🍹 Embrace 3 Quick Steps & Convert Your Strategy from a Sleepy Sunday Morning to a Sizzling Saturday Night

Hi there, Solopreneur! 

Happy Wednesday, and welcome to issue #25 of Solopreneur Doorway, a weekly newsletter that helps you turn your skills into solutions people buy. I’m glad you’re here. Was this email forwarded to you? Get yours here.

💕 February 14th: Happy Valentine’s Day! This week’s issue is a 5.5-minute read.

🍹 Embrace 3 Quick Steps and Convert Your Strategy from a Sleepy Sunday Morning to a Sizzling Saturday Night

Launching and operating a spectacular solo biz looks easy from the outside.

Every day, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube show you business superheroes throwing confetti and boasting about their millionth sale.

🧠 While you’re reading their post and listening to their incredible story, your ego whispers…

“Why aren’t you celebrating your first $2,000, $11,000, or $23,000 month?”

👉 This week, we’ll cover 3 quick steps so you can get your business strategy away from the boring bar and onto the dance floor.

If you want a deeper dive on how to craft your strategy, jump to this blog post.

📌 3 Steps to Craft Your Sizzling Strategy Statement

When I chat with solopreneurs who are struggling to gain momentum, this is often what I hear.

“I like freelance writing, so I started a freelance writing business.”

OR

“I’ve been building websites for friends and a few clients. My business is stuck, and I can’t hit the next level.”

For each situation, my first comment is, ”Tell me about your strategy.”

As you might guess, what they share with me is their plan.

Remember:

Strategy = how you win.

Planning = the costs you incur to put your strategy in motion (marketing, branding, staffing, tech, supplies, etc.)

There are 3 areas where even superstar solopreneurs make mistakes.

• Defining the goal: finding and tackling one BIG customer problem

• Picking the right sandbox

• Designing a unique solution

Let’s cover each and explore a few examples by industry (graphic designers, freelance writers, and SEO specialists) so you can move your business from quiet and hopeful to noisy and successful!

1. Finding and Tackling One BIG Problem

Your first step, and it’s the toughest, is to match your unique skill with a BIG problem folks want to solve.

At first, you’ll face the temptation to work with any client who has a birthday. I empathize.

I made this mistake multiple times when I started my finance firm. It’s natural. You’re afraid of not generating any sales and then facing an uphill financial slog.

The problem with helping all clients is that you end up trying to solve all their problems. You’ll get frustrated, exhausted, and disappointed.

What’s worse, you won’t stand out in the marketplace for your unique solutions. You’ll be fighting every other writer, designer, and coach.

Instead, spend time up front matching your skills with a unique, BIG problem folks need you to solve.

Don’t spend time on the little issues. You’ll never rise to the next level.

Solving bigger problems = generating more revenue, which is an essential solopreneur biz goal.

Example: Graphic Designers

Graphic designers specialize in pulling together colors, shapes, and design to create visual communications (digital magazine, menus, logos, billboards, packaging, infographics, etc.)

When I see new graphic designers interact with solopreneurs or start-ups, the designer often follows this approach:

• Ask questions about the business

• Discuss pricing packages

• Present ideas and ask the client to pick one

This is a fail on multiple levels.

Instead of designing a new menu for a restaurant or packaging for a solopreneur’s digital course, the graphic designer should start with the BIG problem.

Namely, which communication tools should the client use?

New businesses often choose a communication tool because it’s common in their industry or because that’s what their competition uses. Instead, craft a unique template or digital process that helps the client determine WHICH tool to use and why.

Guide me through a dynamic process that shows me why (or why not) certain communication tools add value to my business, and I’m hooked!

Once you help me pick the right communication device, my willingness to let you design it goes up 100x!

If you can help me solve this BIG problem in a simple, effective, and dynamic manner, then I’m far more likely to choose you.

Yes, your design also has to be amazing; yet, the design comes AFTER you help me pick the right communication pathway.

🔑 Takeaway

• The BIG problem you have to solve lies between their goal and your solution.

• Look at your industry, reflect, and identify the BIG client problems; then develop a simple, unique, and effective solution that solves them.

2. Define and Win in Your Sandbox

Once you’ve identified the BIG problem you’re solving, it’s time to pick your sandbox—this is the niche where you’ll thrive.

I know that jumping into the wrong sandbox is brutal. In my first solopreneur finance business, I tried to compete with big-time investors. It was a constant uphill battle.

The first step is to understand and connect your abilities with clients who can afford your solutions and who appreciate your insight.

If you’re new to your industry, select a sandbox with folks who are also new to their journey.

If you’re a seasoned pro, dive into the sandbox with clients who have complex issues and who will compensate you for your experience.

Don’t mix sand between boxes. You’ll confuse clients and send a mixed message to the community.

Example: Freelance Writers

Freelance writers tackle blog posts, articles, social media, case studies, white papers, and journals.

One of the biggest challenges I find with freelance writers is that they offer their writing skills to multiple industries and projects. While a seasoned writer who specializes in finance tackles complex issues in fintech, interest rates, credit cards, and mortgages, they don’t write about interior design or pet care.

Could they write about those topics if they spent time on research? Sure.

They don’t because they know their sandbox is finance. Not dog brushes or coffee tables.

If you’re a sensational blog or social media writer and you understand accounting, then start there. Build a following in the accounting sandbox with clients who are launching their accounting business.

If you specialize in writing about cooking 101 for single parents, then develop your freelance offers for clients who educate and present cooking tips for that audience.

🔑 Takeaway

• Just as Hemingway didn’t write a comic strip, Charles M. Schulz didn’t write 600-page novels.

• Know your topic(s) and pick the vehicles that match your skillset.

3. Ensure People Will Pay for Your Solution

Lastly, it’s essential to validate that there’s a market willing to pay for your solutions. We talked about pricing models in this Solopreneur Doorway issue.

The key to pricing is to deliver more value than clients expect at a price in the upper range of what they will pay. This requires some trial and error.

Example: SEO Specialists

If you’re an SEO specialist, you might offer a free 5-minute video that helps solopreneurs understand SEO basics. When your free video gains traction, you know that there’s interest in your offer.

Many SEO specialists offer a 60-minute 1:1 coaching session to help clients focus on their unique SEO issues. I took several SEO classes from specialists, and they were quite helpful.

I was willing to pay for a single, 1:1 SEO strategy session so I could ask questions about the specific challenges I wanted to fix.

If you’re an SEO coach or consultant, I encourage you to consider bundling multiple offers. Take your client on a dynamic SEO journey that starts with the basics and ends with you walking them through their website and blog articles.

You can offer more in a bundled approach, and you can charge a higher fee.

Clients will pay more for a bundled approach if they believe the value is greater than a 1:1, one-time session.

Lead your solopreneur clients on a journey from SEO base camp to the top of the SEO mountain, and they’ll pay more than they would for a single session.

🔑 Takeaway

• It’s tempting to price your offer lower than others in your sandbox. Don’t! Instead, focus on the value of your offer and set your price in a higher range.

• Develop a bundled approach for your offers and present them with tiered pricing. Incentivize your customers to purchase the higher-priced bundle with a unique customer journey only you can provide.

⚡️ Go Deeper

Once you have a strategy you like, I encourage you to take one more step.

Simplify it.

Measure and monitor your assumptions so you can track which ones turn out to be false.

Fix the assumptions that are incorrect (wrong problem, sandbox, or price) and try again. Strategy takes time and courage. It’s messy and unnatural.

This is why so few solopreneurs build a strategy statement and why, when you build yours, you’ll have a huge advantage.

It’s easy to start selling something.

It’s harder to make sure you’re selling a unique and valuable solution to the right market for the ideal price.

Stay curious and keep opening doors.

-Erik

Erik, Chief Strategy Fixer

🧠 P.S. Are you working hard to reach your solo biz goals and it’s not going quite the way you expected? You feel like you’re taking all the right steps, and you know there’s a missing piece.

It’s time you reward yourself with a dedicated strategy session.

Together, we’ll walk through every aspect of your solo biz.

I’ll deliver to you a strategy solution that can simplify your approach and streamline your offer.

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