Holy moly – what a whirlwind of a week folks.
Largely because on-top of the usual stuff, started doing some cold outbound sales to India.
And if you know anything about India, you know that it’s ~10 hours ahead of me in Canada.
Which means if I want to do any meaningful outreach by phone, it has to be in the morning until around 9/10am (depending on how respectful I want to be of their bedtime), or at/after 10pm.
I much prefer the morning, because I don’t function very well after 10pm, so I’ve been shifting my calendar around to have more free time first thing in the morning to pump out some outbound.
Just one of the sacrifices we may have to make when trying to build a solopreneur business.
That, or just make sure whatever your business does, you only do it for clients in your timezone!
It’s also very interesting to learn about new industries and also new regions of the world. For example, professionals in your industry in Canada might work one way, but professionals in the same industry but across the world work totally differently.
Not always huge differences, sometimes just little differences that can go a long way, like words or phrases that are used to say “hello” or “goodbye”.
Or more standard pricing models. Or certain features that have zero value to clients here, but mean everything to clients overseas.
It’s one of the more appealing parts of working in the immigration space – you get to meet and learn about people from all over the world, and see how different (and in some ways similar) people are.
Anyway, just some thinking as I’m spending more time talking to people abroad.
On another note, probably the one thought or idea that keeps me going the most is something that one of my advisors told me a few weeks ago.
And it encapsulates the grind and struggle of solopreneurship.
You ever have one of those days, or weeks, or sometimes even a basic task, that you know you have to do for your solopreneur business, but you really – and I mean really – don’t want to do?
Well, I think the real greatness comes just beyond those points.
The real big wins, big clients, big sales, big break throughs.
They don’t just come around everyday, to everyone and their mother who hopes or preys for them.
They come to those who push just a bit beyond where the real pain begins. When you say “I hate having to do this, but I’m going to do it anyway”. It’s on the other side of that, where you’ll break through.
At least, it’s what one of my advisors and I agreed upon a few weeks ago. And I genuinely believe it to be true.
The good part?
It makes doing those things a little bit easier, because you know that if you keep pushing, doing the right things, putting in the time and effort, that you’ll be rewarded in the end.
Maybe things are sunny and rosey for you these days, or maybe they’re not. Maybe you’re pushing through something or some phase that’s really tough.
If you are, don’t stop. Not yet.
It’s like Jeff Bezos said (side note: almost done reading The Everything Store which I’ll talk more about next week), you want to make the choices that will leave you with the least regret when you look back on your life.
So keep pushing, keep grinding, and in the end, you’ll be happy you did (or at the very least, you won’t regret that you tried when you look back on it).
Have a great day, don’t miss my best daily business journey and stories here, and keep grinding.
