Business Management Basics for Solopreneurs
How to run a business.
If you're trying to learn about business management and Google the term, you'll get a ton of articles about managing a team, marketing, operations... all directed at people running companies.
While the principles are the same for a one-person business, how you implement the principles is vastly different. You're not interacting with a team (which, many solopreneurs would consider a good thing!) and you can make decisions quickly. On the flip side, you don't have anyone else to provide expertise or a different perspective; it's just you.
I spent years on the executive team at a tech company before I branched out on my own. Because of my role, I saw the ins and outs of running a business.
Here are some key business management basics that I've applied to my own business — and highly recommend to anyone looking to create a solid foundation.
Contract management
You need a contract for any project. Period. The lack of a contract (or unclear contract terms) is how you'll get screwed over. Or simply end up doing work that you hadn't planned to do.
Here's an example from my corporate days. I wrote contracts for custom projects that allowed 20 hours of work. As my team got more efficient, we could complete the work in less than 20 hours. One client thought they were entitled to 20 hours, so had us do a bunch of extra work — stuff that wasn't a good use of anyone's time.
After that, I changed the contract to read that projects were up to 20 hours and clearly outlined the exact work that would be completed. If the work was completed in less time, the client wouldn't get more hours because it would have been outside of the scope.
Whenever you're writing a scope of work for a contract, you should think about:
- What, exactly, is included?
- When will it be delivered?
- What happens if the client is a roadblock?
- What is not excluded? (and will you do that work if the client pays you more?)
- If it's a deliverable, how many revisions does the client get?
- What are the payment terms?
One critical thing I include in my contracts is that payment is due after it's delivered, not when the client approves the work. If I had to wait on approval, sometimes I'd be waiting for months. You can also protect yourself by requiring upfront payment (such as 50%).
Anna Burgess Yang
Sales pipeline
Companies of all sizes keep track of their sales pipelines: who they've talked to, what products/services the prospect is interested in, deals they've won, and deals they've lost.
That might feel like a lot of work since it's just you, but in the future you'll be grateful you kept track of the info. For example, I kept track of the sources of my various leads and realized that most of my work comes from inbound leads or referrals — cold outreach isn't very effective for me. This helped me refocus my efforts on my social media presence.
You might also revisit your past opportunities that didn't work out. Sometimes a promising deal might go cold simply because the timing is bad. You can stay connected and reach back out in the future.
A customer relationship management (CRM) platform helps you keep track of your deals. I use a homegrown system in Airtable, but you could also use an app like Notion or a spreadsheet. I also use a personal CRM called Clay to manage overall networking, not specifically deals I'm working on. I like to stay connected to people, even if they aren't part of my sales pipeline and Clay helps with that.
Project management
As you gain more clients, you'll want a clear process for moving clients through different stages of a project.
One thing to consider is whether or not you want to share the progress of a project with your client. In my business (freelance writing), this isn't necessary because most projects are ad hoc assignments. However, if you have multi-stage projects, you might want to give your clients a 360 view or collaboration tools.
Apps like Trello and Notion are easy to customize, and you can let your clients share files or leave comments. Some of my clients use project management tools like Asana or monday.com, which have detailed to-do lists for each project.
If you're not sharing an app with your clients, you'll want to think about how you'll communicate or provide updates. My stance is that I'll use whatever communication tool my clients want to use. If they want to use email, I'll use email. If they want to use Slack, I'll use Slack.
But from a project management perspective, I need centralized communication. So I use Slack settings to send all updates to my email. That way, I'm not constantly checking multiple apps.
And while my clients often have their own project management tools, I standardize everything on my end using Trello. If the client is using Asana, for example, I'll add the project to Trello so I can track it using my own process. Effective freelance project management is how I know when deliverables are due and when to bill clients.
Administrative work
Businesses often have one (or more) people working in the background to keep track of things like bookkeeping, organizing files, and a lot of other behind-the-scenes work. When you're running a solo business, it's just you.
Set aside time every week to do administrative work. I have a recurring block of time on my calendar every Friday. Sometimes, I even do virtual co-working during my admin time. I'll do a video call with friends — fellow solo business owners — and we all work on our admin tasks for an hour. I also use Flow Club and will co-work with strangers, listening to low-fi beats or other music that's good for flow.
As your business grows, you can hire roles to help with administrative work. For a long time, I managed my own accounting, but I recently hired a bookkeeper to take over. I realized that bookkeeping wasn't the best use of my time (other than sending invoices). You can also hire a virtual assistant to handle repetitive tasks.
I also use a ton of automation to reduce manual work. Automation helps keep my Google Drive organized, sends me reminders for different projects, and syncs data between Trello (for project management) and Airtable (my overall system to run my business).
Strategy and self-motivation
As the person in charge of your solo business, no one will tell you what to do. You have to decide what to work on every day, and make other business decisions. Procrastination and indecisiveness aren't luxuries we have as self-employed people.
Over time, you'll get more comfortable with decision-making. One of the best benefits of working for yourself is that you can pivot quickly. You can change your offer, your pricing, your marketing strategy — anything you feel isn't working. Of course, if you're trying something new, you need to give it enough time before you evaluate its success. But if something isn't working, you don't have to consult other managers or a leadership team.
The best strategies will come from self-motivation and setting business goals. You might set aside time each month to think strategically about your business. Or if your client work is slow, you might use the extra time to work on a larger project. And if your goal is working fewer hours as a freelancer, that's ok too.
But you have to know what you want. Make a future goals list. What are you working toward? What does business success look like for you? When you know that, you'll find the self-motivation and design the right strategy for your business.
Not sure where to get started with a client proposal or contract? You can check out this free checklist and download a template to use.
