The Branded Solopreneur

Where Cult Brands Are Born

4 Ways to Stay Focused on Your Goals

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4 Ways to Junk Punch Your Fears, So You can Crush Your Goals

 

F.O.C.U.S. = ‘Follow One Course Until Success’

Ok, I totally nabbed that one from John Lee Dumas. It really resonates with me – a self-professed ‘Jack (Jane?) of all trades.’

I know I’m not the only one that struggles with how to stay focused on my goals. I also know I’m not the only one that struggles with ‘bright light syndrome’, which is the draining habit of trying to split your focus and attention across too many things at once. Sound familiar?!

This syndrome runs rampant in The Solopreneur Society, which isn’t surprising when you consider how natural it is for us entrepreneurial types to overextend ourselves in the name of getting a lot done.

Think about it…

You want (insert your top 3 actionable goals) and you want them ready to go by (insert your self-imposed deadline).

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The Art of Branding Stock Photography

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The Art of Branding Stock Photography

 

The only thing more annoying than the hunt for free stock photos is how vanilla they can be. They’re meant to be a ‘one size fits all’ visual resource, and while that sounds great in theory, it’s far from reality.

There’s one critical element of visual content that’s not taken into account in this train of thought.

Style!

Take jeans for example. How many of us wear the same kind of jeans, let alone the same way?

You’ve got…

  • The skin tight, wiggle yourself in them fit
  • The hip hop, 4 sizes too big, sag off your ass fit
  • The form fitting country crooner fit
  • The high rise, pleated mom fit

You get the point.

One person’s perfect fit is another person’s fashion nightmare. Our preferred styles of jean, the way we wear them, and the items we pair with them is dictated by our personal style.

Versatility is one of the reasons jeans have remained a wardrobe staple for decades now. They’re a staple that bridges cultures, body types and social classes, but they certainly aren’t a one size fits all kind of thing – something any parent who has tried to buy jeans for their teenager knows all too well.

Stock photos are the jeans of visual content. Using any ole stock photo is one thing, seamlessly branding that stock photo so it blends with YOUR brand’s look and style is a whole other.

Here are 6 ways you can take the ‘stock’ out of stock photos and make them your own…

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How to Slay Your Entrepreneurial Fears

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Mastering Fears and Making it Your B!

This is a guest post by Jane Mountain from MyFiveAcres.com

 

Have you ever experienced this…?

There’s a massive project you know you need to get done. It’s the kind of project that will take your business to the next level and launch you into a new stratosphere. It could be the catalyst that makes your whole solopreneur business LEGIT (and proves all those haters wrong).

And yet…

For some reason, you just can’t manage to get started.

Or, worse still, you have started – 17 times. You just never seem to get past the first step.

There is always some other task you need to do first or something to distract you, like a political argument on Facebook or a Netflix series you just can’t stop watching.

What the hell?

Why does this project feel so HEAVY when you know in your heart you’ve got it in the bag?

Let me introduce you to the solopreneur’s sidekick, our very best frenemy…

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Beating Self Doubt: From Blanket Forts to Giving Zero F*cks

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Beating Self Doubt: From Blanket Forts to Giving Zero F*cks

This is a guest post by Daire Paddy from DairePaddy.com

 

We’re exposed to them every day of our lives. The shiny people. The business owners building empires from Bali. The entrepreneurial powerhouses living in a rose gold world of green smoothies and white space. A.K.A. the reason so many burgeoning solopreneurs don’t even get started.

Intimidation paralyses, baby. It stops us from free-falling into what we want. It gives us permission to hide away. To just not bother until we’re “ready”.

 

Why do we find these glossy girls (and guys) so utterly terrifying?

There are so many reasons. They’re the “experts”, and clearly WAY more qualified than us. They’re so IN DEMAND. They’re surrounded by legions of loyal fans, and a posse primed to attack. They’re everywhere. All the time. And they just get So. Much. Done. They have all the ideas. They live a #blessed life. Everything is so effing colour coordinated!

These feelings come to us all, in some way or another. Unfortunately, comparison is a demon raised by the spread of the Internet. We have the power to see EVERYTHING (or so we believe), and that means we see how well people are doing.

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How To Get Past The Sh*t That’s Holding You Back

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How to Get Past the Sh*t That's Holding You Back

 

Do you ever struggle with debilitating fears, paralyzing self-doubt, crippling depression, sabotaging procrastination, or terrifying anxiety attacks?

As a creative solopreneur I’d wager my treasure chest of gold (ok, more like a small savings account) that you’re raising your hand right now. If you’re not, I’m calling bullshit!

You’re probably sitting there right now struggling with something in silence. Afraid to acknowledge it, too frightened of being judged to tell anyone, feeling completely alone and like no one would understand.

I promise you’re not alone!

If only I could wiretap the crazy bitch in my head for you. Believe me. You’re not alone.

Most peeps don’t get what it is to be an entrepreneur. They don’t understand how incredibly intertwined your life is with your business. How hard it is to deal with all the personal struggles and how lonely it can feel when those struggles creep in. They don’t understand the true plight of a successful solopreneur!

A couple weeks ago, in The Solopreneur Society support lounge, an innocent thread I started about the mental shit that’s often behind the stalls in our success turned into a soul-baring diary of inspiration.

Many of us shared some very raw experiences we’ve had and confessed to some very personal struggles.

So it got me thinking.

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7 Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Website

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7 Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Website

 

As a solopreneur, you have many tools at your disposal that can catapult you to instant online fame – well, maybe not instant.

One tool in particular, WordPress is what all the cool kids are using. It’s one of the single greatest things you can use to further advance promoting yourself, whether it be for blogging, or for business.

But despite the amazing-ness of WordPress, it is not without its imperfections.

It’s notorious for having a very slow lag time.

We are in the want-it-now generation. People are busy. And they don’t have time to wait hours on end – or even minutes, in some cases, for your website to load.

And if that weren’t enough, Google now has added site speed to its page ranking system, better known as search engine optimization (SEO).

What does this mean for you?

Not only will you lose visitors, but you will also lose the potential of visitors even finding your site in the first place. If Google, reduces your search ranking that means you lose an audience. No bueno.

So what’s an solopreneur to do? Don’t worry, ladies and gents because I’ve got you covered.

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A Newbie’s Guide To Setting Up A WordPress Website

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Setting up a WordPress website

 

Building your own website feels dangerously close to an exercise in escaping a straight jacket.

It’ll drive even the most adventurous newbie to insanity.

Domains…hosting…themes…plugins…widgets…it’s ridiculous how easy people make this shit look, right?

I’m not sure what’s more defeating, the ass sweat inducing choices around every corner, or the tech that stops you dead in your tracks again and again.

Oh, the tech!

The endless hours you’ve spent Googling all this new terminology and watching tutorials that sound like they’re speaking a foreign language are hours you’ll never get back. {heavy sigh}

And even after all that research, you’re still not sure what the fuck the difference between a widget and a plugin is.

Building your own website can be a bitch!

Until now.

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5 Ways to Use Your Blog to Get More Exposure For Your Brand

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5 Ways to Use Your Blog to Get More Exposure For Your Brand

This is a guest post by Maddy Osman

 

You’ve probably heard that keeping a blog is an excellent way to help build and reinforce your own personal brand, or your company’s brand and I’m here to tell you… that’s 150% true.

I can see you rolling your eyes. There’s hardly enough time to get your basic responsibilities done on any giving day, why would you add in one more large project that needs some level of consistency and a lot of promotion to be successful?

Here are 5 main reason you should be blogging to build your brand:

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A Sleaze Free Guide to Selling on Webinars

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A Sleaze Free Guide to Selling on Webinars

This is a guest post by Murielle Marie

 

If you’ve been alive in the past few years, especially as a solopreneur making your way to online success, chances are that you’ve heard about webinars, and have either tried your hand at a few, most definitely watched other people’s, or who knows, maybe you’ve even done both. In the webinars you watched, there might have been one (or a few) about how to actually sell products using webinars.

I know I watched them.

Then I put my own presentation together and gave my first webinar. Filled with hope and wonder, and amazed at the people who showed up. But I didn’t sell. Then I watched those webinars about webinars again. And learned some more. Put that into practice in another webinar, and got a few more people to stick around until the end, but didn’t sell that time either.

So I went back to the drawing boards, and deconstructed those successful webinars again. Reviewed my webinar presentation once more, went at it again, and got a bit more peeps in the room for that one, too, but still didn’t sell.

Then, finally, after almost giving up, and experiencing everything from the technical glitches to making a huge mistake with time zones and letting a fully packed webinar room of more than 200 people wait for me for a couple of hours, I finally understood the mechanics that make webinars sell. So, I put to work all that I had finally learned in yet another webinar. And what do you know… on the spot, right there and then, my first sales came through the door!

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A Visual Guide to Using Instagram to Promote Your Blog

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A Visual Guide to Using Instagram to Promote Your Brand

This is a guest post by Orana Velarde from OranaCreative.com

 

So you have a blog where you do business.

You and your blog are branded, your content is top notch, your mission statement makes you happy, your content upgrades are amazing and everything is good in the world.

Now what?

It’s time to tackle Social Media!

If you haven’t branded your blog or small business yet, it’s time to do so. It really is the best way to make you look professional and stand out in this ever-competitive content universe.

I believe in being present in all Social Media but only passionate about one or two. My all time favorite social platform is Instagram. I love using Instagram to promote my brand because it’s much more creative and subtle than a platform like Facebook.

Why?

Instagram is a predominantly visual space. Everything comes in through the eyes and the feels (yes, I said it). Instagram is also highly engaging and that is precisely how you can build a loyal following.

You’ll find brands just like yours as well as the users that will ultimately be your clients. They are all in the same place!

I will move forward on the premise that you already have an account so I can get right to showing you the ins and outs of using Instagram to promote your brand, your posts, your newsletter and your content upgrades!

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