Vox Fortis Communications

One of the benefits of being entrepreneur is that you can decide how much or how little you want to work. You are the lucky dog who has a modicum of control over how much you’re making. (Assuming you’re landing jobs, of course.) But there is a huge limitation that us workaholics actually get visibly irate about: there are only so many hours in a day.

I can work 18 hours straight, because what I do rarely feels like work. I love it, I enjoy it, and all that huggy yummy stuff. Since I don’t want to make you feel motion sick, we won’t dwell on the yummies. Instead, let’s focus on those people who have managed to ride their entrepreneurial rollercoaster, and finally get over that huge, slow, crawl to finally hit the peak and take off rushing at a million miles an hour. This has been all around me recently, mostly notably with my friend Naomi who has now exploded onto the freelance scene thanks to her entry that pitched a tent on the front page of Digg.

As much as I love my work, there are only so many hours in the day, like I said. If you’re doing well, you can fill those, but how do you get to that next level? How do you manage to grow your deserted island into a little village full of natives? (Not like the ones in King Kong. If those are your natives, you need to consider exile.)

People that have managed to step off their island and grow it into a village have one of two ways they’ve managed to do this, aside from the fruity drinks with the little umbrella. (Those never hurt, but you’re more likely to get tourists than villagers that way.)

Way of the Solo Warrior #1: They are good at multiple things.

I fall into this category at the moment. My mind makes connections to stuff, especially business capability. I started in sales, and got interested in consumer behavior, so I landed in marketing. I always loved writing, so I took a job writing for consumer experience, which just so happened to be in the e-commerce division of a major retailer. That environment immersed me in how things work in the web world, and being an organized and pretty focused person, my skill set grew in things like managing projects and campaigns. I started digesting online marketing information and it made sense to me, so I grew into an online marketing role.

Here’s my point. Maybe having skills in underwater basket weaving and survival skills in the desert aren’t going to be a solid offering. But, if you can find related areas to what you do that you’re naturally good at, you’re increasing your skillset. The clients I work may only have little ol’ me, but I can write, market, do analytics, and manage projects and campaign strategy. Having that combo has proved to be pretty great, which is something I never would have thought. I read so many things about how you have to focus, capitalize on the whole Long Tail thing, and mostly wound up feeling like a scattered person who wasn’t sure what to offer.

I started offering up all things I was good at, and it’s worked well. I haven’t hit that all-important pinnacle on my roller-coaster ride yet. I’m still climbing up, but I think if keep plugging at it I’ll be plunging forth and looping upside down in no time. And, I do offer the fruity umbrella drinks, but the natives that seem keen to hang on my island for awhile stay anyway, so that’s kinda nice of them.

Way of the Solo Warrior #2: They have people that can do what they don’t.

Let’s say you’re really only good at one thing, and you know that. That’s absolutely awesome. I love to have people around that know one thing, but they know it so well that in my mind there’s no other resource on Earth who can possibly have half their knowledge in their puny little brains. Plenty of people make a great living doing this one thing they’re good at. The people with the grass village on the deserted island tend to have a network.

They mingle with other people that have a skill set that would complement theirs. There may be zero interest in learning what the other one knows, but when people know what they don’t know, they’re a force to be reckoned with. Seeking out those who know what you don’t is a valuable way to spend a little time each day. You never know when you’ll have a client that loves you so much they don’t want to use anyone else…even if they’re asking for things you don’t know how to do. Guess what? If you know someone who does, then you DO know how to do it by proxy. You have a person you can refer (if they’re not a jerk) or you can sub-contract out to (if their work doesn’t suck, no matter how much they know). You = rockstar to your client.

There are many other things that play into when and how your wee little business takes off, but these are the two I run into repeatedly. Feel free to share the others.

Speaking of building an island, feel free to join mine. We have frequent bonfires and roasted marshmallows.