I received a great email today and I’m sharing it with you because I know this is a common problem for so many beginning solopreneurs….
“I kind of have my own business, but struggle in the marketing, narrowing down my niche and in the confidence area. I am at that stage of listening to all these different people that can help me, and feeling very frustrated.
I have lots of talents and ideas, but not sure where to start and how narrow/broad to keep it.
Any advice for the beginning solo-entrepenuer?”
As I thought about how to answer this question my mind went to a book I wrote a few years ago and never published. I just felt there were some missing elements, the biggest of which was what I now understand to be my Core Message.
But there’s still some real wisdom in what I wrote (if I do say so myself:), so I want to share an excerpt of it with you here.
By the way, the title of the book was going to be “Build on Success”. I may just take another swing at it one of these days.
Here’s a taste of it that I hope helps this lovely woman and other new solopreneurs…
“The road to being a successful entrepreneur is not a direct one. There are many hurdles to overcome and unexpected bumps along the way. But one thing is certain. You have to build on success.
The concept of building on success is meaningful in so many ways. Above all, you have to build your business on a solid strategic foundation. If you try to skip this step and build on a shaky foundation, I can promise you that you will struggle.
When I first discovered coaching, I knew right away it was what I wanted to do with my career.I had had a great international career in the corporate world. Then in my late 30’s I became a mom and decided it was time to reinvent myself. After a few false starts, I fell in love with the idea of becoming a coach.
I started studying coaching and internet marketing at the same time, not really understanding how the worlds would collide, but knowing that both were important skills. When I launched my online presence, I had absolutely no strategic focus for my business. I didn’t have a good sense of who my target market was or what solution I would offer, or why people should choose to work with me.
Over time, I realized that those very questions – who, what and why – were the missing core of my business. So I took a step back to re-examine what I was all about. I started reading books about the business side of coaching, and one thing became very clear. I needed a niche.
Yet nothing I read really put the pieces together on how to find your niche – at least nothing that made sense to me. Everything I read talked about choosing a target market, but I knew in my heart that if you are going to build a sustainable and leveraged business, you have to start with YOU.
So I put together a step-by-step system for finding and attracting your ideal niche, and realized that others could benefit from this system as well. I created a giveaway and within two weeks, I had over 150 people sign up for the report and join my list. That was more people than I had had join my list in the entire year and a half before that!
Since then, I’ve invested many thousands of dollars to learn how to build a successful coaching business. I’ve launched and successfully sold several programs, have joint ventured with some leading business and marketing coaches, and attracted a steady flow of ideal clients.
At the core of what I learned is the concept of building on success.
For instance, one of the main things I learned is the importance of building on what you’ve achieved prior to becoming an entrepreneur.You might want to distance yourself from your prior career and build your business based on your passions. And I love that. But there is a lot of power in leveraging what you already know. The key is finding how to tweak and apply that in the new framework of your business.
Building on success also means taking a step-by-step approach. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you’re growing your business. There is so much to learn and so many things to do. It’s tempting to invest in training program after training program, searching for the “magic bullet”.
I’m passionate about taking things one step at a time and only investing in what you can implement right away. Figure out what challenge you face and get the help you need to overcome that particular hurdle. Build on the success you’ve just achieved and move forward.
We also need to build on success by studying what works and what doesn’t. If you launch a program or marketing initiative and it doesn’t work, take the time to figure out what went wrong. And likewise, if you got good results, what did you do well that you can duplicate in future efforts? Build on your previous successes to create leverage in your business.
Above all, building on success has to do with mindset. It can be hard to stay positive and determined as an entrepreneur. The best way to do this is to surround yourself with successful people and those who believe in you. Get the training, mentorship and support you need to succeed.”
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great”. – Mark Twain
What do you think about this concept of building on success? What advice do you have for a beginning solopreneur? Please share your thoughts and comments below. Thanks!
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