One of the ways solo business was conducted for many years in this country (U.S.) was by what I call "the one man band" business model.
An entrepreneur would create or find a product and proceed to sell that product to as many buyers as he could find. Sometimes the owner would develop a full line of products offering the consumer many styles, sizes and other choices.
The one man band was many business employees rolled into one. He did the research and development on the product, the manufacturing and/or purchasing, he was the salesman, the secretary, the customer service representative and the business owner all at the same time.
This model was appealing to some because they envisioned that their income was unlimited. The more they sold, the greater their profit - and they didn't share the profits with anyone!
If they had a winner of a product, they would become rich.
At times, the one man band would actually purchase a distributorship or a geographic territory for his sales. If the product was sold to a customer in his region, he reaped the benefit.
Oft times, these solo entrepreneurs hired a sales force to make the sales calls in the region so that the owner's time was leveraged and his products could be sold in many places at once.
Some of the more stereotypical businesses in this group were shoe salesmen, insurance and real estate agents, barbers, farmers, and car mechanics.
Most dealt with one type of product or service, were experts in that field, and were paid on some type of commission basis: the more they sold, the bigger the paycheck. If a customer had a complaint, he took it up with the boss.
Merchants that became successful in their business often expanded and tried to leverage their time to increase their income. Sometimes they even ceased being the service or product salesman or representative and because the sole manager over many sales associates.
Large corporations all over the world got their initial start as a solo business that out-grew its owner's ability to handle all the necessary daily functions.
In today's online solo business strategy, the owner relies upon his own expertise to develop his product or service just as a one man band would.
But there is a difference in these two models.
Today's business owner sets up his product or service to be repeatable, easily duplicated, so that he can provide it to his customers over and over again without his physical presence.
He leverages his own time as much as possible; sometimes by 10,000% because he doesn't re-create his offerings each time a new customer buys.
The solo Internet business owner generally doesn't offer physical products (although in some cases it is possible.) He concentrates on delivering his goods and services digitally so that he avoids inventory, packaging and shipping, and all the other physical overhead expenses that gouge deeply into profit margins.
The solo owner doesn't need employees because he has designed his business to operate efficiently without his presence . . . like being on auto-pilot. His sales force becomes his marketing and ads that do the selling for him.
His accounting and financial transactions are handled by the software he uses to automate most of the previous "back office" functions.
The online business owner's approach is available to the one man band solo operator; but he must streamline, automate, and reduce his overhead to those activities that he can do by himself. Otherwise, he is no longer a solo businessman.
