IAM1464 – Author and Journalist Explains How to Build a Successful One Person, Million Dollar Business
Special Throwback Episode - Podcast Interview with Elaine Pofeldt
Elaine Pofeldt is an independent journalist who specializes in writing about careers and entrepreneurship and the author of the new book The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business (Random House, January 2018), where she looks at how entrepreneurs are scaling to $1 million in revenue prior to hiring employees. She writes about million-dollar, one-person businesses for Forbes.com. Formerly, she was a senior editor at Fortune Small Business Magazine. We featured the book on our CEO Bookshelf.
During the chat, we spoke about her background, her book, what led her to start her business, and some of the characteristics and traits she noticed from people that become $1M, one-person businesses.
Some of the questions we asked Elaine
- What's your story? Tell us your background and why you decided to start your business.
- Tell us a little about your business.
- Tell us about your book.
- What things can people do that are just getting started and want to build $1M, one-person businesses?
- What's the reality of being a freelancer What things do they struggle with or fear?
- Advice on protecting our time as Freelancers.
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Transcription
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00:22 – Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
00:01 – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast formerly the CEO Chat Podcast. So doing something a little bit different as we ease into the fall from the summer and you know, everybody's traveling a lot more, you know, life is obviously a lot different than it has been in the last four years, definitely since I started this, let alone the last two years or so. But I had a podcast called the CEO Chat Podcast, which is a lot more of a long-form podcast. I didn't really reach the 1400-plus episodes that we did with the I AM CEO podcast. So there's a lot more long-flowing, a lot more conversational, but might be dusting off the CEO Chat podcast and bringing that back out.
So with that being said, while considering that what I wanted to do is go through some of the interviews that I had that were some of my favorites and share those, it's not going to obviously be the full entire interview. We're going to have links in the show notes so that you can listen to the full interview. But I wanted, to do some snippets that you can get. You're going to hear, of course, you know, the visibility, either the resources or the connections in each of these different snippets. So it's going to be one of those things that are really going to help you to hopefully learn more about the guests that are on the show, what they do, how they do it, why they do it, but also get that opportunity to really learn about some resources that can make you more effective and efficient. So sit back and enjoy this special.
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01:24 – Elaine Pofeldt
Throwback CEO Chat episode using low-cost marketing tools. So for instance, Facebook advertising is really important these days, or other types of pay-per-click advertising. It gives you a huge reach. You can really target your marketing to a specific audience. And that's something that you just didn't have 10 or 15 years ago to grow a business. So mastering those types of things or outsourcing it to someone who has can also help your business grow and there is some investment in it. But if you want to grow, you do have to invest in your business as you have the money available. And that doesn't necessarily mean in the first month or two. It means that you have the cash flow to support it.
02:06- Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I think one of the things that kind of even resonated with me, and I'm sure a lot of people that are listening, is sometimes when you think of a one person, especially a $1 million business, you automatically think, well, that Person must not sleep at all. But it sounds like the things that you've talked about. Right? But at first. But I like the fact that you talked about finding automation tools and finding other people you can maybe outsource things to. So it's not necessarily that person doing everything. It's that person understanding where their time is best well spent and then finding out how to take the minutia off their plate so that they are able to kind of continue to grow.
02:49- Elaine Pofeldt
It can be done gradually. I should add to what you're saying, I think that you can't do all these things overnight, you know, so maybe you decide, okay, this week I'm going to add the scheduling app. Next week I'm going to a mileage tracker to my phone so I don't have to write it down every time I get in the car and drive to a client. Or the week after that I'm going to attach my QuickBooks or FreshBooks to my business bank account and to my business credit card so that those transactions get pulled in automatically. You can, you can do it slowly and focus on the low-hanging fruit first.
And the low-hanging fruit. If you're doing a startup or you're starting a business on the side and you don't have a lot of startup capital, do the free ones first and then concentrate on the lower-cost ones. The scheduling app may cost you $60 a year, which isn't that much when you consider what your time is worth. And then as you get more revenue coming into the business and you can support it, maybe you invest in a CRM system which might cost you more, maybe it'll cost you $100 a month so you can build a mailing list for the business and reach your followers. You can't do it all overnight. In my own business, I try to set a goal of one or two things like that every week. And if maybe you get one of the two done, at least you're ahead of where you would have been if you didn't even put them on your list.
And you have to also focus on the ones that will move the needle the most for the business. So maybe for an E-commerce business, the number one thing you should be focusing on is learning how to do Facebook advertising or building your mailing list. Whereas for a professional services type of business, it might be something entirely different. You have to really think about the strategy of the business and what is the one thing you can do this week that will really move you forward toward your biggest goals.
04:37 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I always think any time I hear that people think that success happens overnight, but really it takes years and years and years sometimes of doing things once. You know, if all you have is a weekend, is doing that one thing during the weekend just to kind of move the needle over a little bit more so that you're able to kind of reach whatever goal you might have?
04:58 – Elaine Pofeldt
It can take time and progression. But it's funny how there's a momentum game to business. So I'll give you an example. Laszlo Nadler, who appears early in the book, runs a business called Tools for Wisdom. And he's a young dad, he's got two children and a wife. He's the main breadwinner and he was working for Big Bank as a project manager. And he loved certain aspects of his job like time management and doing things more efficiently. But he wanted to be self-employed.
So on the side, he started, started the business, and built it over two years before he quit. And a certain point he hit six-figure revenue and he really understood how to grow the business. The revenue really took a big leap and now it's at $2 million in annual revenue. So I think if you take a little time to master the basics of the business, all of a sudden you can step on the gas pedal and be really impactful and you'd be surprised. So it can be like a 10-year overnight success for some people. And it depends on the nature of the business business. But there is a sort of return on the time that you put in early on. And I think the momentum tends to pick up after, usually after one or two years. So don't get discouraged if it's going slowly because it can pick up very quickly once you really know what you're doing with that business.
06:16 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes sense. And then I think even like you said before, if you focus on the business, not just time spent too, it's probably time spent in the right places because like you mentioned, the strategy and the high-level things rather than organizing your emails. But if you're spending it in very like, I guess very pivotal places, it can help you kind of gain momentum fast. Is that correct?
06:37 – Elaine Pofeldt
That's true, Gresham. I think we all make rookie mistakes. I know in my business, the first year of my business, I wasted time with clients who were underpaying me greatly, paying me extremely late, and not being respectful of my time. And I didn't really assert myself because I was so happy to have any business at all, you know, and I think a lot of people Are like that you feel like, okay, my dance card is full, so that's good.
And to some extent it's true. There is sort of a critical mass of clients you need. But as I've grown my business and I think a lot of people do this, you think, you know what, that's really not good for my cash flow to work with somebody who pays me nine months later. I just can't run a business that way. And while that person might be nice and they might need my help, I just can't do it anymore. I have to focus on the clients where it's more of a reciprocal arrangement where we both treat each other really well. And I think you'll weed out some of those low-value activities over time because you'll start to realize how there are so many moving parts to a business and if certain parts are not working, it affects other things. So if you're wasting time collecting from somebody over and over again, that's time you could be spending with a better client. And I think those are things that will dawn on you over time. And you shouldn't beat yourself up feeling like you failed if you made these mistakes, because the mistakes are part of learning too. In fact, one of the things I loved about the interview with Ben and Camille Arneberg was how they viewed the investment they put into their business as almost a college course.
So, they put about $5,000 initially into inventory at Willow and Everett and they said this would be how much we would pay for a college course. So even if we lose all the money, we'll have learned so much from that. You shouldn't do it with money you afford to lose. But if you do have a certain amount in your startup war chess, then you should look at it that way. And the same thing with your time, you might, you might waste some time. And if you're not an efficiency expert the first year, well, nobody really is. But you can get better, we can all get better. And suddenly the learning will kick in. That's what I found with all of these entrepreneurs. They kept on learning and paying attention to the signals around them and then all of a sudden they would figure things out and they could really double down on what was working.
09:02 – Gresham Harkless
That's interesting. Especially the idea of how they constantly kind of improved themselves and they got better and as a result, their businesses got better as well. Now, have you seen or what are some of the reasons that maybe you've heard of or know of that people who want and aspire to build similar businesses don't actually get the opportunity to do that?
09:25 – Elaine Pofeldt
Everybody has the opportunity to do it. It's more a matter of whether you have the will to do it right now. I mean, there are lots of people, I'm sure, you know, people that say, you know, I want to start a business. I have a great idea, and they never get around to it. There are often reasons they don't get around to it. Maybe they, deep down don't really care about it that much. Maybe they want to, but they care about other things more. They have other priorities right now. It doesn't mean they can never do it. It might mean they're really maxed out. You know, for instance, if you have very small children and you're taking care of them, it can be hard to start a business at that time.
I started my business when I had three children who were ages 4 and under, including a baby, and now I have four children. That wasn't ideal. I did it, but it was hard. I was very tired in the beginning. So some people might say, you know what? I value my sleep right now. I need to be fully awake during the day, and I'm gonna wait two years to start a business. I beat you up. If you're in that state of mind right now, or you might feel like, you know what, we have a lot of family financial responsibilities. Maybe you have a child in college or something like that, and you have to pay a lot of bills right now. It might not be the right timing, but what you can do if you're serious about it, is start learning. There are all kinds of great online courses out there now. There are great podcasts like yours.
You can learn so much from learning from other entrepreneurs. You could start, you know, maybe once a month, going to a meetup in your community for entrepreneurs, just to sort of keep in touch with other entrepreneurs and keep your interest alive. And then when the timing is right, go ahead and do it now. The other thing I hear about from people is startup cash is an obstacle, and it's an obstacle for everybody. Not that many people have the startup cash that they need. Probably the vast majority don't. But the good news is, a lot of the types of businesses I've written about in the book really don't require much. There were a number of people who started with less than $1,000. I didn't really have any startup cash in my own business. Well, I had a computer and I had a phone, and that was it, basically.
And then my, you know, my startup cash was my own labor. You Know, if you're in professional services, that's the case. You do, you do need to have some savings or some other source of income. So if you're the main breadwinner and your family is depending on your income to pay the bills, I don't recommend just getting mad and quitting your job and having no other source of income because it takes time to ramp up the revenue. And you don't want to start the business under terrible financial pressure or where you're severely inconveniencing your family. You know, where they're worried about having groceries or having a roof over their head. That isn't really fair to the other people in your life if that's the role you've been playing.
So you need to try to find a way to frugally maybe do some side work. Whatever it takes to get a little bit of savings in the bank, I would recommend no less than two months of living expenses, ideally a little more before you leave a job and start a business. Because when you're in a do-or-die situation, some people thrive under it, but I think most people get really stressed and they'll wind up having to go back into a traditional job, which you don't want to do if this is the business you want to start.
12:41 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And understanding, of course, what your goals are and understanding what your, realistic situation is, and trying to make decisions based on that. But as you mentioned, it doesn't sound like, okay, well, I can't start a business today, but that doesn't mean I can't build towards actually launching that business by going to meetups or listening to the podcast or taking this online course or all those different things that you can do to try to build yourself up to when that business actually launches.
13:07 – Elaine Pofeldt
There's so much you can do. And even if you can't really start the business now, just think about how much you would accomplish if you said, every week, it's, I don't know, Saturday morning at 11 am I'm going to spend one hour on something that will help me get closer to this business. You put it on your schedule. You picked a time when you have nothing else to do and you're going to stick with it. And maybe, you know, one week you're going to learn about how to set up a CRM system, or one week you're going to put up a LinkedIn profile for the business, something you can just do in one hour. At the end of the year, you'll put 52 hours into that business, which can really have a big impact.
A smart person, a focused person who puts forth one hour of effort can get a lot done. So don't discount small amounts of time. It doesn't take that long to do things. I know we put up a website for my business, a speaker website, and it took about three hours. That was it. So I think if you think about how easy it is to do things, you might feel less discouraged too because a lot of the programs out there aimed at small business owners have just gotten better and better and they're so user-friendly and so easy that even if you're the least technical person there is, you can use them. There are so many YouTube videos you can learn from or lynda.com. I wouldn't discount just calling the helpline sometimes at the programs that you use. I had a question about QuickBooks and I was getting very frustrated watching a tutorial that was about a slightly different version of QuickBooks than I actually had.
So I called the helpline. We resolved the problem in two minutes and it was wonderful. It saved me hours of just trying to figure it out on my own. So try those phone numbers. Sometimes they have really good people on the other end and that might be just what you need. And you may never have to revisit certain tasks too. Like what I did is something I have to do once a year. I probably, you know, now that I know it, I'll never have to really go back over it again. So it's a little investment of time. But now I moved the business forward, I did what I had to do and it's done. I think community is very important. Gresham. What I found with the businesses in this book was the folks who ran them were very generous in sharing information with other people. A lot of times I interview corporate CEOs and it seems like they're trying to tell me as little as possible. They're very guarded and that's because they're representing big corporations. But in these ultra-lean businesses, they only had to answer to themselves. And I found they were very free in sharing information with each other and giving back to the community of other multi and then bringing resources to them that they didn't expect.
15:55.- Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast and the CEO Chad podcast. And I hope you enjoyed this special episode. Gave us an opportunity to kind of take some of the snippets from some of the longer-form podcasts that we have and repurpose them here. And we might be dusting off the CEO Chad podcast and talking a little bit more about some of those longer forum episodes, and hopefully some of the people that have been on the I AM CEO podcast on the longer forum episodes. But I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you enjoy this little snapshot.
Of course, you can go to CEOchat Co and have the opportunity to listen to the full, complete version of the episode. But also you can maybe see that it's very important to create content but also to be able to listen to and take in the hacks, the nuggets, the stories, just all the things that make these interviews so unique and so special. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and be sure to follow up with the guests, follow up with the CO chat podcast, and hear about all the awesome things we're working on.
16:55 – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
00:28 - Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.
00:00 - Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast formerly the CEO Chat podcast. So doing something a little bit different as we ease into the fall from the summer and you know everybody's traveling a lot more. You know life is obviously a lot different than it has been in the last 4 years, definitely since I started this, let alone the last 2 years or so. But I had a podcast called the CEO Chat Podcast, which is a lot more of a long-form podcast. I didn't really reach the 1,400-plus episodes that we did with the IMCEO podcast. So there's a lot more long-flowing, a lot more conversational, but might be dusting off the CEO chat podcast and bringing that back out.
So with that being said, while considering that what I wanted to do is go through some of the interviews that I had that were some of my favorites and share those. It's not going to obviously be the entire interview. We're going to have links in the show notes so that you can go and listen to the full interview, but I wanted to do some snippets that you can get. You're going to hear, of course, the visibility, either the resources or the connections in each of these different snippets.
So it's gonna be one of those things that are really gonna help you to hopefully learn more about the guests that are on the show, what they do, how they do, why they do it, but also get that opportunity to really learn about some resources that can make you more effective and efficient. So sit back and enjoy this special throwback CEO chat episode. You know, a lot of people think that when you start a business, this is like you, you know, you have the idea and the next day you have 15 studios or something like that, but to hear the progression step by step on how you've been able to do that from having an idea or having actual pain and coming up with an idea and then just kind of going from there step by step has been awesome to hear.
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01:46 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, and nobody believed me I was opening a studio and so I just started changing my language. I was like I'm opening a yoga studio and everyone's like oh my god that's awesome. When? I'm like I don't know, soon. Once I started kind of declaring it and believing it things just kind of started falling into place the money became available didn't take that much to start up but we were able to make it happen in a very short amount of time with very little.
02:09 - Gresham Harkless
Wow, that's powerful. Like you said, you spoke it into manifestation and then I guess the actions just followed from there once you truly believe you're going to be able to do it.
02:17 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, absolutely
02:18 - Gresham Harkless
Cool, cool.
02:20 - Suzie Mills
Although a lot of late night.
02:21 - Gresham Harkles
Yeah, you can't forget that then Probably the most important part as well too.
02:26 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, I was literally blood sweat, and tears like lots of crying I didn't think it was gonna work sweat We physically did our own build and then I got a paper cut on signing the lease. So there was blood too.
02:38 - Gresham Harkless
Wow, it never fails. Could you take us through, I guess, what some of the things are that you do at Honest Soul Yoga and what kind of like makes you unique from maybe other essential studios that are in the area?
02:50 - Suzie Mills
Sure, so obviously our primary focus is yoga. We offer over 65 classes a week. Our offerings are for yoga classes for adults, but we have expanded into family offerings. We do prenatal, babies, kids, and so forth. But again, our primary offering is for adults. It is all movement-based, so primarily flows, but we do offer restorative yoga, which is something that is becoming more and more popular. A lot more people are looking like understand that they need to relax.
And we also are starting to add more things that are not just focused on the movement, like meditation. In addition to our yoga classes, we are a yoga training school. So we do train people to become yoga teachers. We offer a 200-hour program, which would be like an associate. And then we have, we're launching a 3, 500-hour program this year, which would be more like a bachelor's program for more advanced teachers, teachers looking to take it to the next level. So we offer a lot of yoga. And I think what separates us from other studios is we really fine-tune what our brand is. We're very clear on what we offer and what we do well. I learned pretty quickly not to offer everything, but to offer just a few services and get really good at those.
And then we also focus on our members. They're definitely our top priority and we take a lot of pride in our community. And I feel like our space reflects that, our physical space. We have very spacious rooms, we have a very spacious lobby with a lot of amenities, like a T-bar and lockers and different things like that, that they don't have to pay extra for. We try to create an environment where people feel like they belong.
04:20 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome, awesome. And it kind of goes back to what you were saying, I guess in your early days when you were kind of looking around for, I guess, essentially a community, it kind of sounds like you have, and you've built that to some degree with your studios.
04:34 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, we have a lot of military members. We're right outside Fort Belvoir, so we tend to get, I mean, more than half the population of our studio is military. So we understand that people are here for a short amount of time, usually 2 years. That's typically how long we have a client in the military and they're looking for their home when they first get here, like getting grounded and getting back to feeling more like a place where they may belong or fit in. So we try to be that place for everybody. Like they feel welcome. We say their name when they come in the door. We have a lot of community-based activities, like a book club and happy hours, and things to connect with other people so you can make friends.
05:10 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, and that's huge for somebody, like you said, whether you're in your 20-something or a court or a military person that's gone from place to place to place or location to location. And you're trying to look for a home and a place to kind of feel comfortable, especially in working out and something that might be kind of new is things like that's something that you guys are able to do very well.
05:29 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, absolutely. And we also realized, I actually started a family in those 4 years that I've had my studio open. I had 2 kids and I've also realized...
05:36 - Gresham Harkless
Wow, did you have time?
05:38 - Suzie Mills
Not that it was crazy enough, opening or expanding twice, but having 2 kids during that too. Our community as well is our families, young families, and older families, but we don't just focus on one person, how do we make this fit for your whole family?
05:52 - Gresham Harkless
Right. That makes sense. Well, cool, I know you mentioned that, you know, you didn't grow up doing yoga, you didn't grow up as a yogi. So what types of things do you feel have made you successful as a business owner and what can other business owners learn from?
06:09 - Suzie Mills
I think for me, I love yoga, but business was always my first love. I loved to be innovative, I loved business, I was a business major, and for me, business has been a way for me to have kind of that creative outlet. It's almost come naturally to me owning a business and being able to look at the big picture not just day to day but kind of looking at what the market is offering, how we can innovate within the market And also we've really, I really like to define our brand and I love branding. Another thing
06:36 - Suzie Mills
Too, early on one of my mentors told me to hire up, and any time I've come across anything that wasn't a natural fit for me to do or I struggled with, like QuickBooks, I opened that and then quickly closed it. I hire the best people that I can find. I always try to hire up and make sure I'm working with the best people. I'm also a big-picture person, like I said earlier, and I love to kind of re-engineer things. I guess that's my IT engineering background coming back, but I like to look at how things are being done now and how can we improve them. How can we do them better?
And what are things nobody else is doing? And that stuff comes naturally to me and I have a lot of fun doing that. And also, Even though yoga is a tradition, this is the fitness industry. And so we have to offer things that get people coming back. And we have to keep people interested. And I like to bring in different things that get people excited and that want to come back. Obviously, we still stay true to our roots of yoga. But we may change things up a little bit and do little pop-ups or fun things to keep people coming back in the door.
And then also knowing that people have a set budget every month for health and wellness, and that does include gym memberships, massages, hair appointments, manicures, whatever. And that budget I'm competing with. So like I said, we have to keep things interesting in keeping people engaged and also innovating and seeing what the trends are in the industry, not just yoga, but fitness as a whole. That still fits in with our mission and our core offerings. But again, keeping people engaged and wanting to come back.
08:06 - Gresham Harkless
You're absolutely right. I can't say that enough, especially in any industry, especially in the fitness industry. When you're creating a product or a service or you're creating memberships where people have to come back every time. You wanna make sure that just like your workout plan, where you have to continually to work yourself out in a different way to continue to see results, you have to do that in business as well. So it's great that you kind of tapped into that. We love yoga and you've taken your business background and your engineering background, and you've kind of been able to manifest that in honest soul yoga.
08:36 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, and I think a lot of people who want to start businesses are stressed in whatever career they may be in because they feel like they'll never get out of it. Looking back, being in IT and yoga sounds like 2 different careers, but I've been able to pull a lot of what I've done in my past jobs as a network engineer and project manager into my business now. So I look at all of my past experiences as kind of preparing me for what we're doing now.
09:00 - Gresham Harkless
Interesting, and in what ways have you kind of seen that kind of bleed-through? Because most people think that I guess if you want to own a yoga studio, you have to go and be a yoga, but you can have different backgrounds, you're saying, and still be able to kind of pull from those skills or experiences?
09:15 - Suzie Mills
Yeah. And you know, it's funny, everyone that comes to yoga, we have so many unique backgrounds, all different walks of life. I think people are attracted to yoga because it does change your life in 1 way or another. But for me, being an engineer and project manager, like the business side of things, I'm able to organize better or understand how to organize my business from the back end. I feel I laugh sometimes because a lot of stuff we did in the corporate world, I'm like, oh, yeah, HR departments and policies and procedures, we need all those�things in a yoga studio.
09:46 - Gresham Harkless
Right. And that's how you, I guess you've been able to kind of develop that culture to some degree.
09:51 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, this business, I still hire people. So we have right now almost 40 employees. So we have to have all of the best practices for a business to be able to employ people as well, not just being able to do the day-to-day operations, but being a good employer too. And I look up to a lot of the companies I've worked for and pulled from them what they did that I really admired for their employees. So for me, it's not just about my business and clients, but also about being a good employer as well.
10:18 - Gresham Harkles
Awesome, awesome. Yeah, I mean, and that's not a, it's kind of like, it just speaks kudos to who you are as a leader, that you've been able to do that and how you're comfortable enough, like you said, to even hire up. I think that's a big thing that a lot of business owners sometimes don't do as well, where they're trying to maybe hire less or equal to, but you've been able to be confident in understanding where you want the business to go and how, and what pieces need to be in place for you to do that.
10:44 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, I know what I'm good at now. It's taken me a few years to be okay with that and also know I'm what I'm not good at. And there are people that are very good at that kind of stuff and being able to bring people onto my team to support that. I feel like only elevates us as a community and a business.
10:59 - Gresham Harkless
Right. And it has a bigger impact on the entire community. So that's awesome. If you could maybe look or hold a crystal bowl and you can look maybe 3 to 5 years down the line and you can say, this is where honest soul yoga is gonna be, could you kind of paint that picture for us on what things you have in place, what things you're thinking about working on and kind of like where honest soul yoga would be in the next 3 or 5 years?
11:20 - Suzie Mill
Sure, like I said, I sometimes get too many ideas and am very creative, so there are many directions we can go. And actually just talking about hiring up, I just hired a business coach that I start with this week to kind of help me fine-tune that direction. But right now the yoga industry is going online. So I think for us we'll still have our physical studio. Absolutely, that is super important. But taking some elements online, and being able to offer classes online.
And like I said, we have a big military community and a lot of them want to still practice with us but can't from other states so being able to offer some sort of online programs so that's something we have in the works for the future. I do see myself opening up other locations and then also we're down the road 3 5 years hoping to franchise or license. So that's definitely in the work. And then also expanding our training centers. So like I said, we offer training like your associate and bachelor's degree equivalent of teacher training, but expanding that and taking that also online and also taking that nationwide. I have a couple of partners that I work with that don't live locally. So being able to offer training anywhere in the world or state, I like to think big. So I have a lot of things in the works. And then, of course, just making what we have now really good.
12:30 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, I mean, it definitely sounds like, and I mean, I'm an ideas person too. So just seeing, especially the whole military connection that you just made, I think that's huge because as you said, a lot of people were looking for a home, so to speak. And you know, you have to move every 2 years or every 3 years, like you mentioned, but still to be able to still tap into that community is huge. So I think that's a phenomenal idea.
12:52 - Suzie Mills
Thank you.
12:52 - Gresham Harkless
I know you gave us a little bit some tips on like kind of what somebody who is maybe in the health and wellness industry and is trying to start a business should do. Do you have maybe 2 or 3 other tips that you can kind of give to those who are maybe looking to start a business and what things they can do to kind of be successful as well?
13:10 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, well, like I said earlier, hire up, don't be afraid to ask for help. That was my tip.
13:15 - Gresham Harkless
Okay.
13:16 - Suzie Mills
Just understanding that as a business owner, know that we can't do everything by ourselves. You'll be afraid to ask for help. And even if you can't afford good help or help at all in the beginning, maybe reach out to your friends and family. But I think most importantly, have a really good website and work with your team. And that team is your lawyer, your accountant, and your banker. Get to know people who are your team of support. Because I've made a lot of mistakes in my business. I probably could write a book on that. But I think�having people, legal people, your accountant, people that really support you and have your back, and also being able to ask questions to them and understand how everything works from a financial or legal standpoint, just to protect yourself.
14:03 - Gresham Harkless
Do you have 3 maybe tips that are just for people who are trying to improve their health and wellness that you can kind of give to us to kind of be maybe more mindful or just healthier overall?
14:14 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, sure. I think what's most important in what I teach in every single 1 of my classes is just to learn how to breathe. It seems like we know how to breathe because we do it not thinking about it but a lot of things people aren't paying attention to actually how they're breathing. They're holding their breath or they're breathing too fast but just starting with being aware of how you're taking your breath in and taking your breath out and not even trying to do any specific type of breathing but just notice are you breathing? I think that's the first step.
Second, I think people need to take time to be quiet. We call it meditation but it could just be sitting and doing nothing and not worrying that your thoughts may be coming up, but just being aware of those thoughts and sitting with them and not having to do anything with them and just letting our busy minds have a moment to just be still, even though our mind might not feel still. And then last, I think it's just move your body. I mean, yoga's not the only thing out there. There are so many amazing fitness things that you can do to move your body. It's just literally moving your body.
15:11 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to kind of pick your brain and just get an idea of like, what do you feel is maybe unique or special about being a healthy CEO?
15:20 - Suzie Mills
Yeah, so as a healthy CEO, we naturally impact people's lives. Like there's no question about that. And I think where I've had to find the balance is being able to run a successful business to be financially successful, but also successful as an employer, but also just being a good human being. All of my decisions I look at from 2 directions. Are they great for the business, but are they also great for my clients? Am I being a good human being? I think that's what's most important to me about being a healthy CEO or making the decisions for everyone, not just for one side.
15:53 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes sense. Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and the CEO chat podcast. And I hope you enjoyed this special episode, give us an opportunity to kind of take some of the snippets from some of the longer form podcasts that we have and repurpose them here. And we might be dusting off the CEO chat podcast and talking a little bit more about some of those longer forum episodes and hopefully some of the people that have been on the IMCO podcast on the long reform episodes. But I hope you enjoyed this episode.
I hope you enjoy this little snapshot. Of course, you can go to ceochat.co and have the opportunity to listen to the full complete version of the episode. But also you can maybe see that it's very important to create content but also to be able to listen to and take in the hacks, the nuggets, the stories, just all the things that make these interviews so unique and so special. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and be sure to follow up with the guests, follow up with the CEO Chat podcast, and hear about all the awesome things we're working on.
16:56 - Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
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