Graham Cochrane – This Musician Runs Two Seven-Figure Businesses

Graham Cochrane aspired to be a rock star from childhood. Today, the father of two kids aged 10 and 12 is a millionaire rock star in the world of one-person businesses.

Overview

In Tampa, Florida, where he resides, he owns two seven-figure businesses: Recording Revolution, which is built around a blog and YouTube channel he created to help others learn about music production, and the highly automated GrahamCochrane.com, where he offers coaching and courses to help individuals develop passive income sources

He learned how to structure his businesses so that he only works five to six hours per week, producing content such as his podcast The Graham Cochrane Show, and spends the rest of his time with his family and engaging in activities he enjoys, such as playing music, working out at the gym, and going on long walks. Along the way, he wrote How to Get Paid for What You Know, which was published this spring.

What is “million-dollar one-person business”?

In 2019, the most recent year for which Census data is available, 43,012 one-person enterprises generated between $1 million and $2.49 million in sales, up from 41,666 in 2018. 2,553 ultra-elite businesses reached $2.5 to $4.99 million in revenue, and 388 reached $5 million and beyond.

Obviously, “million-dollar one-person business” is not a scientific term. These are what the U.S. Census Bureau refers to as “non-employer” enterprises, which have no employees other than the owner(s). The vast majority of non-employer businesses are owned by a single individual, while some are partnerships or have several proprietors.

Additionally, the number of companies in other high-revenue categories increased.

• 312,422 reached between $500,000 and $499,999 in sales, up from 297,428 in 2018.
• 694,289 yen in revenue between $250,000 and $499,999, up from 694,152 yen in 2018.
• 2.2 million enterprises reported sales between $100,000 and $249,999, up from 2 million in 2018.

Simultaneously, the overall number of nonemployer firms in the country increased from 26.5 million to 27.1 million, reflecting an ongoing trend in which an increasing number of Americans are adopting solo entrepreneurship or establishing small businesses with a handful of employees. Whether this trend persisted during the pandemic will not be known until Census data for 2020 and later are released. The number of new firms in the United States has exploded. Nevertheless, small firms faced unusual obstacles during the epidemic, and we won’t know the revenue trends until the Census Bureau compiles the data.

Although entrepreneurs with annual revenues over $1 million are effectively the Olympic athletes of the one-person business world, they are a terrific example of what a single individual can achieve when employing the appropriate techniques. Here are some that Graham Cochrane found effective. In August, I will profile a few more million-dollar, one-person firms.

Graham Cochrane

Specialisation

Focus on your area of specialisation. It is simplest to develop a high-revenue business if you avoid the learning curve and locate a niche in a subject you are already familiar with. While Cochrane was a member of the band Unit 5, he earned a degree in audio engineering, setting the groundwork for his future entrepreneurial endeavours.

Experiment with your business model

Be open to conducting business model experiments. Cochrane worked in a recording studio in Virginia following graduation.

“I realized the hours were incompatible with having a life,” he says.

He decided to become a freelancer and opened a tiny recording studio in his house while working as an audio engineer for a software company during the day. He managed to find time to compose and record his own songs.

In 2009, he relocated to Florida and launched a blog and, eventually, a YouTube channel so that people could see what he was teaching them on his computer screen. “I realized people wanted to learn more about music production and recording music than they wanted to hire me to produce their own albums,” he says. In that era, audio equipment became considerably more accessible.

Build on what is working

Build upon what is successful. Cochrane, seeking methods to monetize the videos and articles he was producing, developed a $45 course on Pro Tools, which he characterises as the equivalent of Photoshop for music, and marketed it to his YouTube audience.

“That is when I realized there is something here,” he says. “I sold five or 10 copies that week. I remember that first sale coming through, and it was a lightbulb moment.”

Cochrane increased his blog and YouTube content twofold. He also introduced additional courses so that he would have something to sell, as well as a more expensive course so that he could earn more each transaction. Friends criticised him for giving away too much stuff for free, but he discovered that the more he shared, the more his business thrived.

Cochrane employed a buddy to assist him with emails, customer service, and occasionally video editors and graphic designers in the fourth year of operation. (Interestingly, a survey I conducted of 50 companies for my book Tiny Business, Big Money revealed that the four-year mark is a turning point for seven-figure organisations. In average, they recruited their first employee and reached $1 million in revenue in year four. Why is the fourth year so important? I’m eager to learn. That merits further and much more comprehensive research).

Learn to love automation

Learn to appreciate technology and automation. Along the way, Cochrane also established and optimised RyanCochrane.com, his personal brand.

“The great thing about this type of business, where you’re doing information products and online courses, is so much is automated,” says Cochrane. “Automation is so powerful. The content I make every week on YouTube and my podcast has an exponential component, so people can find it on their own. It’s almost like marketing 24/7. Email marketing is automated. Bringing people into the ecosystem and offering them my products, it’s all happening automatically. I’m not limited by how many hours I spend or the clients I serve. It’s mostly asynchronous.”

Be generous.

Today, RyanCochrane.com is a subscription membership site that provides users with a new mini-course housed on the platform Kajabi each month, as well as the opportunity to participate in a live coaching session with Cochrane. Because his business approach is so heavily automated, he only works five to six hours per week, inspired by Tim Ferris’s book The 4-Hour Workweek.

“As long as I’m focused on creating regular, valuable free content to drive more leads into my email funnel, the funnel will take care of the rest,” says Cochrane. “It offers products, my membership keeps growing and my workload stays the same.”

However, nothing remains the same in business, and Cochrane says he is “ruthless” in assessing his business model every six months to ensure he is operating efficiently and eliminating time-consuming chores that do not contribute to business growth.

“I go through that list and say, ‘What are the 80% of the things on this list that only contributes to the 20% of the revenue in the business or less?’” he asks. “I can see a direct correlation between doing that task and making money.” It also saves him a lot of time to do the things that matter. “I take my kids to school and pick them up every day,” he says.

Ownership of a business is about having the freedom to engage in the daily activities that are truly important in your life.