If you’re considering a side hustle, you may think of yourself as a freelancer or a solopreneur.
Freelancers and solopreneurs are often conflated with one another, or used interchangeably…
But aside from the fact that they work mostly by themselves, freelancers and solopreneurs are different.
Freelancer or Solopreneur?
A freelancer is someone who exchanges his or her time for money. Freelancers work on projects for clients, as the clients come in.
Freelancers do the work themselves. They’re the boss of themselves… They own a job that they control.
If a freelancer stops getting new clients, and doing the work, the freelancer stops making money.
A solopreneur, on the other hand, is creating an online system that will live and generate revenue while he or she is sleeping.
Solopreneurs are alone, but they are building something that can exist on its own.
If they stop working, their creation keeps working for them.
How Do Solopreneurs Sell While They Sleep?
The marketing flywheel is the solopreneur’s best friend.
Rand Fishkin’s new book “Lost and Founder” has a great illustration of the marketing flywheel that his company, Moz, uses to generate traffic for itself.
Moz is a Software as a Service (SAAS) company that sells products to help with search engine optimization (SEO).
Moz is a big company, but the solopreneur’s goal is to create a similar system that he or she can use to make money while they sleep.
This is becoming easier and easier with the democratization of Internet technology, and simple tools for building websites like WordPress, Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, etc.
Solopreneurs use the marketing flywheel to attract with original content, offer free promotions, collect emails, promote digital products, sell with conversion rate optimized funnels, and start all over again.
Examples of digital products that can be sold on an automated basis are digital e-books, video courses, pre-recorded webinars, quizzes, membership sites, audio downloads, subscriptions, access to forums, online consulting, expert advice, and more.