When media entrepreneur Les Alfred first entered the media scene, her goal was to become a magazine editor, but once she realized that the rapidly changing media landscape was nothing like the stuff of early 2000s rom coms, she started building what can only be described as a media ecosystem. The host of the She’s So Lucky podcast, Alfred has over 75,000 subscribers on YouTube, over 2,500 Substack subscribers, millions of downloads and she has reached over a million people and created a community that she calls her “Clovers.” She’s made herself a force to be reckoned with in the media space, and in doing so, she’s created the blueprint for what it means to create your own luck.
With an early career in corporate, Les has had a lot of experience figuring out how to navigate spaces that don’t serve her and pivoting early and often. She told GROWN, “I think it’s really important to not just work hard, but to make sure the work that we’re doing is moving us in the direction that we want to go. And if it’s not, then figuring out what else we need to be doing to get us there.” She detailed getting a job early in her career that she thought she really wanted and experiencing a tension when she realized that she actually wasn’t aligned with the position. Yet, she bargained with herself to stay in the role because she wanted it for so long.
“I had to think, okay, well if I stay in this job, then what happens? And I looked at my manager and I said, well in a few years, I would probably have her job. Is that actually what I want? And I realized, actually I don’t want her job at all.” Upon finding herself at this crossroads that so many of us find ourselves in, Alfred decided to go another way.
Alfred found herself having to navigate a rapidly changing media landscape without having many mentors to guide her through in the early moments of her career. Despite that, she found that the best way to build her brand was figuring out her strengths and playing to them. “I am not really meant to be a traditional influencer, which I tried to be for like a very long time,” Alfred said. “I realized that my strength does not come in link clicks and getting people to be interested in what I’m wearing and what products I’m using. My strengths really come in my ability to facilitate conversation, my ability to inspire people, my ability to make people think and challenge beliefs about themselves that they once had.” She found that her natural penchant for talking to people and making them feel seen and heard was not only the breeding ground for her success but would be the cornerstone of her media ecosystem.
“Once I realized, okay, I can’t really get people to click a link and buy a shirt, but I can get people to challenge their beliefs and to believe that they’re going to be luckier and inspire them to do more for themselves. So, where can I go with that? And how can I grow into that instead of trying to fit this mold that I think just isn’t for me.” With a newfound understanding of who she was, who she wanted to serve and how she wanted to present herself, there was only one thing missing: the vehicle. Eventually, in 2018, Alfred partnered with Dear Media, and the She’s So Lucky podcast as we know it was born.
“My show had been audio-only for a really long time, and I didn’t want to consistently be doing video, but I knew that was the direction things were going [within the media industry]. So if I wanted to continue doing the show, it needed to have video,” she told GROWN. “At the time, I was still working in corporate and I just didn’t really have the infrastructure or the bandwidth to figure out how to make that moving piece work. Partnering with a network made that transition a little bit more seamless. ”
Even with that knowledge, Les didn’t just leap at the chance to have a partner enter her vision for her podcast. She was extremely strategic and intentional when she decided to partner with Dear Media. “I asked a lot of questions,” Alfred said. “When I was approached by a network to join, I didn’t sign right away. I actually took quite a bit of time thinking it over and then also spent months in negotiation to make sure that it was a beneficial partnership. Kind of like the same way you wouldn’t go to a party without asking who all going to be there. You wouldn’t necessarily get into a business partnership with somebody without fully kind of understanding what all that’s going to entail.” After months of ensuring that the partnership was in fact mutually beneficial, Les opted to sign with Dear Media, thereby taking her podcast out of its nascency and moving it to the next level.
In the beginning, Alfred had one goal for her podcast: to be the biggest. She wanted to get as many listeners as possible because that was the most measurable metric of success. However, as She’s So Lucky progressed and became astronomically successful beyond mere metrics, Alfred found herself at yet another crossroads: How does she maintain success while staying true to the audience that she’s already built?
Yet again, she had to shift her priorities and say to herself, “She’s So Lucky is the show that I have, the audience I have is the audience that I have. How can I leverage it to build something else and to build something that just has a little bit more flexibility that doesn’t necessarily rely on my output?” The answer? Alfred admitted she’s still figuring that out, but whatever it looks like, the platform she’s built with She’s So Lucky will absolutely be a crucial factor.
“These are all things that I’m exploring right now and these are all questions that I’m trying to answer for myself,” she said with a laugh. “ When I was in a space where I really wanted She’s So Lucky to be super big, it was because I saw it as the end all be all. I’m no longer there. I more so see it as an asset that can help me get to the next thing. And so I’m now figuring out what the next thing is going to be.”
Despite already being on to the next thing, Alfred still loves her “Clovers” and all that she’s built with the She’s So Lucky podcast. She told us that she still thinks that her podcast is the best largely because she’s no longer finding its value and measurement in streams and listenership numbers. “I think when you look at the quality of the conversations that we have and the ways that if people listen to our show and apply what is shared to their lives, their lives will be better. And I don’t think that there are a lot of other podcasts that can say that. ”
Beyond what she does with her podcast, Les continues to inspire real-life young Black women every single day. Most recently, she was the emcee at Gyrl Wonder’s inaugural Women of Impact Gala, where she was surprised with the Gyrls gIRL award. Overall, her impact on so many lives is incomparable and she takes that impact very seriously. “The number one thing that I want my Clovers, what I call my community, to feel after listening to an episode of She’s So Lucky is that nothing is off-limits to them. Nothing. They’re bound by nothing. They’re limited by nothing. Nothing is impossible; nothing is off-limits. It’s all on the table, it’s all a possibility, and it’s theirs for the taking.”
As for what’s next for Les, she exclusively told GROWN that she’d love to start working on a few books and even has one in “the very, very early stages,” so let’s hope that we can all have Les’ words of wisdom gracing our bookshelves soon. For now though, you can follow Les Alfred on Instagram and subscribe to her Substack, The Lucky Playbook. You can also find her giving wellness tips and lifting up women on the She’s So Lucky Podcast, streaming wherever you get your podcasts.
This interview was edited for length and clarity
