From Employed to 6-figure Solopreneur in 4 stages.
Updated: May 23
The 4 simple solopreneur stages to 6 figures.
Whatever goal or objective you have, if you don’t have a proven roadmap or guide to help you get there, you’ll end up wasting months and even years in trial and error activities or simply stuck at one level when you know you could be achieving far more.
I’ve created a number of frameworks that have supported to build multiple 5 and 6-figure 0-money-down businesses which can help any new solopreneur start, be profitable and be free in 12 months.
Whether you are new or further along the journey, this framework will save you hours and potentially months of wasted time and resources.
A lot of new(er) solopreneurs set up shop with the knowing they are highly skilled and the belief that their skill level is equal to the progress they’ll make.
They are wrong. Your skill level does not equal your income level. Not in isolation.
When you rely on your skill to create your income you are setting yourself up for another day job where you are both employer and employee - the worst kind.
As the famous adage states, ““If you don't know where you want to go, then it doesn't matter which path you take.” - Lewis Carroll
Most new entrepreneurs I speak to reply to this quote along the lines of, “Making money is the destination”, which has multiple problems:
Being solely money-oriented hinders not helps a lifestyle busines.
Being extremely vague about the numbers will create severe underperformance.
Having no timeline will lead to a lot of time being wasted.
When you look at most successful entrepreneurs, these are people that have learned from their experience and created formulas and frameworks for what worked.
Let’s look at one I have used at a high level for new ventures I begin.
Before I share my framework that I’ve applied to several 0-money-down businesses and grow to 6-figures, know the following;
This is a birds-eye-view - it provides an overall direction and quickfire understanding of where the business is at
I use other frameworks for specific projects and goals within the business eg Four Pillars
Frameworks are guides not gurus - learn to adjust and adapt to changing situations
This framework is called TGAS. Sounds dangerous but the real danger is if you don’t use it…
Test
Before you commit to any idea or start investing your precious time and energy into a new venture, you must TEST it.
Test how and if it works.
Improve how it works.
Test it to see if people want it and are willing to pay for it.
Test to learn its ease, simplicity and earning potential.
Test to see if you actually enjoy it.
Too many solopreneurs either completely skip over this stage or skim it with loose findings because a few friends told them it was great.
Put on your research hat and collect some data.
Cold message 3000 people across different platforms and get feedback.
Host a webinar and discussion group and listen to people.
Create a waiting list and learn why people are excited about it.
From 3000 messages, you may get 150-200 interested people.
From those, you may get 20 sales.
You now have data to make an informed decision; proceed yes or no?
Grow
If you decided to proceeded it’s time to focus on grow.
In the early day of Facebook, Zuckerberg was only interested in adding features that spurred growth, nothing else. We solopreneurs need to do the same.
If you’re like me and thinking long-term, this is the way to go. Think for growth.
What does this mean?
Build an audience and community and real relationships with people.
Make the product or service as accessible as possible, to everywhere, everywhere.
Share content that demonstrates the value to users.
Gamify the service, product or content around it.
Create ambassadors and referal programs
Collect reviews, testimonials and experiences.
Collect negative feedback and iterate.
Know how long you can go at your lowest margins and what level of growth is appropriate. 100, 1000 or 10000+ ?
Focus on the customer, the service and the journey.
Automate
The most important stage in my opinion is Automation. This is the stage that makes or breaks freedom from the business. If you are #freedomfirst, this is where you need to pay attention.
By now we have an idea that is needed, being used and makes a profit.
The next phase is to continue growth and profit (albeit a small one) consistently, without relying on us the founder. (Those solopreneurs who created another job for themselves will never get to this stage.)
Identify each part of your business, from production to client feedback and referral. Write down every single step and meticulously identify how to automate each one.
Automation can look like:
Hiring a freelancer
CRMs and databases
Automatic emails& responders
Chatbots
FAQs
Pre-recorded videos
PDFs and explainer documents
Schedulers
While it can be a lot of fun to replace everything you do by a machine or system, beware about sacrificing quality. Some services rely on the human-touch. Some require personalisation.
When working on this stage, create a 6 month timeline to smoothly implement each new process, measuring the response.
Scale
By this stage we have a profitable business that doesn’t depend on us to operate. Congratulations!
Now is the time to turn our attention to profits and increase them.
Depending what business we are running, there are a number of ways to increase profitability for solopreneurs:
Reduce time invested
Increase cost periodically (and let customers know this)
Add-on product / services
Expand services / products offered
Partnerships and cross-selling with other businesses
Affiliate programs
Run ads
Private communities and clubs
A lot of solopreneurs are disappointed to discover that we focus on profitability at the end of the framework rather than the beginning. Isn’t that the whole point of doing business? No. The point of business is creating positive change and our own freedom.
Final thoughts
When we have a framework to follow, we have a clearer direction, more focus amd higher chances of success.
What are your impressions on the TGAS framework and can you see yourself applying it?
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Stefano
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