How to Turn Your Decades of Corporate Experience Into A $10k+ Per Month One-Person Business.
You’re sitting on a goldmine.
“I’m ready to live life on my terms.”
That’s what a coaching client said to me in our recent 1:1 session.
He’s spent multiple decades in the corporate sector working for one of the world's most well-known and profitable technology companies. You probably use their products every day.
I was slightly confused as to why he needed my help.
He is more than double my age. Had decades more work experience than me. And had been in a business longer than I’d been alive. Instead of hiding it, I addressed the elephant in the room.
His response?
“You’ve got a business model that works for solopreneurs like me”.
Over the last few years, I’ve been crafting a Solopreneur Launch Model™ to help more people start, grow, and scale their one-person business. He had tried other biz models and got confused.
But you need to remember this…
If you’re over 45, you’ve got a massive advantage.
The recipe for your success as a solopreneur:
A valuable skill set.
A high-value network.
Personal brand and reputation.
Specific knowledge earned through unique experience.
The great news?
You’ve already got it. Congrats.
All those decades in corporate have given you a unique stack of skills, knowledge, network, reputation, and personal brand that you can use to build a profitable one-person business.
You’ve got an advantage over anyone under 40 years old.
That 25-year-old internet-bro might have the style, but you have the substance. And real-world experience.
You can fix the style. But you can’t change substance.
The challenge? You need a new vehicle to bring it all together.
Here’s how you can do it for yourself.
Build your personal brand.
You’ve spent your entire corporate career building products.
Even if you worked in corporate sales and marketing, selling yourself and your business as a solopreneur is an entirely different ball game. You had a multi-million dollar budget for marketing.
Now you gotta make it work with less than $1,000.
You’re starting fresh.
You don’t have a brand-name institution that everyone recognizes. You don’t have all the bells and whistles.
That’s why you need to build your own Magnetic Personal Brand.
This includes:
A compelling character
A mission for your customers to buy in.
A vehicle that makes your approach unique.
Let’s break down each one:
1/ Compelling character — Why are you different?
Stories.
That’s what makes you unique. People might have the same skills, but no one has your unique story and experience. No one can beat you at being you.
Prospects buy the coach before the coaching.
But too many solopreneurs try to hide their story. They want to blend in. Sound, look, and feel the same as every other solopreneur out there. That’s the wrong strategy.
Combine all your:
Beliefs.
Stories.
Opinions.
Knowledge.
Experiences.
The more extreme, the better.
This is what makes your character compelling.
Prospects need to know what you stand for. Otherwise, you sound like every Tom, Dick, or Harry offering their services.
Be unique. Or die trying.
2/ Mission — Who is your enemy?
Every business needs something to hate.
Whether that’s a lifestyle, concept, or ideology. You’ve started your business for a reason. Every good business hates something. It can be subtle or explicit. But they hate something.
Apple hates conformity.
Tesla hates gasoline cars.
Nike hates mediocre performance.
When you create an enemy, you create another reality.
Your mission is your vision of this new reality. Your version of reality needs to polarize your prospects.
People either need to say:
“This is definitely NOT for me” or “this is definitely for me”
The worst response you can get is:
“Let me think about it and get back to you.”
You’ll never hear back from them.
To turn the right people on, you need to turn off the wrong people.
Aim for 80/20.
You want 80% people to love what you do.
And 20% of people to absolutely hate what you do.
Polarity pays. Neutrality makes you broke.
3/ Vehicle — How will you get me there?
Your prospects have tried to solve their problems before.
You’re not the first option they’ve tried. Even if they say so. This means your vehicle (i.e solution) needs to be framed as new. This new vehicle is more efficient and effective than existing solutions.
Prospects don’t want a solution that provides an improvement.
Prospects want a vehicle that provides transformation.
Look at your current solution and tell me why it’s a more effective way to solve your client’s problems than existing solutions. If you can’t, you need to try again.
Keep going until you’ve got something.
Your solution needs to be a painkiller, not a vitamin.
Stack sales and marketing skills.
Learn the modern, evergreen money-making skills.
This includes:
Emails.
Copywriting.
Content creation.
Online funnel building.
It’s impossible to be broke if you’ve got this skillset.
As I said before, corporate sales and marketing is different from sales and marketing as a solopreneur.
Not just in terms of scale and resources.
But mindset. I can’t tell you how many ex-corporate employees I coach who can’t market themselves. Decades of corporate experience have taught them to hide themselves behind the brand.
This is where you need to put aside your ego.
Most ex-corporate executives need to unlearn bad habits and relearn these skills from the context of a solopreneur. Your experience isn’t lost. It just needs to be recalibrated.
Combine your deep technical expertise with money-making skills.
Package your knowledge into a minimum offer.
You’ve almost got too much knowledge.
So much so you don’t even know where to start. You can solve any technical problem. While this is a strength, the challenge comes from communicating your value effectively.
“I can do it all” is not a compelling value proposition.
Your prospects need to be explicitly told the painful problem you solve for them.
There are two ways you can do this:
Fractionalize
Productize
Let me break this down.
1/ Fractionalize:
Break up your skillset.
If you were Chief Technology Officer, break down your core skills into discrete skills.
This could include:
Coding.
Team building.
Product management.
You can now sell one of these skill sets to another company.
2/ Productize:
Translate your skillset into a product.
This could either be a productized service or a digital product.
If you don’t have a big audience, I’d recommend the productized service.
If you’ve got a pretty big audience, I’d recommend a digital product.
Sticking with my CTO example, you could productize a service to be:
Helping Series-A tech start-ups achieve product-market fit.
And/or you could create a digital product that achieves the same thing.
Either option is great.
But you need to choose the one that reflects your context.
Tap into your network and collect your social proof.
Your contact list is your greatest asset.
The results you’ve generated for your employers over decades of hard work are undeniable. You’ve created high-performing teams. Built proven systems and processes. And generated millions of dollars of revenue.
This is your social proof.
Sit down and write:
Lifetime revenue generation.
Awards, certificates, or recognition.
Testimonials or good feedback from clients & colleagues.
Now, it’s time to get clients.
The way you get your next 3–5 clients is right in front of you.
Your phone.
Specifically, your contact app, email list, and social media.
The reputation, brand, and goodwill you’ve collected over the years in corporate can be converted into paid opportunities.
Don’t be shy.
People want to help you. You just need to give them the opportunity.
Decide the lifestyle you want to have.
You don’t want to go back to working 100+ hour weeks.
And you don’t need to. You can create an enormous impact with very little time commitment from your end.
But only if you intentionally design your one-person business.
Building a one-person business you hate is worse than a 9–5 job. Why? Because you have no one else to blame but yourself.
The strongest prisons are the ones we create for ourselves.
I got an email from a former CTO. He had started his coaching business but found himself working more than his 9–5 job. Even though he only wanted to work less than 15 hours per week.
So, ask yourself:
What do I want my ideal day to look and feel like?
How many hours do I want to be available for my clients?
What are my non-negotiable habits and routines?
Your one-person business can be designed to liberate or trap you.
But if you don’t make active choices, you could find yourself trapped in the exact situation you wanted to get away from.
You’ve climbed the corporate ladder…
Now, it’s time to build your own ladder.
The great news?
You’re sitting on a goldmine. Literally.
Through your decades of corporate experience, you’ve got:
Validated skill set that’s valued by the market.
The raw ingredients to create a magnetic personal brand.
Combine money-making skills with your technical knowledge.
Package your offer via fractionalizing or productizing your skillset.
Tap into your extensive network to attract your first five clients.
Continuously question your life and business design to ensure alignment.
And that’s how you turn decades of corporate experience into digital dollars.
👉 Build your PROFITABLE six-figure one-person while you work a 9–5 job (Even if you have kids or a mortgage) If you want my one-person business growth system, I’ve created a FREE email course for you to get started
