This musician runs two seven-figure businesses - as the number of million-dollar one-man businesses continues to rise

Graham Cochrane grew up wanting to be a rock star. Today, the father of two daughters, ages 10 and 12, is a one-man business rock star.

He owns two seven-figure businesses in Tampa, Florida, where he lives: Recording Revolution, built around a blog and YouTube channel he started to help others learn more about music. music production, and the highly automated site GrahamCochrane.com, where he offers coaching and courses to help people develop passive income streams. He learned how to build his business so he could work five to six hours a week, producing content such as his podcast The Graham Cochrane Show, and spend the rest of the time with his family. and doing things he loves, like playing music, working out at the gym, and going for long walks. Along the way, he wrote a book called How to Get Paid for What You Know, which was released this spring.

The number of million-dollar one-person businesses continues to grow, with 43,012 falling into the $1-2.49 million revenue category in 2019 (the most recent year for which census statistics are available), compared to 41,666 in 2018. . 2,553 ultra-elite individuals had sales between $2.5 million and $4.99 million, and 388 had sales of $5 million and above.

“Million dollar sole proprietorship” is obviously not a scientific term. This is what the Census Bureau calls non-employee businesses, that is, those that have no employees except the owner or owners. The vast majority of non-employee businesses have a single owner, but some are partnerships or have multiple owners.

The number of businesses in other high-income categories has also increased.

312,422 achieved revenue between $500,000 and $499,999, up from 297,498 in 2018.

694,289 achieved revenue between $250,000 and $499,999, up from 668,152 in 2018.

2.2 million businesses achieved revenue between $100,000 and $249,999, up from 2 million in 2018.

At the same time, the total number of businesses without employees in the country has increased from 26.5 million to 27.1 million, part of a continuing trend in which more Americans are embracing solo entrepreneurship or start small businesses with a handful of employees. It remains to be seen whether this trend has held up during the pandemic until census figures for 2020 and beyond are released. The number of new businesses in the United States has exploded. However, small businesses have faced extraordinary challenges during the pandemic, and we won't know revenue trends until the Census Bureau crunches the numbers.

While $1M owners are essentially the Olympians of the one-man business world, they are a great example of what one person can accomplish by amplifying their impact with the right strategies. Here are a few that have worked for Graham Cochrane. I'll be profiling a few more million dollar one-man businesses in August.

Lean on your area of ​​expertise. It's easier to build a high-income business if you skip the learning curve and find a niche in an area you already know. In Cochrane's case, while the musician was playing in a band called Unit 5, he earned a college degree in audio engineering, which provided him with a foundation of knowledge that would be the foundation of his future career as an entrepreneur. entrepreneur.

Be prepared to experiment with your business model. After graduating, Cochrane worked in a recording studio in Virginia. “I realized that hours were incompatible with having a life,” he says. He decided to go freelance and opened a small recording studio at home, working by day as a sound engineer at a software company. Somehow he found the time to write and record his own music.

In 2009, he moved to Florida and started his blog and, later, his YouTube channel, so people could see what he was teaching them to do on his computer screen. “I realized that people wanted to learn more about music production and music recording than they wanted to hire me to produce their own albums,” he says. At that time, audio equipment was becoming much more accessible.

Build on what works. Seeking ways to monetize the videos and articles he was creating, Cochrane created a course on Pro Tools, which he designed...