SBM #109 The Accidental Solopreneur

The following is an edited transcript {Greg}Today I would like to welcome back Dennis Geelen the author of the Zero In Formula. Dennis was a previous guest on SBM #92 titled – The 2 Biggest Mistakes. If you haven’t listened to it, I encourage you to check it out. The reason for having Dennis join us today, is that he’s launching his new book – The Accidental Solopreneur. So, welcome back to the Small Business Minute. {Dennis}Hey, Greg. Thanks so much for having me back on the podcast. So happy to be here. {Greg}So, I thought a good place to is by getting Dennis to share his background as we really didn’t touch on any this the last time he was on. So my first question is, what prompted you to leave the corporate world and start your journey as a solopreneur consultant? {Dennis}So, your question, what prompted me to leave the corporate world and start my journey as a solopreneur consultant? Well, short answer is I was laid off, at the age of 43, for the first time ever. I was laid off from a corporate job and I decided, hey, why not bet on myself and start my own solopreneur practice? The longer answer would be I had great encouragement and support from my wife. I had a nice severance package, so I knew that I could give it some time. I decided to give it a full year. Really try and give it my all and start my own consulting business. And at the end of the year, if things were working great, awesome, I would have no regrets. I would have learned, and I’d be on to something. Just the feeling of betting on myself and making it, would be awesome. If it didn’t work again, no regrets. I would know that I tried, gave it my all and I would never have that – “What if?” feeling. And I would still be young enough to jump back into the corporate world and probably be a better person because of it. So that’s really what prompted me. If I hadn’t had been laid off, I never probably would have taken the step. So, I guess it was a blessing in disguise. Dennis Geelen {Greg}We all know there are many ways to become an entrepreneur and to co-opt some words from Shakespeare- “Some are born entrepreneurs, some become entrepreneurs, and some have entrepreneurship thrust upon them” Being laid-off has always been a common theme for people transitioning to entrepreneurship. This is especially true if one has a decent severance package. As I like to say, it let’s you take your idea for test ride, and judging by the success your enjoying, it certainly seems to have paid off for you. So, can you share what were some of the biggest mistakes you made early in your journey? {Dennis}Yeah, lots, lots of mistakes made early on. Where do I start?So, when I first started zero in my consulting business, I was very naive. I just thought, hey, I’ve got 20 plus years of corporate experience. I’ll just announce to the world that I’m a business consultant and I’ll give myself a catchy name, Zero IN.I’ll create a logo, I’ll create a website, and then I’ll just sit back and watch the clients roll in. Of course, that’s not what happened at all. I did those things, but the clients didn’t roll in. What I found was I really had to niche down. I really had to be the expert at something. Just calling myself a business consultant really didn’t appeal to anybody. That’s a generalist. I had to get really specific. What specific business challenges am I helping you solve and for who?What business is in what industry. So, I really had to go through the process of learning how to be the expert and then building credibility as a consultant. In in my corporate life people didn’t know me as a consultant. They knew me as a director of professional services or a director of Project Management. You know, I was not a consultant, so I had to brand myself. I had to build credibility and I had to become the expert. Then I had to learn how to package my services, and sell my services. So, all kinds of mistakes in the beginning. Just assuming that announcing to the world you are a consultant, and you know people will be lining up at your door. I had a lot to learn and luckily had enough runway to be able to make those mistakes and learn from those mistakes. “who makes more money the heart surgeon or the family physician?” {Greg}Focusing (SBM #53) or becoming expert in a given area is one of the hardest lessons for entrepreneurs to learn. That applies equally to companies and not just consultants. It’s a lesson I learned many years ago and it paid off handsomely. When I sit with struggling entrepreneurs, most can’t identify their target market or ideal customer. That’s because they’ve never really looked at what they do differently or can do better than anyone else. To drive home the point on focusing, I usually ask the question “who makes more money the heart surgeon or the family physician?” I think we all know the answer. But to become the expert, it requires discipline and commitment. ...