Whiplash: The Hidden Injury of Growing a Solo Biz

Welcome to the Thought Follower, weekly business advice for the savvy Solopreneur.

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A thought leadership copywriter for boutique consultancies shared this all-too-real situation on a coaching call last week:

“I’ve got whiplash – it feels like my business has gone from 5mph to 40mph.

Within the space of three weeks, I’ve kicked off a retainer and a decent-sized project, so I’m pedalling hard.

I suddenly have to deliver work.”

This kind of acceleration is fantastic. It’s wanted. It’s necessary.

But as my client rightly pointed out, it can cause whiplash.

You go from chasing work…

To having plenty of it.

From marketing and selling…

To delivering flat out.

And somewhere in that shift, things start to creak.

Not because you’re doing anything wrong. But because you're now running a different business than you were a month ago.

At times like this, you realise you’re missing a seatbelt:

• Systems

• Processes

• Productised components of your offer

(The boring-but-essential stuff that helps you operate at a higher gear.)

Those things come in time, but the biggest issue I see isn’t operational.

It’s this:

You do a bunch of marketing to find leads. You win some work. You start delivering.

And then your attention points 100% to client delivery.

This is natural, but it means our marketing & sales activity starts to dry up.

Pipeline stalls. And when the projects end?

You’re back at zero.

The most important time to be marketing is when you’re busy.

But when you’re slammed, time’s tight, which means efficiency is everything.

The good news?

You don’t need to come up with new ideas.
You already have what you need.

How to turn Delivery into Marketing (fast)

Here are some fast, lightweight ways to turn what you’re already doing into content:

• Onboarding questionnaire → Make a post out of one great question you ask every client

• Upcoming client call → Share your agenda as a simple outline post

• Client milestone → Write a short update on how you helped them get there

• A win or breakthrough → Turn it into a before/after story

• Final deliverable → Post a blurred-out screenshot with a one-liner about the result

These aren’t “content ideas”. They ARE content. You just need to hit “copy-paste” and share them.

No blank pages.

No deep thinking time.

No trawling through transcripts.

Just tiny moments from your actual work, turned into useful stuff your audience will relate to.

Here are some recent examples from my own Feed:

• Sales call comment

• Workshop screengrab

• Group call sketch exercise

• Coaching client wins snippet

Each of these posts took <15 minutes to create.

This is pro-level repurposing.

And it’s the best cure for the Solopreneur hamster wheel many of us get stuck on.

Keep the content flowing, even while you’re busy.

That way, the next client will already be warming up by the time you’re ready.

PS – Did you notice? This very newsletter is an example. I harvested the whole idea straight from a coaching call. Et voilà.

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