MBA1987 Best Business Models for Solopreneurs + Free Ride Friday

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They really can't be removed because they're doing the work, they're providing the expertise. Now there's nothing wrong with that. This is a choice that people can make. And like I said, many people that love to be in full control of, of the entire process, including the actual product or service choose to be solopreneurs or self employed. Now on the other side of the quadrant is entrepreneur and investor. So entrepreneurs on the other hand are not really interested in actually doing the work or delivering the service or being even the expert. They're interested in building a team that does all that for them. And an investor is somebody who is even more far removed. They're just interested in investing their money into an already working existing business or enterprise where they can get a return on their investment. But today we're going to focus on solopreneurship or self employment. Now many people will go through all these quadrants, all four of them, in their lifetime. Like myself, I was employed, I was a teacher, I then became self employed, I was a solopreneur and then I became an entrepreneur and built a team around my business. Maybe in the future I'll be an investor. So even if you choose solopreneurship as your path today, it doesn't mean you can't change that path later on or choose something else, like being an investor. So like I said, starting a business doesn't mean you need to hire an entire team. There are plenty of business models and ideas and opportunities that are out there that you can start and grow completely on your own. And in my opinion, the best ideas are the ones that allow you to viably control the whole production of the product you're selling or the service you're selling along with the delivery of that product. Now, to make your life easier, I highly recommend you use technology to be able to scale that whole process. For example, one of the most common solopreneur ideas is to be a course creator. To teach people what you know, to deliver a specific piece of knowledge in a form of an online course, whether it's live or recorded. The point here is that you can create this course and sell it to many people at once, and you could do it over and over and you can use technology to be able to deliver this service. Now, in this case, the online course is a product. You create this product and then you sell it to other people over and over. This is similar to writing a book. Authors are one of the most popular solopreneurs out there. Many of them run their whole enterprise by themselves. Another form of an author is a blogger, somebody who writes a blog or blog posts on a specific topic. They gain traction because of their in depth knowledge and they can make money on advertisements, they can make money on AdSense, on sponsorship content, and even products of their own. The book series Lonely Planet actually kind of started out in this way. Now they didn't have a blog back in the day because the Internet wasn't a around, but the version of a blog back then was basically printing your own books, stapling them together and handing them out in person. It was kind of like the minimal viable version of their book. So many bloggers start out blogging and then they write books on the same topic, they get published and they're able to kind of build their brand and their business off the back of something that they created once and they can distribute over and over. Now another business model for solopreneurs is the services delivering a service. So say, for example, you're a graphic designer and you create awesome imagery and great graphics for social media. You can create a service out of that where you are the one who fulfills that service with your skills. Same thing goes with like being a Web designer. I know so many people that got into web design and are able to run six figure businesses after just one year of learning how to be a web designer. There's so many free courses out there to just learn a programming language. And by the way, it's never been easier to learn. It's never been easier to actually pick it up because a lot of these programming languages are now becoming easier and easier. In fact, there are a lot of web designers that don't even know how to code. They use codeless software. So again, you're delivering a service like web design and you can go on and on with all different kinds of services. Freelance writing, being an event photographer, an app developer, a business consultant. These are all great ideas to deliver a service. Now here's the catch. When you are using a service based model and you're doing the service because you're a solopreneur, you are limited to the amount of time you have. So you really can't scale the volume of your work like you can with an online course. You can sell as many as you'd like because you've done it once and you just reproduce it, or I should say, you distribute that work over and over. So when it comes to the services, you only have 24 hours in the day to deliver that service every day. So this means one of the practices I recommend for anybody who's delivering a service themselves as a solopreneur is to consistently increase their rates. Because in order for you to grow as a business, you're going to have to be able to charge more for your time. Now, if later down the road you decide to scale and hire other people to deliver the service, now you're morphing your business into more of an entrepreneurship model rather than a solopreneurship model. A lot of people ask me, Omar, I love this idea. Solopreneurship. I want to get started, but I don't know how to get started. What do I do? What do I offer? And my advice to you is to do what you know, right? What experiences, what knowledge do you already have? If you've been working for a few years in a sector, in a industry and you have some information, even if you may not value that, you might think it's that special. For example, I knew somebody who's in the hospitality industry. They worked at several different hotels and restaurants for the last five years. They wanted to go into solopreneurship. So instead of choosing something totally outside their wheelhouse, they leaned on what they already know. I know about hospitality. I've been in this industry for a very long time or sometime five years and actually I was well known for excellent customer service. So much so I was training a lot of my colleagues on the different strategies I would use at the hotel or restaurant. So a great idea is to package that into some sort of course, into some sort of knowledge and this is some sort of book, some training sessions where you can offer that to other hospitality venues. Hey, I'm going to show you how you can train your whole staff to be customer service centric to deliver award winning review getting customer service. This is one of the best transitions from employment to self employment or solopreneurship because you're leveraging already existing experiences. There are so many people I know that fall in love with the idea of starting a business and they neglect their past. They're like, hey, I was a computer programmer for 10 years, but now I'm going to be a life coach because that's what business people do. Well, you don't have to be a life coach, you could be an IT coach. Your likelihood of success and speed to success is much higher because you already know the topic, you already are familiar with the audience, with the problems that are in this industry, with how to solve them. All that kind of stuff.

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To wrap up today's lesson, I actually really think being a solopreneur is a great way to get into entrepreneurship, to get into building a business. You learn a ton about, but most of all, you learn about yourself. You learn about what parts of business you enjoy, which parts you don't really enjoy. And in the process, you're building income, you're building an audience and building a foundation for your entrepreneurial career. It's never been easier for you to get started. So take the first step today. Choose a business model, choose a topic and start delivering your products or services and hold yourself accountable. Say to yourself, hey, by this time I'm going to have this ready and have my first customer. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 NBA show, but today's episode is not over. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's Free ride. And the winner is Hyper Fliving. That's the handle on Apple Podcasts. Hyperf Living says Daily Biz Education five stars. I learned about the hundred dollar MBA because of Webinar Ninja and it's great. It gives the information that I haven't thought about in business even though I've owned several businesses. Thanks for continuing to teach. Well, thank you. Higher per fliving. Your mission is to email me over at omar100mba net so I can hook you up with the Lifetime Membership the Automated Webinar challenge over@webinarninja.com AWC if you are listening and you want to win a free ride to one of our programs, just leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday, just like today to see if you won. That wraps up today's episode. But before I go, I want to leave you with this Some people love the idea of solopreneurship because they like to be in full control. They don't want to be dependent on other people to do the work or deliver their product or service. Now, there's nothing wrong with this. This might be your preference, but just know that there are caps to solopreneurship in terms of how much you can scale. There are exceptions, of course, but keep in mind there are many solopreneurs that make six and seven figures a year. Not bad for a one man or woman show. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

We've all been there. You hold on to a coupon but forget about it and suddenly it's Expired.

Expired in 2012. Dang it.

Fortunately, by switching to Geico, you could save about 900 on car insurance without ever touching a coupon.

It feels good to save big. It feels good to Geico.