Key Lessons from Tiny Businesses that Made Big Moves

That Solo Life, Episode 278: Key Lessons from Tiny Businesses that Made Big Moves

Michelle Kane (00:13):
Thank you for joining us for yet another episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with The Voice Matters, my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim from Solo PR Pro, and today we are joined by another wonderful guest. We're so excited when we have guests today. We welcome Elaine Fel. She is an independent journalist and speaker specializing in entrepreneurship and careers. She's the author of The Million Dollar One Person Business. Hey Now and Tiny Business Big Money and oh my goodness, we are so glad you are here today. Elaine, welcome.

Elaine Pofeldt (00:53):
Thank you so much Michelle and Karen, I am thrilled to be here.

Karen Swim, APR (00:57):
Yay. We are so happy to have you. This is great and you are so perfect for our audience because you are sitting squarely in two big areas of interest media and then how we can crank up businesses that fit our needs and that's not always a revenue amount, but just you get to talk to so many people that successfully have achieved their dream and so we're interested in hearing your insights and tips today.

Elaine Pofeldt (01:31):
I'm so excited to be here because I think many publicists have been independent long before being independent was a trend and they've been on the front lines of learning this from the ground up, so I feel like I'm talking to an audience of masters and we can take the level of the information up a notch because of that, which is wonderful.

Karen Swim, APR (01:54):
That's great. That is our audience. They are smarties and are seasoned at doing this and they know how to survive, that's for sure.

Michelle Kane (02:03):
Isn't that the truth? You're a leading voice in the future of work movement, right? And you've had the chance to speak to so many successful tiny business owners, especially as we're on the cusp of some change in the United States. What trends are you seeing today as you speak with these leaders and owners?

Elaine Pofeldt (02:27):
The biggest trend I'm seeing, Michelle, is the use of ai. I think publicists and marketers are really diving into learning it. It isn't that hard. I think we read all the articles a few years ago and it sounded like we would have to be majors in robotics, but now we're seeing, oh chat GPT is kind of like using Google and a lot of people I know are just experimenting with it and saying, can you please do this? And seeing what it can and cannot do and playing around with the prompts and out what they can ethically use it for and what they shouldn't be using it for. And I think it's very exciting. It almost reminds me of cloud computing when that started, which was a while ago, but if anyone has been around for a while, they remember before QuickBooks and FreshBooks there were these Excel spreadsheets and it was really hard. Now it's done by AI, but that was game changing because people didn't need to pay for a bookkeeper if they learned double entry accounting, they could keep their own books, so it made it more accessible for the average person to have a business and now AI is making it that much more accessible.

Karen Swim, APR (03:43):
You just said something that is so interesting that I think we don't think about because PR people, we always focus on the client, the work and our heads are down, but you just don't want a big key. It's not just learning how to harness that information on behalf of our clients and it is a big technological shift. This is going to be one of those moments in history that becomes a milestone that we looked on just like you said with personal computing or the cell phone or the way that email changed our lives, but this also makes it a little bit easier to build a business with AI and think about that, how we can really scale by using AI tools because we can get rid of some of the administrative work and we can streamline some of the workflows. Are you seeing that tiny businesses are really leaning into that aspect, the business building aspect of AI?

Elaine Pofeldt (04:42):
Absolutely. They're using it in a lot of different areas of the business. Recordkeeping is one bookkeeping, for instance, Bench Accounting uses AI and you don't need to do double entry accounting. It just pulls everything in. Although there is a real bookkeeper involved, there are a lot of publicists that are also involved in social media and what I'm seeing is people might use AI for prompts to come up with ideas for posts. I don't think the AI posts are that great. They usually need tinkering, but for instance, if you're kind of falling behind on things, what I'll sometimes do is say, please extract the key points from my own article. I know what the source of the information is, and then that kind of focuses me in on some things that I could say in the social media posts. It will always be better if I write it.

(05:36):
There's just something sort of bland about AI writing, but at least it can get you going because the challenge with any kind of service business is keeping up the pace. Your client is paying you a retainer and now it's Monday and you have the Monday meeting and somehow you didn't do anything since last week. So it happens because sometimes another client has an emergency or something like that. Overall, I think with any service business over the course of the month, it evens out, but it's no fun to go into a meeting and be behind. So that's where AI can be helpful. It could be that you save time on creating a content calendar by creating it in Canva and you put all the social media posts in on one day and then you ask the client, do you have any photos from the office that we can attach to this?
(06:27):
And at least you keep things moving sometimes at a faster pace than others, but they're not stagnating. I think that's really important. I think there's also the ability to service clients. Like if you're doing, say, thought leadership content, maybe you interview the client and you're writing an essay for them that you're then going to submit. It's good for note taking. It's probably better than most people. I use Fathom for note taking and a lot of times, especially with a subject matter expert, sometimes people just download their whole rein and you're just laying there on the ground reeling and you don't want to ask them to go back over whatever they were talking about and this way you can go back over it at your leisure, listen to the parts that maybe you didn't understand, but also get the thread of what their argument really was.
(07:18):
Because when you're taking notes, you may just jot down a few key things, but it's more like a point is building upon another point. So I think it can be helpful with thought leadership as well. It can't write it, but one thing I'm experimenting with is organizing my notes. So to give you an example, and this might be something that publicists and marketers do if they're doing event related marketing, I moderate these panels for the New York Public Library on small business. It is called the Tiny Business Big Money Series. It's free. It's where I feature the people in my book so we can learn from them on the ground. Well, I thought we have such great content and a lot of times people want to come to it, but they don't have time. They register for it, then they never get around to listening to it and maybe they would read an article.

(08:04):
So I just did a panel on entrepreneurs with disabilities and I took the transcript that the library gave me, which was 35 pages long. I told chat GPT, please clean this up, but don't change the wording. Just looking at a clean transcript as opposed to a big mess of notes is a huge time saver. Then I said, please extract the key points out of the 35 pages. I didn't agree with what it extracted, but it did kind of jog my memory. It was a really lively conversation and there were just some interesting points. Then I turned that into an article, but I just wrote from scratch. I, I'm sure there are people that are experimenting with having AI write the stuff, but I just don't think it's as good. It's not as good at synthesis. It's good at summarizing and organizing, but not synthesis.

Karen Swim, APR (08:57):
Some of them are better than others. Chat GPT is not great at writing. Jasper AI does a really good job because you feed it your brand voice, so building your own kind of engine, and so you can give it lots and lots and lots of documentation of your brand voice. You can feed it articles, you can send it to your website, you can give it recording, so then it nails the tone and then you have to really get granular with the information. So the thing is that a lot of people are using chat GPT and they're spending 10 minutes on prompting. Sometimes you may need to spend an hour to get where you want to go, but now you spent an hour getting exactly where you want it to go and creating exactly what you want and then you have to validate and verify.

(09:46):
But something that would've manually without AI have taken you five hours. You probably just saved yourself half the time, and then you can keep those comms and then you can reuse those, especially for the tasks that you do a lot. So I find that the tools are very different. Perplexity AI is beautiful for researching. You can ask it questions about specific audiences. This is a tip I got from Ann Wiley. Ask perplexity AI about a specific audience. What are their current challenges? What are they thinking about? And it'll come back with information that is so accurate that you would swear that you did it yourself with the sources so that you can then dig into the sources right in the dashboard and check 'em. So perplexity, AI research, Jasper ai, definitely you can create campaigns in there super easy. You can go in there and do thought leadership pieces. You can do battle cards in there. It's got a whole range of functions, but it allows you to tailor it to brand voice and chat. GBT is good for some of the simple stuff, but you really have to keep drilling down to get where you want to go with chat GPT, so it can be a little bit more work. And then Arc and Blackbird, there's so many tools out there that do different things.

Michelle Kane (11:09):
There's a lot. Yeah, I'll just put it simply. It's a lot, but no, I agree though. Sometimes the musicality of writing, I'll go there. They still need us humans for that to make sure, for sure,

Karen Swim, APR (11:23):
For sure

Michelle Kane (11:24):
Has that rhythm. But talking about writing, you of course have your two books, and I'm going to say the titles again because we want people to go buy them and read them. The million, sure, the million Dollar one person business. I would like to have one of those and Tiny Business big Money. So in putting these books together, it's definitely demonstrated that it is possible to have a little business, a little solo shop and make fantastic money and have a really great independent career. As you were putting them together, what are some of the key insights that you gleaned from the successful entrepreneurs that you spoke with? What's their mindset? What did they go through or I almost hate to say the habits, like five habits to start a good morning. I look at those nuggets, whatever, but share with us some of the good nuggets that you gleaned.

Elaine Pofeldt (12:24):
Sure. Well, they did have a few things in common and they're not doing all the work of the business themselves. We were just talking about ai. They're using technology a lot of times to do things like schedule their appointments, little things, but those things can add up to a day or two saved every week. They're using contractors, so although they don't run payroll, they may have a social media contractor or an accountant or other people that do some of the work of the business. They're not wires in every area. Some of them are doing e-commerce and they're using things like fulfilled by Amazon. They're not having a truck pull up with a giant pallet full of goods on their driveway. They usually have that happen once and then no more. That's it. So I think they're willing to hand things over, which is really important.

(13:23):
I would say a lot of them have standard operating procedures in their business, which is so dry and boring. Who wants to write those? But if you're going to have other people do things, what does a good headline look like if you're training people so they can refer back to it. Sometimes it's via a video, audio, a written page in a notebook online, an internet, whatever it is. They're writing down what good looks like for them, and that's really helpful because a lot of times these businesses are so lean they can't sit there and train somebody for hours and hours and the person might not even want to be trained in that way. They might like to learn from YouTube or something. So there's that. I would say some of the reasons that they're successful will seem obvious to people, but most people don't do them, so I would say they close the Knowing Doing Gap, one example is consistently showing up and doing what we say we're going to do. People that do that are out of the ordinary. I mean a lot of people, there are a lot of ups and downs in running a small business. Some days it would be easier to mentally check out, especially if you have a difficult or stressful client.

(14:37):
They find ways to build it like a practice, a practice like a yoga practice or a martial arts practice where they keep showing up because if you don't really keep showing up that those breakthroughs not come and the breakthroughs always come when you least expect it, and they often come somehow in interactions with people that really rub you the wrong way. I don't know what that's, you realize there's some flaw in your system. I'm too nice and people are over. Whatever it is, you have an interaction where you're like, wow, I'd never really thought that this might happen. But once you battle proof your business for these things or scope creep or whatever it may be, you go through the pain and suffering, but they learn from it and keep on improving upon their business, they're also resilient and they're not afraid to pivot. I mean sometimes while still doing the same thing they were always doing, they'll add on new things because people think you just start a business and you work really hard and it grows, but sometimes demand for certain things will dry up.

(15:46):
I know thought leadership that sort of comes and goes. There was this whole flooding of a lot of the blogging platforms for a while and everybody was publishing six tips on how to be like Warren Buffet or things like that, and then nobody wanted that stuff anymore and places got very strict. So to run a business sustainably, we have to tune into those things and realize that they could dry up overnight. And I know my business started out as a hundred percent journalism the first two years when I started it in 2007, and then we went into that terrible recession and I realized a lot of the publications were folding and my skills could be repurposed into doing other things like ghost writing and blogging and social media and even consulting on books that gave me a diversified income stream. I think that is so important.

(16:42):
Whether you have a small agency or you're an agency of one is thinking about your skills and how they might be used in different ways and doing it regularly every quarter or even every month if things are changing quickly because all of a sudden something can catch on. Like say there's some new really great research tool and AI that's even better than perplexity and you're involved heavily in research, well, you're going to have to find something else to do and it's very anxiety provoking. But I think we can also tap into a wide variety of other skills too. Maybe for instance, speaking, a lot of people in PR and marketing are very articulate, very confident speakers and they're kind of behind the scenes, but you could come back out in front. You can teach. There are a lot of students learning this stuff that's a source of income.

(17:39):
There are a lot of online courses. Those have gotten very competitive. But if you're really good at anything, you'll stand out and you are willing to learn. All there is to learn about it. We're not all willing to learn. All there is to learn about every single possible area that we can make money in. So it's like picking one or two and saying which ones are the low hanging fruit. For me personally, I'm a big ham. I love to speak, so I'll do that one, but I really don't want to do email marketing. I don't like setting all that stuff up on SurveyMonkey, not survey. I always get those confused. The other one, the other one, the other one, the other one, zoo Animal. So it's like knowing yourself and what you're willing to do and not do and then just doing it, whatever you will do. It is the same way I feel about exercise. When you look at people at their lifetime,

(18:39):
I really feel I should be lifting weights honestly to preserve muscle mass, but I hate doing it. So I feel like I do yoga and walking. At least it's better than nothing. If I only used to force myself to lift weights, it would never happen at all. So it's better to do something you will do than something you won't and think you're going to do it. So that's another thing. I think they really know their strengths and they bring a lot of personality to the businesses and they're not afraid to hide it. They don't have a switchboard that says Press one to get to Elaine. Press two, Elena. They own the fact that they're small, and I think people like that now. Everything is so impersonal. Think about renting a car and how aggravating it is. You're like on the phone, three hours later the phone is still on and you're driving along. You're like, you hear a voice somewhere and you're like, oh wait, people are sick of that. They want the real person.

Michelle Kane (19:39):
That's true.

Elaine Pofeldt (19:40):
I think ultimately what we're all selling is trust in a business that not just trust that you can do the job but trust that you're on their side and that you really care and you may not have all the answers. As a publicist, when you're pitching me a story, there's no way to know what else I'm working on at the time. If words told me another reporter is working on something or someone else recently covered something in a competing publication that's too similar. You're just putting it out there and you may not really know, but you have to. You have to just experiment and your clients will know that if you're honest with them that you're doing your best and that you're a collaborator with them, you're not the Wizard of Oz, you're not this all knowing person, but you're a collaborator and you're also a listener.

(20:34):
They may be picking up certain signals from the marketplace and they can have good ideas too. So I think a lot of it is that too, that they feel listened to. They feel like you are fighting for them, but you're not going in with a big ego. You are willing to work closely with the media to see what they need. And there's also so many ways of getting things done I think that are important. Sometimes I know when I sometimes do thought leadership pieces for people, maybe their thoughts are not as cutting edge as I thought in their area, and you can try to push them a little bit past that point. But if maybe their ideas are still baking, maybe they're in mid-career and the idea is going to come to them in later career, sometimes maybe a way to get them publicity would be to go on. I'm forgetting what it's called now. It was called HARO.

Karen Swim, APR (21:29):
Oh yeah. Source of sources. SOS.

Elaine Pofeldt (21:34):
They renamed it and get them into a story that's already in progress to at least get the wall rolling so they have some media clips, whatever it is. As long as you're keeping some momentum going and they're getting the recognition they deserve, then I think you will continue to build your business.

Karen Swim, APR (21:54):
Yeah, I love that. Those were great tips and I'm glad that we have a transcript. I know that our listeners want to highlight some of those tips that you'd want from entrepreneurs. So one other thing that is of interest is that we know that the economy goes through cycles and you have to create a business that's sustainable. And in our lifetime we've seen some really big things happen, 9 1 1 and the global pandemic. So because you are working with so many people that have been able to create these incomes that can sustain your business, talk to us about how we should be looking at our revenue mix. How do we figure out the right mix for our business that's going to carry us through good and bad times?

Elaine Pofeldt (22:47):
That's a really good question. There are a few things that I want to unpack here. One is, even though I'm the author of the Million Dollar One Person Business, that number isn't relevant for everybody. You could be living in a rural area for instance, and live on much less and need much less to get by. So I don't want anyone listening to feel badly that for them really the goal is a hundred thousand dollars in revenue or whatever it may be your number and it might be different for someone else. So whatever that number is, if you want it to be sustainable, it's really important to understand a few things, the cost of running your life and your business, the realistic costs. Really look at the numbers, look at what bills you're paying, create a spreadsheet because you do need to be a master of cashflow, not just revenue generation, but some clients might pay you a retainer, others might be paying you a project fee that comes at the end of the white paper that you wrote at the end of the event, and maybe it didn't come in 60 days, maybe it's 90 or 120 days depending on what's going on.

(23:55):
So it's important to really know, okay, these are my baseline costs in the business. These are the baseline costs in my life. These are things I cannot do without if things get really bad. I have to have food, I have to have shelter, I have to have a vehicle in certain parts of the country. Those things you probably need. So what do those things cost? You could probably get a better phone plan, do without eating out in a pinch, but you don't want to live in scarcity. This is just a minimum number. Same thing for your business. Maybe your business is just a laptop and a phone and maybe travel is optional. Figuring out those numbers. The way I look at my business, I've been in business since 2007 and I support a family, so I look at my basic costs, what is due every month, and then I think about I need that much in recurring revenue plus the money to pay the taxes on it, and I pay for health insurance, so pay for health insurance as a minimum from whatever source it comes from, but it should be recurring, and so that has to be a goal because otherwise you wind up scrambling and borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

(25:09):
So new business development has to be a part of our busy lives and that is very hard to fit in, but that's where AI and all these other things come in. Think about all the appointments that we all schedule. If you use Calendly or Schedule Once, I know that gave me back one day a week just using that so you can think about a few things that would be big time savers. Don't have a big learning curve that you will really use that will give you back that time and then take at least half a day every week on reaching out to dormant contacts, refreshing your LinkedIn, resharing, other people's stuff on social media. I mean telling people about job leads that might be relevant to them, doing things that build good karma around your business that will lead to business flowing in. You never know where it's going to come from.

Michelle Kane (26:03):
Yes,

Elaine Pofeldt (26:04):
That's

Michelle Kane (26:04):
So true,

Elaine Pofeldt (26:05):
And even just going on lunches sometimes, especially with the cost of restaurants and things, now it's easy to do a Zoom call, but there's no substitute for having a drink or a cup of coffee in person with somebody. You just know them in a whole different way and it can last a lifetime. I have people that I've met once and I feel like the relationship was so much deeper for that one meeting and sometimes for me as a ghost writer, people want to know what you're like to work with and they don't always tell you that. I'd love to get your advice. I would like to write this blog. If you wouldn't mind coming into New York City. I live outside of New York City, like an hour outside and I'll usually go in because I think I always enjoy meeting new people, I'm just curious about what they're going to be like and I just am a social person. But a couple of those people that I didn't think were book clients ended up being and they were kind of feeling me out. They didn't even talk about the book at the time, and that's a good job interview, right? Because yeah, that's so cool. Your natural self, what you really like and seeing if they like you basically do they like working with this person?

(27:18):
So then when they already found out what technical skills you have, you can write a press release, you can put up a website, but there's a lot of people that can do that. It's like your vibe. So that's another thing. Totally

(27:31):
Going to events, just putting yourself out there because if you don't make the time for it, then the well runs dry and you also miss out on the ground information that friends are like. I learned about using chat GPT from a woman I've become friends with in my town. She was the mother of one of my daughter's friends and we didn't really have, we were both working mothers and we had no time to have a social life really all these years. So finally we have time. So we started walking together and she told me about Chat GPT and how she was using it with Canva. I started poking around. I tell her things, but those types of relationships are very fruitful and it also helps dissipate anxiety because we're all looking and saying, is our whole field going to go away and what are we going to do? It won't go away, but maybe it's going to take a whole different form. Maybe we'll all be on YouTube or we'll be on some new thing that we didn't even know about that doesn't exist, but it's that on the ground kind of gossipy information we all share that really helps us grow our business.

Michelle Kane (28:40):
It's so true. Sometimes when I'm in those situations, yeah, let's make sure it would be good to work together. I just chuckle in the back of my mind and I think, oh gosh, it's just like dating.

Elaine Pofeldt (28:53):
It's true. I think we all have anxiety about meeting new people. When I go to a business event, sometimes you're more up than other times, but I never regret going in the end. By the end of it, I'm always happy that I went and even if I end up stuck in traffic or on the train or something, I'm still glad that I went. I just bring my laptop and I bring a large purse, so if I have to get something done while I'm out or a client contacts me, we're all in it together really. We might be competitors in some things, but our whole industries are going to be changing. We already have seen tremendous change in the media, but look what it brought. Right now we have podcasts. Podcasts are like a whole venue. Their whole specialized podcasting agencies that place people on these podcasts that train podcasts, guests.

(29:48):
So new things will come about to replace the ones we're comfortable with, and we really have to be lifelong learners more than ever before. The other factor is people's careers. Steve King and emergent research has been talking about this. Our careers used to be 40 years, now they're 60. A lot of people work a long time and not just because they have to sometimes for brain health, it keeps us sharp, it keeps us connected socially. It gives us a sense of purpose. We might end up doing some other things that we like to do just for fun to add on to our businesses. So we also have to think about that. What will we be doing? I mean, my mother is 80 and she still works. She loves the social connection of being in an

Michelle Kane (30:39):
Office.

Elaine Pofeldt (30:40):
She retired 20 years ago if she wanted to, so we may be like that. I mean, hopefully our health will hold up. There are a lot of things out of our own control, but if we are healthy, wouldn't that be nice? And what is our vision? I think going into the vision, I mean, that's where my books have a lot of case studies because sometimes people say, oh, it's so great in your own business, you can do whatever you want. But then the reality is, what do I actually want? I've had no time to think about it.

(31:13):
So seeing what other people are doing, you start reacting to it and saying, okay, I see she did that. That's just so not me. I would never do that. Oh, that is so me. I never thought I could even do that, but she's just like me and it exposes myself to those life stories I think are so valuable. I get inspired sometimes. I mean, I have the same ups and downs as everyone else in my business, and I do one of those interviews and I totally snap back into attention because a lot is mindset. A lot is they have learned to train their mindset to find opportunities. Even when they're getting kicked in the teeth by life, they get back up and they say, I always wanted to go to the cosmetic dentist. Anyway, they find the silver lining in these things. I don't want to be trite about it, but I mean the pandemic.

(32:12):
I remember speaking with Joey Healy. He's an eyebrow stylist and he created an incredible brand for himself where he has his own line of makeup that he private labels. He was going house to house, working on affluent women on the upper east side of Manhattan. Then he realized this was not very efficient. He was walking all around Manhattan, so he created a little mini studio. Then he created the Joey Healy eyebrow method, and then that led to his own makeup as an add-on to each purchase. Then he started licensing the methodology to other people. Now, this was over a period of years. It didn't happen overnight. During the pandemic, he finally rented a shop and hired employees near NYU, it is really expensive real estate, and then he turns out to be like a tier four or something, one of the worst tiers to be in as a business.

(33:05):
During the pandemic, he was shut down and he was wondering how he was going to survive, and I talked to him right after that and he said, well, I looked in the basement. I had a clean basement filled with this makeup, and I realized that was going to get me through the pandemic. We went on TikTok and he started giving lessons to all the people now on Zoom who are looking at their own eyebrows and saying, wow, my eyebrows really don't have much shape, or they couldn't really pop a little more, but I don't know what to do. So he kept his publicist. Now, I think this is important. He had a very expensive publicist that was the only person he kept who got him on, I want to say Good Morning America. It was one of the big shows which then boosted the makeup and then his business thrived.

(33:51):
It wasn't as big as it was normally, but he made it through to the other side. Now he's back to doing his thing, but it's that mindset or another person who's just like this, Elisa Shero, she was an event planner, live events only, not a technical person, did not know how to use Zoom. Her whole business came to a standstill. I talked to her like the day after everything shut down. She was really worried. She said, well, I'm going to have to learn how to do Zoom events, and she realized she did a lot of celebrity events. So she realized all the celebrities were stuck at home too because nobody was filming anything in Hollywood and she did annual meetings and things like that. So she got celebrities to come as the entertainment at these annual meetings on Zoom. Then she started doing these interactive things like where you ship people, a margarita kid or something, and together as a team building, and she made it through.

(34:42):
So now she has that in her repertoire. Now she's back to live events. But it's that kind of mindset of people's businesses can blow up at any time and ours can, or we lose a critical client or something changes. So we have to be ready to really be resourceful and realize it's not always our own fault that it happens, but we can take ownership of the way out and it may take some experimenting. It always helps to try to keep a cash cushion for those purposes or at the very least, keep a good credit rating. So if you need to use your credit cards for a while, business credit is part of life. I mean, big businesses use credit, so you shouldn't feel bad if you have to use a business credit card here and there. There's no support system for the independent worker in this country really. So we have to be our own support system, but we can get through it, and I think it is through the sharing of our stories that really helps, and you are both really on the front lines of that, bringing people together in this way. I

Karen Swim, APR (35:51):
Love

Michelle Kane (35:52):
That. Oh my

Karen Swim, APR (35:53):
Goodness. Yeah, that's a good note to start to wrap up on too. Yes. Oh my gosh. We're going to have to have you back because we want to talk about the media. Of course. So we'll book another time with you because we want to cover that topic. But this has been really rich and I couldn't agree with you more. I say this to myself a lot too, is that the battles are won and lost in your mind first. They really are, and it sounds so simple, but it's hard to train your mind. It's hard to get that discipline where you decide that you're going to keep moving forward in spite of what is in your way. It's that mindset of seeing optimism in spite of the temporary circumstances, because life is life and that's never going to change. It's going to have some thorns along with the roses, and we just have to decide that we're not going to let that stop us. I love what you said about the knowing and the doing and just showing up every day, and

Michelle Kane (37:00):
It sounds simple, but it's hard.

Elaine Pofeldt (37:04):
Oh, go ahead, Michelle.

Michelle Kane (37:05):
No, no, please go. No, go right ahead.

Elaine Pofeldt (37:07):
Well, I was thinking it was publicists. A lot of times there is so much rejection. I mean, even for freelance journalists there is, and anything we can do to build a thicker skin is really important because there are so many people out there that are just in a bad mood, nasty. Well literally tear you to shreds over nothing, and we deserve to tell our stories and to reach out and not letting those types of people discourage you or let them define you or tell you you have no value is really important because we have to be able to persist in these things. I mean, it's the same thing with being a book author. You'll get a lot of good reviews and then the one bad review will stick in your head and you realize, well, I'm not for everybody. Some people don't even think anyone should be independently employed.

(37:57):
So anything I say will offend that person and I have to just let that go. They're not my tribe. They're not on my side and let it go and not ruminate on it late at night. I mean, I think we all tend to do that, right? You get a hundred compliments about things and then the one nasty person or nasty thing said, but it's so important for people in this field in particular to really embrace that because it otherwise will stop us from realizing our potential and doing what we're meant to do and from trying to really play big. When you play big, you're going to exposed and you're going to be in the limelight sometimes and there will be detractors and people don't want to tear you down, but you just have to ignore them and it's hard to do, and some days it's easier than others, but that's where the community really helps. I think. Just friendly people in your industry that can talk you down from the cliff.

Michelle Kane (39:00):
For sure. For sure. And our listeners are, and everyone at Opio Pro, they are that great community. So as we do end our lovely conversation together today, what's the best place where our listeners can find you? A website or LinkedIn or

Elaine Pofeldt (39:17):
LinkedIn is great. I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter under my full name Elaine Pofeldt, which is in the show notes or on Instagram. I'm in million dollar one person business, whichever one you reach out to me. Love it right back. I'm always happy to hear from people. It makes me a better journalist. So definitely say hello, and I really appreciate this opportunity. This was so much fun.

Michelle Kane (39:40):
Likewise. We appreciate you. Yeah,

Karen Swim, APR (39:43):
This was so inspiring and I meant it. We want to have you back again because we just popped a tiny sliver of all of your expertise and knowledge. But I have a feeling, Elaine, that today you have helped some people reset course, and that you have inspired the burned out among us, the tired, the discouraged. So thank you for that. I know that I walked away with something and I'm feeling like, oh, okay, I got some good ideas. I'm ready to go. Exactly.

Michelle Kane (40:14):
I'm okay. And to our listeners out there, we hope you're nodding your heads as well, and if you found value in this conversation today, which of course you did, please do share it around and let us know what you think. It's solo pr pro.com, and until next time, thanks for listening to “That Solo Life.”