In this insightful episode, Liz Steblay, Founder & Chief Advocate of Professional Independent Consultants of America, shares practical wisdom for starting your consulting journey as a solopreneur. If you fear uncertainty or doubt about launching your own business, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why clarity on your purpose drives your success as a solopreneur.

- How to build confidence to overcome fear and uncertainty.

- What key business skills you need to thrive independently.

Liz Steblay became a solopreneur before the word was even invented. Upon being laid off, she called a former colleague, and a week later, she had her first consulting contract. Five years later, she founded the ProKo Agency, representing independent consultants on projects with Fortune 500 clients. As a result of growing ProKo into a national business, Liz has become known as the person to call if you have questions about self-employment. In 2018 she launched Professional Independent Consultants of America (PICA), an educational organization and community that helps people start and grow their solo businesses.

Want to learn more about Liz Steblay's work at Professional Independent Consultants of America? Check out her blog and website at picanetwork.org/why

or get a copy of her book, Succeeding as a Soloprenuer, at sixkeys.info

Mentioned in this episode:

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All right, all set.

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Hello, hello and welcome.

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Welcome once again to the Start, Scale and Succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows

with you through every stage of your journey as a founder.

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And here with us today to help those of you who are thinking about embarking on the

founder's journey from the very beginning, maybe even thinking about jumping in as a coach

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or consultant like we do here at Scale Architects, we have a tremendous episode in store

for you because our guest,

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I didn't realize, I didn't ask you how to say your last name.

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L'estable.

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Stablay, stablay?

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Okay, fantastic, let's do that again.

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All right, here we go.

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Stablay.

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Okay.

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Hello, hello and welcome, welcome once again to the Start, Scale and Succeed podcast, the

only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a founder.

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And for those of you who are listening today,

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who might be thinking about starting that your very own founder's journey, maybe even as a

coach or consultant like we do here at Scale Architects, you are in for an absolute trip,

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treat, because here with us today is the one and only Liz Stable who became a solopreneur,

preneur, before the word was even invented.

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Upon being laid off, she called a former colleague and a week later, she had her first

consulting contract.

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Five years later, she founded the ProCo agency representing independent consultants on

projects with Fortune 500 clients.

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As a result of growing ProCo into a national business, Liz has become known as the person

to call if you have questions about self-employment.

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In 2018, she launched Professional Independent Consultants of America, PICA, and it's an

educational organization and community that helps people start and grow their solo

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businesses.

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She's here with us today.

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Liz, welcome to the show.

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So excited to have you on.

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And this is a passionate project for me because I didn't mention this before we started,

but the biggest mistakes that I made, at least financially, from a business perspective,

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were made on the advice of some coaches and consultants that we had hired.

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Now, I didn't realize I had hired the wrong coaches and consultants at the time, but they

also didn't realize that they were giving me the wrong advice and they weren't bad people.

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They weren't trying to hurt us.

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they were actually trying to help us solve the problem that we asked them to help us

solve, but it was the wrong problem and they didn't know to help us through that.

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that was so discouraging for me because I thought like, well, if I can't solve it and they

can't solve it and it gets worse whenever I hire a coach, I guess I'm all alone.

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And I didn't realize until actually sometime after ironically getting into coaching and

consulting, how many people have had an experience like that.

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There's a lot of wonderful people who in the right context are great coaches, but many of

them for all kinds of reasons, some of which I think we'll be able to tackle here today,

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end up in some cases doing more harm than good.

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So finding someone like you who helps coaches and consultants really do their best work,

both for their own business and for those that they serve is really something special.

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So you've done a lot of this.

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so thinking about...

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Someone who's listening today, and let's go all the way to the beginning of the story, and

they're wondering if consulting is their path.

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What would you say is the first question they should ask themselves to decide if that's

right for them?

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Yeah, actually, there's not just one question, Scott, but there's a series of questions.

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And it's funny, right before I joined this recording today, I was coaching somebody and

she had dropped into one of my free Ask Me Anything sessions.

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And she said, I really think I want to get started on my own as a consultant, but I don't

know where to start.

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I don't know what to do.

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How do I need to prepare?

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How do I need to plan?

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So I feel like I just rehearsed what we're about to talk about.

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So what I told her is the very first important thing is to be very clear on your why.

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Why are you doing this?

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How is it going to change your life?

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How is this going to change your life financially?

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How is it going to change the quality of your life, your relationships with your family?

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And I've actually documented all of these questions in a blog.

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And the easiest way to get to it is to go to picanetwork.org slash why.

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I'm sure you can put that in the slow show notes.

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Because there's this whole series of questions.

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And the reason why this is so important is because being self-employed as a solopreneur or

entrepreneur is the hardest job you'll ever have.

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It's not for everybody.

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It's the hardest job you'll ever have because you have to push your boundaries.

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You have to learn new things.

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You have to try things you've never done before.

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And you have to face your fears, overcome your fears.

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And it's also the most rewarding job you'll ever have.

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But when you have those tough times and everybody does, I'm sure you

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can agree when you're self-employed, it's helpful to pull out, I call it the North Star

document and remind yourself, right, this is why I'm doing it.

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So the North Star document and knowing your why is critical.

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Yeah.

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So you've had the opportunity to coach a lot of executives and consultants alike.

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And just for anyone listening, I'm going to use executives, not in the literal term

executives, but folks who have had successful careers and in this case are thinking about

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becoming consultants.

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So you've been able to coach a lot of those folks and the folks who actually make the

leap.

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And what would you say is the biggest difference?

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Because a lot of folks think, hey,

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being a consultant is just doing what I do now except that I don't have to give a big

chunk of it to the man, right?

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Like I don't have to do it for a big corporation, I can do it for myself.

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So what are some of the key differences between being a great executive and those folks

who go on to become great consultants?

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Yes, I've coached thousands of people through the PICO organization.

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Some of them were high powered executives, others mid-career.

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And there have been a lot of lessons learned throughout that journey.

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And one of the differences is if you continue to perceive yourself as an executive and

even on your LinkedIn profile and whatever, and you're like, oh, I'm a chief financial

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officer.

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As an executive, I...

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really truly understand the nature of this problem and how to do these things.

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If you put yourself in your client's shoes, they might not want to hire an executive

because that has the perception of somebody who's going to just be setting a strategy and

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is not really going to roll up their sleeves and get stuff done.

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So I have a bias against using the word executive.

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But the other key thing in this, I know you're using the term executive broadly.

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tend to use the word just professionals who are thinking about making the leap to being

self-employed.

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The other thing is that you need to, you might be really great at what you do, but you

really don't know how to run a business.

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And that's true for pretty much everybody who steps into being self-employed, right?

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You've been in digital marketing for a corporation for 20 years, and now you know you

could be a fractional executive doing this or a fractional digital marketing expert.

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or a consultant, whatever coach, whatever your term is, but you need to know how to

structure your business to attract clients, how to do the pricing, how to do your

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marketing, how to do your contracting, all of those things, which are actually now covered

in my book, which you didn't mention when you introduced me, it's called Succeeding as a

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Solopreneur, Six Keys to Taking the Leap, Winning Clients and Building Wealth.

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And it takes you through all of those steps.

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Many people think the first thing they need to do is set up an LLC or corporate structure,

and that is not even one of the top three things.

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Right, right, I love that.

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And we'll make sure folks, you can get a copy of the book because it's just right on point

and judging what I know about some of the other work that you've done is phenomenal.

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So this idea that we may not know how to run a business, a lot of folks might kind of

think, yeah, yeah, but Liz, like, this is what I do.

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I'm a business leader, of course I know how to run a business.

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Help us kind of slice the difference between that because yes, you're in business, but

there's something different.

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What does it mean to actually run your business?

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Well, you wear all the hats, right?

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Whether you're a solopreneur or an entrepreneur, the difference between entrepreneur and

solopreneur is pretty much entrepreneurs are growing something bigger than themselves and

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they tend to have employees.

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And most solopreneurs just want to do their craft and make a great living and not deal

with all the headaches of having employees and things like that.

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But where was I going with this?

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The key difference is you're wearing all the hats.

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So when you have a technical difficulty, you can't call that the help desk, right?

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That's my single biggest, I've been self employed over 20 years.

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That's my single biggest frustration is when something goes wrong with my computer, that

is the worst thing.

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But you also have to be, you know, the chief marketing officer, the chief revenue officer.

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have to be the CFO.

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Now some of these things you can outsource.

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And that is, that is also important is knowing when does it make sense to not do it

yourself?

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and to hire somebody to help you with that, not on a full-time basis.

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So I run a multimillion dollar business, not the educational organization, PICA, but the

other one you mentioned, Proco.

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And I have fractional talent that runs that business.

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I have a fractional CFO, fractional head of talent.

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All of those people are part-time.

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So you need to learn when does it make sense for you not to do it yourself?

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So for example, when in my early years, I...

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Despite having an MBA, terrible at math, I have no fiscal responsibility or discipline

whatsoever.

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And I was managing my accounts in Quicken, which is perfectly fine software.

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And I would transfer, do the, do the transactions in Quicken and then forget to actually

move the money in the bank from the business account to my personal account.

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And then I'd find out that I only have $500 in my personal account.

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like, what the heck happened?

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Cause I forget to actually do the whole process.

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So I realized, okay, I should not be handling my own money.

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I should not be doing my own accounting.

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So that was very early on.

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I realized I've got to find somebody on a part-time basis who can just take it, take this

off my plate because we're, no human is good at everything.

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So when you can realize what, what are the chinks in your armor and find somebody to help

you do that on a part-time basis.

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Yeah, so good.

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Because they don't have to be full-time.

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They don't have to be, they don't even have to be employees.

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And yeah, there's so much help that's out there and it's available today.

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So, the conversation back to the individual who's making this decision, because they do

sit at the center of it all.

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What would you say after doing this so many times, what are some of the most common traits

that you see that set those apart who thrive as consultants from those who would just

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dream about

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Yes, that's actually chapter two in the book, character strengths of a successful

solopreneur.

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And I'm not going to open the book right now and tell you what they are, but I will tell

you what the number one is.

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The top one is confidence.

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And confidence is the single most important factor across anybody, any of the thousands of

people that I have coached over the last 20 years.

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And it affects everything from how you go to market to how you price your services and how

you push through the tough times.

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is just knowing that you're smart enough to figure it out.

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Confidence doesn't have to mean that you're, you you've got it all figured out.

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You know, this imposter syndrome can pop up at any moment.

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It doesn't mean that.

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You have to have the confidence.

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Yes, you're good at whatever it is your craft is, your skill, whatever you're providing to

your clients.

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But it also is the confidence to know that you're smart enough to figure out what you

don't know.

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And that's a lot, you know, the first chapter in the book is about conquering FUD, fear,

uncertainty, and doubt.

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That's what holds people back.

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I call it the FUD monster.

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And it's that little creature that sits on your shoulder and whispers in your ear and it

says, who are you Scott to leave a full-time job?

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What are you nuts?

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You don't know how to launch a business.

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You don't know how to price your services.

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You don't know how to negotiate a contract.

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And we all get that little FUD monster voice.

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And so the most important thing is to have the confidence to know how to tackle that FUD

monster.

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Figure out what you don't know.

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and work your way through, whether it's a fear, uncertainty, or doubt.

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so confidence is the number one character strength.

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Yeah.

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Flipping that question around, what are some of the traits, characteristics, drives,

passions that are assigned to you that maybe it's not a great idea and you might just be

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able to find the fulfillment you're looking for in being a professional or an employee or

an executive for someone else?

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Yes.

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I've run a bootcamp for getting started bootcamp.

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I used to do it cohort based.

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Now I do them one-on-one, but I had a guy in a cohort a few years ago.

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He had been a vice president at some high tech company in Silicon Valley.

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he said there's, was the expert in optimizing data centers or some really esoteric thing,

which is good.

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He had a very clear niche, but.

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Within nine months, he bounced back to a full-time job.

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the reason was he didn't have the focus to, he had shiny object syndrome.

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So I, in the bootcamp, he had very clear assignments and I say, okay, so how'd you guys do

on whatever this assignment was this last week?

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And he says, well, I started to work on the outline for my website, but then I realized I

needed to update my other website that has to do with my real estate investments.

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And so I did that instead.

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So he didn't have the ability to really focus on what it took to start and run his

business in just that business, not all these other things that he was distracted by.

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He really needed the structure of a corporation, of having quarterly business objectives,

of having a weekly meeting with his team or a monthly meeting with his boss or going into

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the office every day.

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He needed that structure.

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right?

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that is one of the, one of the things that I think people need to think about.

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it's in that why document too is, actually, sorry, that's in a different, a different blog

I wrote, which is nine things to consider before taking the leap.

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And that's one of them.

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Are you, are you a self-starter?

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Can you focus?

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Can you really stay driven on that you're on the goal or do you need more structure in

your life?

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I would say to add to that, just briefly, I would say one of the biggest keys to starting

your own business is finishing things.

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Yeah.

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So we think that starting means starting.

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It's just, I get to start all this stuff, but it's actually, you know, getting down, doing

the dirty fingernails work, you're getting stuff done.

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So Liz, just so much brilliant advice in there.

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And I'm excited to point folks to how they can get a copy of the book and learn more.

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before we get there, I've got one more question for you.

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And the question is this.

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What would you say is the biggest secret you wish wasn't a secret at all?

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What's that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?

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that you don't have to do it alone.

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I mean, that's another one of the big fear, uncertainties and doubts that people have.

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It's like, okay, I'm going to step out on my own.

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I don't know how to do all these things.

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And, but, but now there's so many other people out there that have taken the path that

you'll find.

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And I hear this time and again, from people in the Pica community is that that's the

single biggest surprise that they've had is how collaborative and helpful other

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solopreneurs are.

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And now there's resources like, like the reason I founded Pica six, seven years ago is

because nothing existed.

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People were coming to me and asking me out to coffee twice a week, asking me the same

questions over and over again.

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said, okay, there's gotta be a better way to help more people because nothing existed.

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And so now that's the biggest thing that people need to know is that you just because it's

called solopreneurship, you don't have to do it alone.

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It's so good, so good.

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Liz, folks are just at the right stage of the journey.

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They're in this mode.

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They want to help other folks.

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They want to start their own business.

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They're not real sure how or why or any of those things.

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Where can they get a copy of the book?

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Where can they find more out about the work that you do?

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Yes, the easiest way is to go to sixkeys.info, not .com, because I'm all about keeping

expenses low.

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So sixkeys.info, it's easy for people to remember if they're listening to this while

commuting or jogging or whatever the heck.

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And from that's the landing page for the book.

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But from there, you can also link over to find out more about the educational organization

PICO or learn more about me and sixkeys.info.

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We'll get that, the blog, and the show notes for everyone who is listening, wants to get

back to those.

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Both fantastic resources.

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Liz, thanks for being on the show.

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Just a privilege and honor having you here today.

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So much great advice for someone on this stage of the journey.

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Really loved the conversation.

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Thank you.

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And for those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the

world to us.

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I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see

you next time.

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Take care.

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Awesome, awesome, well done.

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Let's go ahead and hit stop.