Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening everybody.
Welcome to today's episode
of the NeverPeak Project Podcast.
I'm your host, Coach Ranger, and in today's episode,
we're going to be diving into three strategies
to help you as a solopreneur
lead your business effectively by leading yourself.
So go ahead and grab a beverage of your choice,
sit back, relax, and listen in
as we talk about a few of my favorite strategies
to lead an effective business
while you are the only employee.
Now today, we're gonna be talking
about a few different things that I've been doing
to make sure that as a solopreneur,
I am focused on the mission,
able to make clear decisions to move my business forward.
And all of these tips fall into three major categories.
The very first is clear mission and vision.
The second is accountability,
the second is accountability and self-management,
and the third is all about seeking support.
For the first category of mission and vision,
I touched on this a little bit last week in our episode
about the lessons that I learned
from running a nonprofit for a few years,
but this is something that I'm gonna harbor
and constantly throughout a lot of my content
is the importance of a clear mission
and vision statement in your business.
Just like on my walk across America,
I had a very clear mission as to why I was doing it.
I was doing it to highlight, learn from,
and work with people in the US
that are making a difference in their communities.
And that helped me really make decisions
about what I was going to be putting my attention
and focus on at any given point throughout the journey,
whether it was in terms of finding guests for my podcast,
in terms of taking days off,
or side missions that I wanted to accomplish.
It helped me really focus on what it is
that I wanted out of that adventure.
Stepping that back into the business side,
having a clear mission when it comes to your business
does just that.
It helps you focus on the aspects of your business
that you really wanna focus on.
Which events do I go to?
Which offers do I work towards?
Which collaborations do I put my time,
energy, and attention into?
It really all just stems down
to having a clear mission for your company.
And where vision comes in is it's about creating
a clear vision for your overall life.
What vision do you wanna create with the work that you do?
And the way that I describe it in my workshop,
The Power of Purpose, is your vision
is the overarching mountain range and scene
that you wanna create.
It is the mountain range, it's the waterscapes,
it's all the minute details, the floor, the fauna,
everything that encompasses the life
that you wanna create for yourself.
Whereas the mission statement
will focus on one specific mountain.
And that's what you kinda wanna create
for different parts of your life,
and specifically your business.
The three main aspects of your mission statement
is it should be one sentence,
it should be clear and concise enough
that a 12-year-old can understand it,
and you should be able to recite it under extreme pressure.
So those are the three main things
that you need to focus on with your mission statement.
And if you wanna learn more
about the mission or vision statement,
I'll put more details for the workshop below.
But that is really what you wanna focus on
is having a clear idea of the purpose and reason
that you are actually here in business.
That's going to help you stay focused when times get tough,
when you aren't really sure what decisions to make,
and of course enroll people in being a customer
and a part of the community and vision
that you're trying to create.
And in terms of actionable tools
to really focus in on your mission statement,
here are three tips.
The first one is the general template
for your mission statement.
The template is I help target audience
achieve results through methodology.
And be sure that you include some of your values,
some verbs and action words that really resonate with you.
The second is to create a vision board.
Something that you can look at and very clearly see
what it is that you're trying to create,
what problems you're trying to solve
as a way to kind of really focus on
what you want out of the business.
I have a metaphor board
where I have put in different pictures
that mean different things to me.
For example, there's a lily padded with a frog on it
for one of them.
And that's really about reminding myself
to chunk down from time to time.
Instead of trying to jump over
from one side of the pond to the other
in one swoop to know that I can take smaller steps
to get to the other side.
There is the woman in a red dress
that represents distractions in business.
And there's a whole bunch of other ones.
I'll probably do a workshop or a specific episode
about that in the future.
But really it's just about having ways to remind myself
of these lessons that I've learned along the way.
And the third one is to either journal
or set a time, either journal or set aside some time
every day to do some visualization
on where you want your business to go
in the next three to five years.
Really get clear on the outcome
that you're looking to create for yourself
so that you'll know when you've gotten there
and when it's time to change things up a little bit
and write new goals for the business.
The next area is really around accountability
and self-management.
That's a big problem that I've heard
from a lot of other solopreneurs, including myself,
is that you kind of go from,
for a lot of people they have a job
or they have a manager, there's that hierarchy
and you're reporting to someone constantly
that's checking in on you and making sure
that you're getting your work done.
Whereas when it comes to owning your own business
and being a solopreneur,
you've kind of started to take over every single category.
You're the finance department,
you're the management team, you're the C-suite,
you're the intern, you're the graphic designer,
the podcast host, you're a little bit of everything.
And oftentimes we kind of create ideas
of things that we wanna do,
but don't always follow through on them.
And I think there is that level of,
we would rather do the easier things
so that we feel more accomplished
rather than sitting down and spending time
doing the harder stuff that takes more time.
But when it comes to setting up systems
of accountability and self-management for yourself,
here are a few tips to help you out as well.
The first one is something that I kind of stole
from Andy Frisella's 75 Hard and the Live Hard Program
is the idea of the power list.
Really all it is is that every single day
before you go to bed, you write down the three to five things
you need to get done the following day
in order for it to be considered a success.
And that's really high level things
that you need to do for your business.
For example, on my power list,
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
is related around the podcast.
Mondays, I need to record an episode
and I need to get it out.
Wednesdays, depending on if I have a guest or not,
it's either getting that up and edited
or just making sure that I am good to go
for the rest of the week.
Same thing with Fridays with the self-employment updates.
It's these non-negotiables that this needs to be done
by the end of the day in order for it to be a success.
And for me, a lot of the time, writing my memoir
about my Walk Across Americas on that as well.
So it's really just about identifying those big items
that will really move you forward in your life and business.
Something that has worked for me pretty well
is the idea of public commitments.
I posted that I was doing my Walk Across America
all over social media.
When I was doing my first half marathon,
I posted about it so that others would know about it.
And posting about it really helps you have an external force
of accountability that's free,
but it's still not as effective as other methods.
It definitely helps.
And what I've noticed is that when you talk about
the things that you want and the things you want to create
and see in your business,
oftentimes others will talk to you about it
and find ways to help and support you.
So be open about your goals and what you want to create
and see what others can do.
And when it comes to others,
a big piece that I would really harbor in on
and urge you to take into consideration
is the idea of an accountability buddy or coach.
The reason for that is because when you have
an accountability buddy or a coach
that you meet with every single week,
you have to say out loud to another living, breathing person
that you either did or did not do something
that you said you would.
It kind of forces you to keep everything urgent
and important.
Something that I've seen a lot of solo printers do
is they kind of have that hierarchy, that important
and urgent graph that we've kind of seen.
And a lot of things fall into that important
but not urgent category.
But over time, those end up in the urgent
and important category and either aren't 100%
what we wanted to create from it
or they kind of just fall flat.
But when you have somebody that you talk to
every single week, like a buddy or a coach,
it keeps everything at a constant state of urgency
so that you get a lot more done.
And that's been extremely beneficial for me,
even as a coach, as an accountability coach,
having my own accountability buddy and coach
has been super helpful to make sure that I get everything
that I say I want to get done, done.
The last portion that I want to talk about for today
is the idea of seeking support as a solo printer.
Say that five times fast.
And the idea is that we are doing all of this on our own.
We are, again, the finest department,
all these different pieces of the puzzle,
but sometimes in order to really create
and get to where we want to go,
we need other people's support and assistance.
This isn't something that you can do alone.
So what I would suggest are these three main things.
The first one is finding a network,
finding a club or a group or a,
just a room of like-minded people
that want to see you succeed
and then themselves also want to succeed.
And this could be in the way of referral networks
like the BNI or BRN groups that I'm in.
It could be professional networking events
or even just boards of directors of nonprofits
where everybody else there is a dedicated individual
to self-improvement and the cause
that they're looking to support.
It just really helps you stay focused
and motivated towards different aspects of your life.
So I would say that the first thing there
is finding a group of people that you connect with
and you can support and be supported by.
The next one is being open to the idea
of having a virtual assistant or somebody
to help you take some work off of your plate.
Right now I'm not working with any virtual assistants
but when I was on my walk across the country,
I hired a podcast editor to help me out with the podcast
while I was on the road.
And this was super helpful
because all I had to do was pay, you know,
40 to 60 bucks per episode
and I didn't have to worry about the hours of editing
that went into creating that content.
All I had to do was send it off to them.
A few days later, they would send it back.
It was super helpful
because without that extra help and support,
I wouldn't have been able to get out the 30 plus episodes
that I did during my walk across America.
So when it comes to that,
find ways to leverage the support of virtual assistants,
whether it is somebody on Fiverr
or somebody in one of your networking groups,
just find the services that would be the most useful
for you to hire and use so that you can get the work done
that you really, really wanna focus on.
And the very last tip is ABL, always be learning.
Always look for other mentors or supporters
that you can learn things from.
And this isn't just people in person
or at workshops or online.
It's really about even finding books of creators
and experts that you can learn something from.
Finding ways to constantly learn
from other people has been, again, ridiculously impactful
for me and my business.
It's helped me see things differently.
It's helped me make better content.
It's helped me really focus my ideas and clarify them
so that I can clearly express them
to others that I come in contact with.
Make sure when it comes to seeking support,
that you find a group that you jive with,
that you're always learning,
and that you're willing and able to take on extra help
and support in the way of virtual assistants
or just a few one-off independent contractor folks
to help you create the image
that you really wanna see in the world.
And really just to completely wrap up today's episode,
I wanna clarify that when it comes to solopreneurship
and running your own business,
is that everything starts and stops with you.
You are the one that's going to take the next step.
You're the one that controls every aspect of your business.
And what I would really urge you to do
is take a second to stop, look around,
clarify what your mission and vision is,
find ways for others to support you,
and make sure that you're managing yourself effectively
so that you're actually accountable to the results
that you wanna create and generate in your business.
And all the information, a recap is gonna be
in the show notes.
I'm gonna post this on my Instagram and Facebook accounts
so that you can refer back to it.
I hope that some of it is useful and impactful for you.
And if you try these tools and they work out for you,
please let me know.
I'd love to see that the things that have worked for me
are working for others out in the world.
Thank you all so much for listening
and giving me some of your time and attention.
It's super valuable,
and I appreciate you sharing some of that with me.
Remember to please leave a rating and review
on whatever podcast platform you're listening to
so that this message can get out to more solopreneurs
so they can feed their families,
create the life they've always wanted
and achieve their dreams.
As always, remember that the best is yet to come
as long as you're willing to make the decision
to never settle, never quit, and never peak.
I'll see you guys in the next one.