Solopreneur Success Stories and Financial Lessons with Liz Steblay

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We have, uh, she’s got two businesses actually. She’s, the founder or co-founder and chief advocate for professional independent consultants of America, which is PICA. She also has Proco Agency Incorporated, which is, she’s also a founder and CEO.

So what she does. In simple words is she helps people become successful solopreneurs, which I think is really good for this podcast. So I’m excited to hear more about this. But before we do,

I

wanna welcome Liz Steblay to the show. And Liz, are you ready to rock?

Liz Steblay: I am

ready to go.

Tim Melanson: So tell me a story of success in your business that we can be inspired by.

Liz Steblay: So, I think going back to

year one,

when I was self-employed, actually

this was

over 20 years ago,

I

was laid off from a job and I called a former client because I had worked in consulting for a global firm and I called

A former client in Silicon Valley. And I said, Hey, I just got laid off.

Do you have any [00:01:00] projects? Do you need any help? And he said, are you kidding? How soon can you get here? So

I fell into being

an independent consultant before I even

had a

laptop. Literally, I only made that one phone call. I talked to him about the projects, and I was hired the next week, and I didn’t even have a laptop, so it was kind of accidental.

I didn’t plan on being self-employed, but here’s where the success part comes in. That first year, I made more money, worked fewer hours, didn’t have to deal with any big firm bs. More importantly, had more quality time with my three-year-old kid. And I said, this is it. I am never going back to a full-time job.

And so, I just figured it out over the next 20 years, launched two businesses along the way and made it work for me, and then

created the life that

I wanted.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s really cool. Well, you had a pretty lucky, I think, then in the beginning to have such a good, successful, time to get started. But I’m wondering, it doesn’t always go that way. Does it, like, have there been some [00:02:00] mistakes along the way? Can you tell us about a bad

note?

Liz Steblay: Oh my gosh, there’s been plenty of mistakes. In fact, I’ve recently published a book that has nearly all of my worst mistakes in it, which was a gut wrenching project actually to publish that book. Here’s probably. One of my bigger mistakes. So that first year, everything was great, right? I’m, I’m making more money and humming along and living life on my terms.

And, I had to pay quarterly taxes and I was caught flatfooted. I hadn’t thought about quarterly taxes or prepared for them, and

Okay, now I don’t even remember how much I owed. It was like 10 or $12,000 or something. And, oh, shoot, I don’t, I don’t have the money and I know I don’t want to fall in arrears with the IRS here in the United States.

And, I think I actually ended up

borrowing

money from my brother or something, but I said, I am never gonna be

in this situation again

because this is way too stressful and I can’t live like this.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Liz Steblay: For,

The next 10 years at least, every time a client paid an invoice, I put [00:03:00] 50%.

Well, the first year is 50%, then I lowered it to 40%, so I put 40% of every invoice into a different bank. Not my normal bank because if I log in and I see that I have six or $8,000 in savings, I’ll say to my daughter, oh, we’ve got enough money to go on vacation.

I had to hide the money from myself.

So 40%

went to

a different bank.

Liz Steblay: Called it the Secret Bank because I didn’t. See it on a daily basis. And then when it was time to pay the quarterly taxes, I transfer the money from the Secret Bank to my normal checking account and I’d pay the taxes. But the magic really came in when it was time to do my annual tax return, and I would have anywhere from 2020 $5,000 left over in that Secret Bank and in the United States.

If you contribute that to your own self-employed retirement account, either a solo 401k or a set by ra, that lowers your, your taxable income dramatically.

And so

that’s the goose that kept giving the golden eggs, right? Because I was lowering my effective tax rate, I was saving more for [00:04:00] retirement than I would’ve if I was an employee.

And I was able to invest that in the market, and that money grew over time,

to the

point where. I guess five years ago I stopped contributing to my retirement account at all, so yeah, I would say that that was a failure that really planted the seed for me. Building wealth over time.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Wow. That’s awesome. And I, I wanna like go that one, I’ve actually made that tax mistake twice, believe it or not.

Liz Steblay: Oh, no.

Tim Melanson: It’s, but it, it’s just, it’s just, I agree with you. It’s, it’s like a, well, first of all, it is something you don’t really think about

because when you’re

employed.

That just kinda like

magically happens, right? Like they take it off your paycheck, you never even see the money. And so it’s kind of like exactly what you just said. It’s a, it’s in a secret account, right?

Liz Steblay: It’s already

at the

government.

Tim Melanson: yeah, it’s already there. So when it comes into your own account and you are the one that’s getting it, I think the first time I didn’t realize it, it [00:05:00] was just, it was a mistake.

And then the second time, I think it’s just ’cause it’s like hard to like

take 40%.

Like I actually do 35. Yeah. And it’s like, it’s a lot of money.

Liz Steblay: It’s a lot of money and it’s, and but, so really part of the trick is to live within your means and that that money isn’t really yours. It really belongs to the government. And so by. Putting that money away. One of the things you always talk about too, is cashflow. And when you are self-employed, erratic cashflow is just sort of the name of the game.

So there were definitely lean times where I had to borrow money from the secret account to pay my monthly bills. So I was a single mom in San Francisco, self-employed, and my cashflow ranged from 5,000 a month to 24,000 a month. Obviously 24,000 a month is a good living, but you can’t live as a single mom on five grand in San Francisco.

It’s just not possible. So in [00:06:00] those lien times, I would borrow money from the secret account, but then there’d be a sticky note right above my screen that said, you owe secret account $4,000 or whatever it was. I had to borrow from myself to make ends meet, and then when times were flush again, I would. Make up that money,

because I didn’t wanna have that panicked feeling of be falling short when came time to owe the government, once you’re late on one of those payments, then you’re accruing penalties and interest, and that’s just a huge downward spiral.

So yes, definitely it’s hiding money from yourself, but it’s to avoid the stress.

Tim Melanson: I don’t have a separate bank account, but I do the same thing. I have multiple virtual accounts, and I put it in those accounts, and they’re not in my main account that’s accessible. I have to go grab. So we have similar, systems to do that. I think it’s really cool.

I think another issue that a lot of people might have is that, when you’re employed, typically your paycheck goes up over [00:07:00] time, you

know, you have this salary and then

every once in a while they’ll give you a little raise, so you always have this expectation of like, oh yeah, yeah, I’ll get more money later.

Right. But in

the self-employed

world, I don’t know if your experience is the same as mine, but it sounds like it is. ’cause you said sometimes you have flush months, sometimes you don’t. It’s like this way more.

Right. And so you and, and it’s even more difficult unless you are really good with your numbers and you’re really good with

your spreadsheets

to even

see forecasts and stuff.

It’s just like spend your money and sometimes you don’t. So like that whole tax thing can get into more trouble because now.

Later on I’ll have more money, so I’ll be able to just put, you know, I’ll, I’ll take from it now and it’ll be fine later on, but that might not be the case, right?

Liz Steblay: there’s no guarantee for sure. In my role at

the Professional Independent Consultants of

America, which is basically an, educational organization and community where I mentor people who are self-employed. I’ve talked to thousands of people over the years,

managing that cash [00:08:00] flow is one of the bigger challenges.

If you go underneath that, one of

the things you

also like to talk about, is, how to keep your hat full, right? Make sure that you have enough money coming in. So there’s kind of, there’s two sides to that, right? So there’s the revenue, the money coming inside, and then there’s the expenses side.

Fundamental rule number one, keep your expenses as low as possible. So working from home is definitely the right thing to do because you’re not paying rent somewhere. So keeping all your expenses as low as possible is number one. But on the revenue side, the mistake people make

is when they first

step

into being self-employed, most of the time they don’t charge enough.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Liz Steblay: They’re just

too timid. They think, oh, well I need

to discount

my rate so I can get my foot in the door. Or, if they do

independent

consulting executive coaching or financial planning and they’re leaving a full-time job to do the same type of work, they’ll just divide their salary by really the rule of thumb is 2000.[00:09:00]

’cause there’s supposedly 2000 working hours in a year. And that, that gives you a number, but that number’s gonna be way too low because you still have to charge for yourself in the states your self-employment tax, your own health insurance, your business insurance, the time you’re spending to run your business, doing administration, billing and invoicing.

That’s not actually billable time. So if you do that formula where you divide your salary by 2000, you need to add anywhere from 30 to 50%. To uplift, to cover for all of those extra costs for being your own business and

I see when people step into being self-employed, they don’t add that extra

30%.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Yeah, you’re a hundred percent right. I like, people will just take their salary.

Maybe bump it up a little bit, but it’s not anywhere near enough. I mean, what about sales and marketing?

Like

Liz Steblay: I

Tim Melanson: what about

the upkeep of your own equipment now? Like there’s a lot of stuff that your employer will take care of that you now have to take [00:10:00] care of,

Liz Steblay: So that’s, I’d say that’s one of the biggest mistakes. And then for people who have been self-employed for a while, they don’t raise their rates as often as they should or even more important. If you’ve been self-employed for

a while

and you’re charging by the hour, which is what most people do when they start out, because it’s the easiest to manage and it lowers your risk, but the more you do

something.

The better you get at it and it takes you less time. So if you don’t really raise your rates or change your pricing structure over time, you’re actually making less per hour because you’re working faster. You’ve already got the templates or the formats or the things that you adapt. You’re not creating things from scratch anymore.

You’re using your own intellectual property to get things done faster. So in those situations, you need to start thinking about moving towards a fixed rate. If not for the whole piece of work that you’re doing, at least for part of it. Because when you’re building a fixed rate, you’re building for the time it would take if you were to do [00:11:00] it from scratch without all of your tools and templates and accelerators.

And so even if you can do a hybrid pricing where you’ll say, okay, I’m gonna do the assessment at a fixed rate of $10,000 and then we’ll do the actual implementation work hourly. ’cause we’re not quite sure how long that’s really gonna take. You’re still gonna come out ahead of the game. The second mistake people make is once they’ve been self-employed for a while, is they don’t tweak their pricing model or they don’t raise their rates enough.

Tim Melanson: Brilliant. I love it. Okay, so, okay, and I agree hundred percent. I, I was thinking the same thing, like when you do a fixed as well. The other thing is that now.

You

are rewarded for getting better rather than, you know, penalized. Right. So now have you noticed,

when you’re talking to

a client though, sometimes, like,

Have you noticed that, that some of them want to know how much time it’s gonna take?

Like they, they want sort of an hourly pricing model, or do you not

come into [00:12:00] that at all?

Liz Steblay: It probably

depends

on the type of work that you’re

doing,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Liz Steblay: I worked with Fortune 500 companies as an independent consultant, and the clients were used to seeing

rates

by the hour because when they hire consultants from the big firm, it’s, their budgets are broken out hourly.

So that’s what the clients were expecting. But when they started

More hybrid pricing, where I’d say, okay, I’m gonna do the assessment for a fixed fee. It’s gonna take me probably. 30 hours over two weeks. I can give a ballpark figure, just so that they know, they have some sort of a sense, but I’m not giving them specifics.

I’m not gonna say, well, it’s gonna take me 30 hours at $200 an hour I don’t break it down that

way

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Liz Steblay: But to give them a sense, it’s a little bit like retainers too. A

retainer’s a little bit different ‘

cause you’re billing for. A chunk of time

in advance

of the month.

For example, my executive assistant is on a retainer basis and I get a bill in the

[00:13:00] first

of the month for all of the time that she expects to work over that month. Some months it’s more, some months it’s less. I’m reserving her smarts and her time to be on call. She doesn’t send me an invoice saying, okay, this is gonna be for 50 hours, at $50 an hour or whatever.

But retainers retainers are great, but it takes a lot of trust between you and the client before they’ll be willing to move to a retainer basis. ’cause

they

need to make sure that they’re getting the full value, for your time.

Tim Melanson: Yep. So

Do you have any tricks or anything for a client that is sort of like pushing for hourly stuff? Like, I know that as

you get better, your hourly rate goes up, but then there gets to a point where I think some clients are like, what?

Like 150 or $200 an hour, or $300 an hour. This is blowing my mind. It’s too much for them to get their heads wrapped around. Which is why I think the fixed pricing starts to work better,

because now you’re

talking about what they [00:14:00] get rather than how much time it’s gonna take you to do it.

do you have any tricks on what you can tell a client if they are kind of having a hard time with this whole thing?

Liz Steblay: Yeah. So

I call it sort of like the invisible glass ceiling. ’cause at some point the client’s like, wait a minute,

That’s not reasonable. So for example, my second company that you mentioned when you introduced me is called the

Proco Agency.

Proco is a matchmaking agency for independent consultants who specialize in HR and HR related fields and work effectiveness. And we handle their contracts and help find them, work with Fortune 500 companies

We had a really great, consultant who had been working with Franklin Templeton Investments for several years, and we kept raising his rate a little bit every time the yearly contract renewed and it was time to go crossover.

they said, they actually asked me, do you have another, a consultant?

That is less expensive. And I

said, but

you know, this [00:15:00] guy and you, you’re used to working

with

him. Let me see what I can work out. And so we actually just adjusted

the,

the number of hours that he was gonna work. So he was gonna work fewer hours. And so we sort of traded it off that way. But that their billing would be about the same, but he was just gonna manage his time differently.

I did

this successfully for years. When, when I, I’d be doing what I called a client intake meeting where I’m like, okay, tell me what’s going on. Where are you at in the project life cycle?

Have you done this? Have you done that? What’s the biggest issue? What’s keeping you up at night? You know, all, you know, all of those questions I,

that I’ve normally asked

Usually in those meetings, they’ll say. well,

and then I’ll tell them, I’d say, well, this is how

I

would generally approach this, but I’m gonna put together a proposal for you and actually lay it out.

And they’ll say, okay, well that sounds great, but what, you know, what’s your rate? So try not to quote, I would exact rate in that meeting, [00:16:00] I would say. I would quote a range of rate. I would say, well, my rate ranges between 1 75 to 2 25 an hour based on the scope, duration, and complexity of the work. So I quote a range.

There’s something in a psychology called the center stage effect. When people have a range of numbers, they gravitate towards the middle. So when I’d say my right range is 1 75 to 2 25 an hour, I’d say that, let me put together a proposal, get back to you, you know, tomorrow, the next day, and I’ll put together what I think the level of effort is about, how much it’s gonna cost, et cetera.

And I would do that. And the, I’d pick a rate in the middle, 200 bucks an hour.

always thought that was fair. Sometimes they try to get me to go down, you know, another five, $10, but they never pushed me to the low end of the rate because I, I don’t know why. I think every client thought that their situation was particularly complex or difficult, or the scope was larger than they could handle, of course it was.

Or why would they be calling an outside person? they never once pushed me to the [00:17:00] lower end of the rate. $200 an hour is what the rate I wanted. That’s what I thought was fair, was in the middle of

the range.

So when you quote a range, pick the number, pick the range, whatever it is, so that the rate you really want is in the middle of the range.

And it worked like a charm for 15 years. When I was doing independent consulting work. I’d say it’s based on the scope, duration, and complexity. Lemme get back to you in the next day or two. Worked every single time.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow.

That’s, that’s great. So I do something similar? I do ranges as well. and my work is like, tech work. So sometimes I have a really good idea of what it’s gonna take and sometimes I don’t,

right. So I do have to actually give ranges. but I’ve noticed that if you charge the low end of that rate, they think they’re getting a massive deal.

So

it’s really cool the way that works, the psychology behind it. and even if like, the only time I ever charge on the high end is actually when it takes more time and I am actually losing money usually [00:18:00] when I’m charging the highest end. It’s like, oh crap.

Okay. I under quoted, it took a little longer than I thought, but no one’s ever upset because it was in the range, right?

Liz Steblay: The, the only time I actually was paid at the high end of my range. There’s two lessons learned outta this story. But anyway, it was, I was in the client meeting and the, the program director was visibly stressed out because they were partway probably 40% of the way through this systems implementation and the lifecycle.

And I said, I. you haven’t done anything related to bringing the people along

and reassuring them that

they’re gonna have, still have their jobs after

the system’s

implemented, whatever. So

I did organizational

change management, which is what I did, change strategy and. So I could tell he was completely stressed.

And I said, I bet you’ve got people coming by your office at least once, twice a week, asking if they’re still gonna have a job, and this is all over. He said, how do you know that? I said, because I’ve done this type of work for eight [00:19:00] years, and this is very typical.

So I knew that his sense of urgency was very high. And so when he says, you know, what’s your, what’s your rate? I said, well, actually no, I didn’t put the range in that situation ’cause I could tell how stressed out he was. I said, listen, I can do an assessment for you in three weeks at $225 an hour, and from there you’ll have a strategy and a plan to implement that you can get everybody on board and really diffuse this situation and get things on track.

And he said, great. How soon can you start? So I didn’t, because I could tell that he was so stressed out. He didn’t really have any other options. The systems implementation company they were working with did not have the skillset to handle this, or they would’ve already done it. I’m like, great, I’m getting that.

The most I’ve ever been paid, I’m gonna make 2 25 an hour. But in retrospect, I still should have quoted the range, but I should have quoted it higher

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Liz Steblay: I could have gotten more because they were working with a well-known systems implementation it

firm, [00:20:00] and I know that the lowest possible rate anybody was billing from them was probably 2 75 an hour.

So if I had even quoted 2 50, 2 75, I still would’ve looked like a deal to that guy. And that combined with his sense of urgency, and he was in an industry, he was in the medical device industry where the profit margins are humongous. Biopharma, pharmaceuticals, tech, those, any industry that’s got a high margin, they tend to be less price sensitive.

so if I had done my normal thing where I’m like, this is my range and I would’ve. Quoted attire in, let me get back to you, and I would’ve gone through this checklist of things that influence price sensitivity. I could have made even more money than I did. All of those things are actually in my book, the things to Consider when you’re Quoting a Rate.

The most important thing though, is to try not to quote an exact rate in in the meeting.

Tim Melanson: If people are getting different rates for the same work, how does that work? I mean, [00:21:00] let’s just pretend like maybe this couple of the clients talk to each other and now they find out that you’re charging different rates. How does that work?

Liz Steblay: I’ve never had that situation actually,

Tim Melanson: neither, but,

Liz Steblay: situation. well, then I would fall back on my stock raise. It depends on the scope, duration, complexity, and maybe even the urgency of the work. So, sure, I normally charge $200 an hour, but these people needed, it turned around in two weeks, and normally I would’ve done it in four, so I charged a

premium.

Tim Melanson: Now, as a musician, for example, let’s

go into a music analogy

because, if I’m doing a show for, you know, a family gathering or whatever, and, they’re not rich, but they want some entertainment for their venue versus a big company with lots of money that wants to put on a staff party for their clientele, and they’ve got this huge budget. why would I charge less for one and more for the other? Like, I know that one can afford [00:22:00] more, but how would you justify that, in your own head even?

Liz Steblay: It’s what the market will bear.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Liz Steblay: and there’s no rule that says you have to charge the same price for everybody. I know independent consultants who have a different rate structure or different range of rates. If it’s a publicly traded. Corporation or if it’s a not-for-profit you could use the phrase rate card even though these aren’t really rate cards, they’re not that structured.

But, I just know going into a meeting, this is a nonprofit, I really care about their Cause so I’m gonna quote my nonprofit rate for these, for these people. ’cause I’m very interested in the work and I think it’ll be personally fulfilling for me

to do

A third, again, as much if I picked up another corporate client, and that’s totally reasonable because you’re gonna get what, you’re gonna get more in what I call the joy fuel. You’re gonna get more intrinsic value of doing work that’s meaningful to you for the nonprofit as [00:23:00] opposed to just always going for the money.

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

there we go. I agree with that.

You

know, giving a deal to somebody that you like, I guess you know over, ’cause I mean, in those two circumstances I would imagine that the nonprofit, like you say, there’s like a lot more emotional stuff. The small family that’s looking for a family gathering might be related to you.

Liz Steblay: It might

just be more fun.

Tim Melanson: Might be more

fun. Yeah. and then the other thing too is that, you know, a corporation or a someone with a lot of money would have likely higher expectations of you as well, which

would mean

Liz Steblay: Is pricing is very subjective and emotional, so it’s tricky. If you price too low, they’re gonna think you’re not

Tim Melanson: Good.

Liz Steblay: any Good.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

And that I’ve found as well, I found that when your price goes up, I actually expected to get less clients because I figured, but it actually [00:24:00] ended up, it was like

the sweet

spot where if

you bring it

too high, then yeah, you do get less clients. But if you’re too low, you also get less clients.

Liz Steblay: Yes.

So it’s hard to figure out. I always encourage people who are just starting out being self-employed to do well. Back in my day in the

last century, we

called them informational interviews.

I’d say reach

out to five people who

know. Who you’ve

worked with before or know your work.

So it could be former colleagues, former project managers, or, anybody that knows

your work

or anybody who might

be in

a position to hire the skills that you have and say, listen, I’m thinking of,

Doing something different with my,

with my career, I’m actually thinking of stepping out on my own.

Would you be willing, and I really value your opinion

since

we worked so closely together on that project three years ago, would you be willing to have a virtual cup of coffee? And so

I could

just pick your brain about this because I’m still on the fence about it. And this is a very low pressure way.

I call it the flattery approach. It’s a [00:25:00] very low pressure way to get some input and ask, and then ask these people. When you would think, when you think of me, what skills or what situations would you think of to hire me? To reach out to me? And are these things that your company would normally hire an external person to do?

Why or why not? Have you ever hired somebody like that in the past? And about how much would they charge or how much do you think would be reasonable to charge? You can ask all kinds of questions because you’re just quote, thinking about going independent. And then you’re not committing to it. You’re not trying to sell them anything.

the thing I particularly like about this approach is it’s a way to reconnect with people in your network who may be able to hire you or refer you to other people, but you’re not selling anything. You’re not trying to explain, you know, there’s no sales pressure at all.

And then two, three months

later.

When you’ve got your website or you’re ready to announce your business, [00:26:00] or maybe it’s even you’re working on a logo and you want some feedback on it, these people will be in your corner. They’re gonna be your champions because you asked for their input early on.

The more people are involved in the solution, the more they’re gonna support the solution going forward. If you force some, a change on somebody, they’re gonna be instinctively, resistant. But if you ask them early on

What do you think about this and how could we make this easier and what would make this better for you?

how should we do this? Just get the right input.

more likely to go along and be, be willing to support the success of whatever the initiative is. So the same is true when you’re stepping into being self-employed. Go do those informational interviews and ask people their opinion. Then when you’re ready to launch, say, you know, I took your advice.

I decided to price it this way, or I decided to position myself this way. Thank you so much. I’m ready to launch. If you could like it and share it, maybe comment, that would be terrific.

Nine

times outta 10, they will.

Tim Melanson: Wow. I love [00:27:00] it. Okay, we’re running outta time. I wanna get to one more last topic before we get to your solo. So tell me a little bit more learning about, learning from the

best.

Liz Steblay: Okay, so I actually, I did mention referrals. When you’re self-employed, referrals, well, it depends on the type of work you do, but I would say that referrals are the lifeblood of your business.

People will remember how you make them feel, not just what you do. So when you have a client,

make sure that they’re happy.

follow up with them after, you know, three months later, touch base with

them

again. you know, how is it, how’s it working out? Are you liking it? Did you what need, tweaks, whatever. but learning from the best. One of the people that I really admire is a woman named Stacy Brown Randall, and she wrote this little book.

Because it’s actually not very thick, and it’s called generating business referrals without asking, generating business referrals, without asking a simple five step plan to referral explosion, because Stacy and I are in alignment in [00:28:00] that. Selling sucks. Nobody likes sales. Nobody wants to be sold. Nobody wants to be, wants to be doing selling.

Well, that’s not true. There are people that make a good living doing selling, but when you’re self-employed, it’s the part most of us hate the most. And so it’s by building relationships and having a system and process in place for nurturing those relationships that leads to ongoing work and. Which helps feed cash flow, right?

So I actually, one of my favorite blogs, I’ve been blogging for eight years, and most of that’s already now in the book, but one of my favorite phrases is that business development equals relationship development.

There’s

no selling required. You just maintain strong relationships with people. You always provide value.

So when I reached out to you, Tim, in three months, I’m gonna say, you know, I know you were interested in upgrading your headphone equipment, and I just came across this review on cnet, so I’m providing something of [00:29:00] value. And so then if you hear about somebody who has questions about being self-employed, you might say, oh, well you really might wanna reach out to this woman at pika.

Because

I’ve kept my name fresh in your mind by providing you a value, something of value, not just trying to sell you something. So business development equals relationship development. And there’s a whole chapter in the book on that too.

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. And so the inside joke there is I’m wearing these big earmuffs headphones today because my other one’s just broke today. so yeah, but I, I love what you’re saying there. ’cause like that has nothing to do with your business. But it is showing

that your

client, that you’re thinking about them.

Right. And that probably, that probably has more weight, isn’t it?

Liz Steblay: Yeah. It’s building a relationship over time.

Tim Melanson: And it’s showing that you’re listening and paying attention too. ’cause it’s not just about you trying to find a way to sneak your, your, you know, your offer in there. It’s like, oh, I noticed something totally unrelated to my

business that

obviously he is looking for.

Right.

And I’m gonna offer that.

Liz Steblay: Yeah. [00:30:00] So, one of my other phrases is, always think a PV, which sounds a little bit like a venereal disease, but it stands for always provide value.

Tim Melanson: yeah,

Liz Steblay: So whenever I send an email, or even when I do an out of office message when I’m on vacation in the postscript, they’ll say, you know, here’s a link to my latest blog or, so something to add value to every single communication or interaction.

Tim Melanson: So tell me what’s exciting your business then?

Liz Steblay: so what

is exciting for my business is actually the launch of my book, which is called Succeeding as a Solopreneur,

six Keys

to Taking the Leap, building Wealth, finding Clients and Building Wealth, I’ve been self-employed for 20 years. I’ve built and launched two businesses, one of them, which represents independent consultants, the other one, which helps people

step into

being self-employed and build and launch

successful solopreneur careers.

And I’ve

led

workshops and

webinars and bootcamps and all of my best thinking is in the book now. And so I think that’s

really

exciting in that

you don’t have

to wade through the dozens of blogs that [00:31:00] I’ve written or the. Things on Pica’s websites that you can, you can really just get it all in a book ebook or audiobook, and it’s the

six keys

to take you from whether or not you’re ready to take the leap to building wealth over time and to The best way to find out

about

the book, because succeeding is a solopreneur is hard to spell,

is to

go to the landing page for the book, which is six keys info.

Tim Melanson: Nice.

Liz Steblay: Remember I’m all about keeping expenses low. So six keys.info, and that’s the landing page for the book. And from there you can learn more about me. that’ll take you to my LinkedIn profile. You can book free 15 minute sessions where you can ask me anything.

Or I

run,

private boot camps if you really wanna. You’re sure you wanna go for it. You want to. Want me to coach you and mentor you through all six keys, or you can just join PIKA to get more tools and templates and things. So anyway, the landing page is

six keys

info and I’m very excited about the book because,

it’s [00:32:00] super practical. There’s sample websites in there. There’s ways to create your LinkedIn profile so that you’re attracting customers and making it more about them and not all about you, which sounds counterintuitive ’cause it’s your profile. There’s, common tax deductions, you name it, it’s all in the book.

So that’s what I’m excited about.

Tim Melanson: Fixed keys info. That sounds

amazing. And

you know, just from this conversation with you, I mean, I’ve been self-employed for a long time too, and as a solopreneur. The things you’re talking about are like

real,

Liz Steblay: Yes.

Tim Melanson: they’re like, oh my, wow, okay. That’s something I experienced too. So you know, you can tell that you’ve been through those trenches and probably come up with a lot of, solutions to get you around them.

So that’s really cool. Thank you so much for that book. ’cause I think it’s gonna be really helpful to a lot of people.

Liz Steblay: Thank you. Yes. the people who have read it keep telling me, Hey, I just bought it for a friend and now I

told somebody else

about it. because it’s full of

practical advice.

I’ve been channeling my parents both who have been gone now for more than 20 years. My dad was an entrepreneur and that’s where I think I got [00:33:00] my entrepreneurial spirit.

my mom,

raised

five kids, so she worked at home a lot. She was known for her practical advice.

the book is not theoretical. It’s very practical.

Tim Melanson: Well, that speaks to me. Thank you so much, and I was gonna ask you how to get in touch with you six keys info. Right.

Liz Steblay: Yeah. That’s the easiest way. And then you can connect to my LinkedIn

Tim Melanson: This has been a lot of fun.

Liz Steblay: Yes,

my pleasure, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Who’s your favorite rock star?

Liz Steblay: David Bowie.

Tim Melanson: Really?

Liz Steblay: Yes. I’m a huge David Bowie fan, so, I’m still so sad that he’s no longer with us and recording, but yeah,

that’s,

my happy music right there.

Tim Melanson: mine is The Beatles. It’s gotta be The Beatles.

Liz Steblay: Same error though.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I

know. They don’t make music like, like they used to. Awesome. Well, thank you again, and to the listeners, make sure you subscribe. We’ll see you next time with Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. And if you could go to work@homerockstar.com, you can find out all about [00:34:00] this.