Building a successful career as a Solopreneur consultant requires courage, resilience, possession of marketable skills, and relationships with people who are willing and able to recommend or support you for paid project assignments. Solopreneur consultants must have a talent for selling, the discipline to create and pursue business goals, a knack for thinking about the big picture and implementing strategies, and an understanding of human nature and motivation. The ability to attract good luck and dodge bad luck also helps.

Very few Solopreneurs can just “go to the office” every day and dig into regular work. To generate the preferred amount of business income, we understand that creating multiple sources of income may be necessary, and to make it possible, we must recognize the marketability of our skill sets, collectively and in segments. In addition, we must learn to package, promote and sell our skills and value to potential clients.

Take my sources of income, for example. When asked, in my short elevator pitch, I say that I am a freelance outside consultant providing business strategy and marketing solutions to midsize for-profit and non-profit organizations. What that really means is that I have facilitated strategic planning meetings in nonprofits; edited a 100-page non-fiction book and also served as a photo editor and project manager; developed a curriculum for a series of 90-minute sales skills training workshops; and periodically I teach writing business plans.

I have been fortunate enough to regularly win business strategy development or marketing campaign assignments, but the fact is that there are often gaps and in response I have learned to diversify and offer segments of my skill set to clients or employers such as way to maintain my required cash flow and, whenever possible, also improve my brand. In my experience, it is the ability to harness skills that are perhaps infrequently promoted that help Solopreneurs create and maintain a profitable business enterprise.

My friend Adela is a busy educational consultant who works with college going high school students and their parents to identify right colleges for the student and navigate the application process. Adela’s business appears to be thriving, however, she teaches Spanish at a local university (she was born and raised in Mexico and came to the United States to attend the University of Notre Dame).

Jackie, a friend of many years, is the founder and manager of a small full-service gym that was very successful in that highly competitive market, yet she teaches a fitness class at another gym a few miles away. Why? Because you can observe another style of gym management from within, you receive training in new fitness techniques that you can evaluate for inclusion in your own gym and earn a few extra dollars each week, something a mother of four can always do. use. Sometimes you can get paid to research the competition!

My friend Carole alternates between freelance marketing jobs in technology companies and corporate positions in that sector. She is a Lotus alumnus who has also worked for tech giant EMC, honors that command respect and open doors in the tech industry. Between corporate gigs, Carole goes out on her own to develop marketing strategies for tech startups. A couple of years ago, she was offered a position as a marketing director at one of those startups, but when the inevitable reorganization happens, she will reenter the life of Solopreneur.

So, Solopreneur friend, I invite you to put your thinking cap on and brainstorm how you can create additional income streams by exploring how certain segments of your skill set can be packaged and promoted to current clients and potentials.

Thank you for reading,

Kim