Today I want to talk about one of my favourite topics: how to work efficiently, get through tough times and continue growing as a solopreneur.
As you know, I like to dig into the nitty gritty of that stuff. Not because general business tactics/strategies aren’t important, but because a lot of that can be found anywhere.
For example, you can easily go on google or youtube and search:
- how to get more sales
- how to do bookkeeping
- how to hire
But I like to talk about the specific struggles solopreneurs go through and what I do to combat them, especially the stuff that isn’t so “obvious”.
Anywho, I’m going through growing pains. This is a good struggle to go through, but doesn’t mean it isn’t important to talk about.
To make a long story short, I’m still trying to grow my firm (brought on a contract lawyer), still trying to put out SG content (new podcast episode just dropped), and also working with some potential partners on immigration-tech ideas (my niche for my law practice is immigration and I think there’s lots of potential).
But it’s pulling me in all directions and I’ve begun to feel disorganized and less efficient than I normally am.
Queue my business coach, who gave me an awesome suggestion – to create a dashboard for “Josh Inc.” (aka my professional life aka a google spreadsheet that tracks key health indicators of the different projects I’m working on).
I think it’s an awesome idea and started building it. The key health indicators I’ll be tracking for my professional life are:
Law firm:
- Monthly revenue
- Number of clients billed per month
- Hours/work outsourced
SG:
- Email/youtube subscribers
- Podcast downloads
- Podcasts/emails sent
Side tech project:
- Forms filled out
- Website visitors per week
- Time spent on content creation/traffic generation
As you can see, it’s a mix of mostly objective measurables and the 3rd item is something I am inputting/can control, so I can look for correlations and adjust as needed. If you’re feeling disorganized or “all over the place”, create a dashboard of your own – and you can definitely include personal stuff to, like for dieting, working out, meditating, etc.
Now here’s another organization hack: do you ever feel like your client work always comes in waves?
Like all your clients secretly get together and make a scheme to have their work due at the same time?!
Maybe you can relate or maybe not, but it always feels like I get a huge wave of work every couple weeks, then it’s quieter in between.
I don’t mind it, because the in-between time is nice to be able to do other things like sales, content creation, bookkeeping, etc. But it would also be nice to have things steadier.
Which brings me to another thought of the day:
Yes I could spread out when I do my client work, but I know how important speed is to my clients.
This will be different depending on your industry, but as some of you know, I help companies sponsor foreign tech workers. This means an extra week of delay is an extra week they are waiting for an important member of their team to join their Canadian office.
And my motto has always been: if it’s important to my client, it’s important to me.
So if they want me to work fast, I’ll work fast. If they aren’t in a rush, I can slow down a little.
But this is different depending on your client and industry. For example, if you’re a professional painter, your client might not care about speed – instead they want a beautiful painting. So make sure to take the time to do it well.
Conclusion: make your clients priorities your priorities.
By doing that and having your own dashboard and metrics to track, it should keep you much more organized – or at least it will feel more organized in your head! I go into more detail on this in my vlog below, and don’t forget to join my email list to get all my awesome content right to your inbox every Friday!
