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241. Your Solo Business Won’t Stay the Same. Here’s How to Future-Proof It! · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: Wouldn't it be nice if your solopreneur business could just stay perfect forever? Same clients, same flows, same income, same balance. Well, unfortunately, the future has other plans. Trends shift, technology evolves, and life happens. In this episode of The Aspiring Solopreneur, Joe and I dig into the how to future proof your solo business so you can adapt and thrive no matter what comes your way.
• 0:22
  From spotting early industry shifts and curating your feeds for focus, to using AI and automation as your secret weapons, we'll show you how to stay resilient, relevant, and ready for whatever's next. Even if that next thing is AI agents running your inbox while you sip iced tea on the beach. You're listening to the aspiring solopreneur, the podcast for anyone on the solo business journey, whether you're just toying with the idea, taking your first bold step, or have been running your own show for years and want to keep growing, refining, and thriving. I'm Carly Ries, and along with my cohost, Joe Rando, we're your guides through the crazy but awesome world of being a company of one. As part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all things solopreneurship, we help people design businesses that align with their life's ambitions so they can work to live, not live to work.
• 1:11
  If you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the place for you. But if you want real world insights from industry experts, lessons from the successes and stumbles of fellow solopreneurs, and practical strategies for building and sustaining a business you love, you're in the right spot. Because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. No matter where you are in your journey, we've got your back. So, Joe, picture this.
• 1:36
  Your business is running smoothly. You have the clients you want. You have the income you want. You have the work life balance you want. Wouldn't it be so nice if your business could just stay the same forever?
• 1:47
  Like that, same clients, same flow, same everything.
• 1:50
  Joe Rando: That would be lovely.
• 1:52
  Carly Ries: well, unfortunately, that is not the reality because solopreneurship, as we know, is a wild ride. And the one thing we do know is that the future is always shifting. So whether it's trends, technology, our lives, if we aren't adaptable, we can't be resilient to things, we risk getting left behind. I'm thinking today, we dive into how solopreneurs can future proof their businesses and themselves in that situation, if you're game
• 2:21
  Joe Rando: Absolutely.
• 2:22
  Carly Ries: Starting with trends, I included an example in a book about running an omelet stand. And there are all these different things you need to be keeping an eye on. But if you're selling omelets, you should probably keep an eye on egg prices. Because as we know for the past year, those can definitely fluctuate, and that would definitely impact the business of an omelet stand. So every solopreneur has their own egg.
• 2:47
  For some it might be social media algorithms, for others it might be a supply cost, client behavior. The key is to build in time, like on your calendar, to review what is changing in your industry, and what is changing around you. Do you have any tips on how you do that for yourself?
• 3:07
  Joe Rando: Well, one of the things I've done, and I've done this for years, maybe it's old hat, but Google has a thing where you can go in and you can have Google basically scan the the web for you all the time and send you an email with a list of pages that match your search term. So I have one for solopreneurs. I have one, actually, from my name to see if anybody's saying anything about me. Usually, it's somebody using the expression, oh, some Joe Rando showed up at the party, but that's okay. But, that's one of the ones that I really like.
• 3:41
  And lately, I've been using ChatGPT. I feel you can use any of the major LLMs to kinda say, you know, what's happening. You gotta specify that you want stuff, say in the last thirty days, but you can go in and say, what's going on with solopreneurs, you know, what are some things that have happened in the last thirty days, and it'll come back with sometimes some interesting stuff. A lot of times it's just press releases or other things that, aren't necessarily fascinating, but it's another way that I find that you can kinda keep an eye on things.
• 4:12
  Carly Ries: You know what I also just did recently that I felt so good, it was like a digital cleanse. Because over time we accumulate people that we follow on social media that after a while, useless sounds like I don't have a heart. But they don't provide the value that they once did. And so I went through and I unfollowed people that were just kinda cluttering my feed on LinkedIn and on Instagram for that matter. so now I only see the relevant information that I want to see that helps me stay on top of trends, whether it's for marketing, solopreneurship, things happening in the world. And when I say things happening in the world, that's more so the Instagram side.
• 4:57
  But I only see now what's important to me, and I got rid of all the fluff to make it a lot easier to follow.
• 5:04
  Joe Rando: Makes a huge difference. I have to do that again. I've done that in the past. And it makes a difference. it's like you have to curate your feed. Right?
• 5:14
  And if you curate your feed well, social media is useful, and if you don't, it can be anywhere from annoying to toxic.
• 5:22
  Carly Ries: Yeah. Absolutely. And speaking of social media, I want to clarify trends. I'm not talking about shiny object syndrome, the latest TikTok dance, or anything like that.
• 5:33
  I just need you to ask yourself, is this trend relevant to your audience? Or are you just chasing something because it's new? So that's a big thing. But, yeah, this is not the ice bucket challenge or anything like that. These are, trends that really will benefit your business.
• 5:50
  Joe Rando: I do have a philosophy that I've used over the years, and I've talked about it before, I think. But for maybe not as much future proofing, but yeah. it is future proofing. So I've been in other businesses where, we've sold something as part of our offering that went from being something that was kind of proprietary to some degree. And maybe it's something we did or maybe something somebody else did that we bundled into our products.
• 6:19
  And all of a sudden, it becomes a commodity. So this thing that used to be expensive and and kind of precious, now all of a sudden, everybody's doing it. I'll give you an example. We used to sell this database of store locations for grocery stores and Targets and Walmarts, and it had all kinds of data about them.
• 6:37
  It was very accurate. And literally, if you wanted the entire database, it was over 6 figures a year. And all of a sudden, people figured out how to scrape the web and go to these store locator sites and just scrape the data. Now it wasn't nearly as good, but they were selling the entire dataset for $4,000 a year. Well, we were getting 50% of that sale.
• 7:00
  And all of a sudden, now you've got this, you know, much cheaper. So even if you get 50%, it goes from being maybe $60,000 to $2,000, and that's very painful. So what we did is we had a philosophy of whenever this kind of thing happened, treat it like a rising tide and try to float above it. So in that case, the data wasn't as good. It was cheaper, but we built out a way for people to use that data and then use our technology to improve it.
• 7:32
  So when they were out in the field, they could take their iPhone and go, oh, that store is not here. It's over here. Oh, you know, that store is not 4,000 square feet. It's definitely 6,000 square feet. And edit it and fix all the data.
• 7:42
  And all of a sudden, they were able to make the data better, and we were able to sell software that was a 100% profit. So that's the way I like to think about it. So when something like like, ChatGPT comes along and you're a copywriter, well, don't say, oh, I'm done. You know, people can use this instead.
• 8:07
  Say, how do I use this to improve my craft, maybe be more productive at the same time, and make the same or more money by virtue of mastering the use of this new tool and building on top of it?
• 8:21
  Carly Ries: Absolutely. You made yourself resilient is what you did, which I think is number is the key to future proofing your solo business, like you were saying. you need to figure out ways to keep going when negative things get thrown. Or not even negative things, but new things get thrown in your direction.
• 8:38
  Joe Rando: Well, yeah, you could view it as a problem or an opportunity. And, most things that happen to a business are happening to a lot of businesses. And if you can be one of the ones that figure out how to take advantage of it instead of getting hammered by it, you can survive and maybe even do better.
• 8:57
  Carly Ries: Yeah. Absolutely. You're a glass half full kind of guy, Joe.
• 9:03
  Joe Rando: I try. I really do. And, you know, I try to be glass half full.
• 9:09
  Carly Ries: Yeah. I think you are. And another thing to think about in terms of building that resilience is maybe consider diversifying your income streams. Like if you're a coach, have your one on one sessions, but also have a course that people can download on demand. And maybe do speaking engagements. think of ways that if one area of your business when I say diversify income streams, I'm not saying that you also need to go buy real estate properties or this or that. But within your business itself, think of other ways that you can bring money in the door so that if one dips, another one might be able to rise. And again, it's with the tide that you're just walking through.
• 9:44
  Joe Rando: Going back to what we talked about in the last episode on, basically taking care of yourself. If you do get sick, if you've got some kind of a passive income download, that can still function while you're not able to get in front of the screen or go out to meetings and do things. So it's another reason to try to diversify to some degree. But, yeah, there's a very strong argument for what you're saying in terms of diversifying, your revenue stream.
• 10:10
  Carly Ries: Yes. Well, something that I wanna piggyback off of that. you were saying, I think continuous learning is key to building resilience and adapting and everything. But you were talking about AI and copywriters. AI and automation in general is a great way to help future proof your business. Or, is the future of solopreneurship? Is that a weird blanket statement to say? The future of solopreneurship?
• 10:36
  Joe Rando: It's not weird at all. It's not weird at all because the AI, you know, the LLMs, generative AI, they call it, you know, that makes things. That's great. And it's made us much more productive as solopreneurs. I mean, I'm doing way more work than I would have been able to do a few years ago.
• 10:52
  But the agents, which I don't know are quite ready for prime time yet, but these AI agents that are gonna go out and do things for you, That's huge. And when they get good enough, it's gonna be almost like you can be an employee based business without employees.
• 11:04
  Carly Ries: Yeah.
• 11:05
  Joe Rando: Which is amazing and scary as hell at the same time.
• 11:08
  Carly Ries: So crazy. I know. Because we're talking about the future of solopreneurship right now. I don't think any of us can really comprehend where AI is going. I know we can talk about it, and I know we can hear what's gonna happen, but in terms of it, yeah. It breaks my brain. It's like when I think about the universe, it just breaks my brain. I'm like yeah. What do we do?
• 11:29
  Joe Rando: It's so hard. It's so hard. I mean, predicting the future you know, what was it that Yogi Berra said? He said forecasting is difficult, especially about the future.
• 11:40
  Exactly. Or something like that.
• 11:42
  Carly Ries: But for now, AI is a tool that could be used for good in your business. I mean you can summarize client meetings, you can prep for calls, you can brainstorm marketing ideas? It can act as your tutor. it can teach you things that you didn't know. So for now, and moving forward, make it your best friend and use it to become more efficient, to streamline things that would have taken you hours before.
• 12:08
  And then on the side of becoming more efficient, AI and automation, they're your buds. Automation, if you're not automating some of your systems and processes, you need to start figuring out ways that you can do that now. Because, think if you were on vacation and your systems could automatically be sending follow-up emails for you, scheduling social media posts for you, invoicing clients, doing all this stuff behind the scenes, and you're sitting on the beach drinking an iced tea. Like, doesn't that sound lovely as a solopreneur?
• 12:38
  Joe Rando: Especially today, it's kinda cold here. Yeah. That sounds great.
• 12:41
  Carly Ries: And I mean, don't drink out of a fire hose with automation. Maybe just try to automate your scheduling first. we do that with Calendly. That can happen behind the scenes for us.
• 12:53
  Joe Rando: we use HubSpot to do, you know, email nurturing and onboarding. And I can't even imagine trying to do that manually now. we wouldn't do anything else. We'd just be like, oh, let's say I send the emails, today. And it just you know, it sends them out, and we can target different kinds of people with different kinds of emails.
• 13:16
  I mean, it makes such a difference versus trying to do anything like that manually. But, yeah, I'm excited for agents. I'm not ready to turn them loose yet. I just feel like it's gonna be one of those things where you do a facepalm because something's gonna happen, but they'll get there.
• 13:35
  Carly Ries: Yeah. They will. And they'll get there, I think, lot faster than we're ready for. They're coming. Coming in hot.
• 13:43
  But I think to wrap up the episode on the future of solopreneurship, I think you also need to think about planning for the long term of your business. We, in the book talk about nine day plans. We talk about just how planning for solopreneurs, you don't need the traditional business plan. We have a solopreneur action plan that people follow.
• 14:04
  But you need to know where you want your business to, or have an idea of where you want your business to be in five or ten years to best plan for it. And you may not know the concrete things because that's hard to predict. I mean, in 2019, I don't think anybody had a five year plan that went the way it was supposed to the following year.
• 14:22
  Joe Rando: Yeah. Five year plans are long.
• 14:24
  Carly Ries: They're long, but one thing that I like to do with those long plans are doing scenario planning. So a what if exercise. So what if a recession hits? What if a global pandemic hits? What if you get flooded and there is also on good sides too.
• 14:40
  What if you get flooded with clients that you don't have the capacity to take on all at once? What if you're what if a contractor of yours disappears mid project? Do like play the what if game to help set your business up for long term success. Joe, you're right. Five years is a long time, but if you can kinda think more on the future and play the what if game of what could happen during that time, I feel like you get the systems and processes and everything in place now to best inform.
• 15:07
  Joe Rando: It's good to think through. I mean, especially with regard to what you want your life to look like. You know? And that's, that's the thing. If you say, this is what I want my life to be like in five years, it's gonna take five years probably to get to that point.
• 15:24
  Carly Ries: Yeah.
• 15:24
  Joe Rando: And, it's one of those things where a lot of people don't do that, and they wind up they go, how did I get here? Yeah. And, honestly, I've been there. I've done that. and not with unsuccessful businesses either.
• 15:40
  Carly Ries: Right. Exactly. So, yeah. Practice what we preach. I guess, my biggest takeaway from today is when it comes to the future of solopreneurship, it's not about predicting every change because we can't. But it's about staying curious, staying flexible, and just being resilient and ready to evolve with whatever change does come your way.
• 16:03
  Joe Rando: Yes.
• 16:03
  Carly Ries: That is a good summary?
• 16:05
  Joe Rando: That's it.
• 16:06
  Carly Ries: Alright. Well, I'm gonna leave it with that. But listeners, thank you so so much for tuning in today. As always, leave that five star review. It's great for the show.
• 16:14
  It's great for our egos, if we're being honest as well.
• 16:18
  Joe Rando: And you help other solopreneurs find us.
• 16:19
  Carly Ries: Yes. Exactly.
• 16:20
  Joe Rando: Yeah. That's a kind thing to do.
• 16:22
  Carly Ries: Yeah. Ignore that ego thing I just said. And subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, including YouTube. Share this episode with a friend if you think they'll find it helpful, and we will see you next time on The Aspiring Solopreneur.
• 16:36
  You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.