Episode Transcript
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Carly Ries (00:00):
Let's be honest.
Going solo in business comes
(00:02):
with a lot of facepalm moments.In this episode, we spill the
beans on the rookie mistakesthat we see solopreneurs make
all the time. Some of them weeven made ourselves. So from
doing everything alone toundercharging, overworking, and
ignoring your Legion pipeline,we are covering it all.
So stay tuned. You're listeningto the Aspiring Solopreneur, the
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podcast for those just takingthe bold step or even just
thinking about taking that stepinto the world of solo
entrepreneurship. My name isCarly Ries, and my cohost, Joe
Rando, and I are your guides tonavigating this crazy but
awesome journey as a company ofone. We take pride in being part
of LifeStarr, a digital hubdedicated to all aspects of
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solopreneurship that hasempowered and educated countless
solopreneurs looking to build abusiness that resonates with
their life's ambitions. We helppeople work to live, not live to
work.
And if you're looking for a getrich quick scheme, this is not
the show for you. So if you'reeager to gain valuable insights
from industry experts on runninga business the right way the
(01:05):
first time around or want tolearn from the missteps of
solopreneurs who've paved theway before you, then stick
around. We've got your backbecause flying solo in business
doesn't mean you're alone. Joe,so I kinda wanted to do this
episode today from a selfishdamn standpoint because you and
I have been writing solopreneurbusiness for dummies, which
(01:27):
preorder is available, shamelessplug on Barnes and Noble and
Amazon. But I just finishedwriting a chapter on rookie
mistakes for solopreneurs.
And so I was like, well, whatbetter time than when it's fresh
in my brain than to talk aboutit on our podcast. Now I should
warn listeners, Joe and I bothhave our dogs next to us today
(01:49):
that are at risk of barking atany moment. So just bear with
us. This will be a family showwith our pups involved.
Joe Rando (01:54):
Yeah. I just moved
over. If you're watching on
YouTube, you can see them in thebackground there.
Carly Ries (01:59):
Yes. They may be
joining us and chiming in with
what they believe are rookiemistakes solopreneurs, but I
think Joe and I will be leadingthe show today. But, Joe, I
think it'd be fun if, you know,I just kinda took turns going
back and forth on what we see,not only from the section that I
just wrote, but just in ourdaily lives of working with
solopreneurs day in and day out.So if it's okay with you, can I
(02:19):
go first?
Joe Rando (02:20):
Absolutely.
Carly Ries (02:21):
So what is my
favorite thing to say? My
favorite thing as it relates tosolopreneurs.
Joe Rando (02:27):
Favorite thing to
say. Niching?
Carly Ries (02:31):
Flying solo in
business doesn't mean you're
alone.
Joe Rando (02:34):
Doesn't mean you're
alone. I'm sorry. Okay.
Carly Ries (02:35):
Yep. My favorite
thing to say, and I think that
is my number one rookie mistake,is people go out on their own,
and they do everything on theirown. And I think before you jump
into solopreneurship, you needto start thinking about who you
might outsource to, who youmight have on as clients.
Because working with people,even if they're your clients, is
a way to do things not on yourown. What strategic
(02:56):
partnerships?
I just think you when you jumpinto it, you need to realize
that it you can get lonelypretty quickly or feel isolated
pretty quickly. And just knowthat the vast majority of
successful solopreneurs that wework with, they are not doing
everything alone. So I thinkthat is my rookie mistake number
one.
Joe Rando (03:15):
Absolutely. So
another one that I think is a
really good rookie mistake that,we probably haven't thought of a
lot in ourselves because we'renot new to this, but one of the
things that I think people getinto sometimes when they start a
business is doing all thisplanning, trying to put the
perfect plan together, takingall these courses and learning
(03:36):
this and learning that. And it'slike at some level, you just
wanna kinda get out there and dostuff. Right? And it's like, you
know, having that perfectbusiness plan, having every
course on every aspect ofmarketing or whatever under your
belt isn't necessarily worth theinvestment as much as just
getting out there, making somemistakes, seeing what you really
(03:57):
need, what the world reallyneeds, and just figuring out as
you go.
Carly Ries (04:01):
Such great pieces of
wisdom there. Because people
wait to be perfect, and that'sjust not ever gonna happen. So
you may as well start itperfectly and iterate as needed.
My other thing, saying yes toeverything. Learn the power of
no early on so you can take onthe types of clients and the
(04:21):
types of projects that you wantto take on.
A lot of times people feel likethey have to say yes to
everything because theyunderprice their services, which
is another mistake people make.And so in order to make ends
meet, in order to make a goodliving, they say yes to
everything. Instead, maybeconsider pricing your services a
little bit higher, pricing yourproducts a little bit higher.
You can turn away the thingsthat don't align with your
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values and how you see yourselfrunning your business.
Joe Rando (04:47):
Yeah, to add to that,
this idea of you talked about
well, I mentioned niching,right? This idea, if you can get
focused on a particular set ofpeople, a particular pain point
or set of pain points and targetyour products around solving
those pain points effectivelyand communicating that to the
(05:08):
potential customer, you cancharge a lot more money. You
know, if I said to you, hey, Ican help you write better stuff.
I'm a good writer or something,and I can help you write better.
It's like, okay, great. If Icame to you and said, you're
looking for a job in theinformation technology industry,
and I am a master at craftingresumes that get interviews and
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which repeat interviews forpeople in the information
technology industry. Now I'mgoing, okay. If I'm looking for
that job and I'm, in thatsituation, I'm like, I'm ready
to give you some real money tohelp me solve that pain point of
trying to get that new jobversus just saying, oh, you can
help me write stuff.
You know what I'm saying?
Carly Ries (05:53):
Oh, yeah. I totally
agree that and something that's
a mistake that people make quiteoften, I think. So another
mistake that I also see is nothaving not setting clear
boundaries.
And the biggest thing forsetting clear boundaries to me
is to avoid burnout. Because asa solopreneur, it can be really
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easy to blur the lines betweenwork life and personal life. And
you could bring your computereverywhere. I know I'm guilty of
this. I always have my computerwith me.
And if you have a ten minutewait for something, you could
just flip out your laptop. Butif you don't set those
boundaries with clientsspecifically, they will contact
you after hours. They willcontact you multiple times
(06:38):
throughout the day. So you justsay, hey, I check my email three
times a day. Or hey, I sign offline at 05:00 and I do not
respond unless it's anemergency.
You contact me after them andit's not an emergency. Here are
the consequences. But justwhatever the boundaries are that
makes sense for your business. Ihave found that people respect
you so much more if you areclear about those boundaries
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from the get go because at theend of the day, you'll produce
better work than if you're justbending over backwards for
clients twenty four seven. Itgets exhausting.
So really do that for yourselffrom a work life balance
standpoint and from a qualityproduct standpoint.
Joe Rando (07:13):
And I'm gonna add to
that because I think it's a
great point, but what happenstoo is, inside of the actual
work, you need boundaries aswell because what will happen is
what they call scope creep.Right? So somebody hires you to
do something, but all of asudden something becomes
something more. Because in theirbrain, either they had a vision,
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that they didn't share with youeffectively or their
expectations grow as they seethe possibilities for what
you're doing. And the nextthing, you sold them x, and
you're doing two x of work.
And the solution to that issomething called a statement of
work. And a statement of work isbasically a document. It can go
with your standard contract or amaster servicing agreement or
whatever you use that outlinesthe scope of the particular
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project, and it basicallyoutlines what's gonna be
delivered. It outlines how oftenyou're gonna meet, who's
responsible for what, and itreally kinda lays out the
guardrails on the project andusually has something about if
we go beyond this, the cost is xper hour.
And it's really, really amazingwhat a difference it makes for
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solopreneurs that are in thatkind of service project based
business. Once they start usinga tool like this that that
they're no longer getting justhammered by scope creep and or
at least being able to chargefor the scope creep, which isn't
so bad. But I've seen this overand over again with Solopreneurs
not having that statement ofwork document in place and then
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ending up kinda regretting thedeals that they make because
they end up doing more work thanthey price for.
Carly Ries (08:49):
Yeah. That is such a
great point. Joe, I know you
piggybacked off of my last two.I feel bad that I'm leading
this.
Joe Rando (08:55):
It's great. I mean,
one of the other real rookie
mistakes I think I've seen ispeople that don't separate
personal and business finances.Right? So if you start a
business, first of all, youreally probably don't wanna be a
sole proprietor. You should doan LLC or some kind of a
corporation with a sub check ora selection or something that
(09:18):
protects, you know, that limitsyour liability in the business.
And then get a bank account, achecking account, and maybe a
savings account, and a creditcard in the name of the
business. It's not hard to do. Alittle bit of expense involved,
but, you know, the idea ofgetting sued and having your
house being on the line is alot, riskier to me than the cost
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of of creating and maintaining alimited liability company or
some other equivalent entity.
Carly Ries (09:45):
Which does not take
that much time and effort to do
the basics. Well, Joe, I thinkmy last rookie mistake that I
really wanna touch on today,maybe I should have started with
this, but we've identified thatthe three things the main three
things that solopreneurs acrossthe board struggle with are lead
gen, sales, and time managementor productivity. Those are
really the pain points that wehear over and over again. And so
(10:07):
on that note with lead gen,people get so caught up working
in their business that theyforget to work on their
business, and they neglect thatlead gen funnel and pipeline to
keep those leads going. They'relike, okay.
I have five clients. That's allI need. And then they just work
with these five clients,forgetting those clients could
leave at any minute. And if youdon't have other ones lined up,
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you could be in for a lot oftrouble. And you don't wanna be
yourself with that situation.
You wanna make sure that there'salways something that could be
coming in the door. And I thinkso many people neglect that. So
that is my probably my numberone rookie mistake, even though
I said it last.
Joe Rando (10:43):
Well, I'm gonna have
one more too, and that is and I
think you'll agree with thiswholeheartedly, is that when
starting a solopreneur businessthere's a very good bet that
you're gonna be better offfocusing on your network than
trying to focus on building outa website and driving traffic to
it through whatever, pay perclick or whatever. So ignoring
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your network is a big mistakewhen you first get started,
because those people know you.They can help you get to other
people that need what you'redoing, and you really wanna be
spending time, dealing with whenyou're getting up and running,
dealing with your network andseeing, you know, how those
people that you're connected tocould help you get your business
up and running. So I thinkthat's a big mistake we see
(11:25):
sometimes.
Carly Ries (11:26):
Absolutely. So those
are are the things that we see
kind of across the board, acrossindustries, across skill sets
that we think solopreneursreally need to work on. But,
Joe, speaking of your networkand your community, we really
encourage all of you to joinLifeStarr intro.
LifeStarr.com/intro is whereyou'll get access to a great
(11:46):
community of solopreneurs,monthly events, other resources
to really hit the groundrunning, tweak whatever you
need. We have a whole communitythere to support you.
And I already mentioned this,but we have an entire book
called Solopreneur Business forDummies. It's coming out fall
twenty twenty five, and you canpreorder it now. So if that
sounds like something you mightbe interested in where we
(12:07):
elaborate on all of this, besure to check it out on Amazon
and Barnes and Noble. Joe, youlook like you're gonna say
something.
Joe Rando (12:12):
I just want you to
tell them how much LifeStarr
intro costs.
Carly Ries (12:15):
Well, it doesn't
cost anything, and it never
will. Correct. Thanks, Joe.LifeStarr Intro is free, and it
will be free forever. So be sureto join.
Link is in the show notes, butit is LifeStarr.com/intro And
for us, please leave that fivestar review. We love spreading
the word. It helps with theratings. It would be so awesome
(12:35):
if you could do that and sharethis episode with a friend, and
we will see you next time on TheAspiring Solopreneur.
You may be going solo inbusiness, but that doesn't mean
you're alone. In fact, millionsof people are in your shoes,
running a one person businessand figuring it out as they go.
So why not connect with them andlearn from each other's
successes and failures? AtLifeStarr, we're creating a one
(12:58):
person business community whereyou can go to meet and get
advice from other solopreneurs.Be sure to join in on the
conversations atcommunity.lifestarr.com.