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*Formerly known as Solopreneur: The One-Person Business Podcast*
Welcome to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the weekly podcast that dives deep into the world of solopreneurship. Join us as we bring you insightful interviews with industry experts and successful solopreneurs who have mastered the art of running their own businesses.
Are you a solopreneur looking for guidance on how to attract clients? Or maybe you're searching for ways to stay motivated and overcome the challenges of working alone. Perhaps you're even struggling with the intricacies of taxes and financial management. No matter what obstacles you face, The Aspiring Solopreneur Podcast is here to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration, and practical advice you need.
In each episode, our hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries, sit down with a diverse range of guests, including seasoned solopreneurs, marketing gurus, financial experts, and productivity specialists. Together, they unpack the secrets to solo success, sharing their personal stories, strategies, and actionable tips.
Learn from those who have paved the way before you, as they reveal their tried-and-true methods for growing their company of one.
Being a solopreneur is awesome but it’s not easy. It's hard to get noticed. Most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone...until now. LifeStarr's SoloSuite Intro gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one-person business. So, if you are lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, or are having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even just lonely running a company of one, be sure to check out LifeStarr Intro!
Access LifeStarr Intro: https://www.lifestarr.com/lifestarr-intro-for-solopreneurs
If you've ever tried to do your taxes at 2AM while responding to client emails, this episode is for you. Diane Helbig joins us to tackle the everyday chaos of solopreneurship with real, actionable strategies. From ditching old school sales tactics and mastering time blocks to turning anxiety into productivity. You'll laugh, nod furiously, and probably schedule a room for opportunity break on your calendar by the end of it. So don't miss this one.
Carly Ries:It's like a TED talk and therapy session rolled into one for solo business owners. You're listening to the Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship. My name is Carly Ries, and my cohost, Joe Rando, and I are your guides to navigating this crazy but awesome journey as a company of one. We take pride in being part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneurship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions. We help people work to live, not live to work.
Carly Ries:And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you. So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the time around or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around. We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. Diane, we are so excited to have you on the show today because we I feel like our lines of work are just so similar. We try to help solopreneurs and small businesses.
Carly Ries:And in what we do day in and day out, there are patterns that we see solopreneurs face in in their daily operations, their marketing, whatever. So we kind of have a wide array of topics that I wanna cover today, but I think they're the ones that solopreneurs need to hear about the most. So if it's okay with you, we'll just dive right in. But welcome to the show.
Diane Helbig:Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Carly Ries:on that note, and talking about many, many topics, one of the things solopreneurs struggle with is that they have multiple roles. you are so good about putting systems and processes in place for your clients. what do you recommend solopreneurs do to get those in place to manage their business efficiently and effectively?
Diane Helbig:Yeah. It's such a great question, and this really is one of the biggest things that we all deal with as solopreneurs. My suggestion is to figure out those things that don't require you. So there are things that need to be done in the business but not necessarily by you. And then take a look at what sort of automation is out there.
Diane Helbig:You're not gonna be able to automate everything, but there are a lot of things that you can put in place so that someone else is or something else is doing the lion's share of whatever the function is, whatever the task is. And so you look at those things and then you go looking for the resource. And there are plenty of resources out there these days.
Joe Rando:I love that. you know, you're preaching to the choir here. We totally agree with that one. But, you know, things like, sending an email reply to a form submission or something. It's so easy now to find tools to do that for you.
Joe Rando:If it's just a kind of a general follow-up, then you can follow-up personally after. But to get that quick response, because you know, you're busy doing something and you wait twenty four hours, that can really reduce the engagement rate. So those kinds of things are magic.
Diane Helbig:And one of the things that I hear a lot is, well, I have to check my email. Well, not unless you're a neurosurgeon. You know, you don't. I know we feel like we're gonna miss something. But if you put an autoresponder on your email that says, I got it.
Diane Helbig:Because that's really what people wanna know, that it didn't vanish into thin air. They just wanna be sure that you got it. And if you say, currently working with clients, just want you to know got your email, I'll be responding, whatever. Now they know what to expect. It's setting the expectation for the people you're engaging with and using folders and things so that you know what's going where.
Joe Rando:I love that auto response idea. That's great. You only check emails at 10AM and 3PM,
Carly Ries:Yeah. Setting those boundaries. It's key.
Diane Helbig:Setting boundaries. Right.
Carly Ries:It's huge. And I'm so glad you said that because I feel like that's a great way of building rapport with people and building those relationships, which this is something else that I love that you do. You're big on relationship building over, like, traditional selling. And I was actually on a podcast yesterday, and the guy was like, what do solopreneurs need to do more of that they aren't? I'm like, they get trapped in the traditional selling tactics, the traditional marketing tactics, when really as a company of one, you need to focus on relationship building.
Carly Ries:So you are big on that too. How can solopreneurs kind of cultivate genuine connections that lead to business growth instead of always be closing?
Diane Helbig:they need to let go of the whole idea of selling. Because we have been trained that selling means a certain thing. And when we are focused on selling, and I get it. We need revenue. We you know, we have bills to pay and all of that.
Diane Helbig:But that puts us in a position of desperation which is detracting. It's not attracting. So if we just let go of this whole idea of selling because selling doesn't work, and we really focus on learning, getting to know the individual across from us. Number one, we will actually sell more. We will sell more of the right things to the right people and we will get more meaningful referrals over time.
Diane Helbig:So this is the way we build our business for the long haul instead of the short quick game.
Joe Rando:I love that. People think selling is this kind of speaking skill, and it really is a listening skill.
Diane Helbig:That's exactly right.
Carly Ries:Yeah. Well, and then you just come off as, like, genuinely helpful. I feel like the connotation with something, I have started to notice that it is changing. I don't think it's the sleazy car salesman approach that it used to be. And it's funny because we've had some door to door salesmen come to our house.
Carly Ries:And I'm like, kudos to you for hoofing it and doing but man, this is not how you sell anymore. I saw this reel on Instagram, and it was like how boomers handle door to door salesman, how millennials and how Gen Zers is Gen Z below me? And for millennials and Gen Zers, millennials like hide under their couch when the doorbell ring. And is gen z the one just below me? I think so.
Carly Ries:They just ignore it and continue doing whatever. But that's just not how people are sold to.
Joe Rando:What were they selling, Carly?
Carly Ries:Window Window replacement.
Joe Rando:Window replacements.
Carly Ries:Yeah. Like, no. Thank you. I don't wanna interact this way.
Joe Rando:Can't find that on the web, I guess.
Diane Helbig:Or on the TV. Right. It's because this is how they're trained. It is so bad,
Diane Helbig:My belief system is that you can't really sell anything to anybody. So we have to get rid of this idea of, Joe, as you've said that, you know, it's telling, it's talking, it's not. People will buy from you when they trust you and when they have a need. And so lately I've been calling it the triad of sales. Trouble, timing and trust. they have to have the trouble that you solve. The timing has to be right and they have to trust you. And if those three things aren't there, you're not gonna close a deal with anybody.
Carly Ries:I just went through a home remodel last year with brand new windows. So I don't need it. Timing is off. And what was your one? Trust.
Joe Rando:Trust.
Carly Ries:Trust. I don't know you.
Joe Rando:You should have offered to clean your windows for free, then maybe you'd trust them
Diane Helbig:Yeah.
Carly Ries:If you're the ones cleaning my windows, that I will do.
Joe Rando:But the one question I have about the timing aspect is that I have heard from some smart people, and I'm referring specifically to a guy named Chet Holmes, who was one of those kind of old fashioned sales guys, but very smart, very skilled, maybe, a little progressive for his time, which was, you know, twenty years ago. But he had this whole concept that he used to talk about the core story, And how sometimes with the right core story, you can make people realize that the timing is better than they would think it was. You know? And I remember him using the example of carpet cleaning.
Joe Rando:And his core story for this business was educating people that your carpets are actually cleaning your air, but only till the point where they get dirty. And there was like eighteen months or something. But I said, it doesn't always work, but I thought that was an interesting approach to kind of thinking through trying to overcome the timing issue with certain kinds of businesses.
Diane Helbig:So I totally get that. I think what's key is that before you decide to tell people that, you have a bunch of questions you need to ask so that the door is open for you to that. It's more of a response to something that they've said than it is to you just, I've got these talking points that I need to make sure I get out. And if I'm good enough at it, you'll get it, and you'll buy from me. It's just it you know, forget it.
Joe Rando:I've literally seen salespeople like, I have a question, and they would literally talk over me to get their next point out. It's like, no. Don't do that.
Carly Ries:You guys, I'm so happy that we're talking about timing because just to kinda pivot a little bit, time management is another thing that solopreneurs struggle with because they're self accountable. a lot of times you will need those external, people and accountability partners to get done. So how can, in your opinion, Diane, how can solopreneurs structure their day to maximize productivity without burning out because it's so easy to do?
Diane Helbig:Yeah. And I experienced this when I started my business, my CPA had said to me, being a business owner means you can work any twelve hours you want to. End the day, right? And I believed it and I was like, yeah I've got all this time. And then I realized I wasn't being productive because I kept thinking I've got time, right?
Diane Helbig:I can do it later. I've got till I go to bed at night. And what I learned was you still need to keep most of your activity in a regular work day. Part of the key to that is figuring out when you're on based on whatever you do, when you should be doing certain things. So some people are morning people.
Diane Helbig:Some people are afternoon people. Some people are evening people. I totally get it. You're gonna be networking in the evening. So I'm not talking about that.
Diane Helbig:I'm talking about those functions that you have to get done. You gotta figure out where you're putting them in the day, and then you gotta hold to it, and you gotta take breaks. So you sort of have to pretend like you're working for someone else. Right? I had to learn to take a lunch break because I would sit at my desk all day long.
Diane Helbig:You lose productivity when you do that. The other thing I would say is I do this thing called siloing where I have like three initiatives at most. And I have silos where I put my the things that I need to get done for each of those in their own silo. So I can just look at it and say, this is something I need to accomplish. And then the key is then I transfer it to the calendar.
Diane Helbig:This is something that solopreneurs do not do very well in my experience. They don't put these functions on the calendar. There's a variety of reasons why. But if you don't put it on the calendar, you're not gonna get it done until you absolutely have to, and then it's probably gonna be an all night, you know, it's cramming for a test kind of thing.
Joe Rando:Question. Just to clarify . So when you talk about putting these things on the calendar, you're talking about, like, recurring kinds of tasks, like balancing the checkbook or sending out invoices, Or are you talking about project based things?
Diane Helbig:I'm talking about both.
Joe Rando:Okay. Now how far out do you go with the project based things?
Diane Helbig:Well, okay. I believe that projects are linear. And so you put the couple of steps on your calendar and then once you've hit them, it sort of informs the next couple of steps. So then you'll put those there. what I tell my clients is take your calendar and put in all of the things that you already have scheduled.
Diane Helbig:Like those meetings that are monthly or those meetings that are weekly, whatever it is. Put all these things on there, whatever these appointments are. And then there's white space. And there better be white space. And in that white space, some people there isn't.
Diane Helbig:That's all of the problem. In that white space, just put half hour blocks. Because the other thing people do is they say, This is a huge project. I need to block out a day or I need to block out two hours. And then that time comes and they say, I can't afford two hours.
Diane Helbig:I can't afford a day. So they don't do the thing, right? If you break that thing down because every big thing is individual steps. If you break it down into those little individual steps and you say, you know what? Just for a half an hour on Tuesday morning, I'm gonna work on this.
Diane Helbig:And I'll see how far I get, and then I'll plug in the next one. If we can get ourselves into a habit like that, what we realize, two things happen. One, we're actually checking things off, and it's motivating because we are actually accomplishing these things and getting them done. So we're more likely to continue that process.
Joe Rando:What I love about that is that next step thinking. Because that's what holds up a lot of projects is people aren't thinking, what's the next thing that has to happen to move this forward? And if you just break it into a small step like that, and maybe it's a half an hour, maybe it's forty five minutes, maybe it's ten minutes. Boom. You know, you take a step forward, and now you've got momentum.
Carly Ries:Yeah. Can I tell you a trick that my husband uses to trick me that I think is helpful for those breaks and that white space? So I am one of those people that if I see I have thirty minutes, oh, I can plug this in. I can figure it out? My calendar looks ridiculous because of this.
Carly Ries:And so about a year ago, I started seeing time blocks on my calendar that says room for opportunity. And my husband's like, now you have something scheduled that you have to stick to on your calendar and you're not allowed to plan anything. And it's just that breather that I need. He's put it on our family calendar. Just be like, cool your jets.
Carly Ries:Don't touch your computer. It's on the calendar so you have to stick with it. It must trick my brain because I feel like, oh, I do have time there, but really don't. And if you over schedule, you wind up having things come up that you can't avoid, and now you're like, oh, my whole day's shot. And it's like if you leave room for those things to just come up, somebody has a problem or, the dog needs to go to the vet because he ate something stupid like it's not like the whole day is destroyed.
Diane Helbig:Exactly right. And when you have smaller blocks, it's easier to reschedule them. So in the event something like that happens, like I have two adult kids. Even though they're adults, I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten that emergency call where I've had to drop everything and go. I don't get all up in my head about it because whatever I had scheduled is so small that it's easy to move.
Diane Helbig:So I still feel like I'm in control. Right? I mean that's really what we're looking for is not feeling like our day is running us, but we're running our day.
Joe Rando:No. I'm just like, I'm really psyched because, you know, we've been doing this probably how many 100 and something episodes, Carly? Almost at 200 episodes. And that is a point nobody has ever made before of of time blocking in smaller quantities to make it easier to juggle when something comes up. That's that is a new concept for me.
Joe Rando:I love getting new ideas. Thank you.
Carly Ries:At the end of the day, this is all kind of a mindset shift. Like, yeah, we're talking about calendar blocking, but it's also that we can kind of reframe our minds, if we're being honest. So that's another big thing that solopreneurs struggle with. why do you think some mental shifts are, that solopreneurs can make to thrive in their businesses? Aside from this time management thing, what else can they be doing?
Diane Helbig:So one of the biggest mindset shifts is about selling, which we've talked about. I mean, you just you have to let it go. it's a terrible thing. Another one is that they have to have all the answers. They already need to know the answers to questions that haven't even presented themselves yet.
Diane Helbig:The truth is no one has all the answers ever. And that's not your job. But your job is to identify the question and go find the answer. Like a lot of people, it's not really that their ego is in the way, it's that they have this mindset, this belief system that, you know, I'm a business owner and therefore. Well, no. you can't possibly have experienced everything in the world and stuff's gonna happen. And so it's really a matter of being flexible with that and being curious, right? Being more curious than rigid. So you know, that would be something. And here's another big one.
Diane Helbig:Feeling like they can't let go of functions because it's going to make them vulnerable. Because the truth is the exact opposite. You are vulnerable if you do not have layers, if you do not have some sort of depth, if you do not have things in writing, if you do not have other people who you can hand VAs, you know, hand off stuff to so that you can focus on what a lot of people call your zone of genius. You know, the thing that only you can bring to the business. Then you're vulnerable.
Diane Helbig:It's not the other way around.
Joe Rando:You get sick and now not only can you not produce, you can't even send invoices, you can't, you know, it's so important. I totally agree. I love it.
Carly Ries:Joe is fresh off of like a ten day stint of having the cold of the year.
Joe Rando:Yeah. Was more than a cold. you know, colds don't usually get me horizontal for that long, but I have a great group of people I work with, you know, solopreneurs and, other companies that help me with certain aspects of the business. And yeah, a few things slowed down, but it didn't end.
Carly Ries:Right. With a little engine I could, this kept going. It's big Maybe you can. So that, I mean, all of those are such wonderful points.
Carly Ries:And people can do their best to the mental resilience and change how they think about everything. But, like we were just talking about, that's all great, but every solopreneur faces setbacks. And as great as they are mentally, those setbacks, whether it's being sick, we were just talking about, or slow lead gen funnel, or they've having they're having to dip into their sales. Like those are really hard, that's really hard to bounce back from. So how do you advise people handle those setbacks, whether they're financial or something else, to continue their little engine that could business journey?
Diane Helbig:So I guess it's a twofold thing. One, don't think of them as setbacks, think of them as opportunities because stuff happens, know. And there's that saying, it's not what happens to you that matters, it's what you do with what happens to you that matters. So the great thing is we have choice and we get to decide how we're gonna deal with these things. The other thing is this, take action.
Diane Helbig:Take some sort of action. Because I learned from a psychologist years ago that when we're anxious, we're in the future, but when we're taking action, we're in the present. So you can't be anxious if you're taking action. I can tell you firsthand knowledge, if I wake up in the middle of the night and my brain starts going and I start thinking about holy cow, you know, have a client who's done or two clients or you know, whatever it is, I get up. And I mean this is the other good thing about being a solopreneur, I can go back to bed, right?
Diane Helbig:But I get up and I do something in my business. I write an article, I Google something. I create a plan of action. I do something forward moving in my business because it's that activity that generates more activity in your business.
Carly Ries:And can I just add to that? Like, that doesn't mean you have to go write your business plan. That could be as easy as listening to a podcast. Sure. It's relevant to your business.
Carly Ries:You said you Google stuff, but it could just be something to, okay, I'm educating myself because continuous learning is so important. Just those little things. You don't need to go write your next marketing strategy. You could write a to do list.
Diane Helbig:I mean, literally, you could just, here's what I'm gonna do in the morning or here are some things I wanna whatever. It's doing the dump. It's getting that stuff out of your head. But it's also, from what I've learned, it has to be something that is moving your business forward.
Diane Helbig:You know, you're not gonna make phone calls, you're not gonna send emails, whatever. And once again, there are tools. I can send emails in the middle of the night because I can use something like Boomerang that won't actually send it until the morning. Right? So I can go ahead and do all of that and get it out and be done.
Diane Helbig:And then you feel accomplishment, and you feel like you are doing something positive in the face of something negative.
Carly Ries:Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Diane, you just you have so many nuggets of wisdom, and I just love that we've covered a variety of topics because that is the day of a solopreneur. Like, one moment you're focusing on time management, the next you're talking about sales, and this and that. Then you're waking up at 2AM like we're kind of talking through the life of a soul of work where you're just bouncing all over the place.
Carly Ries:So, no pressure for, this last tidbit that I wanna ask you, but if you could give one piece of advice to someone considering this crazy world, crazy awesome world of solopreneurship, what would that one piece of advice be?
Diane Helbig:I think it would be embrace the idea that you can do anything you want, you just can't do it all at the same time.
Joe Rando:That one hit me hard. I can tell. Where were you last year? Or twenty years ago?
Carly Ries:Well, if that's your, parting wisdom, what is your favorite quote about success? Now I'm intrigued by that.
Diane Helbig:Okay. it'll be interesting to see what you think of this. So I would say my favorite is, because I think it speaks to all of these things, is wealth like happiness is not achieved when sought after directly. It is a byproduct of providing a valuable service. Henry Ford.
Carly Ries:He has such good quotes.
Diane Helbig:Oh I know. Tons of them. But that one totally resonates with me. Because it speaks to this whole don't go after the sale, build the relationship, get to know people, be curious, be good at what you do, provide something of value because that the money will come.
Diane Helbig:But if you focus on the money, it'll never come. So shift.
Carly Ries:Well, Diane, you are just a source of a great source of knowledge. Where can people find you if they wanna learn more about you?
Diane Helbig:Sure. The easiest thing is just to go to my website, helbigenterprises.com.
Joe Rando:So that's helbigenterprises.com.
Carly Ries:And that will be in the show notes. Well, Diane, thank you so so much for coming on today. we've been anticipating this conversation and I'm so happy we made it happen.
Diane Helbig:You too.
Carly Ries:And it was wonderful. So thank you.
Diane Helbig:Thank you.
Carly Ries:And listeners, thank you so much for tuning in today. As always, leave that five star review. We would really love it if you would do that. Share this episode with a friend. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, including YouTube.
Carly Ries:And we will see you next time on The Aspiring Solopreneur. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs.
Carly Ries:Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.