5 essential skills for aspiring entrepreneurs

Find Your Superpower newsletter 091

Read time: 5 minutes

Topics covered: Solopreneur, freelancer, coach, speaker, entrepreneur

There are many newbie solopreneurs and freelancers in my flagship 12-month Brand Builder Mastermind.

In many cases, they have a full-time job as a senior executive in a high-powered MNC and are now contemplating a side hustle or career pivot.

They’ve read about entrepreneurship and are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime: controlling their own destiny, unlocking value for their clients and all that jazz.

And of course, naturally, their first instinct is to find a brand name for their new business, create a cool logo, and build a sexy website. All must-haves, but actions that will move the needle by 1-5%.

So what contributes to the lion's share of 95%?

Well, for that my friend, let’s read on!

1/ Learning marketing and demand generation 

If you plan on starting a coaching, consulting or speaking business where you deliver a service based on your expertise, YOU are the asset.

And for your clients to want to buy that asset (AKA, you) they must first see the value of that asset (you, again).

Our goal, therefore, is to increase the value of that asset (AKA, you... I hope you get my point by now).

We need to learn branding, marketing and demand generation, specifically targeting our ideal clients.

But if you are camera shy, if you want to hide behind a vanilla brand name like Alliance Consulting, and if you aren’t used to sharing your opinions on anything at all, then we have a huge mindset shift to make here.

2/ Creating an offer people want to buy

Maybe you’re from one of the big consulting firms, and you’re used to working on multi-million-dollar consulting projects.

As a newbie solopreneur, there’s going to be a massive learning curve for both you and your clients.

Yes, we want to hit the ground running with $10-20K contracts, but unless you have a deep reserve of corporate clients willing to jump over the fence with you, we will need to start with a risk-free, low-ticket offer that our clients can try out without breaking the bank.

A simple 60-min free workshop to show our potential clients what we can offer them or a 2-3h paid workshop in an affordable range (US$99) may allow our clients to get used to the idea of working with us without the guardrails of an established institution.

3/ Figuring out pricing strategy and negotiation

One thing that still surprises me today is how few industry experts are interested in sales, negotiation strategy and buyer psychology.

The myth of "build and they will come, because I am a well-known senior expert with a great reputation" is still pervasive.

I’m guessing it is because many of us hold management, analyst or consultant roles in large organizations, with the sales and business development functions run by a completely separate department.

I have seen egregious cases of undercharging, where opportunistic MNCs lowball my clients.

On the other end of the spectrum, I have seen my clients create starting offers at $5-10K for their expert service, when they should be starting at a much more conservative $500-1000 range, in some cases.

When you work for an MNC that discusses money in the hundreds of millions of dollars, you can’t imagine that you should be talking in hundreds of dollars.

These are all blind spots, really.

4/ Leveling up on contractual terms & conditions

Most people relegate contractual terms and conditions to an afterthought.

"I’ll figure this out once I get a client," they may say.

That’s reasonable. Now that the client has been found and the project is confirmed, they download a sample quotation or sales contract template from the internet, get the client to sign off on it, and the work begins.

But this is where the real horror story starts.

 Midway through the project, the demands from the client completely exceed the scope of work, something all business owners are familiar with, called "scope creep." 

Finally, the project ends, only for the client to start dodging our invoices. No matter how many texts and emails we send them, the client either ghosts us or sends us cryptic replies like "our finance is working on this."

This is the phase of utter and abject misery, and many new freelancers wonder to themselves why did they ever leave a stable job with weekends off, paid leave, sick leave, healthcare benefits, and a reliable income at the end of every month, only to work 5-10x harder and turn into a glorified loan shark at the end of every project.

5/ Focusing on business scale-up & growth hacking

Most early-stage freelancers and solopreneurs reading the above four points may be thinking: "Juliana, it’s OK. I knew this was going to happen at the start."

Until they realize, it’s not at the start.

That this is Groundhog Day, and it will play over and over again.

In fact, it won’t get better until we learn the final skill of scaling up and growth hacking.

If you are working every waking hour of the day, if you are doing everything from marketing to business development, to delivering the actual service, then sending out the contract and invoicing the client, you are likely giving up your rest, exercise, health, family and friends.

You may ask yourself: did I really sign up for this? Is there really no way to increase my income unless I find 2-3 more hours a day or 2-3 more clients?

If you stop earning when you are sick or on vacation, you may ask yourself: is this the only way forward?

Build a brand and monetize it

I know it is hard to believe that there is a 12-month virtual Mastermind that can teach you how to build a personal brand all the way to monetizing it. 

Imagine a simple subscription that gives you access to world-class experts and business mentors who will guide you on how to build a brand, speak & write better, and make money from it.

It turns out that nearly 200 people have discovered this secret already. 

That’s exactly what you will find inside the Brand Builder Mastermind.

PS: We opened our February intake for the Brand Builder Mastermind on Valentine’s Day and six seats have been snapped up in 48 h!

4 of 10 seats are still available.

Would you like me to teach you these 5 essential skills in 2025? 🚀