Andrea Albright — A Serial Entrepreneur, Prolific Author and Publishing Mogul

We interviewed Ms Andrea Albright, CEO of Beverly Hills Publishing (BHP), first marketing and publishing firm combined. Andrea is a publisher, visionary entrepreneur and retired fitness model. She has inspired millions around the world and continues to do so through her new book, Visionary Boss — The Next Edge Entrepreneur.

I first started writing books and building audiences in 2006. I reached a level of global thought leadership in women’s health with over 10 million views on YouTube, and over 100 thousand fans. I was on the cover of the 21st-anniversary edition of Women’s Health Magazine, the number one fitness magazine in the world. I discovered the code to building authority branding by publishing books and marketing to an audience and I decided to help other authors do the same. That’s when I decided to launch Beverly Hills Publishing in 2018.

Tell us about your business

Beverly Hills Publishing (BHP) focuses on authority branding. Authority comes from the word author. By publishing a book and becoming an author, you’re seen as an authority on that topic. The authority comes from publishing a book, but you have to know marketing and promotion to get PR and publicity. PR will get other people talking about you. By branding your book, you become an authority. When you’re an authority brand, clients come to you. You don’t have to search or try to find people because they’re attracted to you and your work. Everyone wants to work with the best in their industry. My brand positions authors to have authority branding which allows them to raise rates, charge premium prices and attract premium clients. The authority is the person everyone wants to talk to and work with.

From where did you get the inspiration to start Beverly Hills Publishing?

My inspiration came from doing research and knowing that there was a gap in the publishing industry that wasn’t following the market’s needs. I was going through a difficult time in my life, I moved back home with my mom and knew I needed a drastic change in my life. In the year that I was back home, I did my deepest work. I reflected a lot and spent time thinking about my life’s true purpose. I knew that I was put on this earth to help people and this was going to be the way I came out of my rut. I had this vision to serve other authors and thought leaders and finally had the motivation to make my visions happen. Digging deep truly healed me and I hope to help others heal themselves too.

Did you always want to own your own business or is it a decision that you made later in life?

I became an entrepreneur in 2004 when I had a breakdown in Corporate America. I quit my job that I was very successful in, to become an entrepreneur, but I didn’t know how to attract clients. I didn’t know anything about entrepreneurship or marketing. Then I found my first mentor who taught me how to write and publish your own book to become an authority. I wrote my first book in 2006. I was scared and insecure, but I focused on service and helping people.

When I wrote and released my first book, I had to learn marketing. Just having a book is great for respect, but you need to be able to attract an audience. Over my career, I’ve invested over a million dollars in marketing entrepreneurship through books, seminars and mentors. What’s happened as a result of that is that I’ve become one of the best marketers alive. People don’t get it at the level that I get it.

I created my health and fitness brand and now I’m a thought leader through my own authority. Once I realized I had discovered the secret to authority branding, I started BHP because authors aren’t being served by publishers. Once again, like in the health and weight loss market, I was entering a highly competitive market. Now I’m disrupting the 20 billion dollar industry.

Listening to the market and understanding what it needs and wants is key to being successful. Every market is evolving faster than ever because we’re connected through digitalization. Evolution is happening faster than ever. When you have the ability to see where the market is going, that’s the book that I publish. When you release a book that serves the market, you have no competition. That’s my secret to why I’m able to publish books that create a movement in the most competitive markets. I do this for my clients, authors and myself.

I just released my first book on entrepreneurship and the feedback I’m getting by people being impacted by this book is amazing. Being a thought leader is being on the cutting edge. You have no competition. Bringing in PR and publicity to promote books, is the synergy of digital marketing combined with publishing and PR. It’s a triple synergy. I’m innovating publishing.

How long were you running the business before you started paying yourself? How did you live through those first few months/years?

Understanding business means that I have built my businesses to support my life, whereas most people try to make their life fit into their business. By doing this, I have an amazing life that supports my business. In the beginning stages of getting what I could to make it work, I lived very simply. I didn’t have extravagant expenses and all the money that I made went back into the business. Investing in myself comes from investing in health, relationships, and education. So the business funded my life, while also investing in me as an entrepreneur. Everytime I travel, the business pays for it. This has given me an amazing life because I’m able to travel while I’m running my business. It’s the structure and business model that I’ve incorporated. My business supports me and brings me everything I need and want. The way I’ve structured my business is also 100% legal and ethical.

When you’re the CEO, your business can only grow at the rate you’re growing as an individual. I do business everywhere I go. There aren’t any limitations when you understand the internet business model. It serves you everywhere you want to go.

How supportive is your family?

I’ve had a lot of success in terms of being a type A personality. I’m ambitious and work hard. Relationships have been my area of greatest opportunity for growth. My family never understood me when I was young, so i had a lot of conflicts with my parents. Thankfully we now have a great relationship, but it was hard to get to where we are today. It’s difficult to think outside of the box, so it was hard in the beginning. They worried about me because they wanted me to play it safe. Now that I’m successful, they say they always believed in me. That’s the story they tell themselves because they aren’t visionaries. They couldn’t see into the future like I do. I’d have long term relationships with men, but they always had a hard time with my ambition. They didn’t get why I needed to have a business or why it was important to be an entrepreneur. They’d try to keep me in a box and that never worked out.

Eventually, I got married when I was 35 and you now know how that ended. Through recovering from this divorce and insecurity of life, I started to doubt myself. It was through this process of healing that I truly found myself. I was single for over a year, and I took this time to work on myself. After a year, I met my current bf, Mike. I met him when I went back to Texas to live with my mom. If you remember, this is where I had my bunk bed epiphany. We’ve now been together for four and a half years and I’ll tell you he’s the first man in my life who isn’t threatened by my success. He has inner strength and self-confidence to allow me to be the butterfly and star that I need to be. He makes me laugh every day. I want other ambitious women to hear this.

It took me until I was 38 before I found a man who brings out the best in me and isn’t afraid of my ambition and desire for success. It can happen for you too. Don’t settle or give up on love because it’s great when you don’t have to suppress any of your wants and desires. It’s better to be single than to be in a relationship where you can’t be all that you’re meant to be.

What do you think are the social environmental factors that have increased the prospects of women entrepreneurship? And, how would you like to educate other women to take up entrepreneurship roles?

At the time of this interview, Ruth Bader Ginsberg just passed away. I believe she did more for passing laws and equality for women in the 70’s than any single person on earth. I was just watching her documentary on Netflix and the power of what one person’s life can do is amazing. She changed the course of history forever. She gave women opportunities that we never imagined. Even though we’ve had the right to vote since 1920, we weren’t getting equal pay in the workforce until the 70s. We take it for granted where we don’t think about this big unequal pay. Women were thought of as less than men. Here we are, 100 years after we could vote, and the next big thing for women is for more of us to run our own businesses.

If we look at the percentages, less than 3% of executives in the Fortune 500 companies are women and less than 1% of these women get to seven figures. We’re stuck in a hustle and struggle and don’t break through to make an impact or be an authority in the industry.

I want women to be supported in their gifts. Share your truth with the world and own it. This is why I wrote my book, Visionary Boss. I want women to connect to this truth and keep their vision alive, so they aren’t just another statistic of entrepreneurs who fail. We have every opportunity today that our grandparents fought for. The thousand years of oppression we needed to overcome to get these opportunities and we aren’t taking advantage of these opportunities.

Every woman like Ruth fought for us to be equal. When women are afraid or insecure, we beat ourselves up more than I think men do. We need to collaborate, lift each other up and stop this criticism. Women are hurting themselves. Men aren’t holding us back anymore, it’s women holding themselves back. When it gets hard, you have to find an inner belief in yourself. You don’t have to pick between being a mom or family and having a business. That’s a self-limiting belief. Every woman that wants to have a business, should have a business and every woman who wants a family, should have one. If you tell yourself you can’t do it, you have to believe it’s possible. You have to run your life like a business.

If a young girl walked up to asking for your advice and you only had a few minutes to give them your best tip, what would it be?

Invest in yourself. Learn how to speed read, so you can read a book a month. Become a lifelong learner. Go to seminars, get a mentor and surround yourself with other people who are investing in themselves. When you find other people who are investing in themselves, they want to support you and lift you up. Otherwise, they look for blame and complain which is where the competition comes from. Others want to support other people who are investing in themselves.

We believe each woman has a story and we need to hear these stories to inspire, encourage and empower each other. What is your story?