RWL002 How to Achieve Million-Dollar Success as a Solo Entrepreneur with Elaine Pofeldt

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
0:00

Hey, welcome to another edition of the Remote Work Life podcast. This is Alex Wilson-Campbell. I am your host and I'm hoping that over the course of the you know the next few episodes, or at least the entire podcast itself, that I can help you if you are either working in a remote role now and want to really sort of take your career to the next level, or if you're looking to get into the world of remote work and just really trying to break through. So I want to use the best part of, I suppose, 10 years of my experience working remotely to help you. I also want to and will bring to you interviews with people, with leaders, who are working remotely themselves right now or run teams that work remotely and run successful businesses that work remotely. I'm also going to bring you interviews of people successful people who are not working remotely, and that might sound a little bit strange, but my belief is that we can learn something from. You know literally anybody and what I've done. As I said, I've interviewed a number of people who work remotely and are successful remotely, but I've also interviewed a number of people who are successful but don't have remote businesses and they just are successful in their careers either because they've started a business themselves or just because they've really done really good things and things that are worth sharing. So that's my whole idea I want to share with you everything that I've learned from interviewing these people and I want to share with you their interviews so that you can really sort of, I suppose, understand what it takes for you to sort of really break through, really sort of go to the next level.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
1:51

So one of the people I interviewed is is a real hero of mine. Her name is Elaine Pofeld, and Elaine is an expert when it comes to freelancing. She's a freelancer herself and she's an awesome journalist. She's written for publications like the Economist, fortune Money Inc. Cnbc, just to name a few, and those are all publications that I'm sure you've heard of. Like I said, she's a freelance expert and she's a big champion of the freelance movement. And for me, she's a really big hero of mine because she's also a mother of four and she's managed to build a successful career whilst raising her family. And I people some of you may know me I'm actually, I have three children of my own and I know what a challenge it can be to have your career and align it with raising your family. So that's why Elaine is a real hero of mine, somebody who I really look up to, and I believe Elaine is somebody who you can learn from.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
2:57

And the other thing is if you're, I guess, looking to really get an understanding, if you're trying to learn about the whole world of freelancing and remote work, then you should read Elaine's book, the Million Dollar One Person Business, and we talk about that in the interview. It's essentially, I guess, a guide in many ways. It chronicles, it highlights some really, I guess, unknown business people in the world of work who are generating, you know, a million dollar in revenue and they're essentially one person businesses. So you can also not only gain the inspiration you need from Elaine, but if you get her book as well and I think this book should be part of your, I guess, your, toolkit If you get her book you can also learn a lot more about these million dollar one person businesses.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
3:57

And you know part of the interview, we talk about what it takes, I guess, in many ways some of the actual typical traits that these business owners have, and there may be things that you're doing right now or maybe things that you may not have even thought of. So I just say just sit back and listen up to what Elaine has to say and I'll see you on the other side of the interview.

Elaine Pofeldt:
4:21

I've been a journalist for many years and I specialize in entrepreneurship and careers. I got into entrepreneurship when I actually started out as a street reporter. I covered the Hudson County Jail in Jersey City, new Jersey, and I covered other beats on the City Hall beat in Jersey City. And then I got kind of burned out on hard news and I took a job as a fashion features editor at Women's Wear Daily. Then I found that I was very interested in the business side of the fashion designers businesses. I became good friends with the designer and helping him with his business plan and then that led me to accepting a job as a senior editor at Success Magazine, which was completely focused on entrepreneurship. And then that led to Fortune at Fortune Small Business Magazine and 10 years ago I decided to go freelance and I've been a freelancer for 10 years now. So I write for many publications about entrepreneurship. My stories have appeared in Inc. Money, cnbc, forbes, fortune and many others.

Elaine Pofeldt:
5:29

All the best ones and I never get bored, so I've enjoyed the journey. And then in January I wrote a book. That well, the book came out in January I wrote it prior to that called the Million Dollar One Person Business, and it looks at a new trend, which is the growth of businesses that are getting to one million in US dollars with no employees. So these would be one person businesses mostly, and partnerships sometimes a team of partners, but mostly one person businesses.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
6:02

Now that's wonderful and we're going to talk a bit more about that later. Actually, because I've known you I suppose in inverted commas for a while now. Myself, because I've been following you online for quite a long time. You mentioned Forbes, you mentioned Inc.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
6:16

I'm, you know, I'm one of those people who likes to follow reputable, you know highly reputed writers, experts like yourself, and I've always had an interest in business and you've been somebody I've been following for a while now. I've always wanted to, to get you on the phone to, to um, to, to find out more, and now this opportunity has come to to interview you. I, you know and I think what you've, I suppose what you've, what you're doing, you're quite modest as well. You, you're obviously writing for some of the most highly respected magazines in the world, the highly respected entrepreneurship magazines in the world, and it seems like a big focus for you is that whole idea of freelancing. It's one of those things that seems to be growing right now and I was interested actually how you, what really drove you into getting into freelancing yourself?

Elaine Pofeldt:
7:13

Yeah, Well, I'm very honored that you follow my work, alex. Thank you so much and you're welcome to call me anytime to talk about freelancing, because I really enjoy it. I got into freelancing myself after starting my family. I had a wonderful job at Fortune Small Business Magazine. I wound up having premature twins who were in the NICU for three months and I worked at a work-from-home arrangement. They're fortunately fine and good health, good students. So it worked at a work from home arrangement. They're fortunately fine and good health, good students. So it all had a happy ending.

Elaine Pofeldt:
7:44

But I needed a little bit more work-life balance than the traditional in-office job allowed. Then I had another child, my daughter, who is now 12, but they were about two years old when she was born and at that point I just felt like my whole life was logistics and although I loved my work, I really really enjoyed the colleagues that I worked with. I had no complaints about that. But I just needed a little bit more control over my time and that was what led me to consider freelancing, which was something I never thought I would do. Honestly, I always liked having a job, I liked the collegiality of it and I like going into an office, and it was a big change for me, but I would never go back now because now I have four children for one thing and I just love it.

Elaine Pofeldt:
8:33

And I found the world has kind of changed in that so many more people are freelancing and if you look at the data, it's showing that it's become easier to be a freelancer because of all the different technology that we have and the way corporate jobs are has changed too, so that the advantages that they offered over being out on your own are not as great and there are a lot of limitations. I know it's a little different in the UK. In the US, healthcare is really a bear. It's really difficult, it's expensive to buy it on your own, but what's happening is people who have corporate jobs are paying a lot out of pocket and the difference between what they're paying and what I've paid as a freelancer isn't that great when you consider what some of the trade-offs are in terms of not having to spend hours a day on a commute, for instance.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
9:22

So, um, that was how I fell into it yeah, and a lot of people, I do think, do fall into it, and I know you said there are. Yeah, there are some differences in the in the UK and the US, but there are, I suppose, many similarities as well. Like you you mentioned, you fell into it through your circumstances with having your children. I know a few people myself who or myself included, actually, I, I um got into freelancing through that route, having children myself. So, um, but I think, well, I don't know what you think, but I think there's perhaps a a growing, whether you're in the US or in the UK or wherever you may be in the world, in fact, there's a growing respect for freelancers. I think there's still a way to go yet, but I think it's something that's becoming a bit more of a must-have as opposed to a luxury, as it probably has been before.

Elaine Pofeldt:
10:19

I agree, I think you're absolutely right, alex. It's funny because I would say you know, even when I first started out as a freelancer, there was a little bit of a stigma to it where it was sort of you know the person who couldn't hack it in a corporate job for some reason, or it would be like mompreneur types, you know, where people sort of I had the benefit of being one of them, so people don't judge you as harshly if you're doing, if you're a mom and you're doing it for work and family. I think it's a little different for men because of stereotypes about men and women, but I think that's really changed a lot with the millennial generation. I think that there are a lot of millennial men who are very, very involved with their kids, like you are, and they love having that role in the family. So that's changed a little bit. I also think that companies are now using freelancers in much higher level roles and in client-facing roles and they'll bring in the Cracker Jack freelancer to add to their team so that they can bid on work and go after big jobs the freelancer that maybe cannot afford to keep on staff. So it's become a little bit more prestigious.

Elaine Pofeldt:
11:28

You see that a lot in the tech industry, where you'll have very high-level tech professionals who don't want a job and they can charge $1,000, us dollars an hour. And so why would they want a job? What job is going to pay them that much? Absolutely. So that's changing a lot. Like people in AI, for instance, there are so few people who have those skills and that's not the norm for freelancers but even people who are consultants, who are very knowledgeable. Sometimes, if they're a little older and they've topped out in salary, they're at a lot of risk when they're on staff in a corporation because the company starts looking to cut salaries and whose salary is the biggest? Well, they've been there 30 years. But that type of professional can go out on their own and they know so much and they're so valuable that they can command a premium as a a freelancer.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
12:19

So all these trends together have have worked together to create greater prestige around freelancing careers yeah, I think, yeah, I absolutely agree, and I, um, another thing, um, I'd say maybe there's been, probably, maybe there still is a, perhaps, um, I don't know. Freelancers are, I, I guess, are, in my mind, put into a certain box, for want of a better word. They they tend to be, like you said, people who are associated with the tech roles, but it's so much more than that, isn't it? Freelancers are so much more than just tech and ai. There's so so many more facets and different types of roles. Aren't there?

Elaine Pofeldt:
13:04

absolutely well, I'm a freelance writer. There are lots of freelance writers, freelance web designers. There are freelance consultants. There are a lot of different types of consultants and you'll find even there are certain attorneys that I've come across who build a practice where they're almost like an outsourced counsel. I found one attorney, for instance, who specialized in advising clients who do government work, going after government contracts, and he had four main clients and they had him on retainer and that was how he worked. So I think um it you know it really crosses almost all fields. There probably is a freelancer doing almost any kind of work that someone on payroll is doing absolutely, and one of the challenges actually.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
13:53

I mean, like you said, there's so many different, um types of roles that that, uh, people are doing freelance work for, but are there any typical role I mean you mentioned you're doing writing, I'm doing lead generation and marketing myself? Are there any other types of roles as well that are, I suppose, traditional freelance roles that you come across quite a lot?

Elaine Pofeldt:
14:23

Well, I would definitely say the marketing and writing and creative jobs are often freelance because sometimes the needs for those skills are sporadic. So maybe you know you're doing a web redesign once a year or something like SEO is it's sort of a marketing slash tech type of role. You might not need somebody doing that full time on staff, especially in a smaller business. So I see that a lot. I see more freelance accountants. That's kind of an interesting area where you see a lot of people make partner and then it get a little bit older and sometimes the companies start changing and downsizing and they see the writing on the wall and they say you know what, let me be a freelance accountant and create my own practice and maybe I'll serve my old employer and find a couple of other ones, and then I have a lot of flexibility. I can do a lot of the trips I've been planning all these years and that sort of thing.

Elaine Pofeldt:
15:19

That's pretty common in the US, where you'll see professionals who are 50 and older doing things like that. I mean sometimes it's because of unfortunate circumstances. Sometimes they wanted to stay on staff and they get squeezed out, which isn't really fair. But I mean the workplace has some tough realities that none of us like and it needs to be improved, but we have to live in the world that exists. They're making the best of a bad situation and a lot of times, creating a wonderful business that, once they start doing it, they love and they would never go back and what for for those businesses, those small business owners, listening.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
15:58

How do you, how do you actually find those people, those freelancers? Are there any, I suppose, tips, piece of advice that you could give? If a business owner is looking to actually grow, for example in a specific area, ie marketing, are there any avenues that they might look to to hire somebody?

Elaine Pofeldt:
16:22

Absolutely, Alex. I would say word of mouth is the best way. Ask other professionals that have similar standards to you who they use for things. So if you look at your friend's website and it looks great, ask who their web designer is, if they wouldn't mind telling you.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
16:38

Good idea.

Elaine Pofeldt:
16:38

Steal them away, because the platforms are a good option as well. But sometimes it's hard to read between the lines on people's profiles. You know somebody might be highly rated but like any rating system, people can game the system. So I think it's a little harder to find good people. Not that there aren't good people on the platforms, because I know a lot of great people who are using them to find work. But I would say word of mouth and then don't hire somebody for a really big project right away. Test them out on a small project and not just on one small project, maybe two or three before you trust them with your big month-long project, because you need to sort of see them over a period of time. You don't always have that luxury. Sometimes you have to take a chance, but in the ideal world that's what I would recommend.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
17:29

Excellent, and I get a feeling that some business owners have a, because they sometimes perhaps get set in their ways which I'm guilty of myself in terms of the way that they go about work. They may or may not be savvy when it comes to tech, for example, and often, especially with marketing, you find that tech comes into it in some way or form. Are there any ways of actually I don't know overcoming those communication and collaboration issues, I suppose you could say, where tech is concerned?

Elaine Pofeldt:
18:07

Well, I would say that you've actually overcome them to some extent with how you're running the podcast right. You reached out to me on Skype and I believe you had had a scheduling app that I used to schedule the call.

Elaine Pofeldt:
18:19

So you're embracing a lot of the pretty basic technologies that are so accessible to all of us today. I think with any technology, maybe you need to do a dry run when you're not under time pressure, to see if you're comfortable with it. A lot of times I know you and I have children similar ages. A lot of times I pull my middle school daughters into play to see if there's a way that they would use it that I haven't figured out because they're digital natives and I, you know I I like tech.

Elaine Pofeldt:
18:47

I'm not.

Elaine Pofeldt:
18:47

I'm not a technology professional by any means, but I can get into it and I think, if you take that attitude, that it's going to help you with your business and you're going to master the things that will really help you grow.

Elaine Pofeldt:
19:01

That's a way to overcome it, but you don't want to overwhelm yourself with too many things at once. So right now I'm I'm introducing a CRM and I've been taking a few training classes so that I can promote my book events and I can't really do too many other things at the same time. I really need to nail this down, because you get too distracted and then nothing gets done. So I would say, think about in the coming year what are a couple of things that you can add to your business that will really either take work off your plate, like a scheduling app, for instance, or attaching your bank account to your accounting software, things like that that are pretty simple but a lot of us don't get around to doing, and then put them in your calendar. The next, every friday at 11 am, you're going to work for one hour on that thing and then you'll get it done, and then a lot of times there's an initial setup and you never have to do anything again and I found that talking about your book as well.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
19:56

I found that you, the book, by the way uh, everybody look out for the million dollar one person business that's. That's available on amazon and it's available yeah, it's available on amazon. And you talk quite a lot in that book about entrepreneurs who, who are using tech as literally as part and part of the business to to basically run million dollar businesses. Can you tell us more about that book and perhaps give us an idea of perhaps one of the the actual entrepreneurs that you cover in the book?

Elaine Pofeldt:
20:28

sure I'd be happy to. The book looks at the stories of more than 30 businesses where the owners got to 1 million us dollars, that's about 726 000 british pounds in a non-employer business one, one person business mostly, or partnership and what I found was they were in many different industries. There were six core industries that I focused on e-commerce, manufacturing, professional services, personal services like being a nutritionist informational marketing and real estate and what I found in the book and in events that I've had since then in talking with the entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs have several things in common. They are heavy users of automation to extend what one person can do and free themselves from menial tasks that would be distracting. They use a lot of freelancers and they use outsourced services so they might use a back office service for their invoicing or that sort of thing, or they you know fulfillment by Amazon and an e-commerce store. A lot of times they use all of these things in tandem. These are not new ideas I didn't invent automation, for instance but what they do is actually close the knowing and doing gap right, we all know we should be doing these things, but how many people actually do them? And they do a lot of them at one time and once they get all the stuff set up.

Elaine Pofeldt:
21:55

The other thing I noticed was they think a lot about process. This is something especially if you're a creative entrepreneur, you probably don't think that much about. You're so busy doing your projects and enjoying them that you don't think about, okay, what were the steps to doing that project. But they document things so that they can hand them off to other people and stay focused on the strategy of growing the business. Another common thread I found was that they step back from the business sometimes too.

Elaine Pofeldt:
22:24

Contrary to the way a lot of people work in a one-person business, they're not just glued to their lap to a top 24-7. They take time. Maybe they schedule time every week to work on strategy. They go out and meet with high-value clients like enterprise clients. They seem to do a lot of mindfulness activities like meditation or even just working out Things that give them a little bit of distance from the business so they can look at what they're doing and, instead of being on a hamster wheel, say is what I'm doing actually moving me toward the goals for this business and what are the goals for this business anyway? Where am I taking this?

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
23:01

Yes.

Elaine Pofeldt:
23:03

And sometimes they decide to stay small when they get to that million dollar mark. They like having a lifestyle business, but a profitable, high revenue one. And sometimes they decide to scale the traditional way, which I am not against, by the way. Sometimes I was laughing when I did the fact checking for the book, because some of them had hired employees and they said Elaine, I'm so sorry, I hired an employee and I said that's wonderful, that's so great. Hired an employee, and I said that's wonderful, that's so great. It was great because when they hired the employee they had gone as far as they could go as one person or as a partnership, and they had the cash flow to support the employee and still take a paycheck themselves. And so that puts them in a different category than the many people who will hire somebody and then they're not taking paychecks and they're scrambling all the time and they're stressed.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
23:48

They're in a very different situation yeah, and it's one of those things, isn't it? I think that their skill is like you said, it's it's with us where the strategy is concerned, whether you know the function of the business, the, the actual mechanisms that make the business tick, and I think there's a a huge misconception of the I suppose what's called is it the laptop lifestyle that a lot of people are sort of talking about at the minute, which makes it sound so easy and you know, it's just a matter of you sitting there on the beach and everything is working for you. But I think if when you read um elaine's book, you'll see that there are so much, so much more detail that you have to look at, so much work that you have to do up front in order to get those systems in place. But I would certainly recommend having a look, because I myself, you know again, I'm learning a lot from Elaine, because there's so many things within my business that I'm trying to improve so that I don't have to sort of be in the business. I can, like Elaine said, concentrate on doing the things that I do best.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
24:55

And one of those people that you cover in the book, elaine I know we've got to wrap up soon, but you cover a website called examinecom. That's one of the case studies, isn't it within the book? It is, yeah, that's one of the um the case studies, isn't it within the book?

Elaine Pofeldt:
25:08

it is. Yeah, that's one of my favorite stories. So orwell the founder, um, he got into learning about vitamins and supplements when he was trying to lose weight and he was dissatisfied with the reports that were out there. He didn't know which ones were credible and which ones were not. So he saw a gap in the marketplace and he began hiring PhDs and professional researchers to write reports on different supplements and he put up a site and sold these reports. Now he has a newsletter and what he did, which I felt was very interesting, was he found a freelancer who mostly runs the business and he gave him equity in the business so that he had skin in the game and cared about the outcome.

Elaine Pofeldt:
25:54

And that allows Sol to travel the world. He really is always on the road. He travels three or four months out of the year. He's from Toronto and every time I contact him he's somewhere. And he uses his time to organize a lot of charitable events. He runs cookie-offs, which are cookie bake-offs between different bakers in different cities. He's done a sausage fest and he's raised money for some really amazing causes. One of them that I went to in New York raised money for a charity that funds a high school in Pakistan, where the girls who attend are the first in their family to go to high school, and so having the business set up this way allows him to focus on what's really meaningful for him. That's why I love his story so much, because I think most people that are starting a business would like to make enough to have a good life, but they don't feel like I have to have all the money in the world, and I think we all want a sense of purpose and to give back.

Elaine Pofeldt:
26:51

And and he took it full circle and he's really doing that and it really makes a difference.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
26:58

Well, all I can say everybody, look out for the book, go and buy a copy of the book from Amazon because, as I said, I think there's certain books that you should have in your on your bookshelf, and the million dollar one person business, one of those books. Elaine, I just want to just finish by saying thank you so much for for being with us today and you know we'll be looking well, I'll certainly be looking out for your, for your you know your articles on Forbes and looking out for other things that you'd be doing in the future as well. Thank you so much, elaine.

Elaine Pofeldt:
27:27

Thank you, Alex. It's been a pleasure and I'm happy to talk freelancing with you anytime.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
27:32

I'll hold to that, elaine. Thank you, thank you, hope you enjoyed that, guys. Great interview there with Elaine Pofeld, and what I'd say is listen out for more interviews like that from other entrepreneurs, other leaders in the remote space and other leaders in the world of entrepreneurship, hopefully, as I said, to help you with your career. And what I'd say is, if you want to hear more from Elaine and entrepreneurs like Nick Francis, who's the CEO of Help Scout, of Help Scout, then join me at the Remote Work Life Summit on April the 1st. Just go to remoteworklifeio to register for your free ticket.

Alex @ Remote Work Life:
28:16

As I said, you'll hear from other remote entrepreneurs like Nick Francis, steli, efti, etc. Of Closeio. So, yeah, just go to remoteworklifeio to get your free ticket for the Remote Work Life Summit, which I am hosting and would really love to see you there. It's 100% remote, so you can watch it from wherever you may be in the world, and you'll be able to hear from and see Elaine at the Remote Work Life Summit as well, amongst other very successful freelancers, ceos and remote workers. So that's remoteworklifeio for your free ticket, but until next time, thanks for joining me and I'll speak to you again soon.