AP 0904: Would You Rather Work with a Team or Be a Solopreneur?

AskPat 904 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 904 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

We have a great question coming in from Borja, but before we get to his question, I want to address a few questions that have come in about my upcoming course, Power-Up Podcasting. You know, this is a course that I put together and beta-tested in front of a live audience, and I had 160 people at this live event take this course, and I've heard nothing but amazing feedback. The best feedback is, a lot of these people now have their show up on iTunes, and so I'm really excited to be launching this course publicly for the first time on July 17, and you can sign up right now at PowerUpPodcasting.com for the wait list. So go there, check it out. It's going to help streamline the process of starting your podcast, this thing that is often just a technical drudgery for most people, and also just how to launch the thing, what to talk about, how to get guests on your show, everything from email templates you send out to how to automate the process, to how to market this thing and launch it, not just in front of your mom but everybody who you can get in front of. It's all there for you. Go ahead and check it out, PowerUpPodcasting.com. Make sure you sign up for the wait list today. If you've been wanting to start that podcast and you just know it's something you're supposed to do, I'm going to help you do it. PowerUpPodcasting.com.

All right, thanks so much, and here is today's question from Borja.

Borja Giron: Hi Pat, this is Borja Giron from BorjaGiron.com, a digital marketing blog for Spanish people. Okay, here's my question. Now that you got success with your business, I'd like to know, if you could be getting same money, would you prefer to keep working with many people around you, with everything that you have in your business, or would you prefer to be an onlypreneur? Thank you so much for your podcast. See you.

Pat Flynn: Hey Borja, thank you so much for this really interesting question. So to rephrase: If I could make the same amount of money, would I rather continue working with a team or would I rather be a solopreneur or an onlypreneur, somebody working just with myself?

Now, I had been an onlypreneur, as you called it, for the first six years, and I really enjoyed that process. I really like learning on my own, I like figuring things out, but man, once I started working with a team I started to realize just how impactful the team was. Not only just to do things that I didn't want to do, or even do things I wanted to do but just shouldn't do, but really how much time it opened up for me. So really, working with a team, it's been amazing and I would much rather continue working with a team.

Plus, here's the thing. My team has come up with a lot of ideas that I would have never thought of before, and I always feel like when you have a team who is almost clones of you, in terms of the value that you have and the serving that you want to do with your audience—which is why I feel very lucky to have the team that I have, just big shout out to the entire team actually, for being on board with me and why I do what I do, and being on the same mission with me. I mean, they all have the same mission. It's because of that they often speak up and offer suggestions for what to do or how to do things better or offerings that I could give to you guys and so really, it's not just about me anymore, it's about the team.

I just happened to be . . . It's almost like when you watch the news right? There's the guy or the gal who's sharing the news and giving you the information, that's me, but then there's this whole team of people in the back who actually make that thing happen. There's somebody in their ear who is the executive producer and there's the graphics guy in the back and there's the whole team behind them that you never see, right? But they are definitely what keeps the wheels moving.

Here's why, more than anything, I'd want to work with a team. It's because I have so many more plans and there's only so much time, and with a team you can double, triple, quadruple the amount of stuff you get done in the same time period, so I would much rather work with a team. No, it's not easy, and it takes a little bit of learning. There's some leadership involved that you have to learn, and there's some team-working and collaboration that's involved and it obviously adds more to the expenses, but man, worth every dollar in my opinion and I'd much rather do it with a team and more brains than just my own.

Thank you for the question Borja, I appreciate it, and I wish you all the best, and thank you. We're going to send you an AskPat teeshirt for having your question featured here on the show, and for those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.

Thank you so much for listening in. I appreciate you so much, and here's a quote today from W.H Auden. “We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.” Ha, that's good. All right guys, take care, thanks so much, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.