76: From No Experience to Multi-Million Dollar Business with Ellen Bennett

Before cooking at Michelin star restaurants, Ellen Bennett worked as a lottery announcer, an English tutor, and a “booth babe”. All of these jobs taught her to be comfortable in uncomfortable positions. When her head chef told her that he needed new aprons for all the cooks, Ellen took to the challenge, with no business plan, no connections, and no experience designing aprons. The deadline, uncomfortability, and challenge pushed her to deliver the aprons on time, and start Hedley & Bennett.

Now, Ellen runs this multi-million dollar business that delivers to Michelin star restaurants and at-home cooks alike. Ellen talks about the necessity of committing to something scary, even when you don’t know how to handle it. She used the same approach when buying 3 rental properties nearby her home in Los Angeles, all of which have appreciated dramatically.

The mantra used in creating a successful business, investment, or anything else is Dream First, Details Later, which also happens to be the name of Ellen's new book! An entrepreneur can get bogged down so easily with the details of any venture, so much sometimes that it could push them away from accomplishing something great.

In This Episode We Cover

• How Ellen accidentally started an incredibly successful apron business 
• Using the pandemic to think differently about products and needs
• Looking at challenges as a gift and an excuse to grow
• How to plan when you know that things won’t go as planned
• Setting your employees up for a failure-first mindset (so they succeed!)
• And So Much More!

Links from the Show

• Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group
• BiggerPockets Forums
• MySpace
• Walmart
• Ford
• Ashley's Instagram
• Tony's Instagram

Check the full show notes here: http://biggerpockets.com/rookie76

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