into one-on-one coaching and in 2024, I'm going to expand more into online courses and also looking at doing a podcast. So this is going to evolve over time and I'm in the midst of it.

Speaker 4: 6:07

So I'm happy to chat with anybody in the audience who's in the midst of it and looking for what to do next?

Speaker 1: 6:15

Thank you, diana. All right, we're going to change gears. Next question, laura, for you, and I'm going to keep these going pretty quickly, just so we can get through some questions and then go to audience questions. Lauren, what should someone do in the first 90 days to find clients? What's your advice?

Speaker 2: 6:30

Brenda, I'm so glad you asked. So I got my first $100,000 contract within six weeks. I'd actually been collecting like this PhD and getting laid off. So I got laid off and I hit the ground running and here's what I did and here's what I recommend that people do. You can do this without posting endlessly on social media. You can do this without having a fancy website with all the bells and whistles, without having a brand or a logo. Here's the key conversations lead to cash.

Speaker 2: 7:04

I would encourage everybody, within the first 90 days, to have 90, nine zero conversations. Have one conversation a day with somebody in your network, somebody you're introduced, to spend 30 minutes a day having those conversations. What that's going to do is a couple things. One, it's going to surface opportunities for you very naturally. The second thing it's going to do is help you really understand the needs of the market, because people only buy solutions to problems, and so by having more conversations, you are going to become an expert in the problems that your market is facing and understand how they talk about their problems, so that when you go to sell them, they feel like you have fully understood what is going on with them and what they need, and you really get it. So I encourage everybody have conversations. Have one conversation a day, dedicate 30 minutes a day to talking to someone in your network or getting an introduction to someone in your network, and it is like compound interest. You will just reap the benefits of that.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Oh my gosh, that's brilliant advice. I love it, and a lot of us that are already like self-employed were like I didn't know Laura back then when I first got started, because she could have helped me out in those first years. Ian, I'm going to flip the floor to you and I want to ask you a question here. Next, I know when to transition out of my job and into my business and we heard Jenny talk about this a little bit a few minutes ago but what would you say to that?

Speaker 3: 8:40

Absolutely. First, allow me to say that, laura, you rock All right. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, three words product market fit. Now let me backfill and give some context. We live in a market driven economy and one of the major mistakes that so many entrepreneurs or would be entrepreneurs have is that they fall in love with their product or service. For simplicity, let's just say their widget Right. And the widget could be product or service, doesn't make a difference. And yes, you should be passionate about your product or service. But the reality is you should be everything short of obsessive about understanding and falling in love, not with your widget, but with your prospective customer, client or patient. And when you fall in love with them, you don't have the framework that if this particular widget doesn't work, then I'm a failure or my business has failed.

Speaker 3: 9:28

Our job as entrepreneurs is to continue to do experiments quickly and inexpensively, using lean startup methodology to remove a lot of the risk and accelerate the time period to throw things out there to the market. And to Laura's point, we want to be the Tylenol to someone's headache. And until we have found that, if you have insecurities about transitioning out of your business, I'm sorry, out of your job and into your business full time. You should have insecurities because you don't have a viable business model. We need to continue to throw things out there until the market votes with their dollars. They raise their hands and say, yes, I want that, and when you can deliver it in a way that's sustainable and scalable. So again, product market fit until you have discovered that, until you have thrown things out there not surveys, not having conversations about what people would do, experiments, actually seeing what people actually do. So once you found product market fit, then you're pouring gasoline on the flame and you can more easily project what the trajectory is going to be for your business. So hopefully that's helpful.

Speaker 1: 10:29

That's great. You just made me think of something, ian. When my business is really going well, I start to hear this song playing in my head and maybe our audience knows the artist, but it's everybody want to. I feel like the demand is high for me and my business Name that artist in chat right now if you know who sings that song. But when things are really humming along for my business, I start to hear that song in my head because the demand is really high for my business. Speaking of demand, that's when the money is rolling in. But, diana, let's ask the next question of you. What do you need to consider as it relates to money, if you are making that shift and just getting your business started, paycheck versus income, what can you tell us about that? What do we need to know?

Speaker 4: 11:10

I think you need to take a long hard look at what your expenses are, really get clear about them and really get clear about annualizing that number so that you know how much money that you need to have put away that you can dig into. And everybody has a different threshold of comfort level. Everybody has a different situation with regards to their overhead, but it's really thinking about how long will it be before you could jump ship that type of a thing. I think another thing people need to take a look at is really researching what they want to get into and what some of those costs are. We've had some really good people speak today about how to start businesses on low budget or at no cost, but just some of the different categories that I was writing down as I was thinking about this question your tech costs, your learning costs of how to do the type of business that you want to do, materials costs, marketing costs and marketing and coaches, virtual assistants, tech people and PR help. You'll be amazed at how you really want to bring in a team and other people to help you and coach you through people who've been down the path in front of you. That's very important and the other piece that I think a lot of people don't always talk about is medical costs. How are you going to replace those corporate medical benefits that you're getting, because we all need to have medical coverage, and I think that's another very important thing to think about. And then think about what you can monetize. What are you good at that you can monetize, and some of the things that come to mind are industry knowledge, subject matter, expertise that people would pay for, to Ian's point, hobbies that can be monetized. There's a lot of people online that are doing online businesses with quilting and embroidery and all the different things with the Cricut machines and everything. You'd be amazed. There's an entire network of crafters out there that are making a lot of money Certifications, people who are CPAs. You can do accounting, bookkeeping, that type of thing, lawyers, doctors, nurses lots of things happening in those realms.

Speaker 4: 13:19

The other thing that people overlook is foreign language fluency. If you're fluent in another language second and third language there's a lot you can do with that, with teaching and doing global business and whatnot all over the world. What processes or systems do you know that you could teach people and what services could you offer based on your expertise that people would actually pay for, and then online services such as getting involved with Fiverr, upwork, virtual assistants. A footnote here is that I've seen a lot of postings on LinkedIn. I saw one in particular from a person who'd been an executive assistant and she was laid off from her position and unfortunately, it had dragged on long enough that she was facing eviction and I felt so bad for her in her post because I thought my God, if you've got those talents as a virtual assistant, there's a lot you can do online helping entrepreneurs. There's a lot of different things there.

Speaker 4: 14:14

Some people who also have cash consider buying franchises because they like the idea of an organized processor system where they can make money. That's something to think about as well. So I think the bottom line here is that if something's calling you to entrepreneurism, you should follow it. I think a lot of us on this call have probably been in this situation where we've been in corporate America, and once again, I like to tell my clients that when you're in corporate America, you are not in control of your future. You're at the mercy of the economy, the industry trends and the board of directors. So that's something to think about. And one last thing as an aside is. I think we were talking earlier about the Canva background. I have the Canva background that I'm using today, so this is what it looks like.

Speaker 1: 14:59

Thanks, there you go. Okay, I want to give one quick plug. I have favorite books, so when we're talking about mine by the way, this is not sponsored or endorsed by Mike Michalos, but this is a brilliant book If you're starting to get clear on your finances for your business and I've got a stack of other books from our speakers and presenters I'm going to give shout outs. By the way, if you're watching any books and resources that are relevant to these topics, feel free to drop them in chat and share those resources with each other. All right, let me go to Ian next. Ian, let me ask you another question At the beginning. If you're getting your solopreneur business started, what should you be focused on and how do you prioritize that?

Speaker 3: 15:38

Sure. So one of the things that I try to encourage entrepreneurs is that no matter what they sell, no matter who they sell to, whether it's B2B or B2C or B2B2C doesn't really make a difference your widget is not the actual business that you're in. You're really in the marketing business because the money is in the marketing. If you want to build the business of your dreams and gives you the passive income and the freedom that you want, your revenue has to exceed expenses. To have revenue, you need sales. To have sales, you need leads. To have leads, you need to market, and to market consistently. So you're in the marketing business and the sustainability and the scalability is in the systems.

Speaker 3: 16:16

So, focusing on marketing and systems and let me tell you that, even more important than marketing and systems, as a prerequisite, you have to make sure that you have mastered your psychology and your neurobiology, because you can have the resources, you can have the team, you can have the time, you can have a strong why. But the challenge for many of us is not that we don't know what to do or can't quickly find it out with quick research, is that we don't do what we know consistently, and that's an issue of psychology and neurobiology. So making sure that you, on a daily basis, are managing your mindset well and you're focusing on marketing. In particular, I suggest direct response marketing, as I tick all the branders off, but direct response marketing and systems that's what you should be focused on. Just those three things. If you do that and you undergird all of that with lean startup methodology, where you can quickly and inexpensively run your experiments, then I think you're onto something.

Speaker 1: 17:13

Brilliant, all right, awesome, ian. Okay, last question for Laura. And then we're going to open this up to our audience for your questions, so don't be shy. And then we're going to open this up to our audience for your questions, so don't be shy. Drop your questions in now. Laura, how do you talk about what you do to find clients? A lot of us are not marketers, nor are we salespeople, so how?

Speaker 2: 17:32

do we do this? Yeah, so I said earlier that conversations lead to cash. There's obviously more to it, and that is that cash loves clarity. So it's very important that we be very clear in our language. Now, if you've ever been to a networking event like a morning networking event, where everyone's in a circle talking and people give their elevator pitch and it's 30 seconds long, a minute long and eventually we all tune out I am not a fan of elevator pitches. We all tune out. I am not a fan of elevator pitches.

Speaker 2: 18:06

I am a fan of a powerful statement that talks about who you serve and the problems you solve for them, and that statement, a simple statement like that, is enough to build curiosity with people to come and talk to you more about what's going on. Let me give you some examples of that, because I pulled some from my clients to you more about what's going on. Let me give you some examples of that, because I pulled some from my clients. Here are three I help IT departments actually get stuff done. This is a statement that is made by one of my clients. She's a project manager. Another client says I help beauty brands get looped into what their customers really desire. She's a beauty marketing consultant. I have another client who helps nonprofits bring strategic plans to life. She is a nonprofit consultant. All of these people are in multiple six figures a year in their business, using these statements as sort of curiosity builders.

Speaker 2: 18:54

So there are three things I want you to focus on. You'll notice in every statement that I gave you there's no jargon. We're not using jargon. Jargon turns people off. They don't understand it, just forget about it. We're using really plain, simple, easy to understand language. And the third thing we're doing is we're not leading with our job title. And the reason we're not leading with our job title is because a lot of people have preconceived notions about certain jobs. For example, if you have ever had a bad experience with an attorney or with a doctor and you were to lead with that title, you are planting a seed of bias against you before you've even said what you do. And it's not that we want to hide the job title permanently, that's not it at all. But we want to give people a chance to get to know us before they put us in a box, so to speak, so they can understand how we can best serve them.

Speaker 1: 19:51

Great advice there, laura, and I see people like dropping your comments into the chat right now. Cash loves clarity and I love each of our speakers here. They bring different nuances from their specific backgrounds and I want to share. We did a prep call just earlier this week and there was a boat theme that came out of our prep call and two of our speakers in particular had boat stories and I'm going to ask, ian, I'm going to ask you to clarify yours first, and I think the analogy was burning the boats, if I'm not mistaken. Tell us what that means, as it relates to getting a solopreneur business started.

Speaker 3: 20:25

The analogy is burn your boats, right. So there have been a number of different accounts throughout the years of military leaders who had a mission critical battle that they needed to fight. So they would sail with their soldiers to the point of where the battle was going to be held and after all of their soldiers had gotten off the boats of where the battle was going to be held, and after all of their soldiers had gotten off the boats, because the mission was so critical, the leader burned the boats. The reality was, the mission is so critical. We have two choices Either we do it or we die. And how this relates to solopreneurs is particularly important. But before I get there, let me share this.

Speaker 3: 21:04

I think the English language often falls desperately short with the power behind certain phrases and words. If you look at the word decide, if you look at the roots of the word, it means to continue or to take a specific course of action and cutting off ourselves from all other possibilities. Burning your boat as a solopreneur it really speaks to identity, because people typically are waffling. Many early stage entrepreneurs have a becoming problem. Burning your boats means making the decision that, no, I'm not going to be married to the product or service. Remember we're going to be married to who we're looking to serve, but you've made a decision that you are going to do it, no matter what. There is no turning back. You're going to do this thing and you're going to keep at it until you succeed. Hopefully that's helpful for those who are a part of today's session. Thanks for allowing me to share.

Speaker 1: 21:51

All right, Laura, that was a great boat story and it was just funny because we started bringing in this boat theme when we were doing our press call and Laura had another story and I think it was. Making the boat go faster is what I remember as the takeaway. But for solopreneurs, tell us what that means and how it can help them.

Speaker 2: 22:09

Yeah, this is a really powerful concept. Tell you a little story the British rowing team had not actually won a gold medal since 1912. And that's pretty embarrassing, considering that they live on an actual island and they couldn't actually win a rowing medal. So in preparation for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the team developed a really useful strategy that changed them from just being an average rowing team to winning Olympic gold. They developed a one question response for every single decision they made, and this one question allowed them to measure every single situation and decision and obstacle and not get derailed, because we all know about the shiny object syndrome, we all know about getting derailed.

Speaker 2: 22:55

And this one question was does it make the boat go faster? When you think about your business and you think about moving your business and you are evaluating what to do in business, evaluate every single decision and situation and obstacle as does this make the boat go faster? And if the answer is no, cut it out. If the answer is yes, double down and that will reap benefits. Ian talked earlier about the power of consistency, and he is not joking. He is not joking. If you can consistently work towards making the boat go faster, you will reap the benefits over time.

Speaker 1: 23:41

I love it and I was sharing in the prep call to my son is launching his business. He's 19 right now and he was like working on his logo for hours one day and I came in the room I said what are you doing, working on my logo? How long have you been working on it? Two hours. And I kiddingly lightly slapped him across the head and I said stop working on your logo. Is your website up? There's no way people can get your website up, website out. There's no way people can get this. Get your website up. You can come back here and I said does it make the boat go faster?

Speaker 1: 24:04

And I told the Laura Kalil version of that story and he I think he has it on a post-it note in his room. So, if you can, we're sharing that. All right, we are almost out of time. So what I'd like to do now is I'm going to bring each of our panelists back into the hot seat again and I want to start with Diana. And Diana, if people are interested in learning more about working with you, where can they go and find that information?

Speaker 4: 24:24

They can go to my website, mindfuljobalignmentcom, and I am offering a complimentary ebook on mindfulness, as well as my top 10 things to do if you're downsized and a curated reading list of helpful supportive reading for people who are going through transition. And then I'm also offering a 30-minute complimentary consultation to talk about where you're at and possibly what are some good ways to move forward. And people can also reach me through my LinkedIn profile as well. I have a personal profile, which I know you'll be sending out that information as well as my business LinkedIn profile.

Speaker 1: 25:05

All right, wonderful, and I'll quickly put that up on the screen and then I'm going to share our. There you go. We'll go here next to I'm just going to go get order. We'll go to Laura next. So, laura again, if people are interested in working with you, how can we do so and any resources you want to tell us about.

Speaker 2: 25:26

Yeah, so I'm actually going to. I'm going to throw a bunch of resources in the chat right now. You can download my free guide to creating really magnetic messaging. You can listen to my podcast. It's called big deal energy If you want to learn how to go after those bigger deals and if you are interested in working with me. For those of you who are under $10,000 a month, I have a launch pad program. You can learn more about that at bravebydesignnet. But I would encourage you suck the juice out of these free resources, check them out, just get into my community, connect with me and we'll take it from there.

Speaker 1: 25:56

Awesome. Thank you, laura, and I want to thank all of our presenters Laura and Diane and everyone for these free resources. Diane has given you 30 minutes to chat with her. Laura's giving you some free resources. All of our presenters today are bringing some goods with them here. So next up is Ian and Ian again, if people are interested in working with you, and really quick, though, ian, you and I met through Velocity. I just met Ian like less than a month ago. We went around the room, we did our introductions. Ian, when he was introducing himself, he had this energy and I'm like, oh, I need to bring him to my event, and I think that's the importance when you're self-employed Wherever you go, you're promoting yourself and you could be getting speaking opportunities from it.

Speaker 3: 26:37

So, with that said, Ian, if people are interested in working with you, can you remind us of what those services are and how can we get a hold of you? Awesome, yes, I can, and I'm so glad that you reached out because this has been wonderful, this has been absolutely amazing. So I'm offering a few cool giveaways, what I hope you'll find to be cool. I talked about the importance of lean startup methodology. I suggest that for absolutely everyone, and I'm going to allow you guys to go to Brenda's page to get all of this information.

Speaker 3: 26:58

So I'm offering a free training on lean startup methodology. I'm also offering a training for those of you who may be a little bit beyond that stage three secrets to rapid revenue growth. And for the first three people who sign up, we're gonna offer a free one-on-one strategy and rapid revenue growth coaching session, which we typically charge $1,000 per session. That's why we can only do it for the first three people. So our goal is to overwhelm you with value, add massive value, hopefully to help you move further, faster, so that you can achieve your small business dreams.

Speaker 1: 27:27

All right, wonderful, and again for all of these resources. For those of you who have registered at mellormarketingcom slash shift, I will be sending you an email with all of this information, as well as there's a playback page where you can watch these videos again and check out these resources again.