What is the Most Important Task for a Solopreneur?

What is the Most Important Task for a Solopreneur?

I’ve pondered this question for a long time.

What truly is the most important priority for a solopreneur?

It’s actually quite simple.

- If you want a business, you need customers.

- If you want customers, you must network and market yourself.

So, to sum it up: Sales.

Sales might sound like a tedious, monotonous task, so let’s reframe it from a different perspective.

What if you change the word "sales" to ➡️ "marketing"?

This might sound less daunting, but still, doing it all alone can feel overwhelming.

How about networking?

This is a term I actually like.

- It’s a light, pleasant activity.

- It carries a friendly tone.

- It encourages helping people within your network = selling your expertise.

There we go! We’ve found a more appealing term for sales. So, the most important task for a solopreneur is networking!

This is what you should be doing every morning.

- Send out connection requests.

- Meet people at various business events.

- Build a contact list from your acquaintances.

- Collect recommendations from past projects.

- Document everything, for example, using Notion.so.

- Finally, showcase these recommendations on your website.

The best part is, after enough years pass, you start seeing the so-called compounding effect.

- Previous clients come back to you when they need something again.

- Previous clients recommend you to their friends.

- Satisfied clients leave you positive reviews.

- New people trust you more easily.

- Your network grows year by year.

You might be thinking that you need to master many different tools and techniques to accomplish all of this.

Not necessarily!

Did you know that LinkedIn is the world’s largest B2B database of business decision-makers, specifically designed for networking?

Networking is different from following. Following is one-way. The other person may not, and very likely won’t, follow you back.

In networking, the other person also follows you, meaning they’ll see your future posts in their feed.

On LinkedIn, this is called a 1st-degree connection. Their connections are your 2nd-degree connections, and so on. These people aren’t directly in your network but occasionally see content that your connections like.

But the main point of digital networking is to create a profile that’s interesting enough to follow and network with.

Here’s a homework assignment for you to think about:

1. What do you want to be known for?

• Identify up to 3 key themes.

2. Where do you want to help others?

• Consider what high-level tasks give you a good feeling so the work doesn’t become too monotonous over time.

3. What topics are companies willing to pay for (existing market)?

• For example, IT consulting, digital marketing.

Once you have the answers, it will be easy to build a simple profile by stating in one sentence what you do.

You can use ChatGPT to help you craft this sentence.

Example:

That’s all for now!

Feel free to check out my LinkedIn profile for inspiration, even though much of it is in Finnish.