Solopreneur Success Cycle 1: Setting Your Goals

Why do you want to start a one-person business? If it's only to become a millionaire, rethink it. Many millionaires start their own businesses but not many people who start businesses become millionaires. You need more than this. 

Want a quick checklist and access to the rest of The Solopreneur Success Cycle to help you plan, run, and grow your one-person business? You can get it here!

What you'll learn in this episode

• Goal setting as a solopreneur and what success means to you
• Deciding if going solo in business is right for you
• Defining your reason for going solo
• How to get to the core of why you want to start a one-person business

And so much more!

Follow the Series

This podcast episode is a part of a series of shorter episodes that revolve around the Solopreneur Success Cycle, a framework to intelligently design and grow your one-person business.  It is a proven method to help solopreneurs start, run, and grow a business that allows them to be successful and achieve their own goals, whatever those goals may be. These can be consumed as standalone episodes, but we highly recommend you listen to the full series to get the most out of it.

• Overview: The Best Framework to Intelligently Design and Grow Your Business
• Download the Solopreneur Success Cycle

Want to share your experiences and learn from other one-person business? Be sure to join our community! It's free :)

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Full Episode Transcript

Joe Rando (00:00):

Why do you want to be in a one person business? If it's only to become a millionaire, I think you should rethink this. Many millionaires started their own businesses, but not so many people who start their own businesses become millionaires.

Intro (00:13):

Bigger doesn't always mean better. Welcome to the One-Person Business podcast where people who are flying solo in business come for specific tips and advice to find success as a company of one. Here are your hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries.

Carly Ries (00:30):

Welcome to the One-Person Business podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Carly Ries.

Joe Rando (00:34):

And I'm Joe Rando.

Carly Ries (00:35):

Last week we mentioned that over the next several weeks, we'll be doing a deep dive into the Solopreneur Success Cycle, which is a framework to intelligently design and grow your one person business. Each of these episodes can definitely be consumed as one-offs, but we highly recommend you tune into the entire series that began on episode 26 to get the most of this concept so you can apply it to your business. With that, we're getting into the first part of the cycle today, which is goal setting. Now I know what you may be thinking. We've all sat through goal setting discussions, blah, blah, blah, but today we'll provide a unique take on it. So sit back, relax, and take it all in. Joe, why don't you kick things off?

Joe Rando (01:11):

Absolutely. As Carly said, we're going to go through goal setting, but we're looking at goal setting from the perspective of a solopreneur. And the first step in the solopreneur success cycle is defining your goals and what success means to you. So we're really today looking at talking about and defining your reasons for going solo in business and then helping you to define your goals. Going solo is fantastic for some people, but it's not for everyone and if you aren't doing it for the right reasons, it's going to be painful. Our goal at Lifestarr is to help you know whether you should become a solopreneur and if you are already, to help you be as successful and as happy as possible by helping you achieve your goals. So let's dig in. First thing is to find your reason for going solo. Why do you want to be in a one person business? If it's only to become a millionaire, I think you should rethink this. Many millionaires started their own businesses, but not so many people who start their own businesses become millionaires. You need more than this. So ask yourself, why do I want to start a one person business? Ask yourself why, and keep asking yourself why to your previous answer until you get to the core of it. Let me walk through an example. I know that sounds kind of crazy. Question: Why do I want to start a one person business? Answer: Because I've never done well with bosses. Question: Why? Answer: Because I like doing things my way. Question: Why? Answer: Because my way is typically better. Question: Why? Answer: Because I typically know more than my boss. And the question why? Because I've studied, in this case, let's say mountain hiking more than anyone I've ever met. If you don't have a real reason, a one person business may not be the right path for you.

Carly Ries (03:01):

Joe, I'm just going to chime in. If you're having issues getting to the bottom of a why, just hang out with a toddler and they'll continue to ask your why until you get to the core. Why?

Joe Rando (03:13):

The thing is here is to get to the point where you really can't dig any deeper. Whether I said mountain hiking or whether it's to be a photographer or graphic designer or a business coach or whatever it is, really dig in deep. Once you can't answer any deeper, you've really gotten to the core of that, and that's really important. Let's look at another example here. Why do I want to start a one person business? I want to have control over my time. Why? Because I want to be sure I can be present and available for my family. Why? Because my family is the most important thing to me. Why? Because I love them and I need to be present for them. Why? STOP. You've gotten there. You just want to get to that point where you really understand what you're doing here. But if you don't do this, you might be going into this for the wrong reason. And as I've stated, not a good thing to do.

Carly Ries (04:06):

Now a quick word from our sponsor.

(04:07):

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? Lifestarr has created a One-Person Business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com

Joe Rando (04:36):

The next step, once you've gotten to your why or whys, the next step is to assess where you are versus where you want to go in terms of your status. What needs to change? Let your why's inform this, but let's look at something like your current state versus your desired state. Here are some examples. Your current financial position versus your desired financial position or your current free time versus your desired free time or your current time spent doing the work you love versus the desired time spent doing the work you love. Maybe you love doing what you're doing already, but you're only spending half your time doing it and you'd like that to be a lot more of your time. Get this down on paper so that you understand specifically where you're at and where you want to go. Because if you don't have that, you really don't have goals.

(05:31):

Now you can write down your goals. Be specific and measurable referring to that difference between your current state and your desired state. You might say, I want to go from ending work at 6:30 PM to ending work at 5:00 PM or I want to go from saving $0 to saving $500 per month toward my retirement and so on. Write them down and refer to them often. Keep them in front of you. Put them in your wallet or tape them to your wall in front of your workspace but keep these things in front of you. As we go forward with the solopreneur success cycle, we're going to be referring back to these goals as we make decisions. I strongly encourage you to do this and to write them down and to keep them present.

Carly Ries (06:12):

As we mentioned, these are going to be shorter segments than our Monday episodes for the interviews. So that is what we have for today. On Monday, which will be February 21st, 2022. We have an awesome episode with the accountability pit bull herself, Anne Bachrach, which is a fantastic show. Then we'll be back next Thursday to do a deep dive into the next phase of the Solopreneur Success Cycle where we'll discuss envisioning your business. So be sure to tune in. As always, you can subscribe to this podcast at lifestarr.com/podcast or anywhere you subscribe to your shows. We'll see you next time.

closing (06:48):

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? Lifestarr has created a One-Person Business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at Community.lifestarr.com.