How Allyson Byrd Went From Living on Food Stamps to Running a Profitable Business

Known as the “profit accelerator” for helping entrepreneurs turn their business into cash machines, Allyson Byrd does not shy away from telling the raw truth about her journey to entrepreneurship.

While recognized as a key influencer in helping motivational speaker and teacher Lisa Nichols increase her revenue and double her event sales, Byrd admits that just months after starting her own business she was on food stamps and scraping pennies to make ends meet. Going back to the drawing board, she revamped her business strategy, read MBA for Dummies, and mapped out a plan for how she could more than double her monthly income.

Now, as CEO of Money Movers International, Byrd is a popularly known speaker and best-selling author who teaches other entrepreneurs how to skyrocket their company profits. In the past seven months, she’s coached more than 225 entrepreneurial leaders and has helped them generate more than $8.6 million in new revenue.

Following her ‘Unleashed’ course in January, which provided a 5-week blueprint for helping entrepreneurs dominate their market, Byrd offers insight on how she personally turned her business around, and some of the biggest mistakes she sees other entrepreneurs make today.

BlackEnterprise.com: You’re known as the “profit accelerator” for helping entrepreneurs grow their revenue numbers. Talk about your journey to entrepreneurship and growing your own business.
Byrd: My company is called Money Movers International and I started [it] on two things: ambition and air. I started my business with a drive and a passion for something great. However, within eight months of owning my business I was on food stamps while also traveling nationally as a speaker, coach and teacher. I had inspired people, but not in a way for them to spend money with me.

So I started to look at how I could start my money conversation. A lot of people try to build their business without being a money maker. I knew I needed $5,000 to cover my monthly amount. I said if I could make $5,000 in a month I will be good, but then I said what if I can make it in a half a month. Then I said what if I can do it in one day. Then finally I challenged myself to $5,000 an hour and then I did more than that and I did $38,000 in an hour. That’s when I created my five-week plan and took my same 30-day activities and compressed them and put them into my one week activities so that I can make more money.

People pay more for what you know rather than what you do, and so we often do too much and we don’t expose people to what we know, which often helps us to accelerate our income.

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