Election Day: Build Something, Columbia!

On November 6, 2018 we talked about Election Day and spoke with Elaine Pofeldt, keynote speaker for the upcoming Women’s Business Summit. Here are the show notes:

Introductions:

Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clemson Road Consulting and WBC of SC

Shennice Cleckley, The Ultimate Mompreneur and WBC of SC

Theme for the day:

Being a Builder

Agenda review:

We’re going to hear from Elaine Pofeldt, author of The Million-Dollar One-Person Business; It’s election day and we’re going to highlight a few voterly things that business owners need to know; and we’re going to talk about November’s book which is Born to Build .

Segment 1:

This week at 1 Million Cups we have Amigas, an imprint of Alluvio, which is a Small- and Medium-Business focused client services company. Amigas is the women-focused team.

From their 1MC application: “We help female entrepreneurs who are already badass be more badass. We are advice and community. We focus on the 3 areas have the largest day to day impact on success: finance, marketing, and the entrepreneur.”

So they’re a perfect fit leading up to next week’s Women’s Business Summit at the Women’s Business Center of South Carolina (#WBCofSC) at Columbia College.

Today, on this show, right now, is Elaine Pofeldt, another student of badass entrepreneurs. Elaine wrote the book The Million-Dollar One-Person Business in which she synthesizes advice from hundreds of business owners who have crested the $1M mark without hiring their first full-time employee.

Elaine will be a keynote at the Women’s Business Summit and one of the reasons Katherine and I selected her was because of her response to our question about scalability. We hear from investors that women’s businesses or “lifestyle” businesses aren’t scalable and that’s sometimes a barrier to getting more investment for women-owned businesses.

But Elaine told us that scalability can look different for every entrepreneur. In fact, many of the $1M businesses she profiled, were leveraging an out-source strategy to not only scale their business, but relieve the entrepreneur of those must-do jobs that they hate. Like websites and finance and shipping.

Questions for Elaine:

What got you interested in these $1M businesses? What story were you seeing that you felt like needed to be told?

Since writing the book, what has life been like for Elaine? Are you building your own $1M business as an expert in this field?

We asked you, some time ago, to be part of this Summit. Have you done any women-focused events since we brought you on board? What about women entrepreneurs interests you?

What do you hope to help our audience learn while you’re here?

Segment 2:

It’s Election Day and there are some business- and entrepreneur-related items on the ballot. Let’s talk through some of those. You can get a complete Voting Guide at Cola Today.

We’ll be voting on whether to amend the State constitution to allow that the Governor appoint the Secretary of Education — we currently elect that office.

Every seat in the State House of Representatives (124 total) is up for grabs with 69 sitting reps running unopposed. Cola Today has links to your specific ballot with districts and candidates identified so you can prep before you vote.

In the federal races, we have both Joe Wilson and Jim Clyburn up for re-election. Wilson faces Democrat and American party challengers; Clyburn faces Republican and Green party challengers.

There’s a chance this midterms for third-party candidates to make inroads in the two-party system. But, then, we say that every election. Should be interesting to see results.

Businesses should care —

Secretary of State is up for election; the incumbent, Mark Hammond, a Republican, has been in the office since 2002; the notes on him claim leadership in getting SC Business One Stop online; really, though, if he’s been there since 2002, did he have a choice? We love SC Business One Stop, one of the project team members, Greta Dobe, is a frequent flier at 1MC and attends WBC events on the regular. She’s gone out into the entrepreneurial ecosystem to work on developing that site. It’s now a comprehensive page for getting your business up-and-running.

The challenger, Melvin Wittenburg, a Democrat and Army Major, is in favor of lowering barriers to business ownership for military vets by waiving start-up fees for veterans. His website talks about inclusivity and access to resources for every would-be business owner, regardless of ethnic, racial, or social background or political affiliation.

SC Treasurer Candidates include two women and the incumbent is a man who has held the post since 2010. Again, a Republican, with the challengers being Democrat and American Party. Treasurer is the state’s Chief Banker and oversees revenue and finances. Not to be confused with the State Comptroller who is the state accountant and oversees budgets and expenditures; that incumbent has been serving since 2002 and is running unopposed.

Local elections are often the ones that affect business owners the most. These are the people who make decisions about taxation, fees and registrations, and zoning. Is the road in front of your storefront being torn up? Go vote. Are their eyesore buildings and criminal elements in your neighborhood? Go vote. Did you pay more in taxes last year than you think you should have? Go vote.

Really, just go vote. Your voice matters and this is the time of year when the decision makers are actually vulnerable to the voters.

Last week in our “What does it take to build a $1M business?” lunch-and-learn with Diane Sumpter of DESA and Diana Stevenson of Grace Outdoor, we heard both of those Million-dollar CEOs say to 1) make yourself aware of the politics and policies that affect your business and 2) get involved with the offices that you need to influence in order to stay profitable.

Segment 3

So, you recommended this book. What inspired you about it? How do you think we can use it to inspire our listeners this month?

Born to Build is our book of the month for November. Here are some highlights and key takeaways:

• A step-by-step guide to discovering your builder talents and using them to build your future and change the world.
• Written by Jim Clifton, Chairman of Gallup, the research people and Dr. Sangeeta Badal, the principal scientist for Gallup’s Builder Initiative, she’s an anthropologist which means she studies human behavior.
• Four steps: 1) creating self-awareness, 2) recognizing opportunities, 3) activating on ideas, and 4) building a team.

We’ll explore each of these in November, building show segments around them. Today we’re just having some general discussion around the structure of the book and what we think we’ll get out of it.

Segment 4

Events of the week:

1MC at Richland Library on Assembly Street tomorrow at 9 a.m. Featuring Lauren Forsch of Amigas.

Google at the WBC of SC on Friday, November 9th, Succeeding in a Micro-Moments world. That’s a lunch-and-learn, bring your own laptop, and register on eventbrite.

Next Wednesday, the resource-provider fair at Richland Library on Assembly Street runs all day after 1MC and will include SC Business One Stop, the Office of Business Opportunities, the Department of Commerce, the SBA. You name it, they’ll be there.

Next Friday, November 16th, the Women’s Business Center of SC brings the inaugural Women’s Business Summit to Columbia College, featuring Elaine Pofeldt, who we heard from today and Tiffany Norwood who we heard from last week. So get registered for that, if you haven’t already.

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