3 Realistic Expectations for Solopreneur Success

Because few of us in the counseling, coaching or naturopathic medicine professions have been trained for being in business, we tend to have unrealistic expectations about how long it should take to consistently turn a profit.

Likewise, we can be overly idealistic about how soon marketing efforts will start bringing in clients. And the danger of this is that we adopt a shotgun approach to setting business goals and working an effective marketing plan.

Exact timelines will vary according to what degree of resources you start out with, how much time is available to work on your business, and how persistent you are at following through on a small number of daily tasks. But there are some generally realistic timeframes to keep in mind.

If you are like most solopreneurs I work with who have a small pool of resources to invest at the beginning, and are financing the launch of your business on personal credit cards or family loans, it will take longer to get a continually full client load.

The realistic expectation for the time it takes a one-person businesses to truly succeed is about 5 years.

If you are reluctant to set business goals with targets for where you want to be in 6 months, 1 year, and 3 years, it will take longer to feel and be successful. The more organized and business-like you are in your approach to running your business, the faster it will settle into a nice rhythm of keeping clients coming in.

The realistic expectation for success without a detailed business plan is from 3-7 years.

Note that detailed doesn't have to mean extensive. You don't need a 20 page business plan with charts and graphs. Start with 3 goals -- big, medium, small -- and target dates -- long range, mid range, near term -- by which you intend to achieve them.

If you are impatient or scattered in your marketing strategies, or trying to make a method work that goes against your natural personality, it will take longer to generate powerful client attraction. The more concrete, specific and consistent your marketing activities are, the faster they will pay off -- although not always in the direct ways you can measure.

The realistic expectation for highly effective marketing to be producing a steady stream of clients when you're a one-person show is from 12 months to 3 years.

These timeframes may sound like a very long time when you need clients now. There's no time like the present to get started on focused planning and follow through.

Overwhelmed? Not sure where to start? Email for a brief strategic steps chat.

Multiple Streams -- of income or hassle?

There's a lot of excitement in some quarters about the old idea of having multiple streams of income. What that means is that you have additional ways to make money aside from your one-on-one client appointments.

There are two common ways to do this for the novice solopreneur:

• developing and selling products -- books, self-help tools, diagnostic kits, dispensary items
  
• developing and selling live group services -- group therapy / coaching, workshops, signature talks, teleclasses, etc
  

The more experienced business owner may also venture into:

• affiliate programs -- where you get a percentage for referring clients to others
• creating online membership programs
• train the provider programs

What's important to realize is that establishing multiple streams of income when you are your only employee means that you are running more than one business. It can become a multiple nightmare -- assuming you even had time to sleep -- in keeping up with your bookkeeping, different tax structures, various regulations, not to mention different marketing campaigns and business plans for each income stream.

However, some of these same activities can be more simply started as marketing strategies for your one initial service.

What's your plan for transitioning multiple marketing strategies into multiple streams of income?