How to Invest in Your Future as a Solo Entrepreneur

Small, low-pressure experiments can help you develop new skills, services, and income streams before your business depends on them.

One of my career mantras as a longtime solo entrepreneur is, Bring it on before you need it. Put simply, the best case scenario is to proactively expand your skills and explore new areas of your business when it’s not out of necessity. It’s self-directed career advancement on your timeline.

That’s how you earn job security as a solo entrepreneur, by experimenting to see where it makes sense to diversify your offerings and upskill yourself.

Two years into self-employment, when I was mainly

Two years into self-employment, when I was mainly focused on freelance writing about marketing, I began pursuing teaching at universities. I didn’t need the work financially, but was interested in providing support on marketing in a less writing-intensive format. I had really enjoyed teaching clients in my past role at an agency, so I thought, Why not explore this further?

Over the next few months, I put in the work, guest lecturing in classes at FIT, NYU, Drexel, and SVA to ensure I enjoyed the classroom dynamic, had the skills to teach on the topic, and to showcase my approach to university administrators who hire for these types of engagements.

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After “auditioning” several times and having three adjuncts recommend me, I landed the opportunity to be an adjunct instructor at NYU. And I’m so glad I did it before I needed it.

All these years later, teaching has become

All these years later, teaching has become a core part of my portfolio career as a standaloneredibility as a practitioner, and expanding my skill set. It’s also an enjoyable, fulfilling aspect of my job

Expanding into teaching required a significant amount of time, effort, intention, and networking, all of which was time away from paid work. But over the long-term, teaching has allowed me to take on different kinds of engagements, leading to greater career stability.

Source: www.inc.com