Solopreneur Success Stories Joellyn 'Joey' Sargent

Jenny Munn, SEO Consultant

As a new mom with 4 weeks of maternity leave left, our guest Jenny Munn found herself suddenly unemployed. What to do? Become a solopreneur, of course! In this episode of Solopreneur Success Stories, Jenny shares her 7-year journey in mastering evolution as she moved from layoff to freelance freedom.

She says, "Back in 2009, I decided to pursue my dream of opening my own business. I hung out my shingle as a freelance website copywriter and waited for the business to pour in. But it didn’t. Instead of a flood of business leads, I had a slow trickle."

Jenny tells us how she tried on a number of different career options, mastering evolution to find the perfect fit for her business. Once she found the SEO field, Jenny continued to transform her business. Today, she is a popular speaker, hosts regular SEO workshops, and still makes time to meet the kids at the bus after school.

Mastering Evolution

Solopreneur success topics we cover in this episode include:



* Conquering fear to find your future

* How to thrive by mastering evolution

* Discovering your "drop the mic" moment



Learn more about Jenny:

JennyMunn.com

Twitter: @JennyMunn

Facebook: JennyBonoMunn

LinkedIn: JennyMunn

Jeff Sheehan, Sheehan Marketing Strategies

Not everyone runs head first into solopreneurship. Some, like today's guest Jeff Sheehan, are what I call "reluctant solopreneurs."

A marketing expert with over 30 years of global experience in sales and marketing with high tech firms, many in the Fortune 100, Jeff didn't expect to become a solopreneur. That's just how it worked out.

After leaving his corporate gig in the midst of the economic downturn, Jeff reinvented himself and discovered solopreneur success. Today he has over 320,000 followers on Twitter and he has been recognized as one of the Top 50 Social Media Influencers.

Jeff is a nationally known speaker on Social Selling and Marketing, as well as the co-host of the weekly radio show, Tech Marketing. He is also co-author of HIRED! Paths to Employment in the Social Media Era, and we're privileged to have him as one of our own Solopreneur School expert bloggers.

Solopreneur success topics we cover in this episode include:



* Embracing change as a reluctant solopreneur

* Cultivating your social media following

* How to choose a qualified social media consultant when you need help



Learn more about Jeff:

Jeff Sheehan

Sheehan Marketing Strategies

Phone: (770)-366-1047

Twitter: @JeffSheehan  |  LinkedIn  |  Email Jeff

Laura Ray, OrganizeAtlanta.com

For Episode 2 of our solopreneur success series, professional organizer Laura Ray discusses how networking shaped her business.

A former PR pro, Laura has always had a passion for organizing, even before she knew it was a career option! Laura shares how she made the transition from corporate career and created the life she wants. as both a working mom and a leader in her industry, Laura's tips can help even the most disorganized solopreneur.

Laura has been helping busy people organize their homes and offices since 2006, and currently serves as president of the Atlanta Chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO). She has been featured on television and radio shows including Fox 5′s Good Day Atlanta and 11 Alive’s TrustDale TV with consumer investigative reporter Dale Cardwell. Laura has also been quoted in two books.

Solopreneur success topics we cover in this episode include:



* Why networking is critical for business growth

* How volunteering expands your reach

* Best practices to create and enjoy the life you want



Learn more about Laura and her company at:

Laura Ray Organizing, LLC

OrganizeAtlanta.com

Phone: 404-630-7212

Twitter: LauraRayOrg | YouTube



Transcript: Solopreneur Success Stories - Episode 2

Networking to the Life You Want

-I’m so excited to have you with us, especially because I’ve known you for many years since way back before you became an organizer. I’m excited to share your story with our listeners.

-Thank you! I think it’s 1998 that we met, so it’s been a while. This is my second career and it’s been really exciting.

-I didn’t even realize that that much time had passed. That’s amazing. So tell us a little bit about your business and what you do now and then maybe we can go back and talk about where you came from and how you made that transition.

-Great. I am a professional organizer and I could add productivity consultant to my title. Order and organizing kind of covers it in terms of what people think about when they think organizing and getting their life and business in control. I help busy people organize their homes and offices. Both residential and business including email management.

-That’s a good one. I need help with that! It keeps getting worse and worse for me. Every time I look at my inbox I cringe.

-Email is just one of those things that most people didn’t receive any kind of training. There are some strategies you can use and tips to get in under control. I enjoy working with people on that if that is their overwhelm factor.

-We may come back to that later in our chat here but tell us a little bit about how you got started as an organizer because I know back in 1998 when we were children and we met you were doing PR work for a big public company. How did you decide that organization was where you wanted to be?

-I was in public relations for about sixteen years but about year two I had heard that there was a profession called professional organizing. I went to a meeting and I was in my early twenties. The women at the meeting were mostly in their forties and they were excited about being entrepreneurs and starting their own businesses. That really wasn’t where I was at in my life although I liked organizing. I always say I was born organized with a God-given gift. I bought my first filing cabinet when I was in sixth grade. I’ve always enjoyed it and the key is that I enjoy helping other people get organized to their style of personality, what their family needs,

Marisa Meisters, WorldwideXplorer



Welcome to Episode 1 of our new solopreneur success series. We're joined by travel expert Marisa Meisters, who made the leap to full-time solopreneurship in 2014.

Marisa shares how she moved from a career in IT to follow her true passion: exotic travel. After starting part-time, Marisa eventually realized that if she wanted to grow her business, she would have to quit her full-time job and devote herself to her company.

Solopreneur success topics we cover in this episode include:



* Finding your passion

* Getting the support you need

* Unexpected benefits of being a solopreneur



Learn more about Marisa and her company at:

WorldwideXplorer

CustomExoticTours.com

Phone: +1-678-243-0080

Skype: WorldwideXplorer

Twitter: @WorldwideXplore

Transcript: Solopreneur Success Stories - Episode 1

Finding Your Passion

-So Marissa thank you for joining us.

-Thank you!

-Well I’m excited about your business and I know we started working together a while back so I’ve had the opportunity to watch you grow and I’m looking forward to sharing that story with our listeners. Why don’t we start by having you tell our listeners a little about your business-what you do and how you got started and how you got inspired.

-Sure! Well my business is called WorldwideXplorer and what we do is we run tours in certain parts of the world. We don’t go everywhere, but for instance we have a big presence in Africa with seven countries that we go to on wildlife sight seeing tours. We also do a couple of countries in South America including Peru, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and recently we added Europe with the country of Latvia. What began the interest of starting a business like this was about four and a half years ago or so, my husband and I went on our very first safari tour and it took us a couple of years to really plan, decide where we wanted to go, and arrange all of the details. So in the end when we wound up booking the tour, we went through one of the major tour operators out there. We were really surprised when we got to our destination and found that the first thing we noticed was we had landed in the middle of a tiny little airport in Africa and we had trouble finding our tour guide. We expected that at least they would have a brochure or a plaque saying the name of the company that we had booked through or a little plaque with our names on it. We saw neither.

That’s not a good way to start is it?

-No, and the tour guides that were there to pick up people- none of them had heard of the company that we had paid. We literally had to dig out our itinerary and go line by line with the tour guides before we finally found the correct one and wound up on the right tour.

-That’s not exactly a great way to start out your experience. That’s got to be pretty scary being in a foreign country and not knowing where your guide is or what you’re supposed to do.

-Exactly. Welcome-oops! So that was quite an experience and another thing we noticed when we were on that tour is that there was a lot of need. For instance, when we went to Victoria Falls and saw a lot of people had their own small fans set up where they were selling items that they made themselves, one of the gentlemen saw a pen in my husband’s pocket. He said, “Sir, if you give me your pen I’ll give you any one item from my store because I can’t afford to buy pens for my children for school.” And that just broke our hearts. We have so many pens here in this country. There were tons around the house that we could’ve brought along or purchase from any of the stores around here and we could’ve gladly brought those and distributed them.