Thriving Solo: The Essential Playbook for Smart, Sustainable Growth

Thriving Solo: The Essential Playbook for Smart, Sustainable Growth

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to Milestone Episode 175 of the Business Development Podcast. And today's episode is dedicated to my solopreneurs. Whether you're a new entrepreneur or you've been in it for a while, today's episode is for you. Stick with us. You're not going to want to miss it.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs.

And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by capital business development, capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast. And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello. Welcome to milestone episode 175 of the business development podcast.

I am Kelly Kennedy, and it is an absolute honor to be on with you guys today. Today's show is for my solopreneurs, my sole proprietors, my consultants out there killing it day after day, week over week, month over month, and year over year. Just you versus the world. Today's show is for my amazing, amazing solopreneurs out there.

I know how challenging it can be to run your business, operate your business and try to grow your business at the same time. And so today I can't wait to do this show for you guys. But before we do, it is an absolutely extraordinary day. And I literally mean extraordinary. And I have some show updates for you.

We are sitting at 2, 764 followers on Apple podcasts and Spotify. My gosh, you guys can not appreciate you more. Thank you for listening to this show. Thank you for following us on Apple podcasts and Spotify. And if you have not yet done so, and you want a free and easy way to support this show. Please give us a follow.

Give us a light, give us a rating on your platform of choice. It helps us to reach new audiences and it is spectacular guys. We appreciate it immensely. We have been a top 100 show now in 33 countries around the world, which is absolutely mind blowing. We're actually listened to in 145 countries worldwide, which is super, super, super cool.

It absolutely blows my mind when we get messages from around the world especially being a show based in North America and Canada, Specifically, it is always cool to know that we have a worldwide impact. We are sitting at 217, 500 total downloads guys. And it was our 20 month anniversary of the show just two days ago, 20 months of the business development podcast, 175 episodes.

We won best business podcast in 2023 from Quill Inc. I won an award as an emerging leader from The Peak in Sales in 2024. And my gosh, guys, just today, just today, we won the W3 Award. In two categories, we won silver in business consulting category and another award in the best branded podcast category, guys.

Incredible. Incredible. It's so cool. We are literally a multi award winning show now. And it is absolutely incredible. And I wanted to thank each and every one of my listeners. You're amazing. You are rock stars, and we could not have gotten this far without you. To our amazing listeners, to our amazing rock star experts.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for listening. Thank you for telling your friends, your family, your co workers. We could not grow this show without you. This show would be nothing without you. And I just want to say thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you for supporting this journey. Thank you for helping me educate and inspire the next generation of leaders. Could not, could not, could not do this without you. We are looking for community questions for October. So if you have a business question, an entrepreneurship question, a business development question, or a podcasting question, please do shoot me a message on LinkedIn or send an email to podcast@capitalbd.ca subject line community questions. And we will work to get that answered for you on an upcoming community questions episode. Guys, I love community questions. It's one of my favorite segments. But we can't do it without the questions. So if you have any questions at all regarding the show, regarding business development, entrepreneurship, or podcasting, I want to hear from you.

Shoot me a message on LinkedIn, shoot me an email, and we will make sure that we get those answered for you on an upcoming show. All right! My gosh! Let's just get to it! into it. It's been a day, guys. It's been an incredible day. I've been I was on the edge of my seat most of the day. It was pretty thrilling to win those W3 awards.

Today's episode comes highly, highly demanded. I've had lots and lots and lots of people who are starting their entrepreneurship journeys. Heck, maybe they even heard an episode and decided to go out on their own and then realized, holy cow, there's quite a bit to this, and if we don't play our cards right, this can go south really quick.

I'm hopefully today going to impart some lessons on you guys that were hard learned for me. That's just life. But sometimes an episode like this just comes along and it just feels right. And today just really feels right to speak to my solopreneurs, my amazing rock stars out there who are maybe just getting into business or they've been in business a long time but they're stuck in a roadblock.

They find themselves stuck in a little bit of a rut or they're getting a little stale and they're struggling to grow. I think today's tips will really, really help you to get out of that place and into something a little more from a place of power and a place of strength. So really hoping that today's episode impacts you.

Being a solopreneur, a consultant, or a sole proprietor can be a highly rewarding venture for experts that are looking to get out on their own and start the entrepreneurial journey. However, it forces you to learn skills and self discipline very, very quickly to achieve success. Small mistakes can have massive consequences.

So today, let's discuss how we can achieve more with our most finite and valuable resource. Our time. There's going to be a consistent theme today, guys. And the theme is really going to revolve around efficient use of time as a solopreneur, as a consultant, as a sole proprietor. We have the least amount of time than we may ever have in our entire lives because one, we have to market.

We have to actually execute the work we have to invoice and you know, a multitude of other things in order to keep our business moving smoothly forward. And obviously that is going to take massive, massive time management skills. And so time is going to be definitely a theme of today's show is going to be something that I have had to cultivate inside that I struggled with at first.

first, and I think everybody struggles with, but over time, we're going to find better ways to use our time. We're going to find the most efficient ways to use our time. And most of all, we're going to learn to delegate the things that we don't have to do to put more time back in our pockets. So time is definitely one of the prime themes of today's show.

Lesson one in any entrepreneurship is to protect yourself. Okay. We have to protect ourselves. Our families are relying on us. We are relying on us. Our clients are relying on us. We have to look after ourselves. And guys, I'm not really going to get into the mental health aspects of this. There's a whole other side that I could have gone into.

What I'm really talking about today is risks to the business, risks to our health, physical health, right? Our ability to actually do the work. There's a whole other aspect of protecting yourself, which absolutely includes dealing with your mental health and looking after yourself and not pushing yourself to burnout.

That's not exactly what I'm going to address today, but it is something you need to be concerned with. All consultants should at the very least carry professional liability insurance. Okay, guys, at the very least, if you are doing consulting solopreneur, where you're giving advice, where you're providing professional support of any kind, we need professional liability insurance.

Any of the advice that you could be giving Could have a negative effect for the client. Who knows, right? Who knows how they're going to use the advice you give them, especially if you give them written reports or anything along those lines. It makes sense to protect your butt by having professional liability insurance.

I know there's some of you out there who might be worried about the additional cost. The roughly 1, 000 a year that you pay for professional liability insurance. is definitely, definitely, definitely worth the peace of mind that it will provide to you. So if you're providing any type of professional service, any type of advice, any type of consulting, any type of reporting, anything at all, for the most part, you should be carrying professional liability insurance.

It will save your butt guys if you get sued. Make sure that we have this at the bare minimum. Remember lawsuits happen and getting dragged in is easier than you think. I remember sitting down with a past employer of mine when we were talking about professional liability insurance and what the insurance provider at the time was saying was that at this point, if your client gets sued.

You will very likely get dragged into any lawsuit that happens to your clients guys It doesn't even have to be your negligent work It can be your client getting sued and because you were a contractor on that project and provided some level of advice or support You too can be dragged in. And if you don't have professional liability insurance, you also don't have time to lose if you get dragged into court and now you can't work.

And now you can't work for other clients and now your other projects are behind schedule or not going to happen or not going to be completed at all. It is a whirlwind, a tsunami of problems. If you do not cover your butts with insurance guys, if you have not yet gotten professional liability insurance, or talk to an insurance expert about what coverages you may need, please make that call tomorrow.

I know none of us like to pay insurance, but trust me in business, it's critical. And it is important. Make sure that you get it. I would also like you guys to consider disability insurance. Okay, as solopreneurs, we're out there kicking butt and taking names, right? But, but what happens if we get into a massive car accident and now we can't work for the next six months and our families are relying on us to pay those bills and we can't pay those bills because now we can't work.

You know, if we don't have that backup support or anyone to help us or fill in those positions, We should absolutely have disability insurance. And guys, like, let's get real. We should have disability insurance anyway, even if we are employees, these are things we absolutely need to have. But as solopreneurs.

It is absolutely critical that our families are looked after, that our bills are looked after, that we're not going to lose our homes, lose our businesses in the event of an injury, okay? Let's make sure that we have our butts covered and let's get ourselves some disability insurance as well. And the last one, guys, is just a recommendation from me.

And it's a recommendation from me because I like peace of mind. I like financial peace of mind. I like having a rainy day fund. And not just a rainy day fund for me, Kelly Kennedy, but a rainy day fund for my business. Remember, as a business owner, you are actually two people. You are you, And you also are the business, both of them operate independently.

And so you can't just have a rainy day fund for you and not think about a rainy day fund for your business. I want you guys to try to have at least three months of funds. In your business account to be able to handle any type of challenges that come up. And in your personal account, over time, work yourself up to have about six months of a surplus to be able to pay any bills or anything like that, that could come up.

If you guys can get to a point where you have, let's say six months of bills covered in both the business and personally in your rainy day funds, plus you're making whatever you're making. It is going to put you in a position to be able to make choices that are super, super beneficial and frankly, better choices in general.

Guys, if we are struggling to make money, it puts us in a really tough spot to make good choices. We're going to take projects that aren't right for us. We're going to take projects that don't pay well. We're going to put ourselves in positions where. We have to say yes to things we don't want to say yes to guys.

If you can get into a position where you only say yes to things you want to say yes to, it is going to be the best place for you and your businesses moving forward. If we can come to every decision from a place of rationality, from a place of peace, It allows us to make the best possible choices. And I know this might be a little bit hard to understand if you've never been in a position where you had to take a project you didn't want to take, or if you had to take on a client, you really, really didn't feel comfortable with, or you had to take a scope that really takes too much of your time, right?

We don't want to be put. into these positions. And so the secret to not being put into these positions is to being very, very smart with our money only paying ourselves a reasonable salary. However, we want to lay it out, but a reasonable salary that allows us to build a surplus of money. In our corporate accounts and eventually a surplus of money in our personal accounts.

What you do with this money for your investments guys is completely up to you. I do not give investment advice. What I'm giving you is peace of mind advice, okay? It's hard to have peace of mind when you are broke. As a solopreneur, as a sole proprietor, as a consultant, we have to make sure that we have enough money in our accounts to buy us peace of mind and peace of mind will buy us the best possible opportunities.

You cannot take on the best possible opportunities if you do not have peace of mind. Trust me on this. We have to have peace of mind. First, you do this by building surpluses of reserve cash, both personally and in the business. And no, not one over the other, both at the same time, that will allow you to make the best possible decisions as you move forward.

Lesson two, understand your challenge. Okay. You are unknown. This is a problem that every single business has, but you as a solopreneur, you have this problem and it is up to you to rectify it. Okay. First off, you are unknown to, you need to go out and find clients. The clients are not just going to come in the moment you like incorporate your business.

You don't just turn on a sign and clients come to you. No, you have to go out there and you actually have to find your clients. Three, you need to meet with people. People are only going to buy from you as a consultant if you are able to build trust, build a rapport, build value in yourself and the services that you can provide to them.

This is going to be near impossible if you don't meet with people. And so getting meetings, like in any business, has to be the priority. And really, as a consultant, a sole proprietor, someone like that, You probably have to build a more personal relationship with people, which means you may have to do a whole bunch of lunches.

You may have to kind of go out of your way to build trust, build rapport and get that business. Okay. You need to execute your work. So think about this. We're asking you as a sole proprietor to not only start your business, operate your business, go find clients, go have meetings. But heck, if you actually win this work, now you also have to execute and deliver high quality work. Yep. It's starting to sound a little bit challenging, isn't it? You need to invoice. Well, yeah, absolutely. Unless you have like an accountant or someone who can help you on the side, you are likely going to be doing your invoicing, which means probably after hours, sometimes during the week or in the weekend, you are likely going to be hopping on QuickBooks or whatever program you use to do your invoicing.

And you're going to need to learn how to invoice and invoice your clients each month. You need to then collect payment. And yeah, so let's assume that your clients are not easy going. They're not going to just pay you. Now you're going to have to make those phone calls in order to put the pressure on them to get paid.

Okay. This is just like business development. At the end of the day, you're going to have to make call after call, after call, figure out where that money's coming from because you have to keep your cashflow happening. You need to build a brand and guys in 2024 and 2025 and beyond. It's not just a business brand.

You have to build a business brand and your personal brand at the same time. And as a solopreneur, a consultant, your personal brand may likely be more important even than building the business brand itself. You are the business. You, Mr. And Mrs. Solopreneur. are the brand, not the company name you have behind it.

You're going to have to build that personal brand. As you go along at the same time you need to build brand awareness for the business and yes this is going to potentially be advertising this is going to potentially be a social media strategy this is going to be you know a whole bunch of things that you may have to do over and above building your personal brand because you have to build both at the same time.

And obviously the biggest challenge of all, you are one person. I know I just listed a handful of the things like the realities. I just listed a whole bunch of things, eight things guys, and you are still just one person. Yeah, if you guys are not getting that solopreneurship is a bit of a challenge.

Absolutely. It is. This is why a lot of people start their own business and end up having to work harder than they ever had to work as an employee. And yes, it will not be like this forever. Let me tell you right now, once all of these things are set up and you get into a groove and you know what you're doing and you're able to outsource some of this work, it does get easier.

But in the beginning, guys, it is not going to be easy. It is going to take blood, sweat and tears. And so before you start any of your own businesses, before you become a solopreneur. Be willing to pay the price. Be willing to work a little harder and a little later than everybody else in the beginning because it does take time.

The work life balance thing, it's not real. You're gonna have to probably put extra time in the beginning as you're getting going. And over time, you might be able to steal some of that time back. But in the beginning, it's not real. It is going to be challenging. It will also be one of the most rewarding endeavors you ever take on.

It is incredible. Entrepreneurship is incredible, but it does have a cost. All right. Lesson three. Lesson three guys might be the most important part of this. You must. Maximize your time. You are one person. And yes, you have to make time for all of the other things that I just said you're going to run into.

You have to make time to do your marketing. You have to make time for the meetings. You obviously have to make time to execute the work you win. So you're going to have to get very, very good with time management. Guys, before I became an entrepreneur, I was not a great time manager. This is something that I remember being told I needed to get good at before I was an entrepreneur.

And I was like, whatever, but guys, as an entrepreneur, it is not whatever you absolutely have to get incredible at time management. And I am still learning. I'm still not the best I will ever be with my time management, but I'm a whole lot better than I was before. And one of the great tips that I can give you with regards to time management is this.

Block off time, specific hours of the day to do specific tasks and repeat it regularly. So if on Tuesday morning you make your 20 cold calls for the day, always block off Tuesday morning to make your 20 cold calls for the day. And try to block off your time and obviously you'll be able to move things around as meetings come up and things get kind of messed up, but ultimately hold yourself accountable to the time blocks you do.

And like, like I said, have time blocks for executing the work that you need to do on behalf of clients, have time blocks to do your business development, have time blocks for lunches, have time blocks for any meetings you're going to have, have time blocks for accounting, have time blocks for everything guys.

And if you have to, And you are struggling to make time with your family, make time blocks for your personal time too, guys. It is absolutely critical that we learn to live and execute our time as best as possible. The most valuable thing you have is your time, especially as a solopreneur. We have to get great at living by a calendar, okay?

We have to also hold ourselves accountable. It's not, it's not enough just to block the time. Right? We have to hold ourselves accountable to the time blocks we create. We have to hold ourselves accountable to being as efficient as we can in those moments. The reality is you can block off time and, you know, I don't know, doom scroll, right?

Like you could, you could block off time to do your marketing and doom scroll the entire time. It's not enough to block the time. We have to hold ourselves accountable to our process week over week, month over month, year over year. It's holding ourselves accountable to the process we create and making sure that we are making the most efficient use of the hours of the day that we have.

That will make you successful over time as an entrepreneur. Honestly, every, like, hour that you can steal back probably puts an extra thousand bucks a month in your pocket over time. If not more, we have to get really, really great at using our time as efficiently as possible. Mornings. I was not always a morning person and I will even say to this day, I'm probably still not a morning person, but, but, I am not beyond getting up at five in the morning and heading to work to get things done that I need to do that day because they need to get done.

This definitely happens to me at the end of the month. The end of the month for me is a bit of a time crunch. There's a lot to do. And so I tend to steal some time in the mornings to get these things done. Don't be afraid to become a morning person to give yourself an extra two to three hours a day. It really will become easier over time and you will actually learn to love those mornings.

There's something about the five o'clock time in the morning that is just magical. It's so quiet. It doesn't matter whether you're a five or six person family or two person family or just by yourself. There's something magical about that five a. m. time. It's a quiet unlike you will get any other time of the day.

And some of the best work that I get done, I sometimes get done at five in the morning. So if you are not currently a morning person, that is okay. You may want to try it for a little while and it does get easier over time. And guys, don't be afraid to get fractional help if you need it. There's this magical thing that happened after COVID and it's that a whole bunch of fractional positions opened.

There are fractional HRs that can help you write all the documents you need. Fractional safety companies that can help you create a safety program. Fractional CTOs, fractional CFOs, fractional, you name it. You do not have to pay for full time support anymore in almost any position you need for your company.

And that doesn't matter whether you need documents, whether you need support, whether you need someone to come and investigate something, whatever it is, there is somebody out there who is willing to do it. Fractionally at a fraction of the cost guys. So don't be afraid if there's things that maybe aren't part of your day to day and now they pop up and you need some extra help, don't be afraid to find that fractional support to take it off your plate.

You're one person. I know, I know you're a superhero, but you're one person. We have to get help when we need it. Fractional help is available for almost anything that you need from bookkeeping to safety, to HR services, you name it. Get fractional support. There's somebody out there who can help you. Lesson four, efficiency is key.

It's absolutely key guys. Always look for a better way to complete a task. We live in a time where AI support is out there, where there's computer programs, where there's all sorts of stuff that can make our lives easier. Every minute you waste doing a task that isn't critical, that you don't need to do in a slow and inefficient way.

Is literally robbing from you. I want you to remember that your time is that valuable that every single thing you do that is wasting time that is taking too long is actually robbing you because there's probably only a handful of things that you do. That make the most amount of money that make 80 percent of your income probably comes down to about three or four tasks, anything over and above those three and four tasks are make work projects.

There's stuff that, yeah, you may have to do, but they don't contribute to the bottom line. If you want to make the most amount of money possible as a solopreneur, we have to focus. 100 percent of our time on the three or four actions that make us the most money. These are going to be things like your face to face meetings.

These are going to be things like executing the work that you want. These are going to be things like marketing and building your personal brand for the future. These things. will contribute to dollars and cents returns for you in the future. Meaningless meetings, trying to find the latest and greatest softwares to help you, things like this.

They're great, and while they can seem like they may make you money in the future, they are likely not the things that are going to make you the money today. And so we have to make sure that with a limited resource of time, with a fixed budget, Finite resource that is our time that we are making the most of it.

And we are making sure that we are doing the two or three or four actions that are going to be the biggest revenue generators for us as much as humanly possible and delegating or outsourcing some of these other things that are just time wasters for us that are just things that do not move the needle.

Okay. And on to that guys, use AI wherever possible, right? AI programs are coming out left and right. This is something that even at the start of the show didn't really exist. It existed, I guess, but not in the way that we have like chat GPT and other programs we have now. There are so many things right now to save us time and AI is advancing so quickly, so rapidly that even if there isn't an AI program to support the task you're trying to replace, there's a high chance that in the next six months, a year, there will be one.

Yeah. Keep your ear to the ground and always look for ways that you can use AI to become a force multiplier. Companies that learn to use AI effectively now will become leading companies in the future. They will outpace the companies that are not willing to take that step today. So if you want your company to grow, to be a force to be reckoned with, then you You have to be thinking, how can I use AI to automate these processes?

How can I use AI to provide a better product and service for my customers? The more that we can implement technology to become more efficient, to become more streamlined, to create a better, more effective product, the more successful we will be long term use AI where possible to become a force multiplier.

Price yourself for results, guys, and not your time. This is a problem that almost all consultants, solopreneurs end up in in the very beginning. And what they try to do is they price everything by the hour. Guys, you are not paid by the hour. You are paid for performance, you are paid for a result. You have to take yourself in your hourly charges out of the equation because one you're an expert in your field.

What is that worth? It is definitely not worth an hourly rate to your customers want a result. They want an end product. They don't want your hours. They want a result of some type. Price yourself for the result and take the time out of it. Why? Because one day you might be able to get that result in a fraction of the time and you should be paid respectively for that.

You should be able to grow your income based on your results, not on the hours in the day. Find a way to price your products and services based on the value and the end product for your customer and take yourself off the time hamster wheel. The time hamster wheel will limit you longterm. Learn, learn and learn some more.

Okay. You were only an expert until yesterday. I am only an expert until yesterday. Tomorrow's a brand new day. There could be a new program that comes out tomorrow that just wipes me off the face of the planet. I don't know. I have to always be looking for how do I keep myself high value? How do I keep my company high value?

You keep yourself and your company high value by staying current, by learning, by finding techniques to become better. This can be checking up on the latest technology. This can be reading self help books. This can be reading business books. This can be just working to get 1 percent better every day. 1 percent better every day is over 300 percent better over the course of a year.

Think about that. It's huge. And guys, one of the best pieces of advice that I can give you today is in regards to your meetings. We have been accustomed to one hour meetings. Okay. One hour meetings are a gigantic waste of time. The next time you were sitting in a one hour meeting, I want you to pay attention to how much is actually said in that meeting, how much progress is actually made, and then ask yourself, Could this meeting have been done in 30 minutes?

The answer 99. 999 percent of the time. The meeting could have been done better in 30 minutes, more effectively in 30 minutes and made more progress. And what happens if you have consistently 30 minute meetings instead of one hour meetings, you can book twice as many meetings and be twice as effective.

Book twice as many meetings. Book twice as many clients, guys, start booking 30 minute meetings. I want you to just erase one hour meetings. If you have to at the end of the 30 minute meeting, and you're like, I didn't get to the end of this book, another 30 minute meeting, but guys, 99 percent of the time.

You're going to be able to have an extremely effective meeting in 30 minutes and respecting your time. Put more money back in your pocket and guys, that one piece of advice could make you a million dollars one day. I kid you not. It's it's ridiculous. We do not need one hour meetings unless it is absolutely critical. 30 minutes, especially for introduction meetings will be enough. Lesson five, dedicate one day a week to your business development. Guys, if we are solopreneurs, sole proprietors, consultants, we have to still do business development. And if we try to just squeeze it in where it fits guys, it's never going to be done effectively.

We have to dedicate one day a week to business development. So today, if you do not do this, I want you to pick a day a week. I don't care what day a week it is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I don't care, whatever, but it's got to be a weekday and dedicate one day a week to your business development efforts.

And what do you do? You follow the active marketing process, guys, and you can go back. I have so many episodes on active marketing and the active marketing process. We have to make sure that we are sending our 100 LinkedIn invites a week. To potential clients to positions in companies. We want to work at that.

We know by our product and service, we need to be sending 100 invites every single week and growing our social contact list. Okay. It is absolutely critical that we are keeping our digital introduction funnels full, and we are sending 100 invites and then sending, obviously after that digital introductions to each one of the invites who accept the connection and over time, we're building a massive funnel.

Funnel of people who not only see our content on LinkedIn, but people who can also buy our products and services over time. We have to make sure that we are making at least 20 calls per week to potential clients and working to book meetings. We have to dedicate that time guys. We can't just give up and say the clients we have are good enough.

Why? Because your clients can leave at any time. Any time for any reason, and you can't afford to not have clients as a solopreneur, you have to always have consistent income coming in. Why? Because that money is paying for your bills, your company, your truck, your family, your house. You cannot let this slip, you have to always have opportunities waiting for you, not you waiting for opportunities. We do this by never stopping the business development process and dedicating one full day a week to it, okay? And I want you guys to make at least 20 calls on that one day. Every single week as a solopreneur to make sure that we are booking meetings that can lead to opportunities over time.

I want you guys also to check out the proposal playbook series that I created guys. It's a four part series and it talks about creating effective proposals. Remember if we are booking meetings, if we're talking to clients and we have a product and service we're selling, eventually they're going to say, send us a proposal and making sure that we do these proposals effectively, that we are showing them how we are either going to save Or make them money from our product and service.

It's absolutely critical to getting what we want in our proposals. Guys, check out the proposal playbook for part series back in the catalog. Work to build your personal brand and become a thought leader as a solopreneur. That's what you are. You are a personal brand. I know it might be a little bit hard to like wrap our heads around that, but in 2024, 2025 and beyond, that's what we have to be building as solopreneurs.

We have to become thought leaders in our fields. We have to become valued experts in our fields. And yes, that value also comes from people getting to know. us as people, building trust with us as people, relating to other people, showing them that you're human too. And you run into challenges and struggles just like everyone else.

Building our personal brand in 2024, 2025 and beyond is not optional. It's mandatory. And a lot of companies just think that that's all they have to build is their corporate brand. But no, people want to know not only the companies, but the people who stand behind them, the people who lead them. We have to become thought leaders and experts in what we do.

Heck, why even become a solopreneur if you don't want to become the best person you can be? If you don't want to become a leader in that field of business, guys, there's no point. If you are going to be an entrepreneur, Work to become the leader in your field. Work to become a thought leader. Work to build your personal brand.

It is worth it. And guys, just one last tip. And this is for a digital world. In a digital world, we all think, well, we have all of our notes and everything on our computers. We're using our CRMs and whatever else. I highly, highly, highly encourage you guys to also use a notebook and physically take notes when you're in meetings, when you're writing your things to do today, when you're writing the clients you want to contact, the meetings themselves, take notes during the meetings.

There's something really, really powerful about taking physical written notes. And even though I've had access to computers for the better part of my entire career to be able to do it, to this day. I still take notes. I still write a things to do today list and I write the top five things I want to do today.

I write my digital introductions down. I write each call down as I go down and yeah, I enter them into the computer later. Sure, but I still have physical notebooks and guys, they are powerful. Being able to write the top things to do today. There's something about writing them that just makes them happen.

And as solopreneurs, we need to make shit happen. We have to make things happen. Start taking real notes. Write a top things to do today and watch your world change. You will become better for it. Guys, there's some pitfalls that we really have to avoid as solopreneurs. Okay. We've never lived in a time when it's easier just to put it all down and walk away and watch TV or doom scroll on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, whatever it is.

We have to, have to, have to have self control in these areas. We have to get better with it. And I know, you know what I mean? I'm not perfect. I still doom scroll sometimes, right? Like we're all in that mess. We're all playing it. But every time we do that, we're taking time from the things that actually move the needle for us.

We have to, have to make sure that we are taking control of our actions. If you want to set some time aside during the day to check your LinkedIn and do the doom scrolling, absolutely do it. But try to commit to the other tasks you've blocked time off for and get to the other things later. If we can just focus in on one task for an hour, you will be surprised at how much you get done.

It's focus. We have to focus if we can focus on what we need to do by doing the time blocking and then by actually committing to getting it done, you are going to become infinitely more productive. We have to watch out for meaningless meetings. Meaningless meetings are like the bane of existence for solopreneurs, guys.

Every meeting has to matter. I want you to think about this before you just book an introduction with somebody. Make sure that if you were going to take a half hour of your time to meet with someone, that it is going to be productive. Otherwise schedule it off business time, schedule it at a time. That's your free time, whatever.

If you just want to meet with somebody to meet them, if it is not going to be productive to your business, to your day to day, to the things that are going to move the needle for you today. Do not book that meeting during effective work time. Okay? You absolutely have to avoid meaningless meetings.

Burnout. Burnout's real. We have to be very, very careful with burnout. It sneaks up on us, especially as solopreneurs, especially doing way too much, committing to too much, trying to get things done, hitting deadlines, whatever else. Burnout is real. Find ways to take a break. Find ways to give back to yourself to replenish your soul.

Okay. These are things we have to do. We have to find ways to take a breath, whether that's a walk at the end of the day with your wife or your husband, whether that's, you know, going to the park with your kids, whether that's going swimming, whether that's working out, whether that's just praying, whatever you need to do, find the thing that is going to replenish you.

Because if you don't, you will hit a wall. And if you hit a wall, it's very, very hard. to get back up on your feet. Long distance travel guys. I see you guys traveling all around the country for like a single meeting and it took you three days to do it. It's not worth it. It's not worth it unless you know you are going to get business from it.

Make sure that we are not traveling needlessly. Make sure that every single minute you are traveling that it is for a reason, that it is effective, that it is going to move the needle for you. Don't needlessly travel. Don't needlessly attend trade shows. Don't needlessly attend events unless you know, for a fact, they are going to move the needle for you.

We waste so much time as entrepreneurs. We think that we have to show up to every single networking event, every single conference, every single event, every single trade show. Guys, half of it's bullshit. Half of it doesn't do anything for you whatsoever other than burn your money. Make sure that if we are traveling, especially anything, that's going to take a day, two days, three days or more.

That you are absolutely, absolutely going to get financial reward from it. If you are not, I would highly, highly, highly consider turning it down, turning it down and sticking to what you know will move the needle. Guys, there's a ton of events and a ton of trade shows I do not attend. Why? Because I know for a fact I would enjoy them, but they will not move the financial needle for my business.

They will not move the financial needle for me and my family. These are things you have to consider. You have to consider what is going to be a move the needle moment and what is going to be a waste of time moment. And unfortunately, guys, a lot of these events, they're not designed to move the needle.

They're just not. They're not. There's too many variables. You don't know who's going to be there. And now you have to walk around a room trying to meet new people. This is not typically a recipe for success, right? There's a much better recipe for success when you can know who at a company buys your products and services.

Target them directly over LinkedIn, book a real face to face meeting with them and ask them for business. At least you know those people can offer you a job, can offer you a project. All right. Being an entrepreneur is absolutely amazing. Be confident, believe in yourself, do great work, and above all else, treat your time like it is worth $1, 000 an hour.

And one day, you will. It will be. Shoutouts this week, Daveed Henriquez, Colin Harms, Deanna Kean, David Whittaker, Lauren Graff, Tatsiana Zametalina, Diane Damaso, Damian Benveniste, Jamar Jones, Helen Yu, Damon Pistulka, AmirAbbas Mirakhorloo, Tarek Rabbani, Susan Poseika, Rodney Lover, Brian Muchemi, Ricardo Flores, Ken Gee, Vijayan Swaminathan, Bryan Hayes, Stuart Morawski, Dawn Osland, and Naman Toshniwal. Until next time, this has been the Business Development Podcast, and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry. And founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development. Your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the business development podcast.