Multiple streams of income keep a solopreneur solvent

Building a successful career as a Solopreneur consultant requires courage, resilience, possession of marketable skills, and relationships with people who are willing and able to recommend or endorse you for paid project assignments. Solopreneur consultants must have a talent for selling, the discipline to create and pursue business goals, a knack for thinking about the big picture and implementing strategies, and an understanding of human nature and motivation. The ability to attract good luck and fend off bad luck also helps.

Very few Solopreneurs can just “go to the office” every day and delve into the usual work. To generate the preferred amount of commercial income, we understand that it may be necessary to create multiple income streams, and to make this possible, we must recognize the commercialization of our skill sets, collectively and in segments. Additionally, we must learn to package, promote, and sell our skills and value to potential customers.

Consider my sources of income, for example. When asked, in my short introduction, I say that I am a freelance outside consultant providing business strategies and marketing solutions to mid-sized for-profit and non-profit organizations. What that really means is that I’ve facilitated strategic planning meetings at nonprofits; edited a 100-page nonfiction book and also served as a photo editor and project manager; developed a curriculum for a series of 90-minute sales skills training workshops; and periodically teach business plan writing.

I’ve been lucky enough to regularly win business strategy development assignments or marketing campaigns, but the fact is there are often gaps, and in response I’ve learned to branch out and offer segments of my skill set to clients or employers as a way to maintain my required cash flow and, whenever possible, also improve my brand. In my experience, it is the ability to tap into one’s own, perhaps infrequently promoted, competencies that helps Solopreneurs build and maintain a profitable business enterprise.

My friend Adela is a busy educational consultant who works with college-bound high school students and their parents to identify suitable colleges for the student and navigate the application process. Adela’s business seems to be thriving, however, she teaches Spanish at a local university (she was born and raised in Mexico and came to the US to attend the University of Notre Dame).

Jackie, a friend of many years, is the founder and manager of a small full-service fitness center that was very successful in that highly competitive market, however, she teaches a fitness class at another gym a few miles away. away. Why? Because she can see another style of gym management from the inside, she gets training in new fitness techniques that she can test for inclusion in her own gym and earns a few extra bucks each week, something a mother of four always does. can spent. Sometimes you can get paid to research the competition!

My friend Carole alternates between freelance marketing jobs at tech companies and corporate positions in that industry. She is a Lotus alumna who also worked for tech giant EMC, honors that command respect and open doors in the tech industry. Between corporate gigs, Carole freelances herself to develop marketing strategies for tech startups. A couple of years ago, she was offered a position as director of marketing at one of those startups, but when the inevitable shakeup occurs, she re-enters the Solopreneur life.

So, friend Solopreneur, I invite you to put on your thinking cap and brainstorm how you can create additional income streams by exploring how certain segments of your skill set can be packaged and promoted to current and potential customers.

Thank you for reading,

kim