What is it that we all desire? Control of our time (personal freedom), control of our income (not being controlled by our pay grade and 3% raises), and control of our lives (getting back to being in control instead of being controlled by someone else’s arbitrary system).

Helping entrepreneurs achieve this kind of freedom is Dale Callahan’s passion. He helps people who want to take responsibility for their lives and break out of the corporate rut by teaching them they are a company of one. This means that, instead of teaching people to just leave their day job, Dale maximizes these things we all want.

I talked with Dale on Creating Your Encore Career about just how he does this and how all of us budding entrepreneurs can apply these concepts.

1. Create a value proposition

Dale explores with his students at the University of Alabama who their internal customers are. Most of them don’t know how to answer that and admit they don’t know what matters to their customers. 

However, as they start to develop a “company of one” mindset, they start realizing that working for a company is the same thing as entrepreneurship. They just couldn’t see it when they were working for a company. 

Many roles they held in their corporate careers are the same roles they’re holding now as entrepreneurs. It all boils down to adding value to people. The problem is, most entrepreneurs coming out of a corporate career don’t realize the value they bring. 

This is why we need to change our mindset, start looking into the skills we have and the value those skills provide, and develop the perspective of being a company of one. You're no longer your position, you're no longer your resume, and you're no longer your title. Instead, your job is to explain to somebody how you can help them. 

2. Discover the pain points of your ideal customer

A huge part of your sales process should be asking people what they’re trying to achieve. The answers you get may be shocking. However, this is the base of a truly ethical sales conversation. 

Simply ask your prospect why they’re talking to you. Ask them what they’re doing now or have been trying to do and what they want to do with you. 

Another good question to ask is: “Why don't you keep doing what you're doing?” This gets your prospect to identify their pain points for you. From here, you can explain the value you can add and identify the pain points you want to help solve.

3. Don’t try to serve everyone

One of the executives with Chick-Fil-A told Dale that they aim to sell to women who are 18 to 35 years old. Their ideal customers are moral conscious, active, and a little over the middle class. They have adopted this avatar because they learned that when you bring mothers at this age range in, you bring everybody in with them. 

Chik-Fil-A has mastered the art of tuning into who their customer is not worrying about who they're not. This is hard because many entrepreneurs want to serve everybody. However, that’s the death nail to your business. 

Join our conversation over on the podcast to learn more about how to become a company of one.