Living The Red Life - How To Build A Million Dollar Company With 1 Person w/Elaine Pofeldt

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

This episode features Elaine Pofeldt, an acclaimed journalist, author, and expert on solo entrepreneurship. Best known for her book The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business, Elaine has spent years analyzing how individuals can achieve high levels of financial success while maintaining lean operations. She joins the conversation to share insights into the mindset, strategies, and tools that empower entrepreneurs to thrive without large teams or extensive resources.Elaine discusses the importance of valuing time, optimizing productivity, and choosing scalable business models that allow entrepreneurs to focus on growth. Drawing from her extensive research and interviews, she highlights the pitfalls of over-investing in product perfection at the expense of sales and marketing. The conversation also explores the power of overcoming gatekeepers, embracing digital tools, and connecting authentically with audiences to drive success. Elaine’s actionable advice and inspiring examples make this episode a treasure trove for aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs alike.CHAPTER TITLES03:00 - Starting the Journey: Defining Success05:00 - Normalizing Achievements: Building Confidence Through Repetition07:00 - Valuing Your Time: A Key to Scaling Success09:00 - Mastering Delegation: Building Support Systems11:00 - Simplifying Success: Choosing the Right Business Model13:00 - The Marketing Shift: Focusing on Sales Over Perfection15:00 - Amplifying Your Reach: Overcoming Marketing Challenges17:00 - Handling Criticism: Tuning Out the Haters19:00 - Ignoring Gatekeepers: Pioneering Your Own Path20:00 - Closing Reflections: Advice for Future EntrepreneursConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter Connect with Elaine Pofeldt:Senior Contributor to ForbesBook 1 - Million Dollar 1 Person BusinessBook 2 - Tiny Business, Big Moneyhttps://www.elainepofeldt.com/

These $1 million plus businesses with one person, what are the biggest things you've really seen? I would say keep showing up because I have literally interviewed thousands of entrepreneurs over the years. I was a senior editor at Fortune Small Business Magazine. I've written for many publications and none of them get where they're going without putting in a daily commitment. I'm not saying you have to work 24-7. Some of them work four hours a week like the four-hour work week. Others work all the time. It's really a matter of the business and the person. But if you don't show up consistently, you will not get results.

My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Light podcast. I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. What's up guys, welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Today we're gonna talk about the $1 million business plan with one person.

Yes, you heard that right. I've got Elaine with me today, who's the author of many amazing books and two and two specifically, and we're going to really dive into kind of one of them today. I'm really how to build businesses that are lean, profitable, and run very effectively. So Elaine, welcome to the show. Thanks a lot, Rudy. Great to be here.

So let's dive in. Look, I think everyone wants to build a million dollar business with one person. How do they start doing that? Elaine Larson Well, you've got to be a good observer of what's going on in the marketplace. Right now, what I found is the number one category for million dollar one person businesses is professional services. So you would definitely want to be looking at what those types of

businesses are doing, right? Yeah. Yeah. And we have a lot, you know, in our community mastermind where they are professional services and there's a lot in like the coaching consulting space. And, um, you know, they're charging bigger packages. And for just a quick question, I would love to clarify these $1 million plus businesses with one person, do they generally have a couple of VAs and

contractors, or is it like straight up like no one, just you? They generally will have VAs. They're what are called non-employer businesses by government jargon meisters, and basically they have no payroll. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Yeah.

I mean, a lot of our members probably fit in that. Um, and I think it is kind of fascinating how the entrepreneur can do so much, right? Like the entrepreneur can be the driving force and especially if they're good at doing something, building a system and handing it to a VA, uh, it's pretty incredible what you can build. I built my first company to about two million a year with just a couple of VAs and we even went beyond that before we had an official employee. These entrepreneurs are great students of efficiency.

They're also using automation. Even something like Calendly can save you half a day a week if you book a lot of appointments and they're using outsourcing, like fulfilled by Amazon, things that are available to anybody, which is very refreshing and now AI. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, um, like I always see it like a hierarchy on how I teach it. It's like, first you do it yourself and then you SOP it,

loom video it, refine the process, give it to a VA and then if you can you then eventually automate it right so a good example for everyone listening is when I first started and we sold something a higher consulting package or whatever I would write a contract and dock your sign send it out right and then you know that was many years ago, right? Over a decade ago. And then I had a VA or a staff member do it. And now you got to a point where as soon as they pay, it actually redirects them to the contract and they fill it in like a form. And now the VA doesn't even have to do it, right?

You've removed that human element and it improved the amount of contracts that get signed instantly because they don't have to wait for someone to send it. So do you kind of see it like that as well? Is that a good system to approach this with? Absolutely. One of the entrepreneurs I wrote about, Jason Allen Scott is a speaker and he said, never have a boss, never be a boss. And that's a good mantra for the million dollar one person business.

It's not most people's dream to manage other people. What's so nice about the system that you're using is the VA has a business too. And if their business is more efficient than that, it frees both them and you to do the things where you really bring value to your customers. Yeah. Yeah. And what's kind of, I found it also interesting is, you know, obviously I've

grown a team and lots of employees over time and sometimes people even get scared when you try and be like, no, no, give that up, let's automate it or give it to someone else because they're like, they think they're going to lose their job. Right. It's like, no, no, no, I just want you to do other stuff from me and we can automate this. Um, so it's always interesting to like people are almost, I guess, employees or VA's or staff are almost scared of delegations sometimes, right? Well, sometimes with good reason in some of the big companies, they will lose their

job. But in a better run company, the leaders will say, we can use these employees to do strategy, or we can use them to make our customers feel better or enjoy the experience more. And I think those are the companies that are going to lead in the future, the ones that is such a great experience because they've automated all the crap and they're doing all the good stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I love that.

And I think that's important to highlight. Like we automate so much, but then we'll do what I call like, um, non-time optimized activities because they're worth it, right? So like sometimes, you know, we'll do Christmas, handwritten Christmas cards or thank you cards, or we'll create custom posters for each of our members that joins and we've done a lot of different variations over the year. Custom gift boxes where you have to go stop the person on Facebook and research them and create this custom gift box versus automating a swag gift box from one

of the print on demand swag sites, right? And, but they can really separate you from a customer experience standpoint, for sure. It's really important to be different. There are so many copycats out there and one way people learn is by copying, but at a certain point you really have to differentiate yourself and stand out and I think with the million dollar one person businesses, they bring a lot of personality to the business. I mean, obviously you value personality with the chair that you're sitting in. It's, it's, it's really important because life can be pretty boring

if there's no human element to it. Yeah. So what are some other, you know, tips, like just general, you know, if you had to create two or three, obviously all your years of research and, and, and, and creating the book tips for people that are in that phase, making their first couple of million, trying to keep overheads low, they're a startup, they're doing it themselves, maybe bringing on a VA. Have you seen any patterns in all the successful people?

Definitely. You know, one thing to think about when you're trying to do this is help other people make or keep money. I mean, one of the entrepreneurs in the book, he runs a company called Ocean Audit, Steve Ferreira. And what he does is his business is as boring as you can imagine. He audits shipping bills of lading to see if there were any mistakes made in shipping a bunch of shirts to JCPenney or somewhere like that. But what he does is goes to the CEOs and says, I found a $250,000 mistake.

Do you want me to tell you what it is and collect it? But I get to keep 50%. And he does it with a flourish. He has these pins made for his fancy suits and things. He was an actor. And he just brings a lot of theater to it, but they're getting money back in their budget. And that's something that many businesses can do, you know, help people optimize their own lives or businesses, especially in today's environment around the world with housing costs, inflation, and all of that stuff. So I would say that's it. I would say build relationships very consciously.

One of the entrepreneurs who grew during the pandemic was Elisa Shearer, who did live events. Her whole business was shut down, and yet she grew from one to 1.5 million by switching to Zoom events. And what saved her was all along the way, she was never afraid to approach celebrities to bring them into her events for corporate people. And a lot of meeting

planners really don't have that relationship building in their toolkit. Well, she got them to speak at annual meetings and liven up the annual meetings when everyone was home during the pandemic and that helped her grow her business. She went up growing to two employees and you know, you would think a live events business would just crash, but it didn't. And then I think that's the great part of entrepreneurship is the pivot too, right? So like I had an agency when COVID hit and luckily about Christmas time before COVID, right, COVID was spring.

About Christmas time, I had decided, hey, going into this new year, I want to step out of my agency. I've had it for a few years. It's kind of stable now and I want to get back into growing my brand. So I appointed a head of performance direct to kind of, you know, overseer, um, and, and I did that and all of my clients from the agency came from me speaking and go into events. Um, so, you know, luckily I'd already kind of started to step out, but COVID

here, obviously we weren't going to get any more agency clients, but we really grew our consulting, coaching, education business. And we've done about 30 million since. And that was because I was like, kind of, you know, I was planning to pivot and get into something new, but then when COVID hit, I was like really forced to ramp it up right away. And that is the great thing of entrepreneurs that they can pivot fast if they, you know,

some of them can at least. Oh, absolutely. And I think you're right, Rudy. Many of us pivot at gunpoint, but the fact is if we do pivot, we have more chances of being successful. One entrepreneur that did a great job of this, Joey Healy. He had an eyebrow studio. He developed the Joey Healy method of styling eyebrows. And if you ever saw his eyebrows, they're just magnificent.

But basically he had a little studio in Manhattan. He was working on wealthy women on the Upper East Side, going from house to house, found that was inefficient, started his own studio. Then he rented a fancy space near New York University. He got shut down in the pandemic, but he made this private label makeup that would be like an add-on for each visit,

adding to how much each person would spend on the visit because they'd get the r browse style plus the makeup. Well, during the pandemic, he couldn't do any styling and neither could his stylist, so he wound up, um, he got onto TV using a publicist, one of the last contractors he kept and he wound up selling the makeup and that's how he got through the pandemic and now he's back to having the studio, but his whole business was shut down. And it was not in his plans to do that. It was such a small side light. So that's another important thing to just be very open to what the universe is telling you.

And when you see an opportunity, just jump on it. He did that very, very quickly. That's cool. So I want to put you on the spot and then I'll put myself on the spot, right? I would love three to five tips from you on how to build, you know, a million dollar plus business with no employees. Like what are the biggest things you've really seen, uh, if you had to summarize it into like three or five bullets and then I'll give you, you know, I'll give

everyone my three to five too. Sure. Well, one is mindset. Let go of everything that you've been told by your school, your parents, et cetera, about being a good employee. It doesn't apply to being an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is about being disobedient. And I'm not saying do anything illegal, but you have to break the rules that you learn to conform to a corporate system and be willing to be subject to other people's worry and disapproval. They may think you're going to go broke, but you have to prove them wrong.

I would say keep showing up because I have literally interviewed thousands of entrepreneurs over the years. I was a senior editor at Fortune Small Business Magazine. I've written for many publications, and none of them get where they're going without putting in a daily commitment. I'm not saying you have to work 24-7. Some of them work four hours a week, like the four-hour work week. Others work all the time. It's really a matter of the business and the person.

But if you don't show up consistently, you will not get results. I mean, be willing to get feedback, talk to your customers. They give you so much valuable information if you're willing to listen. I mean, part of being an entrepreneur is being a little bit stubborn and sticking with your vision,

but you also have to be open to what the world is telling you Being an entrepreneur is being a little bit stubborn and sticking with your vision, but you also have to be open to what the world is telling you and feedback and be willing to pivot in response. You have to take absolute responsibility for your own success. All these people that are running these million dollar one person businesses have ups and downs like anybody else. And so do scalable entrepreneurs, and they take responsibility for solving their own problems. Another thing that Jason said on one of the programs I did was, no one is coming to save

you. And I remember the other entrepreneurs on the call kind of teared up a little bit. And you have to have that attitude. No one's going to bail you out. It's not to say that you can't find an investor to help you or a friend to come in and pinch hit, but you really have to be willing to solve your own challenges. But when you're willing to own that, the rewards of entrepreneurship are fantastic. The freedom, the control over your own destiny, the control over who you get to work with, the control over your own destiny, the control over who you get to

work with, the control over your results. There's really no ceiling on what you can do and your impact. And I think that's why it's so rewarding. I mean, I'm sure you find that. Oh yeah. Anymore, anymore, that's it? Well, I always tell my kids, get in the ring. And I, one of the passions that I had over the years was, um, I always tell my kids, get in the ring.

And I, one of the passions that I had over the years was, um, I'm a black belt in Taekwondo and my daughters and I did this together and, um, you have to be willing to get in the ring and, and, you know, get a few bruises and scratches and things if you want to be an entrepreneur, because there's a lot of unpredictable stuff that's going to happen and you have to think on your feet and be willing to lose sometimes. If you're not willing to ever lose, you'll never win. Yeah. Yep.

So, I'll get, I would have gone with mindset too. So you stole that one from me. So I'll have to figure out a new one there. But yeah, definitely, you know, to reinforce that like I always teach you can only achieve what you can like believe. So I mean, that's half the battle is believing you can be a millionaire. Right. Because once I made my first million making my next few was like a hundred times easier and part of that was skill and knowledge.

But a big part was it like it felt more normal. Right. And I seen that in a lot of sports but a big part was it like, it felt more normal. Right. Um, and I've seen that in a lot of sports I've done, like, you know, hitting a time in a running race or something where the first time you do it, you train months to do it. And then you start doing it all the time and now set the goal even lower. So, so I love that one. Um, uh, you know, I think the next one for me is, um, just kind of like we spoke about it a little offline, but like valuing your time.

I always like value my time and I kind of know what it's worth. So anything that sits below that value, I try to automate or delegate to VAs and stuff. Um, so, you know, and that's both personal and professional. Like I've had at one point, I have four assistants because they were split between like professional and personal assistants and then like an office assistant. So, um, and they would cost me, you know, 15, 20 grand a month, but I was able to get a lot more done, so it was worth it.

Um, so I would say valuing your time and then just consistently like a, a machine delegating out or removing out stuff that you know, you could get someone else to do. Um, and then I think for, I think the business model, right? Choosing a business model. And we spoke about that a little too, right? There are some business models, like agencies, they can be much harder to fill on and there's a lot of work, but if you can find a business model that's easy to fulfill on, so you can focus on marketing

and sales, I think it's so important. Like, you know, if you sell courses that are pre-made, well, you make it once and now 99% of your effort is on marketing and selling it, right? Cause the fulfillment's already done. Um, and then I think, you know, to follow on that 90% of entrepreneurs I work with, they spend 90% of their time in the business and on the product and 10% of the time selling it. And that's why they have no sales and no revenue. So you have to switch.

So that one's the product's at a decent level, it's your job to get out there and sell the thing, you know? And then over time, obviously constantly improve it and make it a good product. But, um, you know, I always say, you know, the best products in the world, if no one knows about it, how many people do you help? The answer is zero. I agree with you about that. It's so important to get out there and not be hidden. If you're not out there talking about stuff

that's relevant to your customers, no one will find you. But the good news is if you start putting yourself out there, it magnetizes people who are like-minded. You won't be for everybody. That's one thing people have to let go of. There are gonna be haters and people that post negative comments and things like that, but you have to tune them out because they're usually armchair quarterbacks and they're not doing anything.

What really matters is if the people that you're marketing to are responding. Some people don't like being on social media. You have to find some way to get out there, whether it's in person, using email. The good news is if you're an introvert, there are so many digital methods. So you don't have to be a pitch man or woman on YouTube or something like that. If that's not your personality, some people just are shy, but they're really great entrepreneurs anyway. And it's just finding what is your way of marketing.

Yep. Good. So last couple of questions, more rapid fire. I always ask these at the end to wrap up. So first question, biggest win, win, win or success in business that you're super proud of? I was so excited to publish the million dollar one person business because it was a result of many years of work that I did analyzing census data and things

like that, doing dozens of interviews and just getting it out into the world and hearing from people that said it inspired them and helped them create a million dollar one person business just makes my day every single time. Good, good. And biggest failure and lesson from that failure? Well, I don't know. I feel like everything is a learning experience. So there was nothing that popped into my head as a failure.

I'm not saying I haven't messed things up or done anything wrong, but I feel like it all goes into the computer and helps me learn. Okay. Yeah. I like that perspective. I mean, I think every good entrepreneur is similar. They realize those mistakes, get them to where they are now. Right.

Um, and then last one, uh, if you could go in a time machine to your younger self and give yourself advice for business and entrepreneurship and success in life, what would it be? Ignore the gatekeepers. There are a lot of gatekeepers in life who can stop people from doing what they want to do. And what I've seen now, as I've been out there in the world for a long time is because of tech trends and other things, a lot've been out there in the world for a long time, is because of tech trends and other things, a lot of the people that were the gatekeepers of the past are

gone. The whole industries are gone. And the people that succeeded and achieved what they wanted to do just went ahead and did it, regardless of what anyone said. They found a way to tunnel around whatever obstacles there were or whatever people were saying they couldn't do things. Just one example is if you look at Instagram, there used to be modeling agencies. I think there still are, but now there are all these Instagram influencers who are like,

I'm an 80-year-old fashion influencer. They're breaking all the rules and they're very popular. They would have never been able to work 30, 40, 50 years ago doing what they're doing and now they have these lucrative businesses. So don't worry about somebody who says you're not enough of something. You show the world that you are. And I think the world will respond. Yep.

Love it. Love it. Great. And final question of the day, if someone wants to, you know, I know you have a lot of great content out there, the books, articles on Forbes, et cetera. Where can they find you for some of that stuff? They can, they can go to my website, elainepofeld.com. Um, with the spelling is in the show notes.

It's hard to spell. You won't remember it, but, um, I'm on Amazon. My books are on Amazon. I'm on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook under my full name and Instagram under million dollar one person business. And I do write back. So write to me. It makes me a better journalist and author.

Right. Love it. Well, thank you so much guys. Hopefully this inspires you to stay lean, keep growing and see that, you know, a million dollars is possible just yourself and maybe a couple of VAs helping along the way. So that's an episode in the wraps. As always, keep living the red life and I'll see you guys soon. Take care. Bye!