8 Things I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Solopreneur
Before you jump straight into the entrepreneurial life – ambition drunk and liberated – take a beat to give yourself a reality check. Or, rather, let me do it for you. I’ve learned all this the hard way, which is why I’m dousing you with the cold slap of reality before it’s too late.
So, without further ado, here are 8 things I wish I knew before becoming a solopreneur.
Marketing is a full-time job
Get this. You’ve got a baby business to reveal to the world/your niche. You’re lifting it above the Serengeti like Rafiki brandishing Simba, except, no wildlife is there to coo and bow in awe because climate change wiped them out no one knows you exist.
‘Okay,’ you say to yourself. ‘So, I’ll do a little bit of marketing to get the word out about this awesome product/service I’m offering. How hard can it be?’
When future you stops laughing so loudly you can hear them in the multiverse, you do a quick Google search and realise you need a few key things:
A brand identity
Business templates
A website
An online/social media presence
USP/s (unique selling proposition/s)
Oh, that doesn’t sound too bad, you think. I’ll just google what all these things are and HOLY F*CKING S*IT BALLS, WHY IS THERE SO MUCH TO DO?!
Suddenly, you have a newfound appreciation for marketers, who, before now, seemed like sunglass-wearing, jargon spouting, pyramid scheming coffee addicts with a grandiose sense of self. As a UK born self-deprecator and someone who believes selling myself in any way is boastful nonsense, it was a shock to find out that saying to potential clients — ‘Hey, I think I’m like, you know, fine at writing. Hire me if you want. But if not, no worries’ — didn’t bring me the sales I hoped for.
And so, I set off on a marketing adventure. All I needed to do was:
Start a YouTube channel, Facebook page, Instagram account and Pinterest board
Join TikTok and learn how to make video content
Update my LinkedIn and set up a business profile
Write a weekly/monthly blog and newsletter
Start a Podcast
Then, once I was digitally saddled up, I just needed to create daily content for each platform, optimise it, engage with my audience, reply to all my messages, and sit back while I reached 1k followers in 2-years.
What do you mean you ‘have a business’ to run? I guess you’ll just have to forgo your evenings for the foreseeable future. Is eating really necessary? Skip dinner. People can live on 4-hours sleep, right?
I’d love to say I’m joking, and I am (sort of). Obviously, the trick is to pick 1-3 of these platforms and invest in them properly rather than using all of them badly, but still, the overwhelm is real. For example, this is the first blog I’ve written for myself because I focussed on my Instagram page and YouTube channel instead. Why? Because they gave me the most joy. Why? Because their potential reach and media capabilities lent themselves to my brand image and target audience.
You and your product will change over time
I wish someone told me, ‘you don’t have to have the perfect product straight away.’ It’s tempting to get all our ducks in a row (whatever that means?!) from day one. However, marrying yourself to one idea limits your options. Stay flexible until you find your niche. I offered everything in the beginning: copyediting, copywriting, ghostwriting, web pages, news articles, social media content, B2B, B2C, UX, SEO... (LOL, you get the picture).
However, as your baby business booms, so will your idea of what work a) you’re best at, and b) ignites your creative fires. You’ll change, too. You’ll learn skills, curate interests, and naturally attract the kind of work you want to foster long-term. What’s the point in being your own boss if you’re still doing stuff you hate?
Don’t get me wrong, you will have to do some jobs you hate to pay the bills, but it’s all a learning experience. See those first two years (or less if you read this on Solopreneurship Day One) as your teething period. Go in with an open mind and allow yourself to grow organically.
You work harder for less
I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve never worked so hard for so little — especially in my first year when I made a grand total of £14k. However, that £14k represented something invaluable: I was good enough to pay for. People wanted my services. My pipe dream was a scaleable reality. Holy freaking sh*t.
Then came the hard bit. Most people working 70 hour weeks are compensated for it. That’s the beauty of full-time employment. But if you’re a one-person band winging it on a biplane 200 feet up in the troposphere, you’re taking risks that seem incomprehensible to… well… everyone you tell. And in all honestly, some months were worth the payoff and some months were, frankly, questionable. When you’re balancing your actual job with the need to scale, your priorities inevitably shift. I’d love to say you work it out — and I’m sure people do — but I know my income will take a hit if I focus on my business growth for too long.
There’s an obvious solution here, which is to outsource tasks that eat into my money-making time. However, when they say, ‘you need money to make money,’ that’s certainly half-true. I don’t come from money. My family aren’t able to inject funds into my business. And although I nurture a huge sense of pride in doing this all by myself, if I had the wonga to outsource my marketing or other elements of my job, it’d be a whole lot easier to balance and far less stressful to manage.
Maybe one day…
Imposter syndrome is crippling
Stress and burnout are very real. I thought I knew how they felt in my before-life, but I was young and naive then. Also, fun fact: stress kills nerve cells, shrinks grey matter, impairs your ability to think clearly, and increases your risk of age-related decline, which is a helpful tidbit to learn while your hair is falling out.
Furthermore, while you’re dealing with an impending coronary, you also have this utter a*hole banging on in your brain about how useless you are.
And that, my friends, is the intrusive voice.
You might know it? It’s an old friend of mine that likes to hit me with thoughts of inadequacy on a daily basis. Its favourite mantra is the reminder that no matter how much people pay me or how successful I become, it’s got nothing to do with my hard work or talent. Luck is my ally. And at some point, I’m going to be ousted for the illiterate fake I really am.
Sadly, although not unsurprisingly, when you’re stressed and burned out, your resilience suffers, which is when imposter syndrome really comes into its own. It’s not healthy to assume all your clients are idiots for hiring you, but those are the sort of thoughts that tend to rattle around my grey matter. To say I’ve aged in 2-years would be an understatement. My once smooth forehead is now home to Sally, Amy and Deena (my SAD wrinkles), and my skin (which was already sickly pale), is so translucent it looks like I’m haunting all my friends.
The only solution that works for me is STRICT self-care. In my before-life, that included spa trips, cocktails with the girls, haircuts, facials and holidays. Now it includes basic hygiene. But hey, we all have to start somewhere, right?
A business strategy is essential
I wish wish wish someone told me this! My starting strategy was, ‘I like blogs so I will write blogs.’
‘Okay, sweet, silly, Jodi; so, how does that work? What kind of blogs are you going to write?
‘Any? Fabulous.
‘And why are you the blog writer of everyone’s dreams and not one of the – literally – thousands of other experienced blog writers in the UK?
‘Oh, you’re going to outprice (aka undersell) yourself to get work? Cool. How’s that working out?
‘Writing about the sacred art of fly fishing, are we? Funny that.
‘What do you mean you’re tired and bored? YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF.’
— A conversation I had with myself two months into my product launch.
Little did I know that blog writing was an entire skill set. If you want clickable, marketable, and readable content, there’s an art to it, my friend.
This is why, when it comes to your business, having a set of guiding principles, goals, and a fully-fleshed out offer is the difference between winging it and killing it. It doesn’t need to be overly complex, but it’s good to develop a strategy that helps you knuckle down and focus.
Mine adapts and changes as I do. However, here are some of the key elements:
Continue to build an online presence using my unique voice and branding
Tell my story and offer added value where possible
Stay honest and transparent
Frequently create helpful and interesting content on social media
Further develop my USP as my niche evolves
Stay informed about industry standards and changes (esp. UX and UI)
Identify where, how and why I stand out in the market and capitalise on my strengths
Adapt my marketing efforts to attract ethical businesses looking for conscious copywriters
Update my offer as I acquire new skills and experience
Each of these elements comes with its own set of steps: Research > Plan > Create > Distribute > Measure > Adapt — and a lot of it is trial and error. However, seeing your progress is validating and motivating, so I highly recommend looking at a way to track your growth so you can write a blog about it two years later and feel all warm and fuzzy.
Knowing your worth stops people from taking advantage
Tackling your imposter syndrome is key to pitching yourself at the right price points. And it ain’t easy, folks. One of my lowest moments found me sitting at my desk, crying into my cat’s fur because I couldn’t think of a single thing to say about the benefits of dehumidifiers (despite my cat needing one at that moment...)
‘If I can’t think of a single reason a flood victim might need a dehumidifier, how can I justify raising my prices?’ I wailed into the damp and angry fluff bomb trying to claw its way out of my snot puddle.
It’s thoughts like this that stop you from knowing your worth. I didn’t know how to price my services. There’s no guidebook or ‘contractor price chart’ that says ‘if you’re a newbie copywriter with a penchant for drama, charge A — B.’ The way I worked it out was to incrementally push up my prices until people stopped hiring me. If there were no bites, I’d reduce my rates until I found a bearable equilibrium.
After that, I started to research my market to see what other copywriters were charging. I compared my skills to theirs and worked out what they did better, differently, worse or the same. If my skills were on par, I pitched myself at similar price points. If not, I worked out what I needed to do to step up and earn the big bucks.
That said, never undersell yourself because you think you’ll get more sales. You will, but now you’re stuck doing mediocre jobs you don’t enjoy and aren’t worth adding to your portfolio. To attract high-value clients, you need to offer a high-value service, and going in cheap isn’t going to make anyone think, ‘yeah, this budget copywriter is who I want to represent me and my brand.’ You’re better than that.
Not everyone will support you the way you hoped
When you pursue your dreams, you expect to bring your friends and family along for the ride. However, you’ll soon see who’s still there 5 breakdowns and 50,603 cups of coffee later. I’ve lost people I cared about because, in those early, hazy days, I couldn’t think about anything but my business’s survival. I didn’t think about anyone but myself. And that’s the sad truth of it. Business is selfish. Balance is a luxury that comes later, and you need to be prepared for that eventuality. I made a commitment to myself and my future, and doing it alone required a degree of self-involvement I didn’t consider when first going freelance. The fear of failure was (and still is) real, and for a people-pleasing HSP, putting myself first was and always will be a challenge.
Of course, the real ones who make it through the fog with you are clearly BFFs, so cherish them. I couldn’t have made it this far without my support network, and I will always be thankful for them, regardless of whether some of them now hope I drown in a suspicious coffee-related accident.
The sense of empowerment is worth it
Despite what my 7 other points will have you to believe, I wouldn’t change where I am for the world. Yes, I’ve lost friends, but were they really friends to begin with? Also, you make new friends. Some of the best people I know are those I’ve met on my solopreneur journey. Having like-minded people who understand the highs and lows of business development is invaluable. I’m part of a huge community of empowered women who inspire me every day, and if you’d told me I’d join their ranks three years ago, I’d have hit you on the head with a silly stick.
So, sure, there’s stress, worry, fear, imposter syndrome and the monthly, ‘will I pay my bills?’ roulette. But there’s also a sense of accomplishment, autonomy and affirmation. Being paid to do something you love is an incredible feeling. There are days I sit in my little corner of the world in total awe of what I’ve achieved. Even if it all fails tomorrow, I’ll know I built something, that I can build something, and that the sense of independence is liberating and life-affirming — regardless of how long it lasts. Things aren’t less valuable just because they end.
That’s why, wherever you are on your solopreneur journey, please know that it’s worth it. I wish someone had told me to appreciate all the little steps instead of always looking at an end goal that changes as I do.
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I hope you enjoyed this blog! I’d love to hear your feedback and learn about any insights you’ve had in regard to your own solopreneur journey. Don’t hesitate to get in touch or add to the conversation below.
