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Prospecting on Purpose is *the* show to discuss all things prospecting, sales, business, and mindset. As businesses evolve and become more complex, there are HUGE opportunities to cross-pollinate different industries, sales channels, and business practices. This is a place where professionals come together to learn from one another as we prospect for new businesses with creativity, authenticity, and intentionality.
Prospecting on Purpose is a mix of Forbes meets Saturday Night Live with your host, Sara Murray. A heart-centric sales champion who will raise your vibes while increasing your confidence in every part of the sales journey; from marketing and prospecting to asking for the order and creating consistent repeat business.
Join Sara every Monday for a brand new episode as she unpacks contemporary business strategies with world-class thought-leaders and shares her own insights on how to connect with clients, communicate with confidence, and close the deal!
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flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone
that is the biggest takeaway
whether it is just having people to bounce ideas off of
or people to hang out with for a happy hour
because you don't get that
like you do in the workspace anymore
just plan in the community time
plan in the accountability groups
people buy emotionally first
and then use logic afterwards hmm
that was a real warping of my brain learning about that
a big thing solopreneurs miss is
they simply don't tell people what they do
good morning good afternoon
good morning hi guys
welcome to another live episode of
prospecting on purpose
I am joined today by Joe Rando and Carly Ray
the uh
founder of Lifestar and the fractional CMO at Lifestar
Lifestar is a community if you're not familiar with it
it's a group of resources that is really built around
the solo entrepreneur business
and one of the big things that this team is striving
for is to really create
a community create a
a a
basically a whole bundle of resources for anything
that you may need in your business
of one they are literally writing the book
Solo Entrepreneur Business for dummies
so um
I am very excited to have these gurus on the show Joe
Carly welcome
thank you good to be here yeah
I I like starting my morning off calling me a guru
thanks Sarah
anytime and it's Friday
we're gonna have a fun time um
this episode the show last about 30 minutes
so let's just dive right in Joe
I'm gonna start with you
one of the things that I'm curious to learn from you is
in your business with lifestyle
you work with all sorts of solo entrepreneurs
in different industries whether it's B to B b to C
like services or products
how I mean
there's so many different challenges that
that really come up and bubble up
when you're a business of one
how did you really start to pick
out these top three that we're gonna talk about today
well I
I did something really crazy and asked people I did a
I ran a survey a few years ago and surveyed 332
one person businesses and I'm talking coaches
contractors consultants
you know kind of solo entrepreneur types
and we we asked them all a series of questions uh
some of which were what were your greatest challenges
first in getting started in business
and secondly in running the business
and I wanna focus today on
on the running aspect right
so
we found that regardless of what they call themselves
regardless of what they did
their top three challenges were really
broke down like this it was all about revenue
meaning lead gen struggles
sales struggles
and then managing their time in the context of like
you know not having enough of it
burnout and those kinds of things
so regardless it was like 50% struggled with revenue
growth and that was broken down of those two components
so you know
one of my questions early on in starting this is
does it make any sense to not follow my own advice
and not niche down into some specific area
and I said you know
these people
not only do they all need similar kinds of help
they can help each other
because they're cross pollinating
so it really
it worked out really well bringing them together
well it it was really fun cause Joe
we ran that survey like you said a few years ago
but it was kind of like a hypothesis that we could test
in real life over the past few years
working with all the solo pioneers that we have
and we literally just did an analysis
I think it was yesterday Joe
where we we take feedback from some of our attendees
from our events
and they talk about what they're struggling with
and the exact same three things
keep popping up time and time again
so we had that survey when we were starting everything
but now it's that survey is just coming to life
and we see it every day well
it's funny because
even though this conversation is tailored
on solo performers
that impacts any type of role as a professional
it's how are you getting business
how are you moving the business through a sales funnel
and then how are you managing your time
so I'm really excited to get into these three topics
and we'll probably do it in that order
Carly maybe let's start on the marketing side
what
challenges do you see solo entrepreneurs interact with
when it comes to marketing their business
the biggest ones that I see is they try to apply
marketing techniques
that can be applied to Fortune 500 companies
or businesses with a bunch of employees
and they think I need a social media campaign
I need an email campaign
I need to have all these automations for marketing
the reality is
most solo entrepreneurs only need a handful of clients
to live the life that they want to live
and so the one on one interactions
are just so much more important
than thinking about these big picture things
that bigger companies do genuinely have
to run SEO
yeah exactly
we always say SEO is a joke
or as like our go to example
but SEO is great
but SEO is also changing in the age of AI and it's not
nobody really knows what it's gonna be
in a few years from now and you can make your guesses
but does a solo entrepreneur
want to spend the next six months
really
working on SEO and getting a client after a Marathon
or do they wanna have a cup of coffee with somebody
that's a warm lead and close that the next day
and the other funny thing
and we were talking to another gal in one of
our podcast episodes
that I totally agree with
a big thing solopreneurs miss is
they simply don't tell people what they do
afraid of sounding salesy
and and let's say you're personal
you are personal contact of mine
but let's say you don't know what I do and um
literally just send an email and say hey
it's been a minute
I haven't talked to you in a couple months
I just want to tell you what I'm doing
this is really fun don't be pitchy
but just let people know what they do
the story I always go back to is
I overheard my parents telling their friends
about a decade ago
that I was a creative director for an ad agency
neither of which were true
I have never been a creative director
and at the time I wasn't working for an ad agency
but I realized oh my gosh
my parents can't even articulate what I do
because I haven't told them
and so thinking about those little hanging fruits
thinking about those personal contacts
that could be easy referrals
even if they don't need your business
they might know somebody that does
so it's simply telling people what you do
and being proud of it that is one of the easiest ways
that you can generate leads
but so many solo entrepreneurs think they have to
be the next expert marketer
and in reality
a lot of them got into a business to coach
they didn't get into a business to be a marketer
they got into business for that passion that they have
so think of the easiest low hanging fruits you can use
and go with those
you don't have to follow the playbook that the bigger
businesses are running
okay I think that's really some
I wanna I wanna talk about two of the different things
that you said the first
around the concept of not having to do all the things
like digital marketing
and you don't need SEO and you don't need a newsletter
you don't need a podcast you don't need social media
maybe some of them but I think I get
I appreciate you giving us permission to just
not have to do it all because it
it it's
that area of the business is quite overwhelming for me
and your other point on letting people know what you do
I have found that in my business too
people wanna refer you they wanna help
but if they don't have clarity on what you do
they're not able to do that
and scenario I'm I'm wanting to work on more too
so give us a couple of more tactics
Carly on like how do you get that warm coffee
yeah lead coffee one on one
how do you get the one on one interactions
so think about like if you're if you
you well
that would be for in person
you could also do like virtual coffees and everything
but identify the types of people that this is
this is the easiest way I have found to do this again
it takes the marketing
the scary marketing world out of it for people
and to just get really involved in your community
and if you surround yourself with people
that could be a good fit for you
like let's I keep going back to coach
but this would apply
like I'm just using that as an example
if you're a coach go join
like go take Pilates classes
go join a group a volunteer group in your area
get to know people
it's kind of like how a lot of real estate agents
I feel like do it
they just become a part of the community
and the people know them and for
for people that are afraid of marketing or sales
even for that matter
it takes the the
the strategy of how do I target these people out of it
because you just get to know these people
and then when they're like gosh
I'm having some issues with this or that
you'd be like oh
well I'm a coach and we're already friends
so let's do this um
so I think I think just taking that big marketing
like bulletin
and crumbling it down to things that are less scary
make it a lot easier for people
uh so that's one way we
if you want to do it virtually
if your business isn't just um
a local business
we've actually had a lot of success with sales
LinkedIn Navigator
as a way to just connect with people
the thing you wanna be like
conscious about on LinkedIn
or through other social platforms is
you don't wanna be pitchy
you know when you get those things where it's like
hey I noticed you're doing this wrong
let's grab a cup of coffee
it's like no
you've already insulted me haha
I don't want to get a cup of coffee with you
but if you're like hey Sarah
I love your podcast I love what you're doing
you seem to be awesome at sales
I would love to just like
pick your brain for a few minutes
have a virtual cup of coffee
how does that sound
and make it a relationship building tool
rather than a sales pitch tool
you will see so much difference
in your social media efforts if you take that approach
yeah I appreciate that comment too
cause I think it's a nice blend between the marketing
aspect like the getting the leads aspect
and the sales aspect is
one of the big things that I teach in my trainings
is always be adding value
like how can you add value into anything that you do
whether that's a social media post
whether that's a product launcher doing
whether it's you know
the yoga class example Carly
like how can you add value to your friends and yoga
but in that message that that example you just gave
I would say
there's a lot of free ways to add those emotional
bank account deposits before you ask for the coffee
so hey
maybe before you reach out to someone
say I love your podcast
promote one of their posts on LinkedIn
write a review for their podcast
like
get on their radar as someone who's engaging with them
cause it makes it a lot easier to do the ask
you know you're not pulling from an empty bank yeah
I mean like Sarah
I have I've no intentions of asking for you
you for anything right now
but our relationship including Joe
has grown organically over the years just by like hey
we're here for you hey
we're here for you
and I know that if I had to make an ask
I would feel a lot more comfortable asking you now
because we have a relationship
then I would after the first meeting
because you provide value
I know what you're good at
I know what you can do for others
and I'm confident in in your response
you know what I mean totally
and Joe what are the things you've seen with the Lee
Jen side from the the business angle
like tell us a little bit of your feedback
cause I wanna
Taylor I wanna get into the sales conversation more
cause what Charlie's saying is perfect
it's a lot easier to ask when there's a relationship
there well
100% I mean
of warm lead is always better than a cold lead
and it's pretty easy I mean
I have people that I just absolutely love
that I have never spoken to
because of interacting on LinkedIn
I've also got something that I don't really wanna bump
into but um
but there's you know
there's just these awesome people and just by you know
commenting on their post or them commenting on mine uh
you you build a Rela you can build a relationship yes
it's not the same as a you know
face to face meeting handshake
coffee or beer but it's
it's it warms up somebody and then when you do have
want to make an ask
it's not that uncomfortable to have a conversation um
my take is that you know
from the perspective of of generating sales
if you can warm these people up
you said always be adding value
and I think that's a really
really good advice and you know
there are a lot of ways to do that
but you know the whole concept of the lead magnet right
that's this thing that's actually adding value
and doing something either solving a problem or
or addressing a pain point or
you know enlightening them uh
is a powerful way to to build trust
and I mean
the issue here is that nobody's gonna buy from you
until you've gone through a process of
you know building trust creating some resonance
so they know that not only are you trustworthy
but you're somebody that that they um
they they feel
you know
understands them and you gotta build that resonance
and then you know
from there
you can kind of take it to the next level of of um
eventually inspiring action
right of getting them to say hey
I'm gonna do something but these
these lead magnets are a great way to do that uh
we use free events free virtual events invite people
add tons of value uh
we we have two
we do one where we have some expert
or experts come in and either do it
you know some kind of a um
a a a a webinar type of thing or a workshop
we love the workshops
and then we have one where we just get people together
and they break out into and go into breakout rooms
and help each other address their biggest
current challenge but either way we're adding value
we're not asking for anything in return
and that builds trust and then from there when you say
hey then we say hey
join our free tier
we have a free tier in our in our program and well
why not you know
that was good this will be better
so but the main thing I think
to think about in terms of building um
these kind of warm leads with
with these lead magnets is don't just give I
I'm I'm I'm I'm soured on the idea of the here
download my my PDF because you know what
you download them and you never look at them
so it needs to have some level of investment
so some level of their time
that's what I love about events
is somebody's putting in an hour
to come in and do something
well they're
they've invested now
you know that
this is not somebody that just decided to click
download right right
well and it's funny Joe
because that's how we met
you sent me a LinkedIn message saying hey
you look like you're building a business
we have this free event and so I joined the event
um since then I presented on your event
I had a producer for the price of business radio show
reach out to me
now I'm a contributing commentator on that radio show
I've had many different guests on my podcast
that I met through the livestream community
so you just never know where that like
trickle effect is and to Carly's earlier point
you guys could ask me for anything and it's an easy yes
and I think that's really where like
the community aspect comes in
and then it doesn't feel like you're being salesy
because it's much more organic and fluid
and and
you know just to expand on that
I mean this whole idea of building out this community
either through social media or
you know through some like we have a community uh
aspect to our offering
but you know there's lots of them out there
for different industries and different kinds of people
I mean I I watched a couple of couple of events ago
we have like a networking session afterwards
and this one guy's challenge was
he was a world expert on this specific topic on
you know computers uh
security thing
I don't know I didn't really understand it um
but he's like I can't get any traction
nobody's listening to me and and I you know
I just don't know how to get people to realize
and this other guy says well
either an established business
and he's a solo entrepreneur in the similar field
and I get what you're saying
and I know how valuable it is
and let me help you
introduce you to the people that I know because
you know we can probably do something together
and really do great
I just love seeing those kinds of things happen
and that's what happens when you put yourself
out there
yeah and to that point Joe
when people offer to help you
they're usually
nobody offers to help if they don't mean it
because people do value their time
which we're gonna talk about but the other thing is
if somebody offers to help you
and you don't say yes and jump on it
you miss a big opportunity you miss a big window
I've had people that I met and I'll offer for them to
be on my podcast and you know
they dig Dilly Dally I'm not gonna chase you
I'm busy please say yes or no you know
and and just take action and move
but it's almost like in the
that concept of the emotional bank account hit
that gentleman offering to help you say yes
you take action you express gratitude
you give feedback once it's done
and that's how you kind of
continue to build that cycle
and build out your network
and I I think for the solo entrepreneurs
there's a lot of opportunity to add value in network
because the businesses help each other there
the cross pollination comment you said
Joe is really important to talk about
absolutely and just just on the flip side of that right
here's the guy you don't wanna be
so
have somebody reached out to have me on their podcast
and then came back as well
there's a 25 dollar fee to be on our podcast
and then I looked and their their
their popularity is literally half
of what our aspiring Solo Entrepreneur podcast is at
and I'm like you should pay me 20
five hundred dollars to be on your podcast
but yeah I'm never gonna talk to that guy again ever
because yeah
you know it's like that's not how it's done
it's you know give earnestly and meaningfully
and it will come back to you
give earnestly and meaningfully
and it will come back to you
that was good mic drop put put a dash next to that
yeah
go rando let's talk about sales next
let's talk a little bit about salesmanship
because I think one of the things that I was really
surprised when I started my business was
I had this idea
because I've been in b to B complex sales
like that would be my client
and that really you know
ultimately is the core of my business
is business to business complex sales
but I did have a lot of solo entrepreneurs come up
into my orbit and I think I know that
it's because when you're a business of one
you have to go sell yourself
and that's something that most people have not done
in their careers
and it's not something you can outsource
cause people are buying you
so what strategies have you seen
from the people that you work with
that have kind of overcome some of those challenges
when it comes to the salesmanship side
well I just want to start by saying that
I have never met a solo entrepreneur that likes sales
except for sales coaches
so nobody that's not a sales coach
is excited about selling
and that's one of the things that
that is really important
is that you have to get people
comfortable with the idea
and so the first the first thing to
to my eye in talking to people about this is
is there's
starts with this feeling that if I'm gonna sell
I have to be sleazy and you know that's not true
so so the
the strategies that I've employed
to try to help people with this is
start by understanding what pain points
you solve for your target market
if you don't have a particular
very focused target market
and a set of pain points that you're going after
you probably aren't ready to start selling
so but once you have that
if you can really help people with something
that's making their life
or their business worse than it should be
how how do you need to be sleazy to sell that
you know if somebody needs
needs water and they're thirsty
and you come to them and
with a very reasonably priced bottle of cold water
you know bottle of cold water
you know there's nothing sleazy about that
it's it's
it's a so you have to view yourself as
as having an obligation
to try to help these people solve their pain points
and then the next thing is
people tend to get into the mode of just talking right
and and the
the best way is to listen and understand people right
and if you listen to them and let them tell you what
you know how the pain points are affecting them
then you can reflect that back you're not being sleazy
you're telling them what they told you back
and just maybe putting it to some perspective
or talking through how you
might help them solve that
so that's really I think
one of the biggest hurdles initially
is understanding sales as a process of helping people
of you know
being consultative and um
and and then you know uh doing good in the world by
by helping them have less pain
so that mind shift helps a lot yeah
no I totally agree
I I
I mean I'm a I like sales so I
I am the exclusive
the what's the exception to the rule
but I do think that sales is a very noble profession
because if you have something that's valuable
that's gonna help their business move forward
that really does change the game
and one of the things that I work on with my clients is
instead of focusing on like
the services
and the facts and features of whatever you're selling
think about how it's gonna either
impact their business or impact their lives
so if you're selling B to B
it's
how does my product or service make my clients money
or save them money and then if you're selling B to C
how does my offering enhance and elevate their life
and just that mindset shift too
Joe to your point is you're not pushing anyone to buy
you're not convincing anyone to buy your thing
you're
you're basically just inviting them to partnership
so that you can help elevate their life
or their business right
the one thing I will say that I I Learned um
by studying that surprised the heck out of me you know
guy with a physics degree
is that people buy emotionally first
and then use logic afterwards hmm
that was a real warping of my brain learning about that
because you know my thing and I
I was joking my last startup we
we had this very complex
enterprise software that we created
and we would walk everybody
through every feature of that software
until their eyes glazed over
and they
they wanted to run screaming from the room and wait
now that's not working and it's like
no no
here you're gonna be the hero of your company
when you can do this and this and oh okay
now I'm listening and then you tell him how well
you know um one of the things that I talk about
my workshop is just a little language shift
so when you present your pricing
first of all I always practice in advance
like I will practice to my computer saying
my fee is X before I get on the call with the client
if it's specifically to talk about dollars
like my fee is X what's your speaker budget
you know
I kind of have some of that scripted in advance
but on the concept of selling emotionally or excuse me
buyers buying emotionally versus logically
I instead of saying
what do you think about that or how
and how does that number sound
I say how
how does that feel and I'll say how does that feel
and that kind of shifts
the conversation to be less logical
cause now I'm talking to their heart
versus their brain
how does it feel versus how do you think about that
yeah that's interesting I had yeah be a few coach haha
the other day I asked someone how does that feel
and she said it feels expensive
and so I was not ready for that response so um
on the overcoming objections you know
there's all these different little
things that are always gonna happen
no matter what you're selling
and every time you run into something
you learn something and I think that's
part of the beauty of the entrepreneur journey
is you really are
it's a vehicle for your personal professional growth
too and that's how I like to think of it
when I make mistakes cause they happen
the other thing I want to piggyback is
in terms of overcoming objection
is you're transparent with your price
you're transparent with everything
the more transparent you are at the beginning
the less objection objections you have to combat
through the sales process haha
because everything's out there
so I just I I don't think you should hide anything
when it comes to going through your sale
cause they're gonna figure it out at some point anyway
and I just a piggyback off of that
cause that's a great point
and you know one of the things that
I Learned in my last startup
was that we were the high price leader in the industry
there was one other company that was similarly priced
they were a billion dollar company
we were far from that but we were the highest price uh
with them being kind of tied
and we would lead with that
we would lead with
we are the highest price option you will find
and here's why and they were good reasons
we had very good reasons but we LED with that
so
then you didn't get through an hour long presentation
or or two weeks of negotiations and go oh
we we can't afford that
it's like put it out there
yeah if it's a common if it's a common objection
just start with it and a lot of times you get past it
we had people we that we told no
you really can't afford us
so they would come begging
no no
no we can
we can
well that I mean
that's and it's all I mean
all of the stuff that we're talking about is just
comes with experience
but I think the other big takeaway from
what I want to leave our audience with today
is that there's so many resources out there
in the form of people podcast courses consultants
I mean I think that that's if you're these are areas
the lead gen the marketing
the sales at their areas that you struggle with
there's resources a plentiful to help you with it
so
it might be just carving out the time to commit to it
so let's talk a little bit about time management
as our third challenge to overcome
um Joe
maybe why don't you start us off with like
where you seeing people getting stuck
oh look
it's being a solo performer is by definition
gonna be a struggle for time right
if you're unless you you know
one of these lucky people
that can do the four hour work week thing
and make 10 grand a month
which you know
I used to wanna be a rock star when I was young
that didn't work out either
so it's you know
one of those things where you
you you have
you have to understand that especially initially
you're probably gonna be working a lot
and if you have a goal you know
like I do and a lot of people do
I don't wanna work more than 40
50 hours a week that might not happen initially
so but what happens is that
people do a couple of things wrong
number one
they refuse to outsource if they can't afford to fine
but a lot of times they refuse to outsource things
that they could easily outsource um
you know for me
like bookkeeping and accounting right
I could do it I went to I
I I got an MBA
I I
you know I took a couple of accounting classes
I can figure out quick books
but it would cost me a lot of time
I wouldn't do it that well
and all that time wouldn't be used
to grow the business so that's you know
no brainer for me and a lot of people
just find somebody to help you with your book
so you can do other things
and then can I piggyback off of that please
um you said and maybe you can't afford it
you can trade with other solo practitioners
so Sarah let's say you hate doing taxes and accounting
uh trade with a CPA and coach them on sales
and then nobody has to pay anything
it's a mutually beneficial
and you can still outsource what you don't like doing
while providing a service
and increasing your odds for referrals in the process
yeah it's and we've seen a lot of that in
in in the the lifestyle community
it's really cool to watch but um yeah
so but beyond that
then we're looking at people that not
sometimes are doing things that don't need to be done
things that aren't moving the business forward either
because maybe they did something at work
and now they're doing it on their own
and they just had a process and
you know thinking through um
what you might want to eliminate from your workflow
uh is another one and then obviously automation
if there's a way to automate
we're big fans of Hubspot
because it's one of those things
where you can you know
if somebody fills out a form on your site
you can have a whole series of emails get sent
um
and there's just lots of great things that you can do
um using that kind of automation
there's tons of other automations
depending on what you're doing
but that's a place
that you have to invest some time to figure out
what to automate
how to automate it so they don't do that
and lastly from my perspective
some a lot of people
including me
I was probably the worst in the world at this
was having a work process right
having a way of working that doesn't waste time
and I discovered something way back called
Getting Things Done by David Allen
it's a book and he just has a process um
the whole book just describes a process for
for dealing with all the stuff
that's coming into your inboxes
and how to think about those things
and how to keep track of them
and not have anything fall through the cracks
and I went from
being the guy that woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning
going oh my god
I forgot to do this oh my god
I forgot to do that to you know
I know what I have to do I have it
it's there I can work through it
I don't say I don't mess up sometimes
but it's a huge difference
and that's one of the things that I like to
to to push people to review is
finding some kind of working process
that is very systematic
so in the out outsourcing
automating and then having a system for your work yeah
and lastly around that system
standard operating procedures
you know not reinventing the wheel
every time you go to do whatever
you know write it down you know
we have a whole bunch of standard operating procedures
that we've built out you know
just basically in in
in Google sheets that everybody can see
and if somebody finds something wrong with it
they can go in and fix it
but having those standard operating procedures
makes a big difference in terms of
how much time it takes to get something done well
and if you do decide to outsource
you have the you have those SOP's right there
and waiting for the contractors
so you don't have to spend hours training
you can even record videos and include them in the
in the um why can't I think of the word the process
and so they can watch the video
so if they learn better through a video standpoint
you can do a loom video and show this is how I do this
this is how I do this
so that you're not just constantly
training and retraining
uh and so yeah
that that is key
it takes the time of the on the front end
but obviously on the back end it saves countless hours
yeah well
I think for the
for the time it takes to get automations in place
for the time it takes to write an SOP
that might just be I call them big rocks
and every quarter I'll look at my big rocks
but that just might need to be
this is something that's constantly dragging you down
and you need to get it off your back
you need to build out the time
and so whatever that works in your system
if it's time blocking
if it's like blocking a day and just getting it done
like you just have to help hold yourself accountable
because what we lose
when we leave a corporate environment
is you have to create your own working structures
and I think for me building an external accountability
like we're going live on at 9:00am on April 4th
like that's a hard deadline right
so you have to get things done before that deadline
like that's something that really works for me
is setting external accountability dates
for myself
I use something called the Eisenhower Matrix
which is you know
important not important urgent
not urgent like a quadrant
and those are really that's really cool
cause there's this you know
we work mostly in the important and urgent
I hope right
but that place
I think your big rocks are in the important
but not urgent right
and that's where you have those things like hey
I'm gonna automate something
that's make taking me three hours a week
and then it's gonna take me five minutes a week
you know awesome
so investing that time
working on the business instead of in the business
I also think
something that's unique to solo entrepreneurs
from a time management standpoint
is you don't have to be in the office at 8:30
and stay until 5
you get to work the hours that you work best
so if you tell me to do anything productive after five
thirty PM forget it
it's not going to be a good product
5 a m
yes I'm like that
meet that Bruce Almighty meme
where he's typing away the computer um
or gift whatever it's called um
I'm so productive so I try to focus my productive hour
my work hours on my actual productive time
that's just innate to me
and then don't work on hours that I know
I'm just gonna be producing poor quality work
and that's not something that employees can always say
but solo entrepreneurs can absolutely say that
so use that in your favor
when you're trying to save time on things
there's no point
in working the hours that you're not productive
yeah that's a great point
and I think to the comment of outsourcing too
and like getting external support
I know when you're scrambling up
like money is a resource of course right
and so I love the idea of bartering
I've definitely bartered still barter sometimes
um one thing that has helped me too
and I think this would be good advice for this group
is when you if you have an opportunity
but maybe the dollars aren't there
one of the things that you can trade is
like a testimonial LinkedIn reference
like marketing assets like other forms of currency
and I only Learned this from conversations like this
and so I really appreciate
you know your guys'candor sharing what's working
being very vulnerable in this um
as we start to wrap up I want to ask you both
if there's like one big takeaway
you want a listener to leave with today
what would that be and Joe
I'll start with you well
I won't steal your thunder Carly
cause I know what you're gonna say
like don't do it
yeah um
I I guess since I can't use Carly's
which I would would have used I would just say to
when you start your business or if you're
you're not happy with your business
your solo entrepreneur business
one of the things to think about is that
you're not doing this to become a unicorn right
you're not giving up employees
the most powerful scaling tool that exists
in order to become a multi billionaire
so you're doing it for some other reason
and that reason
probably has something to do with the life you want
right it might have to do with getting your kids games
or being able to go golfing
when the weather is nice or whatever it is
or whatever they are
put those on paper
and then look at your business and see if
if your business is designed to meet those goals
and I think people miss that a lot
that I call it step zero we
we've created something called the solopreneur
success cycle and there's
there's eight steps to it
but we call step zero
define your goals because people skip it
and it's one of those things where
if you don't do that it's very difficult
to end up with a business
that actually serves those goals
you just have to be really lucky and it's unlikely
so I'll I'll do that one and then it's a great one
cause I think your comment Joe on like goals
I think when people think goals
it's a lot of business goals I mean
I know I default there
but you're talking about lifestyle goals
and how does your business
support your lifestyle goals
and that's great takeaway
I don't think
I've ever spent the time to put pen and paper on that
and then Charlie how about you what's your big
flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone
that is the biggest takeaway
whether it is just having people to bounce ideas
off of or people to hang out with for a happy hour
because you don't get that
like you do in the workspace anymore
just plan in the community time
plan in the accountability groups
it it can get lonely unless you uh
really focus on it and yeah
plan plan on ways to work with others do the bartering
um and and build that community
it's awesome
I think right when I had started it
you know it's a weird transition
time to start something like this
but somebody made a comment to me saying
I'm not running this business by myself
and that was something there was like
she's like I have my family
I have my friends like I'm not running anything alone
and that was a big shift for me too
so I appreciate that takeaway too
Carly and if people want to learn more
or check out the Life Star Professional Studio
the Life Star um the free package that you offer
how can people find life star and how can they join
go for it Joe okay
um well
for just go to life star.comslashintro
and there's a we have basically a free uh
community and tools and content for solo entrepreneurs
Life Star Star has 2 R's
cause we don't want to be confused with the uh
Medvac helicopter company and but lifestar
com slash intro
if you want to get a hold of me I'm on LinkedIn
Joe Rando on LinkedIn um
I my my email is Joe at lifestar
com if you want to reach out that way
and I will second that LinkedIn is just Carly Reese
R I E
s and it's Carly at livestar
com and when does solo entrepreneur
business for dummies come out
uh late September 25 this year
okay awesome
so we'll keep an eye out for that
we'll link everything in the show notes
I wanna thank all the viewers who were able to attend
live if you missed it
you can catch the replay wherever you stream
podcast and of course on LinkedIn and YouTube
thanks so much for being here you guys
thank you this is great thanks
take care Alrighty