The Cost of Doing Business Alone

Last week, we discussed how info products can help your biz or in some cases stunt the growth of your biz.  Today, we want to talk about another practice that can hold you back when it comes to blogging and/or running your biz, and that’s going at it alone.  Keep reading to find out four costs of doing business alone.

The constant need to balance two personas

Running your blog or business on your own can be difficult especially because it requires you to take on two broad roles.  One role is being a boss, while the other is being an employee.  Usually, taking on one of the roles is a lot easier or feels more natural than the other.  As a boss, it is important to make decisions that affect the core of your business.  Some of the duties as a boss include selecting your niche, drafting your business plan, finalizing your branding, and creating your mission statement and/or core values.  As an employee, you are responsible for more of the concrete, day-to-day tasks that keep your business running.  Some of those tasks include writing and editing blog posts, drafting your newsletters, creating content for your social media accounts, interacting on social media, etc.

Kendra and I both enjoy being employees of Humble & Whole more than being bosses and I think the primary reason for that is because we have more systems in place that keep us organized with the day-to-day aspects of Humble & Whole rather than with the more abstract, boss-like tasks.  Nonetheless, for Humble & Whole to be successful, we have to function as both bosses and employees.  It’s absolutely vital to embrace both.  If you’re like us and have some trouble with functioning as a boss, set aside time either weekly or biweekly to check in with your brand’s goals, vision, or mission and be honest with yourself.  Are the actions that you take every day a reflection of the purpose for your business or the direction you want to take?  I promise that by doing these regular check-ins, you’ll save yourself unnecessary stress later.

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Every responsibility is your own

As a solopreneur, you’re every kind of employee.  You’re the social media manager, the content manager, the customer service representative, etc.  When you are responsible for every single facet of your business, your to-do list quickly fills up.  It becomes difficult to prioritize because any area that you don’t address can simply remain stagnant.  When you’re ready to take your blog to the next level (grow your readership or start offering products or services), that’s when it’s time to consider taking your hands off some aspects of your biz to free up your time and ability to put those creative ideas of yours in motion.  That could mean hiring a virtual assistant or a social media manager.  Perhaps it’s as simple as opening your blog to guest posts to take off the burden of content creation.  If you’re not ready to hire someone to help with those menial biz tasks, at least consider investing in tools that can help you automate those time consuming processes. Or refine your systems.  Take a look at ‘A Painless Social Media Strategy’ to see what I mean.

Limited perspective

As you tackle your business all by yourself, it can be difficult to see the big picture of your business if you’re just going through the motions day to day.  Specifically, without an outside opinion, sometimes it’s challenging to know which investments make sense for your blog or business based on the goals you want to reach.  Or, you may be struggling with knowing where to spend your efforts.  A solution to this would be to consult a fellow blogging friend, accountability partner, or a coach/strategist.  Trying to figure everything out on your own isn’t necessary, and it can actually cause you to go backwards instead of forward.  Trust me, if Kendra and I hadn’t been so prideful in this regard with our first blog, we would have avoided many mistakes.

Slower progress

Oh man.  This one is perhaps the most painful.  When you’re on your own, the progress you’ll see is usually much slower than it would be if you had a team or a coach.  How come?  If you’re working on your own, you’ve got to allocate time to learn and to implement what you’re learning.  We talk more about this in ‘Balancing Consuming Information and Taking Action’.  So you can only progress as quickly as you can begin taking action.  However, if you had someone to guide you along the way and could instruct you on the best strategies and tactics for your unique business, that would be an immense time saver.  You practically eliminate the concept of trial and error.  

Or, let’s say you have a virtual assistant or a social media manager, content producer, etc.  If you’re delegating your menial tasks to someone who not only is happy to do them for you, but is also knowledgeable about the best practices, chances are you’ll see better results and faster growth than if you continued to do it yourself.  Definitely identify those pain points in your business (those areas you just can’t seem to figure out), and consider hiring a coach or strategist or the beginning of a team, whichever makes more sense for you.

These are just a few of the realities of being a solopreneur.  It’s completely understandable as you are in the start-up phase of your blog/biz to do as much as you can on your own.  It is our hope that as you transition to incorporating products, services, or other forms of monetization to your blog, that you’ll consider hiring help. 

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