There’s a peculiar kind of ambition that only solopreneurs seem capable of: running a business that needs a handful of good clients every month while building a marketing operation that could support a multinational.
We have LinkedIn, Threads, Instagram, YouTube, newsletters, lead magnets, websites, funnels, automations, and enough subscriptions to keep several SaaS companies in business.
And because there’s always another platform gaining momentum or another expert insisting that we’re leaving money on the table, the list keeps growing.
I’ve seen solopreneurs with impressive audiences across several channels who struggle to generate consistent revenue. I’ve also seen consultants with modest online presences making excellent money, sometimes with surprisingly little marketing.
The difference is rarely explained by the number of channels or tools they use.
Caveat: a bigger audience is always a good thing, provided that it’s a relevant one.
A while ago, I wrote about the five channels and half a business problem: how we end up building increasingly elaborate content operations because every platform has its own ideas about what we should be doing.
Today, I want to explore the other side of that argument. How much infrastructure do you actually need to build a business that attracts clients, makes money consistently, and has reasonable prospects for growth?
I think the answer is considerably less involved than most marketing advice suggests.
And, perhaps more importantly, I think we’re asking the wrong question when we focus on which platforms we should use.
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Your business needs four things to happen
Whenever I look at a solopreneur’s marketing, I try to understand the journey people take before they become customers.
Where did they first hear about you? What made them interested enough to pay attention? How did they become convinced you were worth paying? And what happened after the purchase?
These are four distinct functions that every business needs to cover. They can happen in four different places, or they can overlap considerably.
That’s the beauty of a small business: you can get several jobs done with the same asset, channel, or relationship.
Let’s look at them.
1. Discovery: people need to find you
This is where most marketing conversations start and, unfortunately, where an awful lot of them end.
You need a way for relevant people to discover that you exist. Social media, Google, referrals, partnerships, guest appearances, speaking engagements, and even good old-fashioned outreach can all accomplish this.
[Here’s an overview of the 4 ways to sell anything]
You might need just one of them to start.
For instance, a consultant who needs two new clients every quarter could get there through a handful of strong referral relationships. A creator selling $49 digital products needs a different volume of qualified traffic to make the economics work.
The business model determines the acquisition needs.
One mistake I see frequently is choosing discovery channels based on their popularity or reach potential, with little consideration for the actual buyers.
A platform might be excellent for getting attention and fairly useless for reaching people willing to pay your prices. I’ve seen countless posts get thousands of likes from other consultants who are equally busy trying to sell their own services.
It’s a lovely little economy of circle-jerking mutual applause.
Takeaway: optimize for access to qualified buyers, with reach and follower counts serving as supporting metrics when they’re relevant.
2. Trust: people need a reason to choose you
This is the step I believe experts and consultants underestimate most frequently.
Being discovered rarely means being immediately ready to be hired. Your prospects need enough evidence that you understand their problems, that your approach makes sense, and that working with you is a reasonably safe bet.
This is where your content, reputation, previous work, case studies, and personal relationships come into play.
This is also why I’ve been talking about the trust lag for years.
People may read your work for months before deciding to hire you. Sometimes they buy almost immediately because a recommendation or a particularly relevant piece of content compresses that process.
There’s no universal timeline.
In my business, social media often introduces people to my work, while my newsletter gives them the opportunity to get familiar with my thinking over time.
I could publish a lot more short-form content and probably reach more people. However, I’d rather protect the time I spend writing Strategic AF because it supports several business objectives simultaneously.
The newsletter builds trust, keeps me in touch with potential buyers, allows me to test ideas, and generates sales directly.
A consultant with an exceptionally strong referral network might achieve much of the same trust-building through personal introductions and conversations, with case studies, or a good website providing supporting evidence.
Takeaway: you need a reliable way for people to build confidence in your expertise. The format matters considerably less than the result.
3. Conversion: people need a way to buy
The trust you’ve built needs somewhere commercially useful to go.
Think about someone who’s read your newsletter for six months and finally decides they want your help. They visit your website, find a collection of loosely related services, and struggle to understand which one fits their situation.
You may have done a wonderful job with discovery and trust, only to create unnecessary friction at the moment when a buyer is ready to act.
No amount of additional LinkedIn content will fix that particular problem.
Incidentally, conversion can also happen through the same channel that handles discovery and trust. Someone might hear you speak at an event, have a conversation afterward, and hire you the following week.
I asked the solo experts in The Council where their conversions happen, so here’s what REAL people, with businesses like yours, do:
“My top conversion channel is definitely warm outbound on LinkedIn. My posts give me credibility and visibility so people already know me and I have less work to do proving myself when I reach out.” — Lee Densmer, Content Strategist
“I keep it simple. One main channel (LinkedIn) and a lot of conversations. I talk with my ideal clients, write content from what I hear, and that creates more conversations, DMs, and speaking invites. For me, the conversion happens in 1:1 conversations.” — Brandi L. Holder, Coach for Solopreneurs
“My top conversion channel is easily workshops and speaking engagements. People either reach out quickly and book, or it’s a long game and the relationship is nurtured over time through my newsletter and LinkedIn content.” — Stacy Eleczko, The Positioning Psychologist
Takeaway: You didn’t need an elaborate funnel. You needed a clear offer and a way to close the deal.
4. Continuity: people need a reason to come back (or send others)
I saved this one for last because it’s probably the most neglected part of the solopreneur marketing ecosystem.
We invest enormous amounts of energy getting new people through the door while paying comparatively little attention to what happens after they buy.
A happy client can return for another project, buy a different service, recommend you to a colleague, provide a testimonial, or introduce you to a potential partner.
All of these outcomes contribute to future revenue.
88% of people trust recommendations from people they know. And referrals have an interesting characteristic: they can cover discovery and part of the trust-building process at the same time.
Think about how much work that saves you.
Of course, good delivery alone doesn’t guarantee that clients will come back or refer you. Sometimes you need to actively maintain relationships, create appropriate follow-up offers, ask for introductions, or simply remind former clients that you’re available.
Takeaway: how long has it been since you talked to previous clients or partners? Why not reach out to them today?
What a minimum viable ecosystem actually looks like (client story)
I recently worked with someone who was splitting their time between building a consulting business and a creator business. When we looked at the numbers, the sponsorship revenue was incredibly tiny compared to that from her consulting work.
Now, I love (LOVE!) having more than one revenue stream, so I would have advised her to keep it, tiny as it was, IF it didn’t make her miserable.
So we redid her business functions:
- Fewer social media posts and definitely less time spent commenting and massaging the algorithm.
- Sponsorships ONLY for previous clients or referrals, no more actively pursuing them — money for almost zero effort or not at all.
- Use all the time saved on the two things above for outreach to potential clients and referral partners.
- Occasional guest appearances in podcasts and earned media — for the long run, to strengthen her reputation.
- Keep the newsletter but change the focus to more commercially relevant content if sponsorships are no longer a priority.
Rationale: lose the dead weight and focus on what brings revenue.
Results: it took two months to implement the changes and start seeing the results. She was booked solid for the rest of the year and January, AND she worked less for it.
Now let’s talk about what happens when you feel like you should expand. Should you?
How do you know when it’s time to expand?
I wouldn’t recommend remaining dependent on one source of clients forever.
A business that relies exclusively on referrals from a handful of partners has a vulnerability. So does one that gets almost all its opportunities from a social media platform whose rules and distribution mechanisms it cannot control.
Simplicity and resilience need to coexist.
The trick is expanding in response to a specific business need.
- If you have a steady flow of qualified prospects but disappointing sales, work on your offer and conversion process.
- If people buy readily once they discover you, but there aren’t enough of them, invest in discovery.
- If you’re acquiring clients consistently while spending an unreasonable amount of time replacing the ones who leave, look at retention and continuity.
- And if one channel accounts for almost all your revenue opportunities, begin developing a second source before the first one becomes a problem.
A new initiative deserves investment when you can explain what it should improve, what it will cost, and how you’ll recognize progress.
I would also consider your ambitions: your version of minimum viable should reflect the business you’re building and the amount of time you want to spend running it.
A small exercise before you add another damn channel
Take your last five clients or customers and retrace their journeys. Figure out where they first discovered you, what made them pay attention, which interactions or assets contributed to their decision, and how they eventually purchased.
Then look at what happened afterward. Did they return, recommend you, or disappear?
You might need to ask them a few questions to fill in the gaps. Attribution is messy, especially when people have encountered your work in several places over a long period.
Once you have those journeys in front of you, examine where the patterns are strongest and where opportunities tend to disappear.
Ultimately, I think we should aim to build the smallest ecosystem capable of supporting the revenue, growth, and stability we want.
Some businesses will need considerable infrastructure to get there. Others can accomplish it with a handful of well-connected assets and relationships.
The goal is to make opportunity, trust, sales, and future business reinforce one another while keeping the whole operation manageable.
Because an ecosystem should become more valuable as its components work together. If every addition simply gives you another thing to maintain, you may have built yourself a rather elaborate second job.
And I think most of us became solopreneurs to avoid precisely that.
Need help figuring out what your business actually needs?
That’s exactly what we can work on in a Strategy Session. We’ll look at how your current ecosystem generates opportunities and revenue, identify the biggest gaps, and decide where your time and resources can make the biggest difference.
You may leave with fewer things on your to-do list. I consider that a very respectable outcome.
📰 The Council Bulletin
We’ve been welcoming a few new members and I love to see the breath of fresh air they bring to our small community. Also, I’ve been told that I’ve been doing a crappy job of speaking about the best thing I’ve ever built, so here I am, telling you about The Council and inviting you to check it out and join us!
