No, I'm not suggesting you become a "preneur."

The solo in solopreneur means no employees. In the US, this is defined as not having anyone (besides maybe you) get a W-2 at the end of the year.

That's it. That's all it takes to be deemed a solopreneur, at least according to LifeStarr.

And there are many good reasons for not having employees.

• They are expensive
• They reduce your flexibility
• They take time to manage

But beyond not having employees, I will argue to my grave that the last thing you want to be as a solopreneur is alone.

 There are at least three dimensions to this.

1. Getting Help

The first is that you should not do it all. Find people to help you do the jobs:

•  You aren't good at
•  That aren't worth your time
•  You don’t like doing

This allows you to spend as much of your workday as possible doing the things that you like to do and that generate revenue. 

2. Connecting With Others

That means finding people to “be” with on your solo journey. There are lots of people facing challenges similar to yours. Some of yours have been solved by them and vice-versa. 

Find a community, online or local, to share your challenges, wins, losses, etc. Being alone in your business isn’t fun. Having the chance to interact with other people who “get you" can drastically increase the enjoyment of your solo business and be an encouragement when things are tough.

3. Build a Community Around Your Business

No matter what happens, you need to have a certain amount of control over the people you sell to.

What do I mean? 

I mean that I would rather have a hundred people with whom I control my connection than a thousand people follow me on social media.

Why would I say that?

You do not control your social media followers. Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk could wake up on the wrong side of the bed one morning, and you’re done for, no more followers and no one to argue your case to.

Social media is mostly free, and customer service isn’t a high priority. Once your account is suspended, there is no way to reach those people.

Instead, you need to develop a way to “own” the connections to those people so that no billionaire can take them away from you.

There are two ways to do this.

A. Build an online community of your customers and prospects using a community-building tool. 

This means you have some control over your connections so you won't wake up and find they are no longer yours. Check out our podcast episode with Andy Guttormsen, co-founder of Circle.so, the leading community-building technology in the world.

I doubt there are many people who know more about building an online community than Andy. 

In this podcast, he workshops the creation of a community with our own Community Manager, Stacy Blette. It’s very cool to watch his process and a “can’t miss” for anyone even thinking about creating their own online community.

B. Build an email list of customers and prospects.

You really, really, really want to build a list of emails of the people you sell to as well as those you target. For most solopreneurs, this is by far the most powerful tool you can have to sustain and grow your business. If done well, it’s like a community of people you can talk to whenever you like.

The tricky part is, once you have the list, how do you ensure your email gets opened? Or if they get opened, how do you guarantee people act on them?

I'm not kidding; we have one of the leading authorities on the planet to help you with this.

Jay Schwedelson is the founder of Outcome Media, as well as the creator of the GURU Conference. He is also the host of the Do This, Not That podcast. Jay knows more about email marketing than anyone on planet earth (but he swears he's not an email expert; he says no one is).

I promise you that the time you spend listening to Jay will not only be invaluable, but it will also be a lot of fun because he is a blast to listen to.

So check these out and remember to…

Solo together,

Joe Rando

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