The Myth of the Successful Solopreneur

The successful solo-preneur that is growing their business and excited by everything they're doing and making a massive impact in the world with a ton of security is a myth. And the reality is, anybody who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

I find it a little crazy today how many people are trying to convince start-up entrepreneurs that the way to go and the way to be independent and the way to have freedom is to be a solo-preneur without a team, without anyone who helps or supports you. In fact a lot of the people who come to my coaching programs have come in with the belief that they don't need team members, shouldn't have employees and should do it as much as they can themselves and then get contractors or virtual assistants to do the rest for them.

And here's the reality of that sad, sad existence, is that when you are a solo-preneur without a team, here's the bottom line, you are the highest exposed entrepreneur there is. If something happens to you, everything goes down. If you can't work for a few days, your company isn't doing anything. If you're not actually active, you're not making money and making things happen. So the successful solo-preneur without a team is an entrepreneur who just hasn't had a big enough problem yet to feel the pain of being a solo-preneur.

And the fact is, it doesn't matter if you make ten dollars an hour or 10,000 dollars an hour, you have the same exposure. If something happens to a ten dollar an hours worker, they can't make their ten dollars an hour anymore. If something happens to you and you're making 10K an hour, you can't make your 10,000 dollars an hour anymore. You are just as exposed as the person who's working at McDonald's when you are a solo-preneur without a team. Now when you build an infrastructure and you build a team and you have employees around you that you can actually task with outcomes, everything in your world will change because here's what it means to be a solo-preneur. It means that any help you get, when you don't have a team, when you don't have people that are all in for you any help you get is 100 percent transactional management. You're telling people what to do, checking that it got done and then telling them what to do again.

It's exhausting for people like us and you never transition into transformational leadership which is when you have people on your team and you can give them clear outcomes, projects, outcomes you want in your business, results you want in your business then you can coach their success along the way and this gives you leveraged results. Here's the fact of being a solo-preneur, you never make that transition from it being you to you and a team. You never make that personal transition from me to we. That is one of the biggest growth processes you go through as an entrepreneur.

In fact, in the thousands of books and personal histories and third party accounts and articles I've read about successful people throughout history, here's what I've found, the myth of the successful person who did it all by themselves is exactly that. Einstein didn't just create the theory of relativity on his own. When you look at what he ended up doing and how much work he did and when he had a team and during the Manhattan project, how many people were around him, Einstein had a huge organization of people helping him be Einstein.

Socrates wouldn't have been so without Plato and all the other philosophers around them. There was no such thing as a person who just did it all themselves. In fact, Picasso had somebody dropping off paint to them to make sure he could keep painting during his Blue period. There is always people around wildly successful individuals helping them move forward and create momentum. Today, there's this myth that as an entrepreneur the safest thing to do, the easiest thing to do, the right thing to do is to work on your own without the quote unquote responsibility of a team. Well I want you to know something, that means that you take all the responsibility yourself. When I started working with Molly Kaiser and Aaron Silvernao who owned booty shorts I remember Molly told me she didn't want to have any team members because contractors were so much easier.

Well she wasn't in our programs for just a few month before she started hiring team members and today all she talks about is how incredible her team is. When you come to one of our events and you're around the other entrepreneurs we coach and you hear about what their team members are doing for them and what it feels like to have a team, and how empowered they are by having a team of people who are managing outcomes, creating bigger results, making things happen for them. You can't help but understand that the successful solo-preneur is really a myth that is being sold to all of us out there and it's one of the most damaging and constraining myths that there is.

Because here's one of the thought processes that entrepreneurs enter the world with and we have to unlearn. And you know it just as well as I do. That thought process of "If it's gonna be done right," now you can finish the statement. We all know it's "I have to do it myself." The reality is so much different. If it's going to be done right, you can find the person who does it better than you. If it's gonna be done right, you can assemble a team that can do it at a factor of ten or 20 times what you can. If it's gonna be done right you can bring in the right people and the right organization with the right communication structure and they can all help you grow your business faster than you could ever have hoped to on your own.

Whenever I talk to somebody who works on their own, who doesn't have a team and who provides services, I have a hard time even getting to the second step with them because if I hire someone for example to do my Facebook ads or to work with me in any capacity that's on going and they are a solo-preneur without a team, and something happens to them, I'm in trouble.

There's a reason I work with Emily Hirsch and the Hirsch Agency because Emily has a team of 18 people right now and she has four contractors in addition to that so there's 22 people over there so if something happened to Emily or if something happened to the person managing my ads, there's an entire team that can fill it and make sure that I'm still taken care of. The person across from me who's working with a solo-preneur ads agency that doesn't have a team, they have the same exposure as that ten dollar an hour employee. And you have to understand if you're working with people who don't have a team, so do you.

So the realty is, is that having a team, building an organization, building an infrastructure is that fastest way to get to the outcomes you want as an entrepreneur. Don't let somewhere sell you on staying small. Any present constraint, creates a future limitation. Any constraint you let into your life right now is going to slow down where you're going eventually. If you let that thought sneak in, that you're gonna do it all yourself, that you're not gonna get help, that you're not gonna build a team... that means everyday you're carrying around one of the most limiting beliefs that you have as an entrepreneur. Because when you say "I wonder how I could scale my business." The first part of your answer is "by myself." I wonder how big I can make this, by myself. I wonder how big of an impact I can have by myself.

When you remove that limitation and you just say, "I wonder how big I can get this? I wonder how much I can do? I wonder how big of an impact I can make" With a team, your success and your possibilities are infinite. The successful solo-preneur is a myth. If you encounter someone who doesn't have a team and seems happy and is a successful solo-preneur, you've encountered someone who just hasn't fell the exposure of not having a team yet. If you're ready to build a team, and build an organization around you so that you can reduce your exposure you increase your impact, I'm ready to help you.

I'm actually holding a live web class that is invitation only, or sorry, qualification only and I want you to apply. If you got to Alex Sharfen dot com. And answer some simple questions, we will let you know if you qualify to spend some time directly with me with a small group of entrepreneurs with a similar situation looking to maximize their impact and grow a team fast.

If you are ready to understand the processes, the projects, the people, the way that the companies we coach are growing as fast as they are, then attend this webinar with me. I will answer all the question you have and I will give you insight as to exactly how we're helping companies go from multiple six figures to well over seven. From seven to multiple seven figures. From multiple seven figures, into the eight figure range and beyond in time frames that are incredibly fast. Go to Charfen.com right now. Fill out the application and come spend some time with me and a few other entrepreneurs just like you, so you can see just how fast you can grow your team, your impact, your revenues, your profitability and the change you are making in the world.