513: Season 5 Wrap and What’s Coming for Season 6
Creativity and innovation has been the theme of this season’s episodes and conversations.
The global pandemic of COVID-19 has spurred innovation in all industries, and solopreneurs have been the most nimble at pivoting their business delivery and products.
Shannon Confair, was my guest in season 4, episode 9. She is a fabulous brand photographer that regularly travels to all sorts of locations to do client brand shoots over multiple days. While quarantined, she started conducting her own unique style of “virtual shoots,” where she coaches people live into settings and poses that capture their personality. I’ve seen the photos she’s posted on Facebook of these shoots and they’re amazing. Shannon didn’t think, oh, I can’t do my work because I have to travel and be there in person. She thought, “how can I do what I do in a new way that still serves my clients and uses my gifts and talents as a photographer and brand coach?” She tried it and it’s been working great for her. Plus, it’s cheaper for the client because there’s little to no overhead involved. That’s an awesome pivot.
My Australian friend, Troy Hazard, who was my guest earlier this season, normally travels the globe speaking from the stage on business excellence. His travel came to a halt, and he pivoted into coaching, acting as interim C-Suite support for a few companies, and taking time to enjoy his family and assess his platform. He’ll get back to the stage and traveling again, however, his content will be so much richer because he had the time to reflect, work on different focuses and enjoy his life during his downtime.
Season 2 guest, Shawn Doyle, is a prolific author of 23 books, professional keynote speaker and business trainer. Pre-pandemic, Shawn regularly flies to his client’s locations to conduct multi-day on-site training or get on stage to do a keynote. During the quarantine, Shawn pivoted to deliver ALL of his content virtually through live webinars and micro video training. He hasn’t missed a training booking and he’s even ensured more future business when we all start traveling again. As a result of his pivot, he’ll be able to do a combination of on-site work and virtual work, enabling him to have more impact and build deeper relationships with his clients.
The in-person Florida Speaker’s Association meetings that we normally have once a month at a Westin in Fort Lauderdale stopped in March. Instead, we met for happy hours. We met for meetings. We got free training. We got great speakers to share their expertise and insight. All via Zoom. It was great! I had the most fun because these are my people and despite being a “shut in,” I found that hanging out with them and seeing their smiles, hearing their laughs and silly jokes made me not feel so isolated. Because they were so successful and well-received, they’ve decided to keep doing regular Zoom meetings even after we go back to our in-person meetings every month. That’s a strong pivot, because being part of a community as a solopreneur is critical to your emotional well being.
Inspired by global conditions, when we are forced to be creative, it’s amazing what we can come up with. So why are we not being creative on a regular basis? Why are we not pivoting our businesses to create something that may be easier on us? More fun? More valuable to our clients? More profitable? Why does it take a global pandemic to make us think creatively and deliver our value in different, more scalable ways?
The freedom and ease of creating scale is the coolest thing that came out of the pandemic. I’ve been helping my clients create scale this way for years now, and finally, it’s becoming more accessible and welcomed as a result of what people have been forced to learn and do. As a solopreneur, many of us work from home. We’re already “quarantined” in a way, minus the travel and on-site work we would normally be doing for our clients. But look at how much time becomes available when we’re NOT traveling? We can create more value by developing products and programs based on our knowledge and expertise and deliver them at SCALE. In a way, we become virtual teachers to our clients and those we want to serve. Yes, the in-person experience will always be irreplaceable. But what we’ve learned from this event is that we can pivot, augment and find new ways to serve our audiences and clients and make our businesses even better.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this season on how creativity transforms your business and the great conversations I’ve had with my inspiring guests. Next season, Season 6, is going to be a real whopper. Season 6, which starts next week, is going to be all about How BELIEFS shape your business. The guests I have queued up for Season 6 will have some of the most powerful insights, stories and how-to’s regarding belief systems, mindset and what it really takes to make your solopreneur business successful with the right attitude and outlook.
As always, thank you for tuning in and I’ll see you next week for the kick-off episode of Season 6 of the Simplify & Multiply show.
You’re more creative than you give yourself credit for.
Find out how creative you REALLY are on a complimentary creativity conversation with Terry Pappy. With Terry, you can build more streams of revenue in your business and have more fun.