Elaine Pofeldt
Appearances
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
There are going to 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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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 women 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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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 of the people that were the gatekeepers of the past are gone. The
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
I think there still are, but now there are all these Instagram influencers who are like, I'm an 80-year-old fashion influencer or You know, and 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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
They can go to my website, elainepofeld.com, with the spelling is in the show notes. It's hard to spell. You won't remember it. But 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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
They generally will have VAs. They're what are called non-employer businesses by government jargon meisters. And basically, they have no payroll.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
These entrepreneurs are great students of efficiency. They're also using automation. I mean, 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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
And if their business is more efficient, then that frees both people them and you to do the things where you really bring value to your customers.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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, you know, enjoy the experience more. And I think those are the companies that are going to lead in the future.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
The ones that it is such a great experience because they've automated all the crap and they're doing all the good stuff.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
It's really important because life can be pretty boring if there's no human element to it.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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 he... His business is as boring as you can imagine.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
One of the entrepreneurs who grew during the pandemic was Elisa Shira, 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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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 get the brow style plus the makeup. Well, during the pandemic, he couldn't do any styling and neither could his stylist.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
So he wound up, 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 sidelight. So that's another important thing to just be very,
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
open to what the universe is telling you. And when you see an opportunity, just jump on it. He did that very, very quickly.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
Thanks a lot, Rudy. Great to be here.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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 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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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 results.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
Well, I always tell my kids, get in the ring. And one of the passions that I had over the years was I'm a black belt in taekwondo, and my daughters and I did this together. And you have to be willing to get in the ring 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.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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 now.
Living The Red Life
Dominating Your Business As A Solopreneur With Elaine Pofeldt
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.