I actually had a phone call today with the woman who runs a multimillion dollar business. She and I are in a mastermind together, and she and I spoke just separately today. She's like when we first started our mastermind, my mission was to convince you that you should grow a team and she owes. As of today, I think you are extremely heart for not wanting employees and growing a team. I am Abby Walker. I am the CEO of Vivian Liu, and I sell insoles that empower women to wear high heels four times longer without pain.

There is a growing movement of business owners who know that better isn't always bigger. They know that growth isn't necessarily bad. It should just be questioned first. Welcome to the company of one podcast. I'm your host. Paul Jarvis, author of the book called Company of One. Your Ride or Die for challenging the current business Paradigm of Growth, Hacks and Scale at All Costs. Show picks up where my book left off and dives deep into why staying small might be the next big thing for your business. Join. Over 24 million businesses have used fresh books to simplify their invoicing and accounting. Go to fresh books dot com slash company of one all one word and enter company of one in the How did you hear about a section to get started with your 30 day free trial? No credit card required.

I am a company of one by the true definition. So it is truly me with a team of contractors, phenomenal contractors that help me with a variety of things. So I have a warehouse based out of Wisconsin that fulfills all of my orders. I have a virtual assistant company that handles all of my customer service. I have an illustrator on hand because we like to use illustrated drawings of shoes in some of our marketing material. I also have a development team and then a solo preneurs developer as well as part of my team and then a variety of contractors that help me with my affiliate programs that help me with a B testing just like a variety of a variety of things. It's really interesting, and I every day I become more comfortable with my vision and the notion of growing small versus becoming huge, and I used to think honestly that when people are like Are you serious? You could be growing so much faster and you should be taking on investors. And you should be a Nordstrom and you should be here and you should be there. And why aren't you doing this? Honestly, I questioned myself. I'm like I am I stupid. Am I dumb?

Am I good enough to even run this company? If it could be so much bigger than what I'm dreaming of it being and I keep going back Thio. It's easier now these days to sit in my vision because I hear people. I go to conferences. I am in masterminds and business owners. Number one complaint are always human resource issues. Someone quit in the middle of a big project. Someone was stealing from them. Someone waas there have a huge hole that needs to be filled and they can't find the right person. But I feel like most of the people who are building brands and building businesses most of their heartache and most of their time is spent worrying about other people, not their customers, but people in their businesses. And so I actually had a phone call today with the woman who runs a multimillion dollar business. She and I are in a mastermind together, and she and I spoke just separately today. She's like when we first started our mastermind,

my mission was to convince you that you should grow a team and she owes. As of today, I think you are extremely smart for not wanting employees and growing a team. So it's the same thing she's like every time I have a human resource is issue. I think of you like man, I should think like happy Uh so I mean, it's I no longer believe that I am stupid or dumb. I feel like I am incredibly smart because while my way of life may not be the way of life for everyone, and you know they may want to build big legacy companies in huge companies and big brands that are spread everywhere in every retail location, that's just not my vision, and that's not me. But I am very happy selling insoles for high heels from my home and wearing yoga pants and high heels but wearing yoga pants and high heels and making myself a turkey sandwich for lunch versus having to go out for lunch with people, and you know that kind of stuff. It's covered my lost corporate salary and then some, and I'm hoping to retire my husband soon. And so at some point,

I'm like, I feel like there's building a business. You can reach diminishing returns where you're trying to get so big that it starts chipping away again at your peace and freedom and growing. A team keeps chipping away at your profitability and like so, there's a balance between growing and growing steadily and making a very good living and being a very profitable company.

If you don't want to grow your business and hire a huge staff, you'll need trustworthy and valuable partners to keep your business running smoothly. That's why fresh books and they're invoicing in accounting software makes sense. You can rely on them to take care very invoicing and even late payment reminders, as well as tracking all of your expenses. Think of fresh books as the accounting department. You don't have to hire the fresh books. Notification Center is like your very own personal assistant. It always lets you know what's changed in your business since you last logged in and what needs to be dealt with pronto, like overdue payments. So join over 24 million people who use fresh books. Try for free for 30 days. No catch or credit card required. Go to fresh books dot com slash company of one all one word and enter company of one in the How did you hear about a section to get started? So I think that Abby is great proof that you ca NBI and run a company of one. Even if you sell physical products. I think a lot of times we think that well,

company of one model, the not growing model works for digital only or digital products only. And through writing the book and talking to people like Marshal Haas for need want. And then, after writing the book and talking to people like Abby, I think that there's definitely a space for COS. Of one to exist if you sell physical products as well. And I think the main point from talking to Abby that I got is that you don't always have to listen to advice. Not everybody is going to agree with the business decisions you make, especially the how you run your business because they think it is your business. You get to determine how you run it. And I think a lot of times people can be well intentioned and give you advice on how to run a business based on probably their own experience or what they've read or what they've seen. But I think it is your business. You really have to think about how you want to run it, because you really have to think about how it can serve you. And for Abby.

When she heard from other people in the industry that they're number one complaint was dealing with humans dealing with human resource issues, then I think it makes sense to her. It made sense to not have to hire employees to focus on paying a premium. A little bit of a premium toe hire contractors. But it kept her aligned with her vision of running a small business in here, yoga pants and high heels from her house. Instead of having to get a bigger office and pay the expenses and deal with human resource is and all of that. And I mean, I think she's obviously on the right track, here, right? Like she's just about able to retire her husband, which is pretty freaking awesome. So I think that it's important sometimes to listen to what other people say and to listen to the advice that they give us. But we also have to take into consideration what's gonna work for us, what's gonna work for our business and what's gonna work for,

how we want to run. Our business company of one is hosted by Paul Jarvis. Hey, that's me. If you haven't already, check up my book. Also called Company of One, which is available around the world in digital audio and physical formats. Thanks again for listening to the show.