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My first job was an unusual one, but I learned so many lessons from it that I carried with me throughout my career.
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A lot of people go out on their own after a layoff, especially in the current economy. And when they do, they tend to focus on what they don’t know: how to find clients, how to set pricing, how to market themselves. But a long corporate career also builds some core competencies that translate directly into running a solo business.
I spent 15 years in a corporate environment, including a role on an executive team. I pivoted to a new career, and then found myself laid off 18 months later. I made the snap decision to start my solo business the next day.
While a lot of aspects of starting a solo business were intimidating, there were things I knew I could do well based on my corporate experience. If you find yourself in a similar situation, here are a few corporate skills that might translate well to your solo career.
Project management
In a corporate environment, you learn to scope work, set milestones, and track deliverables across teams and timelines. As a solopreneur, the “team” is just you—but the fundamentals are the same.
Solopreneurs who struggle with organization often never had that structure to learn from. You already know how project management systems can keep client work and your own business on track.
One of the first things I set up when I started my own business was a project management tool. The specific tool doesn’t matter as much as the principles. I knew the longer I waited, the harder it would be to implement project management as my business grew.
Take the time to apply what you know about project management to your business from the beginning. It’s worth the effort.
Stakeholder management
Managing up, across, and down in a corporate environment means navigating competing priorities and communicating with people who have different agendas. As a solopreneur, that’s called client management.
The skills are knowing how to have uncomfortable conversations about scope, timeline, and money without damaging the relationship. In corporate, you might have pushed back on an executive who kept adding more requests to a project. As a solopreneur, you’re doing the same thing when a client asks for “one more change” to something you delivered.
Keep in mind that you are a stakeholder in everything you do. Your clients may be competing for your time and attention, but you also have to balance them against your business’s needs.
Financial management
When I sat on an executive team, I routinely reviewed the company’s profit and loss (P&L) statements. I also made decisions about software purchases and other expenses within my department. Every year, I participated in budget planning.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, roughly half of small businesses close within five years. Financial mismanagement is consistently cited as one of the top reasons. If you’ve ever managed a team budget, you’re ahead of the curve. Many solopreneurs are learning this from scratch (and find it intimidating).
You understand how to forecast expenses, weigh costs against expected returns, and make a business case for an investment. You’ve got a solid foundation to learn other concepts like managing cash flow or reading a P&L.
Decision-making
Corporate life forces you to make decisions, often under time pressure. They may involve product launches, hiring, pivoting strategy based on market signals, and so much more. You learn to gather enough information to make a reasonable call and move forward, rather than waiting for certainty.
No one starts a corporate career knowing how to make decisions; it’s a skill you develop over time. And these skills can make you a lot more comfortable with running your solo business.
You’ll wrestle with decisions like whether to take on a client, how to price a new service, and whether to invest in growth versus saving your money. But the underlying skill is the same: collecting information, making a decision, and sticking to it.
Your corporate tool kit
While I would have preferred a less abrupt transition to a solo career, I knew instinctively that I was better equipped than most. Plus, I could make choices based solely on my experience and how I wanted to move forward, rather than operating by group consensus.
You may not have chosen to leave corporate life. But the skills you developed aren’t left behind. They become part of the infrastructure of your solo business.
