Solopreneur: A Profile in Strength & Courage
A new term I was introduced to upon my corporate retirement was Solopreneur. In the past year and a half, it has now come to permeate my new group of professional colleagues.
Since leaving the corporate world, I have been shocked at some of the obstacles my fellow Solopreneurs encounter. The most disturbing is the payment component. It reminds me of the movie Fight Club.
No one talks about Payment, especially those writing the check. And since I came from an industry founded upon money, where all we talked about for the most part was money - how to make it, how to deposit it, how to spend it, how to protect it, how to manage it, and how to invest it, this has been such a disappointment. In fact, the rudeness of not discussing payment, even when you are asked or challenged about it, has truly shocked me.
Here is the definition of Solopreneuer from The Dictionary of Oxford Languages:
a person who sets up and runs a business on their own.
"being a solopreneur has forced me to learn how to handle all aspects of business”
By this definition, such a Solopreneur is the only one making money or bringing in income or sales for their firm. And asking the question how many are there in the US in a Google Search, the number of 41,800,000 presents as the answer. That is a lot of sole tax paying individuals!
If they are trying to get paper unstuck from the printer, they are not earning income. If they are working on one project, that is the only project they can bill for at that time. If they are not receiving timely payment for the project or projects they billed for, they are not receiving any income. They still have bills to pay. Remember this if you find your firm in the role of a Prime.
Likely the Prime employees are receiving a biweekly paycheck from their owners so they need to be sensitive that Solopreneurs are not. I have yet to see any of this empathy in my dealings so far.
The most controversial aspect of this Payment Fight Club is that even when Solopreneurs email, ask, call for status updates on payment, there is nothing but silence on the other end. There seems to be no sense of professionalism and the Prime rarely answers with guidance, let alone empathy. And, for the most part, many of these Solopreneurs are Women Owned or Minority Owned or both.
If government funds are involved ,then these Solopreneurs were needed for the Prime or the Owner to qualify for such funds. And the silence of payment progress, the silence of unanswered payment inquiries is how these Women/Minority firms are treated. Or dare I say, mistreated.
I have seen this treatment of professionals - architects, accountants, attorneys, as well as business consultants, not for profit consultants, planners, designers, marketing and brand consultants, And, as I mentioned above, most of these stand alone business owners are women.
At some juncture, it would be great to see a government agency step in and offer interest free or below market rate working capital loans to Primes for the sole purpose of paying their Solopreneur consultants on a regular monthly payment schedule. This would bridge the gap for the Prime until the funds are paid to them, often 30-180 days after the Solopreneur has billed. Often the government agencies have established these certifications for the disenfranchised population, such as women, yet they seem to have overlooked the problematic behavior of timely payments for them.
The Primes often stand behind the clause Pay when Paid. They pay the consultants when they are paid by the owner or the government agency grant and not before. But there is not clear or any communication, at times, around when that strata of payment occurs. And the Prime can wait for weeks or months to bill, long after any given one consultant has completed their piece and invoiced for it.
This is the Solopreneurs Struggle. So, years in business under these conditions is a true milestone, a real success, and a profile in Strength & Courage, like that which our dog photo of the week exudes - Bèlize, the Rottweiler.
If you are in a position to help free up payment for these Solopreneurs, be part of the solution and change the behavior of Payment Fight Club. Start talking about it and assessing how we can honor these 40 Million+ front line soldiers going it alone in the battlefield of business.
Be well.
