Solopreneur Blueprint: Hire Wisely, Manage Time & Embrace Technology

Erin Power dives into the ultimate guide to solopreneur health coaching. Drawing from nearly 15 years of experience as a solopreneur, they share valuable insights on the importance of knowing when to hire support and the types of help that can make a difference in a solopreneur’s journey.

You will learn practical strategies for managing their time and energy effectively, especially in the early stages of their solopreneurship. As Erin likes to say, 'This doesn't need to suck. You get to make your own schedule, decide the trade-offs, and create a balanced life while running a thriving health coaching business.' Tune in, get inspired, and let’s take your solopreneur journey to the next level!

Episode Overview:
0:00 Intro
4:40 Time Blocking: Mastering Your Schedule
11:10 Content Creation and Marketing Strategies
21:30 Automation and Systemization for Efficiency
27:20 The Importance of a Booking Link
28:20 Leveraging AI Tools for Solopreneurs
31:20 Setting Boundaries as a Solopreneur
36:10 The Value of Business Buddies
38:35 Hiring Tips for Solopreneurs
46:45 Personal Assistant vs. Virtual Assistant
49:15 The Role of an Online Business Manager
51:10 Considering a Content Director

Connect with Erin on:
Submit your questions to [e-mail]
Website: primalhealthcoach.com
Instagram: @primalhealthcoach

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I've got a solo episode for you today, my friends.
Today I'm talking about the ultimate guide to solopreneur health coaching from a solopreneur health coach to you.
I have been a solopreneur in my business for almost 15 years, and I quite like it, but I do see the value in hiring help
When the time is right and the right kind of help.

(00:22):
So, in this episode, I'm going to talk a little bit about hiring, what I think are some of the coolest hires you can bring on when the time is right, but also how to manage your time and energy.
Right now, while you're solopreneuring it, because you're going to have to solopreneur for a little while.
We all do.
So, how can we make the best use of our time and energy while we're in the early stages of our solopreneur journey?

(00:43):
Have a listen and let me know what you think.
Hi, I'm Erin Power.
I'm a health coach, a health coaching educator and mentor, and your host of Health Coach Radio.
This podcast delves into the art, science, and business of health coaching.
Whether you're aspiring to land a coaching dream job or to embark on your own entrepreneurial adventure, we cover it all

(01:05):
Our mission is to help you grow your career, elevate your income, change the lives of the clients who need your help, and leave a lasting mark in this rapidly growing field.
It's time for health coaches to make an impact.
It's time for health coach radio.
Hello, my friends.
Today, I want to take you through what I'm calling the ultimate guide to solopreneur health coaching.

(01:29):
And the reason why this is a topic that's fun for me is because after nearly fifteen years as a health coach, I'm still a solopreneur.
And I really love it.
I'm at the point where I'm ready to start hiring, but I'm not really feeling that pressured to do it.
And so in today's talk, I want to sort of be in defense of the solopreneur lifestyle and give you some ideas around

(01:55):
Ways to manage your time and energy and processes while you do it all yourself.
And then we'll kind of come around to this idea of hiring.
But the thing is, you are most definitely going to start as a solopreneur, and you'll likely remain there for quite some time.
So I actually think that contemplating who to hire

(02:18):
In the early stages, it is a real distraction.
It's nice to imagine.
I think it's pretty cool to imagine, but I will say that over the years, I've imagined what my first hire should be.
And it was never quite right.
In fact, I did hire once and it didn't really work out.
Maybe I'll tell that story as well.
So I just want to, I guess, normalize this idea that you shouldn't feel any sense of

(02:41):
urgency to hire until you've got some sense of very clear establishment in your business.
You have a solid offer
With predictable outcomes for a certain kind of person, you're solving health struggles with clients.
You're doing this with some consistency and predictability and repeatability.

(03:03):
you have a sort of a tangible product offer that is working, that takes a lot of elbow grease up front.
And I really do think it's useful to put your head down and just zero in on that in the early days.
You also need to be very clear on your own systems.
You're going to invite in a lot of technology, probably systems, processes, what have you.

(03:24):
And you should be an expert on your systems before you bring anybody else in to help you with them.
So all of this is to say by way of introduction
The soloprinter life is going to be your life for the first several years of your health coaching practice.
For me, it's been nearly 15, and I'm only just contemplating moving into hiring.

(03:46):
I don't even think I need to, but I can see that my growth of my business, the success of my business is
Currently stalled.
It's not stalled at a great place.
We're doing good.
But it's like, if I want to get to another level, I'm probably going to need a little help
So I'll talk about that toward the end.
What I think are some of the most interesting hires you can consider.

(04:08):
And my list of first hires is different than what the industry suggest
So, you can just stay tuned for that little exciting bit.
But to start with, I've come up with four crucial concepts to consider for the soloprinter health coach.
Number one is time blocking.

(04:29):
So this to me was popularized by, I guess, time management productivity guru Cal Newport, who, by the way, I'm a big fan of.
I don't think he listens to the show but Cal if you're listening.
Big fan, buddy.
Cal Newport wrote a book called Deep Work.
He's also written amazing other books.
Call it like a world without email and slow productivity.

(04:50):
He's got great books that really think through how we kind of spin our wheels at work.
Now, when you branch out into launching your own health coaching practice or business, whatever word you want to use.
And by the way, you may never do this.
You may never be an entrepreneur, solopreneur.
You might go work.
for somebody.

(05:11):
This is amazing.
I think this is an amazing time to be a health coach because there are jobs.
So if that's you and you're just you're looking to get a job as a health coach, you may never need to contemplate this stuff.
But for those of us who are
have an appetite for private practice, when you step into entrepreneurship or solopreneurship in this case,

(05:33):
It's potentially the first time you've ever done it.
I know that's my case.
That's my case for sure.
That's my personal bias.
I worked in a different career for 20 years before I did this
And when you work in a different career for twenty years, you get pa you get a paycheck, you get benefits, you get everything you need kind of delivered to you in terms of what your tasks are and what you have to do and what your due dates are, and there's status updates, you have meetings with your boss and your

(05:57):
Kind of, you know, punching the time card and you're putting in the eight hours a day, you might bring that same kind of energy to solopreneurship, and you might
Convince yourself that if I'm busy and kind of run off my feet and ragged and kind of frantic and manic, then I must be really, really hustling my business.
Well, I don't think that's true, and neither does Cal Newport

(06:18):
So time blocking is a very commonly understood principle.
Essentially, you're going to look at, let's call it, your week
And chunk out what goes where and try not to deviate from that.

So, for example, I do consultations three days of the week (06:32):
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.
Now, sometimes it's Monday.
Monday, Tuesday, Friday.
Depends on the week.
But three days of the week I do consults, and every other day of the week, I don't.
Now, if I did more consultations,
I might have more clients, but I'd also have less time and space.

(06:55):
So we got to kind of pull ourselves out of this time blocking lesson for a second just to connect back to our values, what you value
I personally don't really value grinding myself into a pulp.
I value having a successful business, making an amazing impact, really, really helping people with an amazing
program that changes lives, and I have other things in my life that are as important to me as that.

(07:20):
And by the way
I make this sound easy.
I really struggled with this for a long time.
I felt like if I wasn't grinding every minute of every day, then I wasn't being productive either.
I had to kind of learn this lesson the hard way.
And I've really settled into a time block.
Sort of structure right now that feels so good because I actually have time and space.

(07:41):
So, for example, on Mondays, I have
client coaching calls much of the day.
And then I might take some consultations.
And on Tuesday, it's wide open.
Consultations all day, morning till night.
Little asterisk there.
I'm going to get into this in a second.
Some boundaries I've placed around this.
On Wednesdays, I got nothing.

(08:02):
I too.
I take no calls.
I have no meetings on Wednesdays.
Wednesdays are an open day.
I call this my CEO day.
I'm going to come back to that in a second as well.
then Thursdays and Fridays basically are open to meetings and consultations as well.
So
This really works for me.
I can get into a rhythm.
And by the way, that rhythm that I just shared where Monday and Tuesday I'm kind of busy on on calls, and Wednesdays I'm not.

(08:26):
And Thursday and Friday, I'm busy on on-calls.
And the weekends, I'm not.
I love that because it's kind of like I broke my week down into two micro weeks.
I got these little clusters of work, and then I have a little rest time.
I think this is really important.
I want to re-establish this idea that I've been hearing about on podcasts, this idea of the rest.
Ethic.
So, not just your work ethic, but your rest ethic.

(08:50):
Now, you already know, because you're a fitness and wellness and nutrition pro listening to this, that
actual growth and health improvement happens in our recoveries for in between workouts, right?
During the workout, you're putting in the stimulus, but the actual strength development happens in recovery.
Well, we can apply that same kind of thinking to developing your business, right?
So
I do think there's a great deal of power in having rests in between big work efforts.

(09:15):
By the way, I coach my clients on this too.
I really, really coach this concept of rest to my clients.
From a nervous system perspective, because my clients are trying to be healthy if you're grinding and hammering and hustling on your health endeavors
You're just putting up a bit of a nervous system fight, and when your nervous system is in that kind of dysregulated state, it's just hard to be healthy.

(09:36):
Well, when your nervous system is dysregulated, it's hard to be a successful
Entrepreneur.
It's hard to know what you're doing.
It's hard to feel successful.
It just feels like a lot of work.
And we can conflate the feeling of it being hard and busy.
With it actually being successful.
I know a lot of soloprinters in different industries who are very busy to a manic extent, but they're not actually getting a lot done.

(10:03):
So, I think there's a little bit of programming that has to sort of come online when you make this move.
You probably will start out
Overburdening yourself to a certain extent.
My encouragement would be really lean into time blocking.
And when you're doing that, contemplate time and space for yourself.
And I'm going to talk about that very specifically in a second.

(10:27):
So I mentioned that I take one day off from meetings.
This is Wednesdays.
Every Wednesday, midweek, I don't have any consultations with prospective clients.
I don't have any coaching calls with my clients
I don't take meetings with any of the sort of consulting gigs that I'm doing.
It's open.
And a big thing that I do on Wednesdays is content planning.

(10:50):
Because you have to market yourself.
I know.
You wish you didn't have to.
You don't like putting yourself out there.
I don't know.
That's what I hear from health coaches a lot.
I really don't like putting myself out there.
I'm uncomfortable doing it.
Well, you're going to have to.
You're going to have to.
One of your many hats that you wear as the solopreneur health coach is your own marketing manager.
And it doesn't have to be.

(11:11):
Rocket science, just the simplest thing.
So, for example, on Wednesdays, I create or repost a couple of social media posts.
By the way, I typically post these while I'm at the gym.
So I have them ready to go and I'll post them and write the caption while I'm at the gym in between sets.

(11:32):
That's some mild multitasking that I think is actually kind of fun.
To factor in, I know multitasking is like a dirty word, but in the context of time blocking, I know that I have to post every day
But I can create and get the content ready on Wednesdays when I have the mental space to do it.
And then I can just be simply posting when I think of it throughout the week.
So I have a little bit of a content creation.

(11:54):
Moment on Wednesdays.
And I'm not going viral on Instagram.
It's not that important to me.
I'm just putting myself out there with some relative consistency so people know what I do and know what I stand for.
It's really important to do that.
There are a lot of social media and Instagram and TikTok marketing experts, which I am not one of them.
And you don't have to be one.
You don't even need to consult with one.

(12:17):
The bare minimum you have to do is some posting.
You will have to do it.
I recommend that.
So for me, I develop my content on Wednesdays.
The thing is, there's automatically a multitasking aspect to this for me.
So here's how I do it.
I think about a topic, a topic that is really front of mind for me
It's probably something that came up either in a consultation or in a coaching call with my client.

(12:40):
Sometime on Monday and Tuesday of my week, some topic came to the front of mind for me as I was working with people.
And on Wednesday, I take that topic and I just lean into it.
One of the most recent ones I've been doing is this idea that weight loss should feel easy.
So let me just, as an example, the idea that weight loss should feel easy is something that came up a lot in my coaching calls and in the consultations with prospective clients.

(13:02):
And I'm in the weight loss space.
So, typically in the weight loss realm, it's all very hard and very fraught, and you got to track your food and be really obsessive.
And women don't like that.
The women I work with are, they don't like it.

So, my perspective is (13:13):
well, how can we make this feel as easy as possible?
So, maybe I've had that conversation in my coaching call with my clients.
Maybe I've had that conversation with prospective clients on consultations.
Now it's a sort of a percolating thought that I want to.
Leverage or flesh out, shall we say?
Ooh, we're using all the good buzzwords, leveraging.
We're fleshing it out, we're doing it all.

(13:34):
So on Wednesday, I might write an outline.
For a podcast episode, this is typically where I'll start.
I want to do a podcast episode on this.
I have another podcast, it's called the Eat Simple Podcast, it's my personal podcast.
And it's just a simple little solo episode kind of riffing model of podcast talking head style.
And I put one episode out a week, and it's just fun.

(13:56):
It's a great tool, by the way, parenthetically.
I think a podcast is a really cool marketing tool.
I really have to say, it's been quite interesting to see how people have really binged it.
And when I get on the phone with prospective clients, they'll tell me, I binged your whole podcast
Which is amazing.
They already know what I stand for.
They're kind of self-selecting into my message because they've heard me say it in their ears from my mouth to their ears.

(14:21):
It's awesome.
That might be another, maybe it'll be a separate episode I'll do.
The pros and cons of starting your own podcast and how to do it.
It couldn't be easier by the way.
So, anyways, I'll typically start with that.
Like
I'm going to start with a long form piece of content.
So, I want to do an outline of a podcast episode.
So, what I'll typically do
is I'll start brainstorming this outline into my Chat GPT.

(14:47):
I'll say, hey, Chatty.
I'd like to do a neat, simple podcast episode on this idea that I've been thinking about around how weight loss should feel easy.
Here are some of the conversations we had in the coaching calls this week.
Here's really what I think about it.
Here's where my competitors kind of come down on.
Making weight loss feel very hard, and here's how my perspective differs than theirs.
And I'm going to feed ChatGPT my perspective.

(15:09):
Then I will say
Kick me back an outline for a 45-minute podcast episode.
And it does a pretty good job.
It does a pretty good job.
Now, my background is as a copywriter, so I don't really love the way ChatGPT writes.
I'm not going to get it to script this out for you, but it will give me a good outline.
Which I like to have.
I do like to have an outline for a podcast episode.
I have an outline for this one I'm recording right now.

(15:30):
This one I wrote myself.
I didn't have ChatGPT to help me, but I do have this outline, these notes I'm looking at.
Now I have an outline.
So what I'll do on Wednesdays is I'll just open up a Riverside window or Zoom or whatever, recording QuickTime on your computer.
Again, the act of recording a podcast is quite simple, actually.
Maybe I'll do a different episode on that.

(15:52):
And I'll start riffing.
And I'll riff using the outline that ChatGPT and I came up with on the topic of weight loss should feel easy, and here's why, and here's how.
And I like riffing.
You know what I like about that?
Is it helps me sharpen the sword with respect to my message?
What do I stand for?

(16:13):
What is the flag I have planted in the ground as a health coach?
Me just getting on the microphone and riffing about it really helps me to reiterate or reestablish what I consider to be my very unique point of view and expertise.
And you have a very unique point of view and expertise as well.
And I know one of the most common pushbacks/slash limiting beliefs I hear from health coaches is that they don't think they have a unique point of view, but you do.

(16:37):
You really do.
Yeah, we're all kind of saying the same stuff.
Yeah, our clients already know that you need to eat more protein and go to bed earlier.
But there's ways of us nurturing and coaching and facilitating this change for individual people.
We all have something unique to bring.
And anyway, I find when I'm sitting down to record a podcast,

(16:58):
I get to really reiterate for myself and for my listeners ultimately what I stand for and what I don't stand for.
It's pretty cool.
It's pretty cool.
And so.
That's a really unscripted riff, although I have an outline.
I'm just kind of riffing.
Now, I use a tool called Descript.
Write that down.

(17:19):
It's a great tool.
Descript, I use that to edit the podcast.
It's really good because it improves the sound quality, and you could also do very simple editing.
And I actually prefer to edit my own podcast.
I like doing my own podcast outline.
I like doing my own podcast editing because I know what I want it to sound like
This is very much an outsourceable part of your business.

(17:40):
You can hire a podcast producer and editor, right?
Lots of people do.
I don't want to do that.
I find it very easy and enjoyable to create the idea, to riff on the microphone, and then to edit it.
I don't mind doing it, it's easy
We have so many tools now, it couldn't be easier.
And I quite enjoy having that creative control.
So that's part of my Wednesday, too.
Sometimes I'll do that at the end of my workday.
I'll just kind of pop the headphones on and have a nice glass of red wine and edit my own podcast.

(18:06):
Now, here's the deal though.
Now, I've got a long form piece of content, and I can piecemeal that into smaller things.
So, I can take little clips from that long form and make Instagram reels or YouTube shorts.
Or if I was doing TikTok, I could go on TikTok.
I can also take bits of that transcript and edit it and make those emails.
So also another thing I do on Wednesdays is I write two emails to my list and I schedule them.

(18:31):
I schedule my emails for Thursdays and Mondays.
So, on Wednesday, I write two emails.
One gets scheduled for the very next day, Thursday, and one gets scheduled for Sunday.
And guess what?
They're the same thing because it's this one topic I have in mind.
I've done one
I've recorded one long form piece of content and just piecemealed it out to other things.
And gang, that's about the extent of my content strategy.

(18:53):
It's pretty bare bones
But it's also pretty consistent.
And I like being able to, like I said a million times, sharpen the sword on my messaging.
Here's one topic that came up in my coaching calls with my clients.
Now
Because I got this content anyway from my clients, it's going to resonate with the women I want to work with.
So that's a beautiful thing.
And then I just repurpose it everywhere

(19:16):
It's not a ton of content.
I end up with one podcast episode, one YouTube video, same thing.
The same exact piece of media is uploaded to the podcast player, uploaded to the YouTube player.
And then two emails and maybe a couple social media posts.
And that's it.
So I do a lot of creative stuff on Wednesdays.

(19:41):
And then Thursdays and Fridays, I'm back on the phone with prospective clients.
And it feels nice.
It feels nice to have that break in the action.
I would recommend that.
If you're looking for a time-blocking
Strategy, might I recommend clawing back your Wednesdays?
I think you'll really like the way that feels.
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(20:01):
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(20:22):
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(20:44):
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I also want to say that when you're new, again, the
The urge to grind is very strong.

(21:04):
So you might feel like, well, no, I want to be on the phone with prospective clients.
I want to be in my social feeds, in my DMs, whatever it is, all day, every day.
You're gonna probably go through that.
You can go through.
That's part of the journey.
You're gonna go through that.
But if you're not brand brand new, maybe you're intermediate
My recommendation would be try to have one day a week that's for you to think and talk and be the thought leader, the visionary of your own message.

(21:31):
Because you have to practice that so you can get really, really good at what you are the expert in.
So that's time blocking in a nutshell.
And again, I can't stress enough that Cal Newport is the man to learn about time blocking.
But this is kind of how I do it.
Not really rocket science.

(21:52):
Another thing that I think is really crucial, again, that is not rocket science.
This is probably by way of review for everybody listening, at least I hope so, is automation.
Or systemization.
I love putting I's and Asian on the ends of words.
Systemization.
But wherever possible, automate parts of your business that can be automated.

(22:16):
I have quite a few things that are automated.
No, I will.
Just reiterate, as I've mentioned before, I'm a technologically savvy person.
I like technology, and I always have.
If you're a tech savvy person,
Amazing.
You've got a leg up in the world.
If you're not a tech savvy person, my encouragement to you would be to try to hone your tech savviness to a mild extent.

(22:38):
And that's only because
It's 2025.
Technology is an absolutely insane tool, incredibly helpful from a productivity standpoint.
And yeah, no, we live in the era of technology, so it's time to jump on board.
As much as I love Mean Analog Moment
We do live in a digital era.

(23:00):
So, I would really encourage you to just get a little comfortable with some technology.
I've got a few suggestions here from my own business, things that I have heavily automated that I think are really helping me out.
So, first of all, my entire client journey is automated.
From the moment somebody signs the agreement and pays me, they are entered into an automation that enrolls them in my curriculum.

(23:23):
Sets them up in the call calendar, sends them a weekly email every week for the six months that we work together, getting them to check in and join the coaching calls and get the help they need.
And here's access to resources.
It's all automated.
So literally, I have to have the consultation with the human being on the phone or on the Zoom.
As soon as that human being says yes, it's like push of a button, they're in my program.

(23:44):
And I don't have to do anything except show up for our coaching calls.
It's amazing.
So my client journey being automated, maybe that sounded insanely high tech, but it's not.
It literally amounts to essentially
an email automation sequence.
Okay, so every Sunday, from the moment they join until the moment they graduate, they get an email that moves them along the journey

(24:06):
Welcome to week one.
Hey, you're in week two.
You're now you're in week 17.
Hey, week 26.
You know, you're almost done.
We go through the journey together, and it's just encouraging them to lean in for support in the coaching calls.
Here's how to get in the coaching call.
Here's your check-in form.
It just points them to a check-in form.
Then I simply show up for the coaching calls knowing that my clients have been encouraged to join me in those coaching calls.

(24:31):
They've been encouraged to fill in their check-in form.
So I have all the information I need
I simply show up with my coaching skills and lead the call.
Lead, guide the coaching call.
By the way, your coach and your client both are leaders in that conversation.
This is why it's really crucial to have excellent coaching skills because that should be, to my mind, the bulk of your

(24:59):
sort of energetic investment in your business would be in really offering the coaching support that people need to make change.
So having great coaching skills is one of the most useful business tools that I think is often overlooked.
And by the way, speaking of digital versus analog, that's analog.
You want an analog tool that's going to change your life as a health coach?

(25:20):
Your coaching skills are the ultimate analog tool that you have the ability to hone and improve.
through practice, through embodiment.
I'm a huge fan of coaches learning how to coach if you haven't figured that out.
And some of the solo episodes I've already recorded and soon will record are in the realm of teaching you how to be a better coach.

(25:42):
Quite frankly, as I just said, this is an embodiment exercise.
You have to just simply do it.
So that the point I'm making here is the system that my clients go through is all very automated technology.
The support they get from me is this person to person
Partnership in the coaching relationship.
I lean into that part of it because that's where the change happens.

(26:04):
But meanwhile, they still have to be guided through.
They have to know where their support systems are, and that's all automated.
Another automation tool that I use, and this is kind of into the weeds, but I'll mention it and maybe I'll come back to it again in a future episode.
I have an automated sales funnel.
Oh boy.
Yeah.
So I do use paid ads in my business.

(26:28):
And if somebody clicks on the ad, they're introduced into a funnel that gets them eventually
Onto a consultation call with me, and I don't have to do anything.
I put the ads out there, I pay the bill for the advertising, I have to show up for the consultation and make that sale.
And then once I do, I press the button another in the automation.

(26:49):
But everything from getting that fresh set of eyeballs, a stranger who's never heard of me, who's looking at my ad.
Through a bit of an automation.
So they begin to know what I do.
They're seeing a little bit about how I work with people.
Then there's a book a call button.
They book the call.
They get into the calendar.
That's all automated.
Now, I do think that is an intermediate
It's kind of an intermediate concept.

(27:10):
A brand new coach starting out probably wouldn't benefit from an automated sales funnel that runs on paid ads.
But if you're intermediate
It's pretty cool.
I'll talk about that in a future episode because I think it's pretty fun.
But that's all automated too.
So I'm not out there hustling, hustling, hustling to get people into my.
Into my calendar.
Now, those are paid ads, and I get a good chunk of my business from paid ads, but I get a good chunk from organic social media posting, which I already talked about.

(27:36):
I don't post a ton on social media.
I don't have an amazing social media strategy, but I'm there consistently.
I have a medium to small, small to medium following.
And I do get conversations of people in my comments or my DMs.
So, there are some conversations I have to have in the DMs with people who are interested in working with me or in my inbox.
This is where.

(27:58):
A booking link is such a lifesaver.
I'm probably on year 10 at this point of telling health coaches that you need a booking tool with a simple booking link.
Hey, Sally, great to hear from you.
Sounds like you have a weight loss goal and you've tried a lot of things and haven't had a lot of luck.
You know what?
I'd love to have a conversation with you about this.

(28:18):
If it's available to you, just click this link and find a time that works for you just for a really fun, chill little Zoom sesh.
Yeah, click this link and find a time that works for you.
Boop, there's the link.
Now Sally's in my calendar if she wants to be, right?
I tell you what, my always and forever beloved tech tool is my online booking link.
I shout it from the rooftops any chance I get.

(28:41):
It's so good.
Just have, just get one.
Just get one.
Okay.
And since we're talking about tech tools that are absolutely invaluable, got to give another shout out to ChatGPT and other AI tools.
I just think as a solopreneur, okay, remember, we're solopreneuring it here.

(29:02):
You need like a colleague to bounce ideas off of.
I mostly brainstorm with my chat GPT.
And ChatGPT's ideas aren't always great, but I'm the boss here.
I can say, not really that.
How about this instead?
I'm, you know, we're kind of always training our ChatGPT to understand what we're trying to do.

(29:23):
I just think it's really great.
Quite honestly, half the time the stuff I get from ChatGPT is mildly usable, but it's in the act of having that quote-unquote conversation with ChatGPT that I feel like I'm working out some stuff.
It's your colleague.
I think one of the downsides to being a solo printer is that you are truly doing it all yourself and

(29:46):
Not that we want to relinquish too much of our control to the robots.
I think that's a little sketchy.
I don't know how I feel about it, quite honestly.
Sometimes I think this robot knows way too much about me, knows way too much about my business.
Maybe I should keep some stuff close to the vest.
I don't know.
I don't know.
But gosh, it comes in so handy.

(30:06):
And I know that what I'm telling you here isn't like novel.
You've probably heard this a thousand times.
You're probably already doing it, quite frankly.
But it just, it is
One of the automation tools, I would say, that has come in really, really handy.
Now, I don't know, gang.
Here's my personal opinion, kind of biased.
I don't love ChatGPT as your writer.
It's getting a little weird.

(30:28):
I can tell when I receive an email from somebody whose email list I'm on, or if I'm looking at a social media post, I can tell when they've had ChatGPT write it and I don't like it.
It gives me the ick.
Can I tell you another little funny story?
I was CC'd on an email chain between two people who were using ChatGPT to respond back and forth to each other.

(30:51):
And I was just sort of watching this weird conversation go down.
And person A used ChatGPT to write their email, and person B responded with the ChatGPT response, and then person A responded back, and I was like
These people are both using ChatGPT.
Are they even aware of the conversation they're having?
It's just getting a little weird, but it is, you know, this points at diminishing returns for almost everything, but obviously using AI as an assistant or a.

(31:14):
Or a colleague is kind of a cool automation of sorts.
Using tech, really leveraging tech, not a ton of it.
And by the way,
All the tech tools that are available to you to run your coaching business are specifically designed for non-tech savvy online entrepreneurs like you.

(31:36):
So they're designed to be easy to use, and you can figure it out.
I have faith in you.
All right, two more considerations for the solopreneur health coach.
Number one is boundaries.
This idea of paying yourself first.
Which is sort of like this is in the realm of finance, which is a great idea as well.

(31:59):
If you're running a business, I think paying yourself first when you get some money, you put some of it in your bank account, put some of it in the tax account, put some of it in your business expense, you know.
I'm not your financial advisor.
Trust me, I'm not qualified for that.
But I use this pay yourself first.
I've been using it lately.
As I've been, you know, solopreneuring for 15 years, and I was in the hustle-grind aspect of it early, and now I'm kind of mellowing out and trying to find more time and space for myself

(32:25):
Well, that's how I'm quote unquote paying myself from a scheduling perspective.
What I mean is, for the last six months, I have not allowed calls before
10 a.
m.
So I wake up around 6:30 or 7.
Natural wake up time, no alarm clock.

(32:45):
This is so amazing to me.
Like, this is one of the most amazing, incredible things is that I've
Just been using like waking up naturally without my alarm clock for the last six months.
I just feel so rich in sleep that I can just do that now.
It's amazing.
But I don't take any calls until 10 a.
, which means I can.
You know, I can wake up, I can have a workout, I can hang out with, you know, loved ones, I can do my chores, I can put around outside, get some time in nature, I can do

(33:15):
Human stuff before I start doing work stuff.
This has revolutionized my life.
And I go back to what I said earlier, which is, yeah, sure, if I open my calendar up.
For calls starting right at 7 a.
, maybe I'd have more calls in the calendar.
Maybe I'd have more clients, but I would have less joy.
This is your chance to make it the way you want it.

(33:36):
You are the boss.
You can make your schedule the way you want.
And when I had a boss, I resented the fact that I had a standing meeting every day at 8 in the morning
I resented having to sit in traffic for an hour to get to that standing meeting every morning at 8 in the morning.
A stupid meeting that had no benefit.
It could have been an email, quite frankly, every single day.
I resented that, resented that, resented that

So, when I moved away from being an employed person to being a solopreneur, it took me way too long to realize (33:57):
wait a second, this doesn't need to suck.
I get to make my own schedule, I get to decide the trade-offs.
If I don't start taking calls till 10 a.
m.
, maybe that means I get too fewer calls a day or a week in my calendar, and maybe that's too fewer clients, whatever the case may be.

(34:19):
But I have time and I have space, and that's been really important to me in the last little while.
So paying yourself first, you know, like let's just let's just use working out as a good example, because I think that's a language we all probably speak here.
By making this change, I now get a workout in just about every day.
And I can't say that I did that before.

(34:39):
In the early days of my solopreneur grind, I was skipping the workouts a lot.
And I don't want to skip my workouts.
I want to be strong.
I want to feel healthy.
I want to walk the talk, right?
So I'm paying myself first by making sure I have time to get my workout in, eat a really nourishing breakfast.

(35:01):
Just have a little sort of quiet start to the day so my nervous system can remain regulated because I'm better if I have set these boundaries for myself.
Another thing that I think is interesting in the realm of boundaries, and this goes back to my Wednesdays that I take off, quote unquote, remember Wednesdays is my big sort of content development day.
Well, also on Wednesdays, I take a long walk, a very long walk.

(35:24):
And the whole purpose of that walk is to get me away from my screen, away from my computer, away from creation and doing and productivity mode and into thinking mode.
I believe thinking.
Thinking is one of the most powerful technologies that most solopreneurs or entrepreneurs aren't accessing.

(35:48):
So taking a walk away from your devices without listening to a podcast, without recording Instagram stories, just walking, walking and thinking, it's such a generative activity
To start moving, and then your blood gets moving, and your breath gets moving, and then your brain gets moving.
And you might come up with amazing downloads from taking a walk.

(36:08):
So I've lately, in the spirit of creating boundaries and paying myself first, I've been setting aside more time for thinking.
And I got to tell you, I think that has grown my business more than anything.
More than any hire I could have made.
Harnessing the power of thinking as a solopreneur has helped me grow my business.

(36:30):
The final item on my list that I think is really, really crucial for solopreneur health coaches is to have business buddies.
So I myself am in two mastermind groups.
Mastermind groups are kind of a collection of people who do similar work to you, and you maybe put your heads together.
You kind of like are shoulder-to-shoulder with them, and you can bounce ideas off of them, and they give you ideas, and it's

(36:55):
Just, it's a community of peers, quite frankly.
It's a community of peers.
I invest in these two mastermind groups every year, and it is one of my most crucial business investments because I need.
Buddies who are doing something similar to me.
I also have friends in real life who are entrepreneurs.
Now they're not in the same exact world that I'm in.

(37:16):
But we can, we are doing the thing.
So it's nice to have people in your life that are doing something similar to you that you can have those conversations with at that level.
I really, really recommend it.
And you could go and find a mastermind group to join, or you could create one, or you could say, Hey, I've got two friends that are also entrepreneurs.
Maybe we can just have a little mini mastermind, and we'll meet at a Starbucks once a month and just like talk about what we're working on.

(37:41):
You'll get amazing ideas
You'll get amazing ideas.
You'll get amazing inspiration.
You'll just feel like you're part of something because it can feel lonely to be a solopreneur, which is probably why ChatGPT is like my best buddy.
I don't think that's healthy.
So go have some actual business buddies.
Now, I want to defend solopreneurship.

(38:05):
To a certain extent.
Because I think what you might hear, I know I hear this a lot from business coaches and business mentors and business consultants.
That if you do it all yourself, you'll just get really stuck, and your business, your practice won't grow.
And there's probably some truth to that.
There's definitely a point where you will become the bottleneck.

(38:28):
But I don't want you to rush away from the solopreneur experience too quickly.
I really do think there's something about being in it by yourself.
That is so valuable.
And I love being a solo burner.
I literally would do it forever, but I do think I've gotten to the bottleneck point.
But I'm 15 years in.

(38:49):
At 15 years in, I'm thinking, I could use some help.
Typically, the hires that are recommended, here's what most business coaches and mentors recommend.
As your first hires to consider.
I have a different list, just so we're clear.

So let's do what the typical list would be (39:05):
number one
To handle calendars and inboxes.
I can tell you, every single business coach I've ever had has said the first thing you got to do, Aaron, is get somebody into your calendar and inboxes.
And I'm thinking to myself,
That's the least of my troubles.
Like, that's easy.
My calendar, I love having my own calendar control.

(39:27):
I don't want somebody controlling my calendar.
Inboxes?
Piece of cake.
I've got automations, baby.
Like, I'm good.
Like, yeah, get into my inbox.
Let's have a chit chat.
Now, here's the booking call calling.
There's not a lot going on there from the per the perspective of
Potential new clients or new business, right?
Which is what comes into the inbox typically and into the calendar.
I'm managing that quite well.

(39:48):
I don't find that hard.
To me, a virtual assistant is not a hair on fire necessity.
I don't.
Understand why I would choose that hire first.
Another hire that many business coaches and mentors suggest is a client success manager.
Now, this one I agree with.
So, if we have these two different aspects of communications, you have the potential clients, the prospective clients

(40:15):
The outreach, the marketing, the business growth, client acquisition type of communications in the inbox.
I want to handle that.
Client success.
If I have clients who are emailing me, they want a little help with something in between coaching calls, I can see the value in having a client success manager
Now, I just actually did bring somebody on.

(40:37):
I forgot about this.
I brought somebody on on a very part-time role.
She just finished my program and she loved it so much.
She said, I would like to remain involved somehow.
I would look just like this unpaid internship or something.
I said, I'll do you one better.
How about a paid internship?
How about I'll pay you?
And you can be the person who liaises and sort of mentors the clients.

(40:59):
You're the peer mentor.
She's doing great.
It's kind of early times.
I'm still figuring out what her role is, but it's, you know, it's just a really kind of very entry-level, it's very fun for her.
She's just remaining connected to the curriculum.
A couple years ago, I hired somebody who I thought was going to be my client success manager.
And this person also had come through my program and had great success.

(41:23):
And I said, Hey, you had great success.
I'd love to hire you.
And they happened to be looking for a job.
So I hired her.
This didn't work out though.
This didn't work out.
And here's why it didn't work out.
First of all, I did not have clarity on what her role was.
Like, this was actually a proper job
I was paying her through a payroll service and I was even looking into benefits and all the things, you know, to proper taking care of a staff member.

(41:45):
But I had no clarity on her job description.
I didn't know what she was supposed to be doing.
And then she didn't know what she was supposed to be doing.
And so she wasn't doing anything because I didn't give her anything to do.
So I was
Getting any help, also
I don't think she was the most qualified for that job.
She's qualified in the sense that she knows my program backwards and forwards and has had great success, but I don't think that's actually what I need for a client success manager

(42:10):
Client Success Manager, I think, has to have good coaching skills, good, good communication skills.
They have to have an aptitude of my program as well
But I think there's a very specific skill set that a client success manager has in the spirit of being able to nurture
Clients who are feeling stuck, or reach out to ones who have ghosted, handle like payment concerns and refund stuff.

(42:33):
Like there's a little bit more to it than simply just being
kind of the BFF to the clients, quite honestly.
There's a little more administration to that.
But I do think a client success manager is a really good hire.
I currently, in my client roster, have about 45 clients.
And if all 45 of them, if even a fraction of those 45 clients started, you know, getting into my inbox needing help with things.

(43:01):
That's soon going to become hard for you to manage, right?
That's 45 plants is quite a few to have.
If they were kind of all in my inbox, I might be letting some things slide.
And I don't want that to be the extra
Experience that my clients have.
This is all in the realm of the client experience.
They have to have a good experience.
I want them to be wowed and delighted by how good care I took of them, we took of them.
So that's where I can really see the client success manager.

(43:24):
Clients ghost sometimes, you know.
Hey, Sally, haven't seen you on a call in about three weeks.
It's really important to lean in for support.
Is there anything that I can help you with?
Maybe I can get Aaron and you to coordinate calendars and get on a call, like that kind of thing.
Noticing when somebody is having a struggle, noticing when a common question comes up in the coaching calls.

(43:45):
Like this client success manager might say,
You know, the last few weeks, we've had a lot of clients that are looking for breakfast ideas besides eggs.
Maybe, Erin, you could create some curriculum around that
and teach them some breakfast ideas, that kind of thing.
So they're really, really paying attention to the client experience.
I think that's a really useful hire.
So that one goes on my list as well.

(44:05):
But another hire that is sometimes encouraged by business coaches and mentors is to hire for your sales and enrollment calls.
So you might hire a setter or a closer.
A setter is somebody who does kind of a preliminary call to see if this person's a good fit.

(44:26):
A closer is a real good sales
You know, guru that can get people to buy stuff, right?
That's amazing skills that these closers have.
I just don't think that's a good thing to outsource.
Not yet, not early.
I think you have to get good at selling.

(44:46):
enrolling clients in your vision and getting them to say yes and knowing that they need this right now.
I think you need to get good at that.
I actually think before you outsource that, you need to skill develop the hell out of it.
Become really masterful.
At helping clients see the value in what you offer.

(45:09):
I just think it's actually a bad idea to outsource that.
I think it's one of the last things you should outsource
Only if you've absolutely nailed it and your cup runneth over, and you don't have time to be on sales calls anymore because you're so busy coaching, then.
But I'm nowhere near at the stage of needing a sales helper.

(45:30):
Nowhere near.
If I do 12 sales calls a week
That's a busy week for me.
I can handle 12.
And if I closed all 12, dang, right?
I don't.
I might close five or six.
Well, there's room for me to improve.
Why would I outsource a thing I haven't even mastered yet?
So, I don't agree with that.
I don't agree with outsourcing sales.

(45:53):
But here are the hires that I think are most interesting to consider
For the solopreneur coach, and these are the ones I'm considering, just for a different perspective.
So, yes, client success manager, 100%, that's really top of the list for me.
Now, my
My client that I hired is a peer mentor.
She might become this.
I don't know if she has the skills.
Again, I haven't written this job description

(46:15):
I riffed on it here with you in this conversation, but I don't have it established.
You know who's really good at helping you with job descriptions?
It's Chad GPT.
But you also have to think about it from the perspective of how you run your practice.
How do clients move through your world?
What do you need help with?
Where do you see the gaps in client support and success and delight?

(46:38):
So you need to know.
And by the way, you won't know, you won't know what a client success manager's job description is until you've had enough time in the trenches working by yourself with clients
So, in defense of the solopreneur health coach, you have to do it yourself for a while before you'll have any hot clue what you need help with.

(47:01):
Okay, but here are the three hires besides the client success manager that I would bring in.
Number one, a personal assistant
So the virtual assistant thing to me never really it just never really made sense.
I'm thinking in my business, my emails and my calendar are not that problematic.
In my life, though,

(47:24):
There's a lot of things I'm juggling.
And if I didn't have quite as much total stuff in my life, if my mind share wasn't fractured to all the things in my life I have to do.
Well, I could probably really thrive in business.
So to me, it's like all the appointments and
Administrative tasks and household tasks and things like that in my life that I sometimes drop the ball on or forget about, or that

(47:53):
I procrastinate on and then I realize I have to do it, and then it takes me away from business.
It takes, it distracts me.
I can see the value in having that.
Like, in somebody booking my
you know, my doctor's appointments, my hair appointments, buying the gifts for my loved ones and sending them and and yes, clearing my inboxes and taking
Tabs on my calendar and booking things in, doing the VA stuff, but also personally assisting me in my life.

(48:18):
If my life was less hectic, my business would be because my business is my life.
That's the thing about being a solopreneur.
It's not like I get up and go to work.
I am my work.
It's all my work.
I'm in my house.
I'm running my house and running my business at the same time.
That's actually a lot for a person to do.
What if I took chunks of that and gave it to somebody else here?

(48:40):
Here, her personal assistant, take this little business piece and manage that.
My calendar, my inbox, and here's my personal life.
Here's also what I'd like you to manage.
Now I have less total stuff on my plate.
So
The VA hire falls completely flat for me.
But the personal assistant hire, heck yeah.
That would be so cool.

(49:00):
And I actually, by the way, think this person needs to be local to me.
I think they need to live here.
So the VA, the virtual assistant, that's an overseas, or you hire them digitally off of Upwork.
They might not be overseas, they might be in your city or country.
I know lots of my peers that rave about their overseas virtual assistants, absolutely rave about the quality of work they do.

(49:22):
But I think a personal assistant would have to live in my world and be here sometimes with me.
Because there's physical things in my world and my life that I'd want that person to take care of.
So, anyways, I think that's right up high on my list.
Another thing I have on my list is an online business manager, OBM.

(49:42):
Now, I have only come to learn about the OBM role.
In fact, if you think about it, it really didn't exist until recently.
It's pretty new, pretty new field of employment, shall we say
But these folks are trained in all the systems and the automations and the technology, and they understand how online businesses work, how people come in through funnels and have to be nurtured through content.

(50:07):
And enrolled into programs.
This is what they do.
And some of the OBMs I've met are so intelligent about this stuff.
Now, I still think you as the solopreneur coach have to know your own systems and build out your programs by yourself.
But once you have the basic
Bits and pieces built, and OBM can come in and clean it up for you, make it even more efficient.

(50:29):
So that's where I think I really will, I personally do struggle.
There's some inefficiencies in my program.
After
15 years of doing it myself and cobbling together technology and systems.
Over the years, technology has improved.
Maybe there's a better system I could use that would bring all this stuff in.
And maybe there's an OBM with a more modern view
on online businesses than me.

(50:50):
I started this thing in the early two thousands, like when things were different.
The OBM is something I'm very interested in.
Now, oftentimes, online business managers have a couple different clients.
They're sort of a fractional employee, but they'd be brought on a salary or retainer type basis.
They're a well-paid manager in your company.

(51:11):
They have a very big sort of operations level job.
When your business gets to a certain point, I absolutely see the value in an online business manager.
The third hire that I'm strenuously considering, and this one's crazy.
I get a lot of weird side eyes from my peers when I say this one.

(51:31):
I call it a content director.
Okay, now I know I need to create content.
I need to be marketing myself, but also content is like, how do I nurture people on my email list?
How do I flesh out the curriculum that my clients go through?
What do my clients need?
What do my prospective clients need?
What does my audience need?
What do I need to say more of?
What do I need to say less of?
What's landing?

(51:52):
What's not landing
Where can I clarify my message?
What has to go?
Like somebody who's got their finger on the absolute pulse of my entire
15 years of content that I've just cobbled together.
You heard my content strategy.
I shared it with you earlier.
It's very by the seat of my pants.
I do see the value in having a more established

(52:13):
Strategy here.
Now, ideally, this person would have a good sense of best practices and trends, strategy.
With respect to, for example, YouTube strategy and podcast strategy and Instagram strategy and whatever else, right?
And they would tell me what to say, then I can do all the saying, I'm good at doing the saying.

(52:33):
And maybe they would just take what I've said and put it where it needs to go.
Like right now, I don't mind doing that, but I know somebody else could do a better job than me.
And I can immediately see the value in having a better content strategy, saying the right things better in more places, more times.
With proper strategy as a business growth endeavor, I can immediately see that direct correlation.

(53:00):
So that's my third kind of wacky hire that I'm thinking of doing.
But right now, I'm really, really happy being a solopreneur.
You will start as a solopreneur.
You will probably stay a solopreneur for quite a while.
I would suggest not rushing out of solopreneurship.
Stay in it until the time feels right.
When will the time feel right?
That might be the question that you're left with.

(53:22):
Thanks, Erin.
How will I know when it's time to hire?
I just think you'll know.
Like, I know that right now is not the time, but it's coming soon.
15 years later, it's coming soon.
But here's the deal.
I also know that I could keep doing it myself.
I could keep doing it myself.
But if I want to grow from where I'm at now, I'm going to need help.

(53:44):
And that seems clear to me now.
I'm very glad I didn't rush into hiring because I got to develop the skills.
I got to make improvements to my systems and processes and outcomes for my clients and the delight factor.
Now I know everything about my business inside and out.
When it comes time to hire, I'll know exactly what help I need and exactly who can help me do it.

(54:06):
And it'll be, I think, more of a smooth process that will help me grow.
So there you have it, my friends.
That is the ultimate guide to solar burner health coaching from my perspective.
I would love to know what you think.
You can always email us at hello at primalhealthcoach.
com.
I'm just an email away, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

(54:29):
This podcast was brought to you by Primal Health Coach Institute.
To learn more about how to become a successful health coach, get in touch with us by visiting primalhealthcoach.
com forward slash call.
Or, if you're already a successful health coach, practitioner, influencer, or thought leader with a thriving business and an interesting story, we'd love to hear from you
Connect with us at hello at primalhealthcoach.

(54:51):
com and let us know why we need to interview you for Health Coach Radio.
Thanks for listening.