People who go it alone usually fall in to two categories. Some sell their advice or expertise. They may be coaches, lawyers, consultants, and the like. Others provide a service that may or may not involve equipment: plumbers, web designers, wedding planners and such fall into this category.

Are they business owners?

While in legal terms the answer might be yes, I’d answer no, not as we normally think of a business. What they own is a practice. It’s based on them and their ability. The bad news is they can’t sell their “company” – there’s no equity in it. The good news is there’s a lot of freedom and it can be quite lucrative. And it’s simple.

Here’s what I tell solo-preneurs who are stuck:

1. Decide what hours you’re working.
2. At work the first thing to do is serve your paying customers.
3. When you run out of paying customers the only other thing to do is find one.
4. Spend 30 min a day (max) on administrivia.

That’s it. Simple. Here’s some more details if you want them.

Deciding what hours you work is often harder than you think when you work at home, doing something you love and it’s not going as fast as you want. When it’s time to work, show up. When it’s not, do something else. Your hours can be convoluted, but establish a schedule and stick to it. For sanity’s sake you must be able to look at the clock and know if you’re working or not.

Serving a paying customer is what you’re there for. I presume you’re good at what you do. If not, quit your business untill you are.

Finding a paying customer is the only other thing that matters. You need to have a simple system for this so you always know what to do next when it’s time for this activity. I suggest the M.A.P. Marketing Action Plan. Then when you’re not serving customers use your M.A.P. Don’t reorganize your desk, don’t redesign your business card. Find a paying customer. In some cases you don’t want to wait till you run out of customers to serve before you start finding the next one. Book an hour a day or 5 hours a week, in that case.

Administrivia is getting paid, tracking the money, keeping your tools in order, filing and such. If it takes up more than 30 min a day, you’re doing something wrong. Your systems are too complex or too simple. Fix them and move on.