44. Lessons from Staying Solo: Your Guide to Building a Simple and Sustainable Service Business

Welcome back to Your Win-Win Teacher Business. This is our Business Book Club series and today’s book is called Lessons from Staying Solo: Your Guide to Building a Simple and Sustainable Service Business

Grab a copy of this book: https://amzn.to/451vqxF

You might also enjoy my FREE hiring guide: https://www.cookfamilyresources.com/hiring-guide/

For more coaching on capacity try episode 6: https://www.cookfamilyresources.com/capacity/

And also episode 39: 

https://www.cookfamilyresources.com/capacity-102/

For coaching on what to do when you feel your business goals are off-track try episode 42: 

https://www.cookfamilyresources.com/what-to-do-when-goals-are-not-on-track/

For coaching on salary stability try episode 30:

https://www.cookfamilyresources.com/profit-first-book-review-business-book-club/

These show notes may contain affiliate links.
I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this description.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Janice Coook: Welcome back to Your Win-Win Teacher Business. This is our business book club series, and today's book is called Staying Solo: Your Guide to Building a Simple and Sustainable Service Business.

[00:00:39] Before we get started, thank you so much for your kind messages about our week off from the podcast last week. 

[00:00:45] Putting on my podcast manager hat, I always believe in banking a few episodes because illness and emergencies do happen, and you always wanna have some episodes in your back pocket that you can air in those situations. In my case, I actually was batched out for the whole month of June so that I could turn my attention to another task in my business.

[00:01:05] And then when it came time to record the July episodes, I didn't have a voice for almost three full weeks. So we got to the bottom of the cause of that, but there was just nothing I could do. I couldn't even hop on the mic to give you a heads up, why we were taking a week off on the podcast, and I did feel sorry about that. But if you ever see a mysterious break from the podcast and you feel like you're out of the loop, just know that the number one best place to stay in touch with me is my email list. So if you're on my email list, you know exactly why there was no podcast episode, you heard the whole story about what happened

[00:01:43] during air conditioning season in my house, but that kind of content doesn't stay here in long form content land, that's just for my email list besties. And so if you're ever looking to join my email list, the best way to join is to grab a copy of my free hiring guide, and I'll leave a link to that in the show notes. Okay. Let's get to what we came here for, a juicy business book chat about a book called Staying Solo.

[00:02:12] Why am I sharing this book? If you are one of the freelancers that listens to this podcast, you might enjoy reading the full book as the audience is service providers. But a lot of the teacher business owners listening today would actually be considered clients in the businesses

[00:02:29] this book discusses. Looking at the title of this episode, you might not be sure if this book is a match for you, but that's exactly why I wanted to share it with you today. Your algorithm might never serve up the author Maggie Patterson, but she's a seasoned online business owner with a powerful message.

[00:02:50] She has run a business solo. She has hired a team. She knows how to quiet the noise of what everyone else says is quote, the right way to run a business. She knows how to find clarity on what you want, and I am all about that journey on this podcast. Last month's book Your World-Class Assistant talked about the benefit of considering the perspective of both the business owner and their assistant. This week's book offers a similar opportunity. If you've ever worked with virtual assistants, web designers, or ad managers, 

[00:03:29] you've dabbled in this feeling of not running your business solo. Feelings likely bubbled up. And that unknown territory in some ways comes from not being familiar with both sides of the working relationship. So if you've never read a book about what is tricky about running a service-based business, I think this is a great one to be open to.

[00:03:51] That being said, this book is organized into three parts, and I think for most listeners of this podcast, part one is the one that will be most appealing. If you've been growing and scaling according to the advice of others and it never feels like the right fit, then Part one explores the greater entrepreneur conversation, and why

[00:04:11] it seems the advice always tries to pull us away from running a lean and mean business. Part two of the book shared the author's signature staying solo framework and part three was about boundaries. I don't know about you, but I can always use another reminder about the topic of boundaries. So I personally enjoyed this entire book, even though most of my highlighting took place during part one.

[00:04:39] So the first five takeaways from this book had me nodding my head up and down so much that I almost wondered if I was gonna have to reach for some ibuprofen. These five topics are ones that you've definitely heard on this podcast before but this book offers a different perspective on those same topics.

[00:04:57] So along the way in the show notes, I'll be linking to some other episodes that might be relevant if you need some reinforcement on these particular topics. And the first topic that was very familiar was the idea of revisiting your why. I know we hate that phrase and it can be very triggering, but it's the idea of remembering why we started our business in the first place.

[00:05:22] What job were you leaving? What life were you seeking? What schedule, what goal did you want to accomplish? Is that what you actually have now? Or did something go off the rails along the way? The author shares some sobering stats about entrepreneurship to balance out that push we always hear to make 5K months or six figure years because social media told you that was how success was measured.

[00:05:51] If you feel pressure and unrealistic expectations, now's the time to back up a few steps to examine the source of that pressure. Because it's really hard to wake up and make good business decisions when we're being crushed by that feeling of pressure. You can always go back to the very beginning of this podcast to hear my story and the winding road I took to discover why I wanted to start this business in the first place, and maybe hearing my winding road can help you feel less fuzzy on your why.

[00:06:25] Topic number two that felt very familiar is the idea of being honest when something isn't working. Entrepreneurs have a lot of persistence in them, and in some seasons it's definitely positive to put your head down and keep going even when the data isn't serving up the daily dopamine dose.

[00:06:42] That would make that journey easier. I loved the discussion of the sunk cost fallacy and the feelings of failure and image that become complex when you start to pivot or walk away from a strategy or a signature piece of your business. But I do think one of our most important skills as business owners is being clear how success will be measured and what green flags we need to see in order to repeat things again and again in our business.

[00:07:14] Dreaming big and believing great things are possible has to be paired with a way to measure what's working and a way to abandon what is not getting us closer to our goal. I loved the cautionary tale that sometimes revenue grows, but profit does not. Personally, I'm not here for vanity metrics and giving away all of the revenue that I've earned to fund the tools and team that it took to generate that number.

[00:07:42] I. I am much more interested in healthy profit margin and take home pay side of the coin because that connects back to the why I identified in step one. Why did I start this business and what does success look like for me? And I am glad the tough love about burnout came early in this book because that revenue number means nothing

[00:08:04] if you're burnt to a crisp and can't keep the business going year after year. The business should be a part of your life, not your entire life, and the business shouldn't be taking place, instead of those life activities that you craved more time for in the first place.

[00:08:23] Maggie discusses a lifestyle business and that discussion was Chef's Kiss for me. She perfectly described the type of business I want for myself. That doesn't mean what you and I want from our businesses are the same, but it helped me to quiet the noise of what the internet gurus say I should want.

[00:08:45] And that journey of coming back to what you actually want is always a win-win in my book. I'll link a podcast episode about what to do if your goals aren't on track in the show notes in case you crave a deeper dive into this coaching topic.

[00:09:00] Topic three that sounded awfully familiar was capacity. We've got a lot of episodes about capacity and for good reason. A schedule that allows you to show up as the person the business needs. White space,. Space to be a person. Space to dream. The space to make decisions about how you want to run your business.

[00:09:25] I love seeing this included in a book.

[00:09:28] Maggie reminds us of the importance to know the tipping point of how many hours are ideal for you to work. One of the beauties of being an entrepreneur is that you are not boxed into a nine to five or a seven to two or a 40 hour work week structure that society decides is part of how you should be a worker bee.

[00:09:52] You probably have a tipping point in your schedule where you're no longer productive, I know that I do. You've heard me talk on this podcast about how I have about two and a half or three hours in a sitting where I can be really focused and productive, and then after that I just have to cut my losses. And I usually get two of those good strong sessions

[00:10:14] in a typical day, one before lunch and one after lunch. And then around mid-afternoon for my body clock, I just don't have anything really cognitive left to give. I may be able to fold laundry, do something passive, like listen to a podcast. I may be able to do something active, like go for a walk and reflect and catch up with a friend and chitchat and network.

[00:10:35] But that's not where the needle moving time happens in my schedule on my big focus tasks because there's a tipping point where my brain is just no longer productive. And I could chain myself to the desk until five o'clock, because nine to five is what a full-time worker should be doing. But the truth is that I know

[00:10:54] that's not the path to me getting the best quality work done in my business. So knowing your tipping point and knowing your schedule, and setting up a business schedule that actually works for you, it really makes a lot of sense. Know your capacity, honor your capacity, and get smart getting a lot accomplished in a small container of time.

[00:11:20] This book talks about time spent serving clients and balancing that with time spent serving your business. You might not connect to that message. You might not feel it applies to you, so I'm gonna offer a reframe. You might need to ask yourself, what percentage of your time is spent creating resources to support teachers and what percentage of time is spent caring for your business so it can remain healthy

[00:11:47] and take care of you? When our capacity is at the max, we can't weather the curve balls of life and business. 

[00:11:55] If you're looking for a new lens to revisit your capacity and make sure your schedule is set up for success, I think you'll really enjoy the capacity discussions in this book. And I loved hearing Maggie talk about the natural sprint and slow seasons of the calendar year. You know we talked a lot about sprinting and slowing down in the 12 week year episode on this podcast.

[00:12:18] Topic number four that felt very familiar was a reminder about salary stability. You need to be able to see the results of your hard work when it comes to your take home pay, and you need to feel secure when you sit down to work for the day so that you can make business decisions. If you're worried about how you're gonna buy your groceries and keep the lights on, that's just not a place where you're gonna be able to sit down and have a productive day as a business owner.

[00:12:46] So the way you set up your owner compensation and your own salary needs to feel stable and secure. You need to have your four walls taken care of, and that behind the scenes business work has to be in place before you make another product to help someone else. This is the old concept of putting on your oxygen mask first before you can help

[00:13:08] other people. So if your salary doesn't feel stable and secure and you're starting your day by pulling up your dashboard to see if magically you made the number you needed overnight, then it's time to kind of slow down to speed up and get the stability of your salary back in place. If you're running a lifestyle business, then your salary and schedule need to hit the target number that you need to run the lifestyle that

[00:13:37] you're craving. And so you need to really know what your take home pay needs to be in order for you to be able to pay your bills comfortably. If your family needs you to bring in $3,000 a month in order for the math to math, and you interviewed for this job of running a teacher business and we said that we would pay you a thousand dollars some months and then $4,000 in other months, you might say, no way.

[00:14:04] That's not gonna work for me. You might turn the job down. And so we don't think of the job that way in the entrepreneur space, but it can be an interesting exercise to walk through because you know the number that you need this business to pay you and you know that you need that number on a recurring, regular schedule that aligns with your bills.

[00:14:26] So think about the salary that this job really needs to consistently pay you. And take a look at how you're managing cash flow in your business to make sure you can get that security in place first. And if you need more guidance on how to make that happen, you might wanna circle back to our episode about the book Profit First.

[00:14:46] The fifth topic in this book that felt very, very familiar was about having fewer goals that actually make it to the finish line. This was music to my ears. I can only keep an eye on a few goals at the same time. I find that when we put 10 goals

[00:15:02] on the list, we deep down inside know that we're never going to make it to 10, and so we already start with a permission slip to not achieve. Whereas if I have just one goal, I'm laser focused and I can't get distracted from it. I can't switch to another goal. I just have that one goal and I have to answer to it every morning and look at the tasks on my calendar for the day and really ask myself, do these tasks feel

[00:15:29] productive? Do they feel busy? Do they bring me closer to the goal that I said was important? Having a few goals and getting really honest about if the actions we're taking are bringing us closer to them, that's always the win. If I finish my small number of goals early, I can always set a bonus goal or a stretch goal, but it's really important for me to show up for my business and answer the promises I made to myself.

[00:15:56] And if I said this goal was important, I need to find a way to get to that goal. I loved the conversation about Procrasti-planning. Lots of us dive into planning tasks because of avoidance. And so we might have goals that aren't actually important to us. We might have goals that we're not excited about.

[00:16:19] We might have goals that we have no idea how to accomplish because they're way too big. And in those moments we might run towards a planning task to feel better and to feel productive. But really if you suspect that you're falling into a procrasti-planning trap, it might be good to turn within and try to figure out what deep work that's meaningful and needle moving

[00:16:43] you might be avoiding. We might need to get to the bottom of why, so that you can break the habit of procrasti-planning and start taking action in the right direction. Okay, there are two pieces of new learning in this book that I want to share today, and they're focused on definitions.

[00:17:01] So one of them is the definition of support. We talk about support a lot in my free hiring guide, and if you don't already have a copy of that, you can get it at cook family resources.com/hiring-guide.

[00:17:14] Maggie talks about support and reminds us how lonely the journey of entrepreneurship can be. You're deeply invested in your business, but sometimes that hyper focus can come at the expense of connection. And connection is a human need. She shares a research study about entrepreneurs and reminds us that our temptation to manage how others perceive us

[00:17:40] sometimes prevents us from sharing enough with other people to truly connect. And when we rob ourselves of that connection, we might be robbing ourselves of gaining meaningful support and insight from others. And that might be what you need to grow your business to the next level. In many ways, the best service providers are great at what they do because they know how it feels

[00:18:06] not to have the support you need as a business owner. But at the same time, we're not always clear on the best type of support for our situation, and many hiring horror stories actually stem from the root problem of us choosing the wrong type of support. So Maggie reminds us that the root of the word support is port, which means to carry.

[00:18:31] In my free hiring guide, we go through some of these reflection questions and really get to the bottom of what do you need help carrying? Do you need support in taking action or do you need someone to just do it for you? Do you need community and accountability or is what you actually need therapy or childcare? 

[00:18:52] In some seasons, we need support inside the business and in other seasons we need support more in our personal life. If you hire a coach when you actually needed someone to mow your lawn, then that coaching relationship isn't likely to actually make you feel better. So, like I said, we explore this journey a lot in my free hiring guide, and if you don't already have a copy, I would love for you to grab it in the show notes today.

[00:19:19] The other definition that's shared in this book is the goal of systems. So leaning into definitions I found helpful. Let's talk about that nebulous word of systems. Maggie shares the Oxford Dictionary definition, which is a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done.

[00:19:42] Whether you love 'em or you hate 'em, systems exist to reduce the cognitive load of daily decision making. So if a system isn't making your life easier, less complex, and decreasing your frustration, then Houston, we've got a problem. Systems are not here to stifle your creativity.

[00:20:02] In fact, inside my business, knowing that my systems are strong is what allows me to sit down and turn on the creativity right away. So maybe you'll read this book and maybe you won't, but either way know it's filled with incredible reflection questions that can help you get closer to making sure your business is a win-win.

[00:20:24] Given the number of helpful charts, graphics, and supplementary resources that this book includes, I would suggest a physical or a Kindle copy over audio for this one. But the author also has some great podcast content that you can dive deeper into after reading this book, if you want to connect with her through the power of audio. Thank you for letting me share this favorite book from my bookshelf today.

[00:20:48] I hope it helps you bring your business back into focus a bit before the whirlwind of back to school season. This is your business and you get to run it your way.