This week’s Solopreneur myth explores the notion of “I need to do it all alone”. While you may be choosing to run a solopreneur company, it may not mean that you have to do everything alone. Whether you are building a team of part-time or full time workers or are looking to bring different people onboard as sub-contractors for specific projects, being able to build your team is critical.

The September 2019 Coaching Business Builder call focused on building your own team. It explored what it means to grow your team as a solopreneur. You can check out that call here. Be sure to grab a pen and take some notes as you go!

As you grow your team, key themes to explore include:

• Delegation – what do you want to delegate? Who can you delegate to? Check out posts on the Teams365 on delegation for additional inspiration and information on this topic.
• What does grow your team mean? Is it a full time, part time or sub-contractor role?
• What type of support do you need?

​Questions to consider:
1. What does the team need to excel in the year ahead?
2. What will help the team be at their best?
3. What is going to be the major challenge for the year ahead? The major opportunity?
4. What development opportunities do we want to build in (retreats, team coaching, mentoring etc.?)
5. What requests do I need to make of the team right now?
6. How will we measure our success?
And as a bonus…
What will help to expedite or magnify what's working?

Enjoy your focus!
Jennifer

​There is another solopreneur myth that many solopreneurs may find themselves falling into which is that “I need to be available all of the time”. Boundaries in business are a key part of efficiency and productivity. Being able to switch on and off throughout the day is key in keeping things focused and being able to get the work done.

There has been much written about business owners figuring out when they are working ON the business, or when they are working IN the business.

As a coach, activities around working IN the business might include:

• Coaching time
• Servicing clients
• Prepping for coaching time
• Leading programs

 
Working ON the business:

• Creating a Vision for your business
• Strategic planning
• Developing relationships with other
• Developing thought leadership and building reputational status – how are you being seen as a “go to” person in your industry?
• Program design

 
What is the balance of time you want to spend on working IN the business vs working ON the business?

In business, it can be important to leave enough time to continue working on the next inflection point. If we get too wrapped up on working in the business, even when we are established, we may find ourselves short of time and focus for sustainable growth.

Check out this past CBB Blog post from earlier this year – Boundaries in Business – read it here. What boundaries are important for you to put into place?

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Author of the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018), Effective Group Coaching (2010) and others
Potentials Realized
Phone: 416-996-8326
Join us during 2020 and the rest of this year to work ON your business with the Coaching Biz Growth Lab. WE meet bi-weekly for group calls on Friday from 3-4 pm ET. Group coaching, learning and lots of ACTION! Visit CoachingBizGrowthLAb.com to sign up.

This week's Solopreneur Myth gets you thinking about your boundaries around time and availability. The challenge for the solopreneur is to find the balance between being available, and also having time to do the work, and keep at your prime in terms of renewal and energy.

Many newer coaches feel that it's important to always be available. Discernment in this area can help you protect time for strategic thinking and action needed in your business, networking, and keeping yourself at peak performance.
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Questions to consider:

• What times of day are you "at your best" for doing different types of work - think coaching calls, setting up new business, marketing, relationship building etc.
• What items are not getting done? What time do they need for completion? Ideally, when could they be completed?
• What are you doing to renew and/or keep at your prime? This might involve building in time for physical activity, renewal etc.
• What are you doing to not only "do the work" with your business, but move the business forward? This is one of the greatest challenges for business owners at all stages of their business. Business inflection points occur regularly throughout the entire life cycle of a business.
• What space are you leaving for other important parts of your life - i.e. family, relationships, etc?

While saying YES can be important, so can saying NO.

What are the boundaries you want to create to enhance your focus, traction and results?

Enjoy the reflection,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Coaching Business Builder | Group Coaching Essentials
Supporting coaches to grow their business and skills in the areas of group coaching
Recipient of the Prism Award for Excellence in Coaching (2016), and i4pL Award of Excellence - Curriculum Design (2017)
Contact Jennifer to set up a call to see how her 1-1 coaching or group coaching support can help you move towards your Q 4 and 2020 goals.
Phone: (416)996-8326

I’ve enjoyed exploring a number of solopreneur myths over the last half a dozen weeks here at the Coaching Business Builder blog. This week I’m sharing the last in this current series, as we'll start looking at year-end activities next week.
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This week's solopreneur myth is that TIME SPENT = EFFICIENCY.

Not all of the time spent on projects and tasks is the most efficient use of our time. Think about your own scheduling — when are you at your prime? When can you complete tasks quickly and with focus, minus interruptions?
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It may be useful to track your own efficiency for the course of a few days or weeks to notice what patterns emerge.

While the notion of circadian rhythms has been around for decades, the field of chronobiology is expanding it's data set to help us understand our natural rhythms.
Some of us are early birds, others night owls. I know in my own work that much easier to get writing projects completed first thing in the morning, before I open email or get distracted with other projects. The writing I also undertake on a weekly basis from one of my local libraries, usually is more focused and plentiful than writing done from my office later in the day.

Activity:
Think about some of the recent tasks you have completed. What do you notice about speed? Quality? Efficiency?
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Consider tracking your work output for several days in several locations and/or at different times of the day. This will work if your tasks are similar but may be harder if they are not. As you look at your work output, and time spent, what do you notice?

Enjoy the exploration!
Jennifer

The landscape of business and communication has changed so significantly in the last ten to fifteen years, due to the change in our technology, devices and also communication channels. Think about your work and what is possible now that you couldn't do a decade ago.
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One of the areas that I continue to see many solopreneurs and business professionals struggle with is the amount of time and focus on social media. Consider your time spent in the last week or two. How much time was dedicated to social media? What did you do? Did you surf? Have connections? Follow a trail that maybe took you into a rabbit's hole?

While social media can be a great ecosystem to spend time in and has leveled the playing field for many of us that are "one person businesses" it does not always mean that social media may be your most important channel.

Relationships are important to cultivate in all their varieties. While social media may be a great connector, it may not be the best place to have detailed conversations or make deeper connections.

I love social media as an enhancement to face-to-face events — people who I have met at conferences, or when I have been speaking.
 
As much as my own business is virtual, after all these years I've found that the face-to-face connection still yields an important return I can't find in the social media space.
 
Questions to consider as you think about this myth for yourself:

• How does your time spent on social media translate to business results?
• What is important for you as a business?
• What connections are you looking to cultivate?
• What blend do you want to have with social media and other channels?
• What is the role of social media in your work — marketing, programming, programming support etc.?
• Are there certain social media channels you want to invest your time in? If so, how much time? Which ones?
• Where are your folk/community?
• What's important to note for yourself going forward?

Enjoy your exploration,
Jennifer

One of the biggest fallacies I see in the world of coaches, and other solopreneurs, is over-learning rather than executing. Many solopreneurs believe that they don't have enough skills and need to learn more. While there is a compelling case for ongoing learning, in the world of the solopreneur, execution and getting into action is key. We may never know enough by learning alone. It's through the actions we take that we either have our learning reinforced or find out exactly what we need to learn.
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In a solopreneurial business, lack of execution may lead to business failure. The quest for learning may appear that we are doing when we are simply learning.

Today's post gets you to consider these questions:

1. What have you learned this year?
2. What have you done with the action plans you created out of those learning processes?
3. What's still left on your action plan list to execute?
4. What skills does the business need that could be outsourced or delegated to a new staff member? (think graphic design, financial)
5. Where is your learning ENOUGH?
6. Where do you need more?
7. What ACTION is needed to move the business forward?

​Enjoy your reflection and ACTION!
Jennifer

Our next Solopreneur Myth is “Build it, they will come”. For the last few months, I focused on marketing strategies, bringing to life the nine different vehicles I explore with you in Section 3 of Coaching Business Builder.
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With “build it, they will come” we can fall into the trap of thinking that once something exists it will be in high demand. In fact, the design and creation parts are usually only one part of the process. Much of the heavy lifting then begins with marketing and sales, and also program or product delivery!

Proactive marketing at all stages of your business, along with regular and consistent actions, can help ensure that you do build a thriving set of fans for your next offering.

Some key things to be doing to ensure that when you build, they will come:

• Ensure you are focusing on the things that people want.

• Ensure that you are focusing on the things that they value.
• Ensure that they are in the right format they want.
• Lean into your strengths and experience.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate – right to the end!
• Solicit feedback about your products and services.
• Get your customers/clients to share their story about what they like about your work and products.
• Demonstrate what you offer – show the world. This might be via a video, or at a speaking engagement. By hosting an evening demonstration or a webinar.

​What are the things you want to focus on?

Enjoy your conversations,
Jennifer

I opened my doors here at Potentials Realized on April 7, 2004. Having celebrated 15 years in business earlier this year, I continue to be thankful that the fruits of my labor continue to pay off.

While it is possible to build, and grow things quickly, building a sustainable business that will weather economic ups and downs (think 2008 economics, current flux, and…)  usually needs more than the initial meteoric rise.

This is where things like VISION, Systems and Business Foundations come in.
If you have a copy of the Coaching Business Builder OR PlanDoTrack, check out the different activities and reflections in Section #1.

It’s our work around creating clarity and alignment around our values and behaviors, clarifying our vision, and creating exceptional offerings which create a sustainable business.
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Questions to consider:

• What values is your business grounded in?
• How are your behaviors translated into action and behaviors?
• How clear is your vision?

Creating a sustainable business is also about you as the business owner. In the medium term, our own leadership and endurance may be what helps the business move to another inflection point.

Questions for you to consider:

• What’s going to help you be at your best?
• Grow or refine your skills?
• Develop the endurance needed to run a business?
• What fuels you?
• When do you work best?
• When do you need to take a break and/o renew?
• What else is important for you in the short term? Medium term? Long term?

Sustainable business is also about doing things for the long haul. What is the work you really love to do? How does it capitalize on your strengths? What taps into what you uniquely do well?

I hope that you will enjoy this week’s questions and exploration,
Jennifer

For the last few months I’ve been focusing on a series around marketing. If you didn’t catch the July and August 2019 posts, be sure to check them out here.

For the next couple of months, I am going to be rolling out a new series on Solopreneur Myths. You’ll be able to view them each Monday. They will focus on some of the more common things we hear in the landscape of building a coaching or virtual business at the moment. I’m framing them as myths given that they don’t necessarily hold true. Having worked with thousands of professionals in the last 15 years via my own business and also as a former business studies faculty member I am looking forward to debunking the myths and commonly voiced messages for solopreneurs.

We’re starting with the myth of Once is Enough. This holds true on so many different levels for us - from communicating something once, to sharing a link to a blog post only on one channel once, to running a program only once.

Only doing something once may lead to us short-changing ourselves!
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Part of the power of social media, and part of cutting through the noise, requires that we share our content more than once.  Take a look back at what you have created in the last few months and consider how you can share it more OR repurpose it. Sharing it might mean that you look to post it on other channels (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram). Repurposing may mean retooling content in a new way – so taking blog content and making it into a video (Think Lumen5) OR bundling blog posts to create a new article or white paper series.

If you are a program designer, you will know how important it is to consider recouping the design investment in running a program more than once. Many of my own public offerings have become quarterly or monthly favorites. Some have been around for a few years. One of my longest standing programs is the Group Coaching Essentials program which I’ve been offering on almost a monthly basis since it’s launch back in January of 2006. Consistency is key in making inroads into today’s VUCA worlds, and Word of Mouth and referrals can be a powerful business booster.

Where is it going to be useful to explore the myth of Once is Enough in your business?

Best wishes,
​Jennifer