A Day in the Life of the Solopreneur Consultant

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Hi there!

I used to love books that combined psychology & business. Books like:

• The Power of Habit

• The No Assh*** Rule

• Give & Take

I believed then, and still do today, that business is about people. Thus, knowing business psychology could be an advantage.

As you might guess, that was college Sean's perspective. He was in for a rude awakening in the professional world.

The best mental models in the world are still theoretical.

Today, I read biographies to learn from non-theoretical, real-world experiences.

The problem is not all biographies are useful. For a biography to be useful, it must be real and transparent.

The goal of today’s newsletter is to be exactly that, while still taking only 3 minutes to read.

(We’re doing this because you voted to hear about "A day in the life of a solopreneur consultant." Vote for next week’s topic below!)

The most important thing to know: your average day changes depending on the stage of your journey.

Stage #1: Side Hustling

You wake up at 6 am to commute to the office. You went to bed a little after midnight and need coffee.

With business casual on, you pack your bag. You plan to smuggle your personal laptop into the office today.

At the office, you settle in for a boring day of 8:30-6 pm.

When no one is looking, you open up your personal computer to pitch on consulting projects. You’ll bounce between work and pitching all day long until you submit at least 20 pitches.

But good news! A potential client liked your pitch. Unfortunately, they want to hop on the phone in 10 minutes.

Looks like you need to “go get coffee” outside your office and hope no one from work notices you on the phone.

You make it home at 6 pm.

If you’re young and single, you can get straight to work on the project you sold during your “coffee run.”

If you’re older or have kids, you probably must wait until ~9 pm.

With some luck, you’ll be done by midnight. Without luck, it could be even later.

Once asleep, you’ll get ~5 hours of rest and then will need to get up and go do it all over again.

This stage is terrible. You’ll miss time with friends and family. You’re sleep deprived. You’ll think about quitting.

You need to have support at this stage.

• Talk to a friend

• Email me-I’m happy to help

• Hire the ex-special forces accountability coaches at Uncommon Elite (they’re not cheap, but they will help you through this better than anyone else can. I’m personally working with them)

Stage #2: Precarious…but Full time.

Your day starts around 9 am. You are a full-time entrepreneur working from home, so you slept in. Or, maybe you worked out. You have more time now that you don’t commute.

The majority of your day is spent “doing” things. You’ll be in Excel, Powerpoint, Tableau, Salesforce, etc.

You do more work now than you did at your full-time job.

Despite having clients and making good money, you don’t feel comfortable yet. Those clients came quickly. They could go quickly too.

So, you also check Catalant, BTG & Umbrex constantly. Despite already being busy, you’ll pitch on everything you see.

If you win a new project, you’ll take it. You’re looking to feel comfortable.

Now you’re doing multiple projects at once. You know you should hire freelancers to help you, but you haven’t gotten around to it.

On most nights, you’ll finish up around 7 or 8 pm. That doesn’t sound so bad, and it’s not. But, your work hours are full. You get more stuff done per hour. No wasting time with boring meetings or surfing the internet.

If you have kids, you’ll stop earlier and work a few hours post-kids bedtime. Every once in a while, you’ll be up past midnight.

Fortunately, weekends are your own, and you’re free from work.

Your personal happiness is a lot higher now. You’re in control of your own destiny. You’ve made it over the “hump” of getting started.

Stage #3: The Conductor

Work still starts at 9 am.

You now have a strong freelance team that handles most of the work. Your role as the conductor is to orchestrate the flow of work around your team and to check their work.

You also spend significantly less time pitching on work. Work is now coming to you. You start to feel comfortable.

Yet, your hours are still in the ~50 per week range. Fortunately, this is an easier 50 hours because it’s all meeting based.

You’ll have meetings on your calendar for:

• Regular check-ins with existing clients

• Check-ins with old clients

• Meet with prospective new clients who reached out to you

Expect to spend 5+ hours a day on Zoom at this point and another 30 minutes recording Looms for your freelancers.

You’re still done around 7 pm at night.

This stage is the best work because it’s the most interesting. You focus “on” your business rather than work “in” your business.

And that’s a day in the life as a solopreneur consultant!

How can I help?

If you reply to this email, it will come directly to me & I’ll respond early next week.

I have a hypothesis on one way I could help people: a consulting business in a box.

To be clear: I am unsure if I will actually do this. I will only move forward with this if there is genuine interest.

What would be most helpful to read about next week?

Let me know what would be most helpful for you :)